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Thread: Advice on Carthage

  1. #1

    Default Advice on Carthage

    Right, playing a game as Carthage. Since it's been awhile since I've even done basic RTW, little lone a nice mod, I'm on M/M atm. Problem I'm having is mostly with Rome. I've been pushed back to Genoa, and even though I'm just managing to hold, it's proving...troublesome. Without access to elephants, I find my ability to deal with Legions limited, and reinforcing from Carthage is taking time that the Romans have 3 legions/turn to disagree with.

    I've read slingers are probably my best bet, if I can flank-but having trouble organizing the ones I've had and keeping them going turn after turn. Does anyone have advice besides slinger/elephants(Or specific tactical advice for elephants since atm I'm jusst having them bash through the roman lines before battle is met until dead or paniced-rellying on the fact they're no where near my lines when panicing to continue to be an asset for me).

  2. #2

    Default Re: Advice on Carthage

    Having a chain that can let you skip port-to-port makes reinforcing a snap. If your guys in Italy can't take Roma or such, it may be best to start in Sicily and work up as your reinforcement route is built up.

    Besides pinning the Romans on stuff (light infantry on guard mode and loose formation works), you have to guard your slingers against everything that might hurt them. Flanking infantry, archers, skirmishers, horse... all these will try to kill your slingers, but you gotta keep them safe.

  3. #3

    Default Re: Advice on Carthage

    When playing as Carthage, I always abandon the north and then come back later. Try taking over all of sicily and spain first then take on the romans.
    Get those elephants over to Italy then it will be easy.
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  4. #4

    Default Re: Advice on Carthage

    Just an FYI: You misheard "let alone" for "little lone".

  5. #5

    Default Re: Advice on Carthage

    I do that with a few different phrases, just hang around me a bit :p

    I have begin invading sicily though, but the romans seem to be ignoring me there. They're attacking Genoa and spain for now. Spain is troublesome but holding kinda. However, I suppose with them ignoring the south and focusing on hannibal, it does give me a chance to chew through their income since they apparently don't get rebelions.

  6. #6

    Default Re: Advice on Carthage

    Basically, if you check the settlements, the ones with Roman Culture buildings are their moneymakers.

    Now Iberia has some nice mines, however you can really hurt the AI by taking it's Sicilian holdings, and then working on Italy. If you can't use Hannibal to start whacking their cities, then it's gonna be done with forces coming from Carthago - in that case, the route you are using (Sicily -> Italy) works nicely.

  7. #7

    Default Re: Advice on Carthage

    A picture is worth a thousand words, right?
    Attached Thumbnails Attached Thumbnails Carthage.png  

  8. #8

    Default Re: Advice on Carthage

    Archers aren't very good against Romans. They have quite a lot of armor.

  9. #9

    Default Re: Advice on Carthage

    I have only one piece of advice for a Carthage campaign:
    Withdraw Hannibal from northern Italy ASAP. It's a money pit trying to hold against dozens of roman legions turn after turn, no matter how many you destroy they will send even more your way.

    I could also advise you to take Hannibal and start from Sicily as everyone else did. And actually that works. In my experience keeping the Romans busy fighting in their own land works wonders, for example if you let them be and you concentrate in Spain, by the time you unify Iberia they will most likely be a settlement or two from crushing the Arverni and maybe even consolidated all of Greece.

    Also, Towered Elephants. Keep using them.

    BTW
    Didn't look at that picture properly. Nice empire bro.
    Last edited by Dramatic Cat; March 12, 2014 at 03:47 PM.
    "By what right does the wolf judge the lion?"

  10. #10

    Default Re: Advice on Carthage

    Bah, I vaguely remember Rome only having access to 800,000 conscripts tops when hannibal invaded :p

  11. #11

    Default Re: Advice on Carthage

    Quote Originally Posted by Soulbourne View Post
    Bah, I vaguely remember Rome only having access to 800,000 conscripts tops when hannibal invaded :p
    The Roman AI (especially on 0 turn) has enough money and population to continue spamming stacks.

    Either you take over their settlements, or you pull back. Just standing there, even if you're killing them over and over somehow, won't gain you anything.

