Carthage

[andipandy123]

Is it me or are these guys impossible to play. Ive been attacked by Iberia which isnt hard to repel. infact too easy to repel but it still holds up my garrisons in iberia and they cant move around in fear of ambush.

I have damn Numidian full stacks overpowering my tiny half stacks. And now Rome storming Scicily which id proudly held on to.

Oh yeah and im in debt so no merc armies

my only elite unit is the sacred band though i like the lib-pheo mix for cost effective eliteness. Id say better than auxilia hoplite units, merc hoplites, light hoplite (Illyrians), corinthian hoplite.

numidia wont leave me alone. shall i start again and premtive strike the *censored*?

[Artax]

The most interesting part in playing Carthage is that you must fight multi-front war from the start. Also you can recruit your national troops only in North Africa and elites only in Carthage. So you should fight using lots of AOR troops and mercs (as Carthage did historically).

At the start of campaign invest as mush as possible in economic buildings (preferable ports). You will be unable to train more troops for a while. Try not to provoke Iberia or Numidia to start a war. I even had an alliance with Numidia for more than 20 years.

Use your starting army in Sicily (reinforced with troops from local territories and maybe even with troops from Carthage) and take Sicily. If you will manage it well you can find a moment when greeks are very vulnerable (either after taking Messana or losed trying to take it). Take all Sicily and it will grant you large amounts of cash.

While fighting in Sicily reinforce your garrisons in Iberia as iberians will have attacked you by now or will soon do this. Try to hold your two cities at all costs. After you will have Sicily build one more army and send it to Iberia. Then you will be able to begin offense.

Continue fighting two fronts. With one army from Sicily march to the south of Italy, with second conquer Iberia. From this point game should be relatively easy.

If Numidia attacks you try to fight them in cities. Becouse in the open field their skirmisher and light cavalry forces are superior to your slow moving infantry. In cities you will have advantage as they won't have space to maneuver.

Hope this helps. I always had lots of fun playing Carthage