RTR (Carthage) AOR

[Timmius]

After playing as romans, parthians, and macedinians for a while I've recently started a campaign as Carthage. First thing I noticed is the the AOR of Carthaginian units. Apparently this is because because of historical reasons. Be that as it may, is it historical that you can recruit roman legionairies in sweden or india? Or elite hoplites in caledonia (england)?
I understand the strive of making RTR as realistic as possible. But because it is a game there is of course no way in making it completely accurate, as the whole intention of the game is unrealistic itself. There's no way that any empire (besides maybe the roman) in the Roman era could rise as the dominant power of the world in such a short time.
The thing is, that the big difference in playing the Carthaginians against the other factions I played, is that they do not have their best units at their disposal all over the world. I felt this a dissapointment because it's kind of unfair. Especially after being used to training hypaspists in luvavum and such.
That being said, I wonder what people think of the OAR system of RTR in the context of the above And if you could live with the AOR for Carthaginian units removed (as I have done).

[Artax]

I, personally, think that it is one of the most fun aspects as playing Carthage. You are constrained to use lots of different troop combinations and not simply make tens of clone armies. In late game when you have more armies and each army is different fighting battles is much more interesting.

I am glad that RTRPE team did this.

[Delvecchio1975]

the romans did train legions in other parts then central italy, once assimilated, it was part of their success to include new parts into their empire and romanize them. Seleucids and Ptolemies weren't even native to the lands they own in the game, so they must do the same thing. Carthage on the other side was very centrist in their military approach and used locally recruited armies. they didn't make them fight in the way of the sacred band, but used them for their own strenghts. I completely agree with this way of working in RTR!

[Timmius]

the romans did train legions in other parts then central italy, once assimilated, it was part of their success to include new parts into their empire and romanize them. Seleucids and Ptolemies weren't even native to the lands they own in the game, so they must do the same thing. Carthage on the other side was very centrist in their military approach and used locally recruited armies. they didn't make them fight in the way of the sacred band, but used them for their own strenghts. I completely agree with this way of working in RTR!

I sort of agree. I might be realistic as far as starting conditions concern. And also as when you compare Romans with Carthage, but when to take into account other nations It'll become less and less realistic. Take pontus or Armenia for example, is it realistic that they can recruit Heavy spearmen in let's say Brittain? Or what about Macedonians recruiting Hypaspists in Russia? If that's possible, why not phoenician spearmen in Iberia? At least it evens out the gameplay for each faction. The difference is only that Carthage has a better known (militairy) history. So it's easier to restrain unit availability based on that. It's a simple matter of being consequent in gameplay. If for some reason they choose to make certain units recruitable in certain area´s where they shouldn´t be recruited, why have an OAR to begin with? But on the other hand, any is better than none.
And besides, there's no way of telling how any factions would cope with having a huge empire. My guess is that they'd have marian reforms of their own since any other form of army of nigh impossible to maintain. And thus making their units widely spread available. But there's just no way of telling.. is there
So I just choose gameplay (just recruitable poenie infantry and spearmen) above the limited amount of realism that the AOR offers.

[florin80]

Take pontus or Armenia for example, is it realistic that they can recruit Heavy spearmen in let's say Brittain? Or what about Macedonians recruiting Hypaspists in Russia? If that's possible, why not phoenician spearmen in Iberia?

It`s more of a stratch in the case of Carthage. They did relay more on mercenaries and local available recruits then other factions and I think they tended to bring colonists from home to the new bases less then others. And these were not their main choice of troops anyway. Greek and macedonian millitary settlers for example did exist far away from home. Like in eastern Media and such. That`s where the seleucids took their manpower from. It seems resonable that after the auxilia phases you can recruit them.
This being said I think that a punic militia unit recruitable at the upper stages of the barracks without restrictions would have been somewhat resonable. Still, they wouldn`t have made much difference and you`d still have had to recruit better troops locally and, in any case, such changes won`t be made for RTRPE. It remains to the RTR 7 developers to expand things like these.

Other then that, of course you are free and encouraged to change it in your game to suit your preferences.

[Mogul42]

Glad I just read this as I was wondering if it was a bug. I'm not enjoying only being able to recruit Gallic Spear Warband and Gallic Swordsmen in my Gallic provinces - particularly as the Macedonian armies in that area seem to field 100% heavy phalanx units and the unis I can get just don't really compare.

Ok I know I have to use the Gauls to their strengths so having them flank the phalanxes but it'd be nice if I had infantry avaliable in that area that was able to hold the line.

[despot_of_rhodes]

IMHO, the spear warband is a perfect line infantry, at least under current conditions, where Gauls don´t have any decent medium infantry troops ( armoured ). Of course you shouldn´t charge with them into a phalanx, but keep them in guard mode and let the enemy come. They are fast, don´t tire to soon and also very cheap. All they need is a spear to throw ( like javeline, without armour piercing like Romans ) before charging, wich would come up for their low fighting values. If you use heavy spearmen or swordmen you still suffer heavy causalities, but their costs are huge.
Maybe i´ve got a wrong way to fight with Carthage, but iberian infantry from RTR is really good ( and cheap! ). Actually they don´t need to have the special AOR one, but should be able to train mercenaries ( like you can in Carthage itself, at least in ExRM ). Spear infantry don´t really match with roman hastati/princeps, especially if you play on hard or very hard - they just won´t break ( but for those cases you´ve got heavy cavalry and elephants )

[Caligula Caesar]

the romans did train legions in other parts then central italy, once assimilated, it was part of their success to include new parts into their empire and romanize them. Seleucids and Ptolemies weren't even native to the lands they own in the game, so they must do the same thing. Carthage on the other side was very centrist in their military approach and used locally recruited armies. they didn't make them fight in the way of the sacred band, but used them for their own strenghts. I completely agree with this way of working in RTR!

But the Romans only started recruiting legions outside of Italy well after Marius, and never recruited republican units outside of Italy, or (at least at the start) outside of Rome. How do we know the Carthaginians wouldn't have changed in a similar way?

[Mogul42]

Thanks Despot, will bear that in mind.