Carthaginians in the hands of AI..post your experience

[Dunadd]

I've not tried Roma Surrectum yet but i've tried lots of other mods including EB and Extended Realism.

What i've found is that you use RomeTW.exe or ALX.exe the AI almost never invades by sea and when it does it's usually a pitiful tiny force. ALX.exe battle AI is a bit better, especially if you use the Darth Battle AI - and ALX.exe will combine part stacks into full stacks before attacking and retrain understrength units to full strength where it can.

If you use BI.exe then the AI will do a few invasions by sea, but mostly of forces that are too small - and it will send in part stacks and understrength units and never retrain them - and its battlefield AI will be terrible.

So whatever you use its disappointing. I'm not criticising EB or Extended Realism here - i like them both - just find the results disappointing when playing as Carthaginians or Romans - no exciting Punic Wars with lots of major naval invasions result.

The only time it worked was in vanilla Rome Total War playing as Carthaginians against three Roman factions, when the Romans did invade aggressively overseas, as they did historically - and did have vast manpower - as they had historically - but then the semi-Biblical out of period Ptolemaic Egyptians would march in through deserts any army would have starved and thirsted to death while crossing and shafted it.

If you play Rome II the battlefield AI is ok, Campaign AI is bizarre, insta-transport armadas make the whole game ridiculous - and half the most important cities in the Mediterranean, including Syracuse, are unwalled hamlets or villages.

Hoping there will eventually be some good mods for Rome II.

[Dunadd]

Use the Darthmod formations. You will never again have an issue with the AI not holding units in reserve.

Will that work with BI.exe?

[ferike_2007]

Hi all,

tried somebody to change Carthage's naval invasion preference in descr_sm_factions? Maybe if their - historical -naval behavior will be changed in game, they will use their ingame potential much better...

[TTRouble]

You can select Darth, Sinuet or Athenagorus AI formations via the Preferences Editor in the Launcher folder. It'd be interesting to see if you notice any difference. In my latest Seleucid's campaign (BI with Darth formations) I'm donating a fair chunk of $$$$ to both Macedon and esp Carthage to see if that helps them from being over run.

[tungri_centurio]

verry weak in my roman campaign,they have only hippo regium left in africa and carthago novo in iberia. they where no challenge after taking carthage from them.i had to use only 3 legions for all of africa and i play 0turn campaign.no elephants,only low tier infantry.they have verry hard fleets thow.

[Leeham991]

My main troubles with Carthage came from their seemingly endless supply of sacred band and elephants. Seems they are a little random as to if they are strong or weak when you start up a campaign...

[Sertorio]

On my Rome one turn 2.6 campaign, I took Carthage, the african territories as far as Tingi and Iberia as far as Cartago Nova. So Carthage was reduced to Lepsis Magna, Gadir and another settlement in Iberia. I gave Carthage somewhat a resting period as i want to maintain the "status quo" in Iberia, while i was busy with Arveni, Boii and Macedon...and Greeks. Carthage was not only able to keep the Gallaeci away, it also ferried troop from Iberia to Africa, presented some times a few good fleets and was audacious enough to sometimes campaign against my borders.
My point is that even heavily reduced in settlements it did not appear as lacking money.
I believe that you cannot recruit elephants in Iberia at least at first. How about giving that possibility to Carthage? maybe it gives them the momentum they need.

[LEC XIII]

20 years after i've driven Carthage out of Italy, my spies saw an Army of Carthage in Gaul. i send some more spies and saw, that carthage has almost taken all of gaul cities.
I had an alliance with the averni and so i send 1 legion to kick Carthage out of there. After a few Years and some really bloody battles i have driven carthage out of Gaul and given the gaul cities back to the belgae and the averni. The Gallaeci then defeated Carthage in Iberia and since then we've never had a Land battle again.

[High Fist]

Why did you give the land away? Never give land away in Rome:TW!

[LEC XIII]

It was the year 195 BC or something and i wasn't ready to invade Gaul yet.
And i just didn't want Carthage to conquer Gaul. I'd rather have the Gauls as neighbours than the Carthaginians.
Me and the Gauls became really good friends. They even called for Assistance in a battle against the Cimbrii once.
Didn't even know that was possible.

[High Fist]

Oh 'tis indeed. Its more common in Medieval 2 or the later games, where allies are more "long-term".

Still, in Rome, best thing to do with land you have is to hold onto it. Unless of course it over extends you, for example at the start of the campaign I almost always bring back the troops from Spain and Greece ASAP.

