How did YOU beat Hannibal?

[Black Francis]

I have seen this topic discussed in threads all over the place but I think it warrants a proper discussion in its own thread, if only to help the newcomers and as a place to... well.... brag....

I am about to start a new campaign as the 6.4 campaign I am currently playing I started while beta testing so I have the fog of war off (it just helps to see how the AI reacts in testing) which takes away a lot from the game.

So, how did YOU beat Hannibal?

[Alatar]

I hit his smaller legion with both of mine, then did the same to hanibal, who wants a fair fight?
Even so he destroyed my line in aqabout 4 second, his elephants wouln't rout, and I was holding on for reinforcments from the word go.
Still, alls well that end with my general killing Hanibal.
I play with banners off wich makes it alot harder.

[Garnier]

I put flavius in charge of my better legion (the one with silver chevrons) in the south, and theophanes attacked him, killing 1300 men but we destroyed theophanes. Then hannibal attacked, 4000 against 1700 and we took down 1000 of his men before the entire 1700 were surrounded and killed.

Then Vibius julius with the other legion attacked hannibal and killed him, in a 3000 vs 3000 battle.

Then vibius sieged Taras, and that was over.

[preston]

i did that same tactic except there were 10,186 of us total. Vibius ended up dieing because hannibal did what he did the first time. I noticed he would send his elephants on to my left flank and his cavalry onto my right flank. and then charge with poeni infantry backed with a second wave of Iberian Infantry. Once you see Hannibal move out his cavalry and elephants go for the elephants if possible if your using flavius in this too he'll go for the AI controlled army unless you deselect that. Take your triarii and charge straight for the elephants. Take some hastati too no more than two units though. i would concentrate my forces on one area and this has seemed the most effective for me. Once you have killed off most of those pesky yet strong poeni infantry and iberian infantry take every one towards the elephants except for 3-4 units to leave them fighting whats left. Use your general as needed you'll know when and especially in the elephants area but becareful to not get him killed. This will not be easy but that is what worked for me. Tho i did get attacked one turn after killing him by a full stack of 4,027 and half a stack of 1,000 something.

[Alatar]

i did that same tactic except there were 10,186 of us total. Vibius ended up dieing because hannibal did what he did the first time. I noticed he would send his elephants on to my left flank and his cavalry onto my right flank. and then charge with poeni infantry backed with a second wave of Iberian Infantry. Once you see Hannibal move out his cavalry and elephants go for the elephants if possible if your using flavius in this too he'll go for the AI controlled army unless you deselect that. Take your triarii and charge straight for the elephants. Take some hastati too no more than two units though. i would concentrate my forces on one area and this has seemed the most effective for me. Once you have killed off most of those pesky yet strong poeni infantry and iberian infantry take every one towards the elephants except for 3-4 units to leave them fighting whats left. Use your general as needed you'll know when and especially in the elephants area but becareful to not get him killed. This will not be easy but that is what worked for me. Tho i did get attacked one turn after killing him by a full stack of 4,027 and half a stack of 1,000 something.

Just use Velities and Pillia for the elephants, once theres in melee it's not good.

[preston]

my velites and Pilia always got charged by cavalry if not that infantry or the elephants stormed right through them and those round shield cavalry can catch anything even my velities and Pilia who had a huge head start running away.

[Alatar]

my velites and Pilia always got charged by cavalry if not that infantry or the elephants stormed right through them and those round shield cavalry can catch anything even my velities and Pilia who had a huge head start running away.

Put the triariia infront of them, they'll hold the line.

[Garnier]

Yeah I used my velites to kill the elephants, as always. Then when there are 2 or 3 elephants left, they will usually run amok, so I stop throwing javelins and let them kill some of their own men.

[Little Legionaire]

Hannibal relied on surprise factor in his campaign. Ambushes, traps, diversions... He knew his foes weak points. Romans trusted their numeric superioty at Cannae but this superiority lead them to their unfortunate end. Hannibal always chosed his battlefield and set his rules upon his enemy. He played his own game and won. Trebia, Trasimene, Cannae... All of those battlefields were Hannibal's fields.

