Trouble beating Carthage (multi-player)

[crashxdjp]

Hello, me (19) and my brother (21). We both play RTW often, and most the of time we play each other.

Well, he likes to play Carthage, this is his typcial unit selection.

6 of the best calv.
2-3 heavy armor elephants
1-2 onagers
the rest is phalaxes.

I dont know what to do, I have tried Egypt, Greek, Romans, and Seleucid.

First, his elephants are an issue, if I dont get scare them off with my seige and/or arrows, then he will hit me broadside in the middle of the battle, killing my calvalry and/or infantry.

Second, his phalaxes are the best in the game, there are no other phalaxes to match them. So I have to hold them long enough for my calvalry to get them from behind.

Third, his calvalry is also very good, I usually have to fight his calvalry with mine so I get behind his phalax.

Usually the typical battle is, hell be hitting me hard with the onagers and ill move my army up. My calvalry meets with his, and our phalaxes meet. BUT, if he still has elephants, they tear apart either my phalaxes or calvalry.

I know I can't win the phalax battle. There has to be ways to beat him.

Im having a really hard time, please suggest realistic strategies I can use. Im open to any faction.

Thank you.

[Flogger]

Well, in a fair fight I don't know what too do, but you could always use a spam army...

Either lots and lots of fully upgraded Cretan Archers or lots and lots of fully upgraded Spartans or Royal Pikemen.

[General Sun]

Eh? Meet onager with onger. He has 2? Get 3. Then he'll move his army up, you can then turn your spartans into boxes, cavalry and elephants don't do crap against spartans. Leave the archers at home (archers blow). Don't move your cavalry up, let them come to you. Once their cavalry struck your spartan box, use your cavalry to go around and hit their phalanxes. All you gotta do then is hope your spartan holds out long enough for your cavalry to do their thing, and spartans are the best in the game...

[crashxdjp]

thanks for the quick responses.

be greek cities huh? how many spartans and hoplites should I have?

I dont like the box idea though, because he never does that to me.

I dont mind him attacking first though

[General Sun]

thanks for the quick responses.

be greek cities huh? how many spartans and hoplites should I have?

I dont like the box idea though, because he never does that to me.

I dont mind him attacking first though

I think the important thing is to protect your onagers from his cavalry. Don't set up your troops in a box formation. Let them stand in a line, but get your spartans into defensive position when you see his cavalry and elephants moving. (If you can, you might also be able to take out his onagers with your own, turning off the fire rocks.) That'll definitly force him to move against you.

About the forester approach, I'm not sure how foresters stand against armoured elephants, and sacred bands. They can be pretty though to crack with arrows.

About greek cavalry, I think shaun might be right that they are rubbish, but even generals?

[guyyug]

i have a tactic if you are playing and faction with missle cavalry expert greece as their cav isnt any good, use your missle cav to draw his cav away and hide your cav if your able to, draw them near to them and turn so their flank faces them, them hit him and you can bring round the missle cavalry to hit them some more, they go down pretty easily as stuff like cavalry auxilla or milta cavalry work well against eles. if not go with what people say sparten army in a box, onagars will be needed to take other onagars but you could always play a game that has no onagars and eles see how he likes it :wink:

[crashxdjp]

okay, well i like the Gaul idea. One problem...how will I get rid of his Phalaxes? They will keep turning around to my calvalry.

[Shaun]

I think shaun might be right that they are rubbish, but even generals?

No, Generals are not rubbish, but dont have enough men in their unit(or a sheild) to make any impact against a phalanx. Legionary Cav are the best, as they are heavily armoured, have a large sheild and are also quite skilled.

[Shaun]

Well get more onagers than him, then have the rest spartans. Greek cav is now where near as good as Carthaginian cav, so dont bother with them. Also, archers are rubbish vs phalanxes and Armoured elephants, so dont bother with them.

[NobleNick]

he likes to play Carthage, this is his typcial unit selection.

6 of the best calv.
2-3 heavy armor elephants
1-2 onagers
the rest is phalaxes.

crashxdjp,

Here is something that might shake him up: 20 units of Legionary Cavalry. Meet his 6 Sacred Band cav with 12 of your Legionary cavalry, while 2 more of your cav take out the Onager(s). Pffftt!!! End of Sacred Band and Onagers! Now he has Elephants and Phalanx and you have the equivalent of maybe 10 bands of Legionary cav. ---> Run.

