Carthage overpowered?

[Urnamma]

I beat Carthage pretty easily just by doing some quick raids against them. Since nearly all of their important settlements are coastal, I just took an undefended settlement, exterminated it down to 400, destroyed all the buildings, and gave it to pontos or some other insignificant Eastern nation, they would hold onto it long enough so that when i actually WANTED to take it, i would stroll in with the city undefended and set up shop.

This is, I think, a rather silly way to play. Try roleplaying a little bit, and try to make the game behave like real civilizations. Nobdody takes something over and then says 'well, you guys, from 2,000 miles away, you take it for a bit'.