Observations about my Carthage Campaign

[AchillesXX]

I am currently playing a Carthage campaign with medium map difficulty and very hard battles. I currently control all of North Africa, Iberia and Italy. My current enemies are the Gauls and Thrace, who are both doing very well, having split Germania's territory between them and then decided to focus on me. Also, the Indie Greeks still control 2/3 of Sicily and Massilia. Here are a few suggestions and observations:

1. I have African territories that have been under my control for forty years, and yet they still have levels of unrest that force me to keep them at a low tax rate. Why is this?

2. Spain folded faster than Superman on laundry day after I decided to blitz them. By the time I took control of all of Spain I was rolling in dough, so I built Eastern Civ colonies in every territory at the same time and put a general in each city. In this way I converted the whole peninsula with little trouble. I like the Spanish AOE units almost as much as the African ones. A touch more variety would be nice. I had to exterminate most Spanish cities when I conquered them, and now I cannot get the population to grow as fast as I would like. So, I am playing the "Lets recruit cheap units, move them, and disband them" game.

3. When I first started playing this Mod a year ago I tried to beat the Romans with Carthage and I got seriously owned by Triarii. However, this time it was a relative breeze. How? I simply used 6 Numidian Cav, 2 Bedouin Camel archers, 4-5 skirmish units (Balearics, etc.) and just a handful of infantry in each army. I split the Roman units up, tired them out, and peppered them with sharp things until I ran out of sharp things, then my infantry finished the match. I converted Italy in the same way that I converted Spain, in one big chunk. I have made an Italian army of 5 Hastati, 4 Triari, 4 Velites, and 6 Tarentine Cavalry. A solid army that could stand up to most others.

4. In general I find that Carthage's biggest advantage is also its biggest downfall - their native units suck so bad that there is hardly any reason to recruit them. So, you save a lot of time just making auxiliary barracks - 7 turns gets you the best units in any city. The problem occurs when you get to Gaul, where you can only recruit warband, light cav and heavy cav. This is serviceable I suppose, but so boring. Can we get rid of one unit of cavalry and replace it with something fun? Are the auxiliary units in Germania equally boring? That is weird because both Gaul and Germania have such an interesting recruitment tree.

5. In keeping with the above post, why is it that the first level of auxiliary barracks in Greek territories produce Doryphory (sp?)? That is silly, because each culture already has a placeholder unit. Can we switch it to militia phalangites? Not overpowered, and it would give some nice Greek flavor.

6. And, someone please tell me that when my armies get to the Levant and head eastward I won't be stuck with only Eastern Infantry (terrible), Skirmishers (pretty good) and Heavy Cavalry (better still) for about 20% of the entire map?! Two of those units are perfectly good, but what a boring army!

So far Carthage is one of the most fun campaigns. I highly suggest that you try it if you haven't before.

[Squirrelman]

So, when playing as Carthage, you only recommend building Aux. Barracks and not trying to tech up to Sacred Bands?

[death to the romans]

it costs more time to build high level barracks and train SBs then to use auxiliary's. it saves money, and you can build armies with a lot of diversity in it. that way, you have a good army which can take out most enemies while not spending to much money

[AchillesXX]

To tech up to a Sacred Band would require something like 30 turns of building only military structures (not including the need to build an Eastern Civ colony in non Eastern areas). If you simply opt to recruit hoplites in Sicily (for example) you can do so in 7 turns and they are almost as good.

[death to the romans]

I think I'll start a Carthaginian Campaign and I'll use your comments as a guideline. what did you do the first turns?

[AchillesXX]

First I gave Lilybaeum to the Indi Greeks for 10,000 denarii. The same move I transfered my Sicilian troops to Africa to begin subduing the EK. Also, I immediately hired as many mercenaries in Iberia as I could, brought my Iberian garrisons together into one medium sized army and began to blitz the penninsula. The Romans will attack Corsica even though it makes no sense for them to do so. So, keep a decent fleet off the coast of Italy to sink their ships or blockade their ports. Once you have subdued Western Africa and Iberia I suppose you can either head into Gual or Italy. I chose Italy as it is wealthier and has better mercenaries (Tarentine Cav are GREAT!).

P.S. I don't know if it was smart to give Lilybaeum to the Indie Greeks. They eventually declared war on me through a naval attack - even though I didn't share a common border with them. You may make more money by holding Lilybaeum with a cheap garrison for as long as possible.

[death to the romans]

from earlier attempts at a carthage campaign, i know that if you move Hanno and his army out of Sicily, IGCS will attack lilybaeum(sp?). so I usually conquered them.
which year is it in your campaign now?

[TM Is Back]

1. I have African territories that have been under my control for forty years, and yet they still have levels of unrest that force me to keep them at a low tax rate. Why is this?

2. Spain folded faster than Superman on laundry day after I decided to blitz them. By the time I took control of all of Spain I was rolling in dough, so I built Eastern Civ colonies in every territory at the same time and put a general in each city. In this way I converted the whole peninsula with little trouble. I like the Spanish AOE units almost as much as the African ones. A touch more variety would be nice. I had to exterminate most Spanish cities when I conquered them, and now I cannot get the population to grow as fast as I would like. So, I am playing the "Lets recruit cheap units, move them, and disband them" game.