Run, rest, run, rest; while he runs, runs, runs. Break up your force, if need be, so that some of your force is always resting while his elephants chase the rest. The Phalanx can't even dream of catching you and the Elephants' stamina sucks. I don't know how a 3-on1 gang bang of fresh Legionary Cav on Exhausted Armored Elephants would turn out; but even if you couldn't get him that way, at the very least you could run circles around his force until the timer ran out.

I would practice, first, with 9 Legionary cav against the AI controlling 3 Armored Elephants and 10 phalanx. See if you can't get the ellies exhausted while keeping your cav clear of them and the phalanx and keeping the bulk of your cav fresh or warmed up. And then see if you can't kick their cans with your still fresh cav. If the strategy pans out, practice a bit more and then have a game with your brother...

And the archer idea sounds like it would work! ---> Play as Gaul, and bring a full load of **Foresters**, or maybe 6 Noble cav and 14 Foresters). What your brother might not know is that Foresters, aside from being clearly the best archers in the game, stand up to cav assaults almost as well as spears. I remember a single Forester Band putting TWO of my Carthage cav (not Sacred Band) into immediate rout in the open field; and on another occasion, putting about THREE of my Sacred Band to rout in a fight in a town; so two Foresters, or Forester + Noble cav, should take care of a Sacred Band cav). Foresters can outrun the Phalanx, and even as few as five Forester units can (to quote Vercingetorix's Gaul campaign tutorial) literally "paint the ground gold" with flaming arrows (takes care of Elephants). They have extremely long range and accurate arrows. An Onager, even an Onager with VERY lucky marksmanship, is no match for even a single Forester unit.

I really think that both of the above options have the potential to make your brother tire of his mix.

Another option: YOU play Carthage, and see what he does against you, with you using his classic Carthage army mix.

Hope that helps.

[crashxdjp]

tried the forester strat.

they did horrible, cannot even kill the armored elephants and the phalaxes. I have like 8 cards btw.

[NobleNick]

tried the forester strat... they did horrible, cannot even kill the armored elephants and the phalaxes. I have like 8 cards btw.

I wouldn't try to kill the Ellies with Foresters: just use flaming arrows to get them to run amok. That should be quite do-able.

I tried to run some experimental custom battles, this weekend, with Foresters and Noble Cav against your brother's Carthage mix; but ran into some questions: 1.) Is he using Sacred Band or Peoni for his Phalanx? There is a big difference in how these two unit types stack up. And a related question: 2.) Do you play with a Denarii limit in multiplayer battles? (If so, how much?)

If you are playing with a Denarii limit, and he has enough to buy all Sacred Band for his Phalanx, then you should have more than plenty to go with gold sword (and maybe even upgraded shield/experience) for all your Foresters. This would give them 14 Missile attack -AND- 14 melee attack! That is very potent. If you could just get the Elephants to run amok with flame, you could then switch back to normal arrows and dismember everything else.

On the cav versus phalanx question: The trick is to get multiple cav units on a single phalanx unit, and make sure the first hit is to their back. With just one cav unit, the phalanx can always turn to face the threat; but the phalanx's predicament is much more dire when facing 4 simultaneous cav rushes from every direction on the compass. You will take relatively high losses doing this to a phalanx unit (about half the enemy's losses, if done correctly); but *IF* done correctly, the enemy unit should rout immediately, which makes the enemy losses about 5 times yours. If the phalanx morale is high enough so that they don't rout, this could turn into a mess. But you should have no problem using this tactic against Peoni or even Sacred Band; as long as you get them exhausted, first, and hit them with many units of relatively fresh cav.

[crashxdjp]

Thanks for the response.

there is no money limit, we dont play with upgrades, and he uses the sacred band phalaxes

[NobleNick]

there is no money limit, we dont play with upgrades, and he uses the sacred band phalaxes

So, he gets:

10 Sacred Band Phalanx
6 Sacred Band Cavalry
3 Armored War Elephants
1 Onager (Heavy Onager?)

That is an extremely stiff force. Sacred Band infantry are excellent fighters; Sacred Band Cav are good heavy cavalry; and the Armored Ellies are a big problem. The Onager, a very respectable weapon, is the least of your worries.

And no upgrades?!? He has you a bit at odds, because he has found a way to force you into spending less on your force than he is on his. What if he decided he wanted 5 Armored Elephants? 15? A more fair set up would be to have a denarii limit that was large enough to allow him to have the force he wants; but let you spend up to the same limit by getting upgrades for your troops. My negotiating position, if I were you, would be that you play with a denarii limit, or else he does not get any elephants of any kind.

Still... There has to be a way to beat this...

