Skirmisher armies

[Praefectus praetorio]

Hi, Im currently at war with Carthago in northern Iberia. I have noticed that carthaginian armies contain large amount of skirmishers. I believe they were berberian javelinmen, if i remember correctly. For example in the last battle enemy got at least 2000 javelinmen in army of 3000 men. There was only small amount of other units so I could easily slaughter them as they are no match for my Roman legionaries. Anyone know why the AI is recruiting so many skirmishers? Also in the unit description the javelinmen are described as light infantry instead of skirmishers so does this have something to do with it?

[hungry]

Well, if you attack the Carthaginians in Sicily and North Africa, you should face off against a lot of liby-phoenician spearmen and some poeni citizen infantry and sacred band infantry. Your experience against the Carthaginians seems limited to Iberia. Still, you also should've encountered some scutarii falcata infantry in Iberia.

The training base for berber javelinmen is closer to Iberia than the training base is for the Carthaginian heavy infantry, being in western North Africa rather than central North Africa. Berber javelinmen are very cheap to train and maintain. Their melee ability, morale, and unit size are better than those of velites, so classifying them as light infantry makes sense. They are one of the best garrison units in RTRPE. If the AI is training as many of them as it can, that's a good thing.

Either the Carthaginians are weak in your particular campaign or you just haven't yet encountered the Carthaginian main forces.

[Praefectus praetorio]

Thanks for answer! Yes I have just recently invaded Iberia from the north. Just seemed weird when the Carthaginians had lots of full stacks there, but they mainly contained berber javelinmen with only few infantry and war elephants.

[hungry]

Okay, I think I understand. You didn't take on the Carthaginians until you had legionaries? So either you turtled hard or you went north and/or east before heading west. It's thus likely that the Carthaginians, left alone, are winning against the Iberians and that explains why they have several stacks there.

The thing about the Carthaginians is that their "core" units are only trainable in central North Africa. In contrast, Roman core units are trainable everywhere once you have the necessary buildings. So the Carthaginians are heavily reliant on AoR troops. The AoR infantry that the Carthaginians can train in Iberia, scutarii falcata infantry and scutarii spearmen, are medium infantry and if the AI doesn't take advantage of their greater mobility, they'll suck. Likewise with the berber javelinmen.

BTW, the Carthaginian forest elephants aren't the toughest elephants. The cavalry that the Carthaginians can train in Iberia, caetrati cavalry auxilia and scutarii cavalry, shouldn't die as easily.

[AqD]

Hi, Im currently at war with Carthago in northern Iberia. I have noticed that carthaginian armies contain large amount of skirmishers. I believe they were berberian javelinmen, if i remember correctly. For example in the last battle enemy got at least 2000 javelinmen in army of 3000 men. There was only small amount of other units so I could easily slaughter them as they are no match for my Roman legionaries. Anyone know why the AI is recruiting so many skirmishers? Also in the unit description the javelinmen are described as light infantry instead of skirmishers so does this have something to do with it?

Because they have too many cities in numidia and there is no heavy troop there. The land of numidia = of negative military value in all the classical-era mods.

If they go for spain or italy, you'd expect far better armies

[Newtothegame]

Honestly, I have not been playing RTR: PE lately, I concentrated on Exrm. But from what I remember and from what I have seen in my Roman campaign ín Exrm I can tell you that I hardly ever face a Carthaginian force of any size that does not at least contain 1 unit of Berber Spearmen.
I have encountered those 3-4k armies of them and ONLY them in Iberia as well as in North Africa, the only time when I fought against mainly Hoplites was during my conquest of Sicily.


Newtothegame

[Quinn Inuit]

Because they have too many cities in numidia and there is no heavy troop there. The land of numidia = of negative military value in all the classical-era mods.

If they go for spain or italy, you'd expect far better armies

I wouldn't say that. Berber javelinmen have pretty good spear stats, run fast, and throw good javelins. When used with their light and heavy cavalry, they can do a good amount of damage for how much they cost.

Honestly, I have not been playing RTR: PE lately, I concentrated on Exrm. But from what I remember and from what I have seen in my Roman campaign ín Exrm I can tell you that I hardly ever face a Carthaginian force of any size that does not at least contain 1 unit of Berber Spearmen.
I have encountered those 3-4k armies of them and ONLY them in Iberia as well as in North Africa, the only time when I fought against mainly Hoplites was during my conquest of Sicily.