Zama broke the rule of Hannibal. For this time Scipio set the rules and take initiative and forced to Hannibal a open war. And he won. I think this is the ultimate key factor to lead any army at anywhere against Hannibal. Initiative is the key.

Fabian was aware of Hannibals mentality and refused an open war against him at negative conditions. Only the Scipio knew his enemies base motivation. It was initiative and indirect application of strategy. With all suprises he gained it step by step and at the last forced Hannibal an open war. He gathered all positive elements of suprise, diversion and political part of campaign. And at the field he was fairly capable commander.

[Samariten]

Taking out ellies and holding off poeni is key to victory.....

[preston]

Taking out ellies and holding off poeni is key to victory.....

them poeni are some right little sons of b****s. i hate them.

[24Gamer]

Well, i sended Vibius with the silver chevron legion to stop theophanes, i won easily after tacking out those elefants by velites ( theopanes attacked me on a hill ), just a few hundred men died...
After that i rearmed my army and set it just infront of hannibal. He attacked me immediatly in a Night Battle... I was able to take out both elefant units with Pila and Velites, so they started to run amok
But after maybe 15 minutes my troops began to riot because of hannibals superior units ( even with flanking )
Ah, yeah Hannibal died as he tried to reach my genereal right through the frontline The General Unit killed him without charging...
The losses were 2747 Carthagians ( over 4000 at the beginning ) vs 2462 Romans ( of about 3000)

[Scipi0]

I got the general that was closest to Hannibal, can't remember his name though.
I put him right next to Hannibal instead of attacking, then he attacked me so I could play the defending game.

Then the next round he attacked me, I had a small hill advantage and had some forest right next to me where I put my cavalry for a small surprise when his infantry clashed with mine.

I got the Velites not to attack so I could instead get them to aim for the elephants which both went down pretty quickly before crushing my whole line, just got 1 group.

I had my infantry in a "Strong Right" formation or "Rolling up the line" I was a bit lucky cause he focused most of his army on the left so I easily got him surrounded. He was also foolish enough to send all his cavalry on the right side where I happened to have 3 groups of Triarii (Part of the inf formation)
which destroyed his cavalry leaving my cavalry and pretty much the rest of the army just to follow the routers and killing the archers/skirmishers on the way.

I was pretty happy with the end result 527 Romans dead, 3800 Carthaginians dead, including Hannibal.

I was a bit unfortunate though, the army right next to Hannibal came after me right after I beat Hannibal. I won there as well doing a sort of Roman Cannae, a bit limited though, but it did work.

The result there wasn't as nice as the other, but I'm glad I won that one as well. 1357 Romans dead, 3847 Carthaginians dead.

Since I still had some remaining troops I sent them down to take over the city, which ended pretty easily considering the weak troops that was garrisoned.

[^Gr8^Xander]

Well, a bit late, but now is the time I'm going to attack him..

1st time, (before I knew there were any House Rules of playing) I first sent in an assasin, and after some training he killed Hanibal himself.
Then I attacked his army with an army of javelin-armed-horseman, and took out the elephants and kill some of the infantry. After the army was weakened, I attacked with a legion and slaughtered the whole army. (heroic victory)
Btw, I had another advantage, he had been driven into a corner at Sicilia, so his uge army had limited space and had no-where to run.

Now, I restarted the campaign about 2 weeks ago, (and found this forum btw) , [still playing 6.3, I'm first gonna finish my campaign then DL the new v.] and now I'm recruiting 2 legions and I'm gonna meat him in battle...

I'll make a battle-report, if I don't forget to take some SS.

[Black Francis]

I finally got around to starting a new campaign.

I decided from the start that I would no longer shy from battle and that a violation of the soil of Italy was an affront to Rome, her protector!

With this in mind, I immediately sent one of my legions south to face Hannibal decided it was better to attack him rather than let him gang up with both his armies....

