The Carthaginian Samaritans

**MrMerisi** · January 04, 2008, 07:10 PM

Playing as the Romani, circa 255BC. I still have an alliance with Carthage, mutual military access, and they haven't even come close to moving into the eastern part of Sicily.

All of a sudden, a rebel army of Samnites springs up near Capua. While I am preparing my forces to crush the rebels (my consular armies are fighting in the north) a near full-stack Carthaginian army comes racing up past Rhegion, with two smaller armies following in reserve. I have a mini-panic and think they have seen a weakness in my garrisons in Rome and Capua and are going for the jugular, let alone violating the DMZ spheres of influence treaty signed over eastern Sicily, which I have dutifully left alone so far.

To my astonishment, they make no attempt to attack my cities. Instead they destroy the Samnite rebels and then move back down towards Rhegion, but they linger in southeast Italy for at least 5 more turns.

I will post pics as soon as I can to demonstrate this.

Anyone else ever experience such help from allies whose victory conditions are to wipe you off the map?

Bizarre.

**MarcusAureliusAntoninus** · January 04, 2008, 08:52 PM

Since they are in the script the AI can't 'see' the victory conditions, so they don't influence any of their actions. The AI factions do seem to hate the rebels and I've seen them chase rebels into my territory, but I've never seen them go after rebels that spawn in my territory. Have you been giving them money or anything that would make them love you?

**chenkai11** · January 05, 2008, 12:01 AM

sometimes AI really do wierd or funny things. I constantly having rebels spawned near my regions or even just beside the settlement. They will just stay there. But there is one time a rebel spawned then chased my passing by reinforcements. My reinforcement army is too weak so I withdraw and escape, they stop the chase and besiege my allied settlement then attack and kill my puppet ruler and gain a settlement!

**MrMerisi** · January 05, 2008, 06:49 AM

Originally Posted by MarcusAureliusAntoninus

Since they are in the script the AI can't 'see' the victory conditions, so they don't influence any of their actions. The AI factions do seem to hate the rebels and I've seen them chase rebels into my territory, but I've never seen them go after rebels that spawn in my territory. Have you been giving them money or anything that would make them love you?

No, I haven't even interacted with them diplomatically since the game began.

I once moved an army across the Straits of Messina and got the adviser note about the treaties between Rome and Carthage regarding this DMZ, so the next turn i left as i wasn't ready to start a war with them.

They maintained an army in western Sicily for some time (replete with elephants to the tune of 5,000 Mnai upkeep per turn), then once the rebels spawned, Hamalcar immediately crossed into the toe of Italy, heading northeast. 2 turns later they crushed the rebel army (which I had left alone and concentrated instead on building up to defeat what I thought was an invasion).

When they lingered for another 5 turns, I canceled their military access, but they still didn't leave Italy. They now march back and forth between Capua and Rhegion, possibly because the cancellation of military access has blocked their movement options?

I noticed 2 turns after the cancellation, they finally declared a ceasefire with Epeiros, nearly some 60 turns after I did.

I was surprised to see Rome and Carthage on such friendly terms at the game's outset, just 8 years before the First Punic War.

Did your research indicate that their were on such "friendly terms?" I can understand an alliance against expansionist Epeiros and to hedge against other Hellenic factions, but I expected an uneasy alliance at best. Instead they have left eastern Sicily alone...possibly because of their war with the Ptolemaic kingdom over Libya. But even then, I would have expected them to ship their elephants off to assist in the fight! Darned AI!

I still don't know how they "knew" that a rebel army had spawned in Campania. I have spies there and haven't detected any Carthaginian network (though of course that doesn't mean they don't have one).

Is there any way to tweak the AI to set the Rome-Carthage alliance to be a bit more fragile at the outset? After all, they both made moves between 272BC and 264BC to put themselves on a war footing.

**MarcusAureliusAntoninus** · January 05, 2008, 02:37 PM

They were at war not too long after the start date, but in 272 Roma and Kart-Hadast had pretty good terms with eachother and a trade alliance. The fact the Romani broke the alliance unexpectedly is probably one of the reasons the Barca family hated them so much...