[Budkyns]

for example at the start of the campaign I almost always bring back the troops from Spain and Greece ASAP.

on M/M it's not to neccesary, the troops in Spain under the command of Scipio I didn't send back to Italy, but I immediately used them for war with the Iberians, hoping that Carthage will have room to boom (without Iberians) and will be a stronger rival for me.

Rebellion in Italy I suppressed even without these reinforcements.

[Agoge]

Carthage always ask for a ceasefire an trade rights and then attack two turns later heh. I always take Genoa, naturally, then take the north part of Italy and use the alps as a natural wall, so only need minimal amount of troops there for defense as i concentrate elsewhere, then i always build my forces and Siege Carthage, because quite frankly, their pesky port blockades really annoy me heh, so i go straight for the jugular, take it, defend it, then they slowly quiet down, then i do as i wish.

[Legatus Legionarii]

Roman campaign, 1 turn, h/m, BI-exe. AND ALX-exe!

I started a Roman campaign with BI-exe and after Hannibal's defeat in Italy and the loss of Genoa (to me), the only thing they did was sending stack after stack to take Caralis for several years. Those stacks were full stacks, including Sacred Band (Inf and Cav) and fully trained. At the beginning this was a challenge for me but they lost at least seven full stacks against me while I was defending Caralis. At the same time, Carthage lost in relatively short time EVERYTHING they had in Spain to the Gallaeci (the latter did not bother about me holding on Emporia, probably because I was no immediate threat to them…yet).

Anyway, I checked with toggle_fow to see what was going on and well, as I said all Spain had been taken by the Gallaeci and they had now parked six Gallaeci stacks around Tingis, opposing three Carthaginian stacks in the adjacent province.

I then did something one would / should probably not do, namely, I switched to ALX-exe. during the same campaign to see if there was any change in AI behaviour. Indeed, there was. The Carthaginians at that time had a full stack besieging Caralis… well, they withdrew it, and I saw that it was now back in Carthage. At least, this stack will be available for defence in case the Gallaeci start to advance further in North Africa.

I think dvk mentioned it somewhere but it seems to me that the Carthage BI-exe. AI concentrates too much on taking Caralis, and by doing so, looses quite an amount of troops there, while at the same time "forgets" or does not bother what is going on in Spain (because they probably do not "see" it, as explained above by dvk), where – at least at the moment – the real threat is. I will see if Carthage now starts to properly defending her territory, but maybe it would be good to use ALEX-exe in case the player wants Carthage to survive against the Gallaeci – at least a bit longer.

One question in this regard: I started out of interest a 1 turn campaign with Carthage and I could see that their holdings in Iberia are all in a way underdeveloped. If I remember well, most of them have no walls at all, the troop presence is marginal, and some of the governor's buildings are damaged (which is also the case in Genoa, BTW, which I never quite understood). I do not know if Carthage (if not played by a human) starts with the same starting conditions, but if that is the case, I would say this is a bit unfair. Given the importance Iberia had for Carthage and the Barcids during that historical period, I could imagine that they had least wooden walls around their settlements, would they not? Changing the starting conditions for Carthage in Spain might also be a way to prevent them from being rolled over by the Gallaeci.

Of course, game wise one could always argue in an apologetic way saying that if Carthage has been replaced by the Gallaeci as the dominant power in Iberia and even North Africa, well, so be it… certainly, the Gallaeci are not a less unpleasant enemy than the Carthaginians. Moreover, we all know that it took the Romans quite a long time until they had finally subdued all of Iberia…

BTW: There was so far no problem switching to another exe during a running campaign.

[Budkyns]

many, really many games, and never any invasion to Italy or to Sicily (with BI.exe), So, in terms of Carthage as a rival of Rome in Roman campaigns....it seems really better to use alex.exe

[High Fist]

They really can't rival Rome at all...

[Budkyns]

Is there any mod in which that is?

[High Fist]

No idea, RS2 is the only Rome mod I've ever played.

[Hanti]

I was wondering why Hannibal mostly (always?) loses his start battle against Romans. With fow turned on, it seems autoresolve favours Romans. I tested it as Carthage and lost autoresolved battle too. So I suggest upgrading Hannibal troops with some better experience.
Maybe when Carthage actually manage to capture some Italian cities, the overall war outcome would be different.

[Budkyns]

the biggest problem of Carthage is not the defeat of Hannibal, but the absolute passivity and no naval invasion to the Romans, as well as the activity of Carthage in Iberia...It follows that Carthage itself is one big problem