  12. #12
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    Default Re: Advice on Carthage

    I have played Carthage in 2.5 taking Hannibal to Sicily, and having a blast at it, crushing two or three armies along the way south ( one of them in an ambush, it was a killer.). After establishing Sicily as a stronghold, moved back to the south of Italy and continued to wage war on the Romans. Sicily also provides a better access to reinforcements from Africa.
    Edit: While moving Hannibal i did not siege anything or i quickly would have to face a lot of Roman stacks.
    Last edited by Sertorio; March 12, 2014 at 06:11 PM.
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  13. #13

    Default Re: Advice on Carthage

    Ok, so you're in a better position than I thought. You start off with 4 units of Baleric slingers. This is actually suffient to allow you to own all of Italy upside down. I would start by sieging Roma (put some forts as you go, there are two river passes you will want to fort up).
    >>> At the VERY START, Cannae has no garrison, so send a horse unit to solo run down and cap it. Yes, it might be lost to rebels in two turns, but you can destroy the barracks. It might also distract the AI a bit.

    >>After you take Roma, it should be stable without needing a governor. Make a Tier2 barracks (it'll take 4 turns). This allows you to spam Early Libyan Spearmen (they are ok medium hoplites). You shouldn't need to train TOO many new units, just keep on moving south to Capua and siege that too. The question is then: can you win with whatever infantry you have and your slingers? It's possible.

    You need to pick your battles carefully early on. Try to stand on a bridge or some sort if you are going to be on the field. Preserve your slingers, getting more to Hannibal is going to be hard.

    The main way I'd approach it is:
    1. Hannibal grabs settlements in Italy. He's gonna be facing some stiff opposition, luckily he comes with some reinforcements already.
    2. From Carthago, attack Sicily immediately on turn 2. (Use the first turn to make a ballista and a ton of infantry). All Roman settlements are important to deprive them of the income. Whacking Syracuse is optional.
    3. Just make mines or so in Iberia. If you see any Iberians near your border though, it's time to make a stack and send them towards the Iberian capital. You're already at war so it might be better to move sooner rather than later.

    As fast as possible get some artillery ready for each front. Roma and Capua have stone walls, but a standard Ballistae unit will allow you to assault wooden walled settlements. Easy peasy. I recommend using up your elites in taking Rome/Capua (though it is actually very easy to assault stone walls if you have ladders) You want to get a ballista to Hannibal when it is safe, and also one to Iberia (though their capital has stone walls). For the Iberians, you may want to take a while to fort up the way to their capital before sieging it, but you might be fine anyway.


    Moving south with Hannibal, and east from Carthago, you'll hopefully meet at the bottom of Italy. Send one group with Hannibal up north (there's more roman settlements up top), and one to the east.

    East, in macedonian lands, there's a roman settlement that is part of "Area 8" and will allow you to train two very important units.
    1. Levy Pikemen
    2. Greek Slingers (less effective than Balerics, but much cheaper).

    North, clear northwards up to the Alps, then head west. The idea is to get a chain of ports that allow naval reinforcements from Carthago to 1-turn travel north of Sicily, up the west side of Italy, then west... then south to your Iberian holdings. Similarly, you'll have the ability to move pikes and slingers from your settlement in greece via the same chain, sending Libyan Light Infantry, Greek Slingers and Levy Pikemen everywhere.

    >>> You're gonna have a hard time pushing tons of pikes/slingers from that one settlement (only one is in the right Area and is by the sea. It's also Roman, so you won't have to declare war on Macedon to take it), so have a governor there, and do the enslavement trick. Before capturing a settlement, remove governors from all settlements but that one, so it gets all the population when you enslave.

    Then, you win the campaign by killing everyone else. Not too complicated.
    Last edited by Alavaria; March 12, 2014 at 06:57 PM.

  14. #14

    Default Re: Advice on Carthage

    Sadly, my campaign start didn't go so smoothly, and hannibal got beat down by 4 stacks of cohorts and his reins shattered after ending my turn. While I did manage to(Somehow) beat back 3 stacks of them, got driven away by the third. But, just turned the northern campaign around with last batch of reinforcements from carthage. Managed to take out one full stack and cause the other full stack besieging genoa to fall back as a garrison. Then crushed them in the city. There are 4 other stacks around, mostly with under 3 units each, so they shouldn't be trouble for now, especially since much of my force survived the siege(I had a spy open the gates so had their forces spread out a bit and less able to withstand my innitial charges).

    Currently stocking up on slingers and some late libyan core troops to reinforce again. Used my transport fleet to take one of hannibal's three sons in genoa around the roman flags and become govenor of the newly captured city. Likely going to find a lot of romans prowling around that city soon, but it should be able to hold rather well until I can get things together to strike at Roma herself.

    However, fighting off roman troops has been a pain >.> Especially with having 3 battles average each time I hit end turn.

    Also, just too clarify: The "Home region" bonus applies to any city in the region of your starting capital, right? So the numidian settlement and the greek/ptomely settlements to the east would also count as home regions?