Newtothegame

Interesting. So are you seeing armies composed entirely of Berbers? Carthage shouldn't be doing that. My guess is that there are two possible problems:
1) AOR. Carthage can't recruit better units out of its new settlements yet.
2) Cost. It's possible the units aren't expensive enough for how good they are.

[AqD]

I wouldn't say that. Berber javelinmen have pretty good spear stats, run fast, and throw good javelins. When used with their light and heavy cavalry, they can do a good amount of damage for how much they cost.

You just need a different tactic to slaughter them.

I'd suggest the persian formation used in Battle of the Granicus River (where they were defeated )

- Generals and heavy cavalry in the front
- Light cavalry in the middle
- All infantry in the rear

Now you launch an all-out charge - heavy cavalry heading toward the enemies; backed light cavalry and then infantry. The enemies would try to run, and when they're forced to fight they'd be routed.

End of battle!


I think carthaginians should use more iberian warriors. Iberian warriors are the best of all!

[Quinn Inuit]

Hmmm, that would work perfectly. I guess the reason it never occurred to me is that I've never fought the Numidians with a heavy cavalry faction, just the Romans and Carthaginians.

And the quote about the Lusitanni was awesome.

[Newtothegame]

Interesting. So are you seeing armies composed entirely of Berbers? Carthage shouldn't be doing that. My guess is that there are two possible problems:
1) AOR. Carthage can't recruit better units out of its new settlements yet.
2) Cost. It's possible the units aren't expensive enough for how good they are.

Exactly, that's what I figure, too. There is an other example, though not in RTR: PE but in EXRM:

The Greek, after they conquer Illyria, which they usually do pretty quickly, raise just MASSIVE armies of Illyrian spearmen. I once fought against 2 stacks containing almost 6 000 men in total, the bigger one consisting of a Greek FM as a general and 19 stacks of Illyrian spearmen, most of them without weapon upgrades, experience or formerly taken losses, which means he just recently built 'em up in order to sacrifice their lives in a hopeless (and pointless as well as boring) battle against my superior army.

The AI tends to do that with hoplites, too, sometimes thousands of pure levy hoplites and sometimes, when I face an army from the enemy heartland, regular hoplites.

That said I want to stress that it's still way better than in RTR: PE, where the Seleucids massed armies of 4 thousand phalangites that came for me each turn... Just to let you know I appreciate your work ^^


Good night,

Newtothegame

[Quinn Inuit]

Also interesting. Do you remember if there were lots of mercenaries involved? I know we have a merc overpopulation problem. I'll bet this one is a combination of the cost and building factors. Hopefully slowing down AI expansion will help it not outpace its buildings.

Hoplites I can kind of see. I've tried to make those high upkeep/relatively low cost units to represent that they're levies, but I think that experiment may not work with the AI.

For the record, I am glad you're generally enjoying it. We're trying hard.

[Newtothegame]

No, actually there are quite few stacks consisting of mainly mercenaries, imho. Iirc, the Carthaginians attacked Sicily with 3 huge armies of hoplites of upper standard. There were hardly any other troop types. Those armies were embarked from North Africa. When I fought in Iberia the Carthaginians used Scutarii that they recruited there. Those armies were also containing lots of Berber spearmen. When I took over North Africa I faced Carthaginian hoplites recruited in the rich cities close to Carthage and some Berber troops from the west but again, almost no mercenaries.

In EXRM, fighting against the Greek, all they use is Illyrian spearmen in the Northwest and heavy hoplites in the rest of their kingdom stretching from Sparta to Thracia and from the Alps to the western coast of Asia Minor. They don't seem to use THAT much mercenaries, I believe, although that might be a delusion. Admittedly I just recently discovered a Greek army in the north of their empire that consisted of 1 unit of levy hoplites and about 12 units of Thracian mercenaries, melee infantrymen, slingers and cavalry the entire range of available mercs there.

My experiences don't match with yours apparently, you have by far the better insight though! ^^
The only one using mercs a lot is the human player - me. I like their skill in preventing newly captured provinces from rioting.


Good evening,

Newtothegame


Edit: I don't know if that is of any relevance but it doesn't hurt telling you I played on H/H in RTR: PE and on VH/VH in EXRM.

[Candelarius]

My guess would be that Carthage had a large city that they gained by trading with another faction. I recently agreed to a peace treaty with Greece in exchange for Corfinium, and the game auto-generated a garrison in the city of six or so velites. If Carthage did a similar thing, it may have gained a large number of base-line units and then deployed them as an army.