The ensuing battle was a long and bloody affair, similar to the experience of "grinding bricks" . I used my Triarii and Velites as a reserve on my right flank as soon as I saw Hannibal move the full weight of his cavalry and elephants to this flank. The Triarii repelled a couple of attacks from the Carthaginian cavalry but then, before the Velites could intercept them, the Carthaginian Elephants smashed into the noble Triarii. They were smashed and trampled under foot, but their faith in Rome and their general held them and they sacrificed themselves nobly, allowing the Velites to fell the grey monstrosities with their javelin.

The decisive moment came when the left flank, where the Roman Cavalry, hitherto concealed in woodland, made a dash around the end of the battle line and repeatedly charged a hard pressed unit of Iberian infantry in the rear. On the third charge they broke and the well bloodied Roman infantry were able to roll up the entire Carthaginian army. Hannibal was last seen throwing himself into the centre of the fray, no doubt trying to inspire his already wavering troops... His bodyguard fought to the last man.

A number of Carthaginian units held out until nightfall, but as rain began to fall these units, as if sensing the change in the weather tried to flee and were slaughtered to a man.

Fully half a Roman Legion perished on the field of battle, but not a single unit had broken.

Knowing that another Carthaginian army waited not far off a number of Roman units were merged and the army retired to a solitary hill in the middle of the plains, to make a last sacrifice.

At this point the Roman authorities, which had originally thought to spend what little money they had on defences, decided instead to use the money to hire, convince and bribe local Italians to rally to the beleaguered Legion.

So it was that at the last moment, Italian and Roman stood side by side ready to face the remaining and vastly more numerous Carthaginian army.

The Italian units formed an extended though thin line in front of the remaining Roman units. Once battle was joined, the Italians granted the Romans enough time to use their Pila to full effect, weakening the Carthaginain charge.

Again the Romans and Carthaginans went toe to toe. Luckily the Carthaginian elephants were commited too early and rather than charge the Roman line were used as a misssile unit, exchanging fire with the Velites..... It is at this point several things happen all at once....

....Roman Hastatii and the surviving Italians begin to break...
....Seconds later the Roman General charges into the fray in a bid to bolster morale by example and thus delay inevitable defeat, granting his men more time to slay just a few more Carthaginians...
...The Velites throw their last barrage of missiles....
....The elephants panic and crash into the heart of the Carthaginian line throwing a certain Carthaginian victory into doubt...

Seeing that they are the last reserve of the Roman army the Velites tighten formation and charge into the unequal fray...but panic spreads in the Carthaginian ranks! Elements of BOTH armies are in flight! Seeing a possibility, the Roman General rallies a number of Roman units and they charge back into battle... the Tide turns, the Carthaginians flee back down the slope and the few remaining Romans pursue, spurred on by a lust for revenge and the unexpected joy of certain death turned suddenly to victory by a hairs breadth!

So few Romans remain of this legion that they retire to the nearest city and are disbanded with full honours. Their names, and those of the fallen, will never be forgotten.

With this, only a siege remains and the inevitable capitulation of the only city in Carthaginian hands by the other fresh Roman legion.

ROMA VICTOR!

[Alatar]

You should have used your two legions together to smash hanibal's armies one by one

[Black Francis]

You should have used your two legions together to smash hanibal's armies one by one

I did this in one of my Beta campaigns, and it works, but my system tends to chug a little in huge battles.. So I decided to go for him head on.. 1 on 1 and managed to defeat the Carthaginian field armies, although just barely and by the skin of my teeth, with just 1 legion!

[Alatar]

I can play at 1/2 fps, infact anything more is good for me.
So,two legions is fine, the first one (mine) engages them, and tries to distract it, while the AI will proceed to (slowly) march on there rear.
And when the vice closes, Hanibal dies.

[Каие]

I basically let him take Capua and then seiged him with 2 legions and crushed him.

[Blau&Gruen]

Question: How did YOU beat Hannibal?
Answer: He charged with his bodygard my center first line infantery (Hastati) during the first battle in Campania. I counter-charged him with my third infantery line (Triarii) in support of the engaged Hastati. He was slain.