  15. #15

    Default Re: Advice on Carthage

    Home region bonus for what? Like your markets being better?

    Just check the building bonuses to see what they will give you, it's always accurate.
    Quote Originally Posted by Soulbourne View Post
    Sadly, my campaign start didn't go so smoothly, and hannibal got beat down by 4 stacks of cohorts and his reins shattered after ending my turn.
    What probably happened is the AI stacks and all the garrisons came out and attacked him.

    If you look south, you can see there's a river crossing, and a bridge between where Hannibal starts and Roma. You'll want to put forts on those, so that the armies north of the river can't get to you. Then you use Hannibal to siege Roma, and have the reinforcement stack stand next to him. This usually suffices to discourage the AI from attacking.

    As for taking Roma/Capua, there's a small trick; the AI doesn't move troops that are placed on the walls. So you can figure out an easy way to get onto the walls unopposed.
    >> Also, towers you capture will also shoot any enemies in the streets.
    >> Also, most non-skirmisher/archer units marching in the roads don't pay attention to your units on the walls. Like your slingers. Which are shooting them in the back.
    Last edited by Alavaria; March 12, 2014 at 08:50 PM.

  16. #16

    Default Advice on Carthage

    Playing a Karthage campaign for a loooong while my best advice is patience and to never give up!

    I play one-turn campaign on h/h and concentrate on holding my 5 provinces in Spain against the Galeaci and the Arverni that suddenly turned up after some 50 years. I thougth I might crush the Galeaci but instead I lost both Sagguntum and Chartago Nova to the Arverni. Thank heavens I managed to get both back after ca. 15 turns and after some really critical and awesome battles.

    You absolutely depend on winning most battles and always to think ahead.

    I also got 3 of the 4 provinces on Sicily but has twice lost and reconquered Messana. I also hold Sardinia after one reconques but lost the Baleares to Roma.

    A very fine balance between building up my country combined with recruitment at hopefully the right places keeps Karthage still strong in the year 602 AUC. It get's no more fun than this:-)
    Last edited by Tordenskjold; March 16, 2014 at 11:45 AM.
    Less is more

  17. #17

    Default Re: Advice on Carthage

    So what your saying is, Carthage is one of those factions that can be extremely strong-but requires the attention to detail and organization that makes every turn a game of chess?

    Unless your Alav here and just cripple rome by turn 3 by taking there capital :p

  18. #18

    Default Re: Advice on Carthage

    I am playing Carthage now and i have just conquered Spain and i am about to finish Italy(3 regions left).

    The main problem Carthage has is logistics.Its in Africa and you have to ship units to war zones constantly which means if you lose a battle then you are in trouble.

    You have to rely on mercenaries(which they did) to make sure your armies are always at full strength over seas.The economy is not a problem so this is actually a good idea.
    Of course, you can also invest in a recruitment centers somewhere closer to the front lines but that takes time so i suggest you only use them for the lighter troops/auxilliary and supply your main line units from Carthage.

    "Native" units are also really good and you have a lot of choice(Almost every unit type).
    Units like Numidian and Libyan cavalry are INSANELY cheap and there are a lot of good units that have a decent price and upkeep.

  19. #19

    Default Re: Advice on Carthage

    Quote Originally Posted by Soulbourne View Post
    So what your saying is, Carthage is one of those factions that can be extremely strong-but requires the attention to detail and organization that makes every turn a game of chess?

    Unless your Alav here and just cripple rome by turn 3 by taking there capital :p
    Roma isn't special like a Treasury settlement. -ALL- settlements with the Roman Cultural Building give the AI tons of cash. So you must follow up by blitzing all their Italian/Sicilian holdings (by far the main concentration of them).

    To the west are another two on islands, Emporae which is north of Iberia, and then one to the east, bordering macedon.

    Also, on Turn 2 you can have Roma. Turn 1 though, hilariously Cannae has no garrison so just send a horse unit down and cap it.
    Last edited by Alavaria; March 18, 2014 at 06:47 PM.

  20. #20

    Default Re: Advice on Carthage

    Is Rome the only Faction that doesnt have a central treasury?I noticed this in my playthrough of Carthage.

    What are some strategies on hurting strong factions?
    For example if i plan on going against the Seleucids in the future, is there more i can do other than capture treasuries?Besides the obvious stuff like winning battles.
    And how much does losing a treasury actually hurts them?

    It seems that RS2 allows smaller factions to stand a chance against large empires if they use the right strategies.Which i really like.

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