You said you tried Romans. I would think that 13 Praetorian Cohort and 7 Praetorian Cavalry would make a good go of it: 6 cav would occupy the enemy cav (more than just occupy, I would think) while the 7th took out the Onager and then helped out against the Sacred Band Infantry. Then the real contest is --> can 13 Praetorian Cohort and 1 Praetorian Cavalry roll up the flanks on 10 Sacred Band faster than the Armored Elephants can nullify your significant numerical advantage.

I know Velites are supposedly good against Elephants, but they suck against virtually everything else. I hate to waste even one slot on these guys. Repeating Ballista? Scorpion? At least one of these has extremely long range and can skewer several targets with one hit. I don't know enough to tell if either of these is effective against against Armored Elehants. Experiment time, again...

[Gaius Baltar]

Use Greeks

Spartans for phalnax
onagers to match his
Companion cav to match his
cretan archers - set to fire flaming arrows.

USe the SPartans to ancchor your line
counter battery with onagers - to their onagers
match your cav to his cav
fire flaming ammo at elephants with Cretan archers when they show up.

Ride down survivors

[Flogger]

If you need good cavalry, be the Macedonians. Their compainions outclass many other cav in the game.

[Marcus Scaurus]

Their Light Lancers (only available in Vanilla) are excellent horsemen, not so expensive as companions and they have a huge attack bonus.

[Shaun]

Preatorian cav are overkill, legionary cav are enough to defeat any other cav, because thier sheild gives them the advantage. And also legionary cav are cheaper by quite a bit, meaning you can upgrade them to be better than preatorian cav for the same price, oh and then start off with a higher armour rating. And against elephants, both legionary cav and preatorian cav will fair equally as rubbish, so use your cav to beat his, then attack his flanks.

[NobleNick]

Preatorian cav are overkill, legionary cav are enough to defeat any other cav...

We want overkill. Crashxdjp needs major help.

... And against elephants, both legionary cav and preatorian cav will fair equally as rubbish...

Agreed. Found this out last night in some experimental custom battles. When Marcus comes up screaming at you to keep your cav away from the elephants, and all you have is cav and all the opponent has is elephants, you know things aren't going to go well...

O.K., crashxdjp, I was able to run a dozen or so custom battles on "HARD" setting, in the last few nights, and have some advice based on solid experimental evidence. First, the facts...

1.) Roman (Julii) Urban Cohort consistently beat Carthage's Sacred Band in head-to-head confrontation. This surprised me. I ran 3 or 4 battles with 10 units of Urban lined up exactly as the AI's Sacred Band, and marched the Urbans up to 10 yards away from the Sacred Band's spears, and assigned each unit to attack the enemy unit directly in front of it (trying to eliminate generalship from the equation). The Urban's prevailed every time. The closest it got was one battle where the Sacred killed 651 Urbans, which was not quite half of the 1350 that the Urbans killed. The Cohort javelins achieved about a 1% kill ratio (kills/javelin)

2.) One unit of Armored Elephants TYPICALLY would beat 2 units of Urban Cohort. (Ellies won in 4 of 6 battles. In one, the Ellies routed. In another, the Ellies ran amok). I also ran a few battles with 3:1 Urbans against armored Elephants, without much improvement. Typically 2 units of Urbans would wear the Ellies down to 60 men (20 Elephants), from a full unit strength of 72 (24). Cohort Javelins are useless in this situation.

3.) Three units of Roman "Velites" (Not called that in the game, but basically Velites with good stamina) would TYPICALLY beat (rout/amok) one unit of Armored Elephants **IF** the elephants decide to duel it out from a distance, or are otherwise kept from making melee contact. Otherwise, the elephants would easily win.

4.) Roman Scorpions and repeating Ballistas (Ballistae?) were both useless against Armored Elephants: In several three-on-one engagements, these artillery units got a grand total of ONE elephant kill, even though the elephants cooperated very well in standing still for an arrow versus artillery duel. (That is one kill, for ALL artillery in ALL battles COMBINED.) In one battle the elephants eventually ran amok, even though they had taken no casualties. I would expect no better results from a non-repeating Ballista, so didn't run that test.

5.) Seleucid HEAVY Cataphracts (hereafter referred to simply as "Catas") beat Sacred Band Cavalry hands down. I did several battles of 3-on-3, but never had to use the third unit. The AI set up a 2 unit front line, with the captain's unit directly behind. I mimicked the setup. The two formations marched towards each other. At about 30 yards away, I charged to make sure I got the bonus. ALL the Sacred Band typically routed within 5 seconds of contact, and typically without my captain's unit making contact. In the last battle, I just held the captain back from the final charge, and the result was the same. This was a little surprising. The Catas have a very high charge bonus; but their TOTAL offense, with the bonus, is very close to the Sacred Band's total offense. the Catas have 23 defense, compared to the Band's 18; which doesn't seem to my untrained eye like a huge difference, but it evidently is. So, Catas beat Sacred Band Cav even when outnumbered 2:3.