3. When I first started playing this Mod a year ago I tried to beat the Romans with Carthage and I got seriously owned by Triarii. However, this time it was a relative breeze. How? I simply used 6 Numidian Cav, 2 Bedouin Camel archers, 4-5 skirmish units (Balearics, etc.) and just a handful of infantry in each army. I split the Roman units up, tired them out, and peppered them with sharp things until I ran out of sharp things, then my infantry finished the match. I converted Italy in the same way that I converted Spain, in one big chunk. I have made an Italian army of 5 Hastati, 4 Triari, 4 Velites, and 6 Tarentine Cavalry. A solid army that could stand up to most others.

4. In general I find that Carthage's biggest advantage is also its biggest downfall - their native units suck so bad that there is hardly any reason to recruit them. So, you save a lot of time just making auxiliary barracks - 7 turns gets you the best units in any city. The problem occurs when you get to Gaul, where you can only recruit warband, light cav and heavy cav. This is serviceable I suppose, but so boring. Can we get rid of one unit of cavalry and replace it with something fun? Are the auxiliary units in Germania equally boring? That is weird because both Gaul and Germania have such an interesting recruitment tree.

5. In keeping with the above post, why is it that the first level of auxiliary barracks in Greek territories produce Doryphory (sp?)? That is silly, because each culture already has a placeholder unit. Can we switch it to militia phalangites? Not overpowered, and it would give some nice Greek flavor.

6. And, someone please tell me that when my armies get to the Levant and head eastward I won't be stuck with only Eastern Infantry (terrible), Skirmishers (pretty good) and Heavy Cavalry (better still) for about 20% of the entire map?! Two of those units are perfectly good, but what a boring army!

So far Carthage is one of the most fun campaigns. I highly suggest that you try it if you haven't before.

1. That is because some cities have a base level of unrest and are therefore harder to control.

2. If you had to exterminate the cities then that's the reason why they grow slow. You could have prevented that by not going into a blitzkrieg but instead take some more time conquering Spain.

3. But is it fun that way? Romans are supposed to be strong soldiers and I doubt if it is fun to kill them all the way you discribe it. I rather use a more old fasioned hammer and anvil tactic.

4. They suck because you did not let the Marian Reforms occur. For when they occur the soldiers of Carthage get a +2 exp bonus making them as strong as the Lybians. However, why should you want to fight only with auxiliaries? The thing that makes Carthage fun to play is, in my opinion, the weaker unit roster. To compensate that roster you do not need stronger units or use auxiliaries, but instead reform your battle tactics.

5. Could be done I think.

6. It just might be. So I get back to a point I've already made: Use your normal units.

[AchillesXX]

TM,

I do think it was fun to beat the Romans using hit and run tactics. I have played every culture in the game and most of them rely on a hammer and anvil system to win. So, instead of doing that I played a bit more like I was an Easter horse dependent faction. It takes a lot of micro management, but it is fun to do something different. That is also why I chose to play with only Auxiliary units. I had never used a faction with only auxiliaries before, so I think that is more fun than recruiting form the poor Carthaginian roster. Besides, Carthage was known to rely on mercenaries historically, which DBH has tried to recreate in the game. And, if I had waited for Rome to trigger the reforms it could have taken quite some time. For example, I played my Pergamene campaign until 200 B.C without invading Italy. The Roman reforms still hadn't happened.

[TM Is Back]

Sounds logical to me. Sometimes change can be fun And of course doing something different can be fun.

200 BC? That's very very late... normally they occur around 220-240 B.C. atleast in my games. However, you do not get a messege you know. They just happen.

[Publius Quirinus]

That sounds like a very fun campaign. Screenshot pls?

4. In general I find that Carthage's biggest advantage is also its biggest downfall - their native units suck so bad that there is hardly any reason to recruit them. So, you save a lot of time just making auxiliary barracks - 7 turns gets you the best units in any city.

I think this is by design, historically the Carthaginians themselves were not particularly warlike, and relied heavily on auxiliaries.

The problem occurs when you get to Gaul, where you can only recruit warband, light cav and heavy cav. This is serviceable I suppose, but so boring. Can we get rid of one unit of cavalry and replace it with something fun? Are the auxiliary units in Germania equally boring? That is weird because both Gaul and Germania have such an interesting recruitment tree.

I might be wrong, but doesn't Carthage get to recruit Gaestate (or whatever named equivalent) in Gaul?

[AchillesXX]

I wish I could recruit Gesetae, but I can't. There are earlier posts about that same subject and they seem to agree that the ability was never implemented or it was removed. Darn!

[Zarax]

One solution could be to put the old galatian swordsmen as AOR unit for the celtic area, it's historically accurate (Hannibal recruited plenty of those) and will give a decent AOR unit to play with.

[death to the romans]

yeah good idea.

[DarthLazy]

Carthage has decent units pre reform. Liby spearmen are good for holding. I use mostly thureos and greek hoplites. Plus 1 sacred cav 1-2 prodromoroi and a whole lot of generals cavalry. Use the forests of italy to your advantage.

[Unknown Soldier]

how many times does it have to be said Rhodian/Balearic Slingers pwn anything in armour Carthage can easily hire 2 chevron merc units and train them up to triple silver+ chevrons - these will massacre allcomers

[Diomede]

PLUS more ammo than archers. May as well finish it off.
<3 chosen slingers.

[Grimbold]

You're both 1hp players arent you?

[Pinkie Pie]

i prefer to slug it out in close quartes so i didnt pick the 1 hp