Libya and Nova Carthago shouldn't exist - their cities should become mixture of Carthaginian and neutral

[Dunadd]

The biggest wars Rome fought as a Republic were against Carthage, but in Rome II most of Africa and parts of Spain are controlled by AI 'client states' which didn't exist historically in the period - Libya and 'Nova Carthago'. These factions shouldn't exist in this period and their cities should be made a mixture of Carthaginian and neutrals that Carthage can expand into.

Carthage has been turned into the weakest of weak and unviable factions, when it should be Rome's main rival in the western Mediterranean and a tough one to beat.

Rome, the Massassilae(Numidians), Gaetuli, Garamtines, Turdetani (Spaniards) Sparta (which historically shouldn't be a faction at all in this period - just part of a faction), etc give more than enough challenge for a Carthaginian player or to stop an AI Carthage just steamrollering everything.

Any chance of someone making a mod to change this so it's more like the (much better) starting setup in Rome I but with the improvements in Rome II (militia garrisons etc) kept?

Or of CA patching it to make this change?

[omzdog]

Ya, we were trying to hand all the African and Hispannic coastal regions to Carthage in the Workshop thread.
Its been largely unsuccessful but the pursuit continues.

CA's interpretation of history is worse than if concept art had been done through a kindergarten coloring book.
Not only that, but it also hinders gameplay unnecessarily.
I don't know who was fired for making this game the way it is but I feel sorry for that jobless individual.

[SKSlave]

Giving Carthage all of its proper territories would have made for a much better fight as a Roman player.

[karamazovmm]

it was a simple matter of balance, imagine if the player received the entire carthage? talk about easy

the same goes for the seleucids

what needs to be stopped is the buff for some african cities

[Greve Af Göteborg]

imagine if the player received the entire carthage?

Oh man that would be so AWESOME. Just imagine struggling to get a hold in Iberia to utilize all those metal resources while getting attacked by angry Iberian tribes. Trying to defend against north african tribes that do raids on your north african cities. Meddling with Syracuse and its greek allies because of the border friction on Sicily. And then going full on Punic war with the powerful Rome.

Doesn't that sound badass?

[Lathrim]

it was a simple matter of balance, imagine if the player received the entire carthage? talk about easy

the same goes for the seleucids

what needs to be stopped is the buff for some african cities

Perhaps but, as it is, Carthage, Lybia and Nova Carthago provide no threat whatsoever to the player. Hell, Carthage falls apart by turn thirty 90% of the time!

[Dunadd]

it was a simple matter of balance, imagine if the player received the entire carthage? talk about easy

the same goes for the seleucids

what needs to be stopped is the buff for some african cities

You don't have to give them it all, just Thapsus and whatever city is West of Carthage (i forget its name) and the Balaeric Islands. Leave the rest independent as it was in Rome I and the various mods for it. When there are the Romans, the Spaniards (Turdetani) , Numidians (Massaesyle), Gaetuli, etc to fight it is more than enough of a challenge - believe me.

Seleucids are not the cake walk you'd think either. Both factions have lots of cities a long way from their capitals (much harder to keep public order and prevent revolts) and are fighting multiple enemies of multiple fronts. Carthage fighting the Romans or the Seleucids fighting the Ptolemaic Egyptians alone would not be easy - add in all the rebels and other factions they have to fight and it's not easy at all.

[Crymson]

it was a simple matter of balance, imagine if the player received the entire carthage? talk about easy

the same goes for the seleucids

This isn't an arcade game. It is meant to be based on history. This game is even more unhistorical than the original Rome, even with the latter's flaming pigs and head hurlers. Fortunately, that game was easily modded. This one is not.

[Remo]

it was a simple matter of balance, imagine if the player received the entire carthage? talk about easy

the same goes for the seleucids

what needs to be stopped is the buff for some african cities

Uhh, how about they make the game historically accurate without removing things they don't need to, and let the players handle balancing their own play experiences? Instead they have to make the map ahistoric for the sake of "Balance" when all it does is completely break Carthage, one of the most powerful nations at the time. All for what I would assume is a fear that Carthage would gobble up Rome, even though it won't. If Carthage had all of its land it would be so spread out it would take some decent micromanagement to keep it together. Oh but Rome gets to just skip its way to an easy unstoppable empire.

I have this grand Idea CA, how about the next time you have a idea about what WE want, you just let it go...

[Tacitursa]

it was a simple matter of balance, imagine if the player received the entire carthage? talk about easy

It's never been an issue in other TW games, Medieval 2 : Byz , Turks , HRE , Mongols all started out pretty overpowered with more money , units and settlements than any other faction. Empire had British with sick economy and settlements in every theater of war.