6.) Catas (like every other cav I've tried) stink against Elephants. It was when I was running this experiment that Marcus came out and told me I was being a dufus.

7.) Catas are no match for Sacred Band INFANTRY, in a brute force, face-to-face, one-on-one confrontation, BUT they perform well if allowed to do what cav do so well: flank. I ran one battle of "brute force," 10-on-10, and the Catas all routed. I regrouped and let the Sacred Band chase them around until the timer went out. The battle was declared a "Draw;" with the Band causing about 800 casualties to my force and the Catas causing just under 1000 to theirs. This was the first battle I had ever played without touching the pause button; because I wanted to simulate the MP experience. I tried again, this time setting up in pre-battle as 2 blocks of 5 units. Again, no pause button. I ran the groups around either flank and then swamped the end unit on both flanks. The Sacred Band units routed (albeit not nearly as quickly as I had hoped). I retreated the Cata's when more Sacred Band showed up to help, and then pounced on the end unit of any group that came after me. When the Catas got winded, I retreated them to rest. The result was all Sacred Band destroyed, and I had over half my Catas left.

8.) The Seleucids get Armored War Elephants! EXACT same stats as the Carthaginian units.

9.) Sacred Band INFANTRY do not fare any better against Elephants than Urban Cohorts. I ran a single battle of (IIRC) 3 Armored Elephants against 10 Sacred Band; and the SB got trampled. One elephant unit routed. I did not try the Roman spears (Auxillia) against the Elephants. Probably should have; but I doubt they would be any more effective than Urban Cohort or Sacred Band.

So-o-o-o, we are done with the facts. Now on to the suggestions...

A.) ROMANS: I really think that Urban Cohorts can give this a go. I would try something like 15 Urban Cohort and 5 Praetorian Cav. The plan: 4 of your 5 Preaetorian Cav take on the 6 Sacred Band Cav, while your 5th cav unit takes out any Onagers that might be present and then helps out against the SB Cav. The purpose of your cav force is not to win against the SB Cav (although my guess would be that they will); but, rather, to buy uninterrupted time for your Cohorts. Of your 15 Cohorts, 3 are sacrificial lambs to wear down the Elephants, and (much more importantly) to distract them for just a minute or two. 10 of your 12 remaining Cohorts engage the Sacred Band Infantry one-on-one, while the last 2 Cohorts do a flank run (one unit to each flank) and hit the SB Infantry solidly in the back. The flanks should roll up very quickly. If you can do it quickly enough, the SB Infantry should all be in rout by the time the elephants finish off your other 3 Cohorts. Assuming the cav battle comes out about even; you should have the equivalent of 10 full units of Winded/Tired Cohorts left, to face 2 and 1/2 units of winded Armored Elephants. Send any leftover cav you may have (and I would think you would have some) to chase routers, while you throw every Urban Cohort at the elephants, giving priority attention to the weakest and most tired enemy units. The idea is not so much to kill off every elephant as it is to tire the elephants and also get them concerned with the number of opponents, so that they rout or at least run amok.

B.) SELEUCID (Strategy 1) : 20 units of Armored Elephants. 4 to take out his elephants; 4 to totally destroy everything else; and 12 held in reserve; in case your opponent thinks that victory is even a glimmer of a possibility. This is how you get your brother to agree to denarii limits. Any questions?

C.) SELEUCID (Strategy 2. Use after denarii limits are imposed because you used Strategy 1) : 3 or 4 units of Armored Elephants. The rest are Catas. Your ellies take on his. 5 of your Catas destroy his 6 SB Cav and Onager. And then you have roughly 4 bands of 4 Catas against his 10 SB Infantry. Should be a cake walk if you have the skill to coordinate multiple (3 or 4) simultaneous cav attacks on a single infantry unit. But first see if he will try to chase you. If so, let him tire his troops out before you attack.

D.) Once you get denarii limits, some suggestions in my earlier posts may become more viable.

Hope this helps.

[The beserker]

Hi, im beserker

If you want to beat carthage you need people with long spears/pikes, to take out elephants the best way is javelins. Javelins are great for hitting the men on top of the elephants, and fire arrow are good for making them run amok. As for carthages infantry, well they are rubbish, so just use your infantry.

P.S play as the macedonians if you can