Having a variety of factions that have easier or harder starts to the campaign is fun. The start of Rome 2 is almost identical for every faction and everyone has the same army cap. Sparta and Epirus are supposedly the very hard campaigns but they are nothing compared to Crusader states who have to defend against constant Jihads of Egyptian and Mongol stacks. Shogun 2 also had a really good easy/hard scale between factions, some of them being quite brutal on highest difficulty.

[karamazovmm]

with that much territory? nope.

there isn't even going to be a struggle, you can steamroll everything in the first 10-15 turns, because you are going to need to recruit units, thats the only reason to take so long

just from the top of my head they would start with 5 provinces and 3 that would be partial, with that number I can make 13k per turn with 2 full stacks and 1 navy

[Anna_Gein]

with that much territory? nope. there isn't even going to be a struggle, you can steamroll everything in the first 10-15 turns, because you are going to need to recruit units, thats the only reason to take so long just from the top of my head they would start with 5 provinces and 3 that would be partial, with that number I can make 13k per turn with 2 full stacks and 1 navy

You are just taking into account how the map and the starting position were balanced/supposed to be balanced with a client states scenario.

Should Carthage really start with control over modern Algeria ? No. Either there is a thin coastral region for Carthage or this part of the map goes for different Numidians factions. The regions weath could be modified, etc ...
Soon you are going to say that overpowered Sparta and Athens at the expanse of the Greek Leagues could not be avoided because the only Greek regions besides Thessaly are Sparta and Athens ...

There is a lot of possibilities to balance Carthage starting position without this client state non-sense. And even if client states was used, why not give a sub-Carthaginian faction control over the Barcid holdings in Spain and distrubute the North West African holdings to multiple Numidians clients ?

[Greve Af Göteborg]

Well, just balance it around that. Make the african and the iberian tribes stronger and perhaps make rome 1 stronger (ie remove the etruscan league and give rome that territory, give epirus Taras) Also give Syracuse some alliances with perhaps macedon or epirus.

Come on, isn't that better than having some imaginary client states that you can't annex?

[karamazovmm]

not really, you are not balancing anything, to put bluntly, the easiest factions are carthage, rome and egypt, then we will have the seleucids in the future. because they have a much more territory than the others, not to mention start with actual client "headache" states.

what needs to be toned down is the extreme income from some african cities and thats why carthage is always dying. I find interesting that in all my games, rome has never been able to beat the etruscan league and carthage never managed to survive in africa, and will take a refuge in france or spain

[Inhuman One]

Seeing how the Seleucids where the most difficult faction to play as in rome 1, I wouldnt say that size makes it easy, especially when its spread out. Just means you get lots of enemies and not enough armies to protect your land.

[karamazovmm]

seeing that I disagree that the grey death was even a difficult faction to play, you know get a bunch of client states and secure borders

[Dunadd]

seeing that I disagree that the grey death was even a difficult faction to play, you know get a bunch of client states and secure borders

And client states are good for what? Other than stopping you expanding other than by having to go to war with them? Not much. Trade rights and they'll make a formal declaration of war on anyone who goes to war on you. That's it. I'd far rather have no client states so i could use some of the income and troops they have properly.

Also everyone knows it was the Yellow Death that was the problem (Ptolemaics). They are a plague on the world!

Oh man that would be so AWESOME. Just imagine struggling to get a hold in Iberia to utilize all those metal resources while getting attacked by angry Iberian tribes. Trying to defend against north african tribes that do raids on your north african cities. Meddling with Syracuse and its greek allies because of the border friction on Sicily. And then going full on Punic war with the powerful Rome.

Exactly. Holding a lot of provinces does not equal very easy if those provinces are very spread out and you're fighting lots of enemies at once. And Carthage and Rome should be the factions likeliest to come out on top on the western med.

[omzdog]

Since Carthage only had tight control of coastal regions, instead of handing provinces over to fictional factions, CA should have just made the cities a slightly economically weaker in their development.

Defending this lack of creativity is laughable.

[Tim_Ward]

It turns out that there's a 800 income bonus that's being given to Iberian and African minor nations for no reason. This might play a part in the difficulties Carthage has. A mod to fix it is here: http://www.twcenter.net/forums/showt...-Save-Carthage

I still agree with the OP that these two factions should be removed - splitting Carthage into three different factions is one of the more unfathomable decisions by CA. I literally have no idea what they were going for with that one. Along with the 800 income thing, it's hard to read it as anything other than a deliberate attempt to cripple Carthage, but that makes no sense either.

[adrastea]

It turns out that there's a 800 income bonus that's being given to Iberian and African minor nations for no reason. This might play a part in the difficulties Carthage has. A mod to fix it is here: http://www.twcenter.net/forums/showt...-Save-Carthage

I still agree with the OP that these two factions should be removed - splitting Carthage into three different factions is one of the more unfathomable decisions by CA. I literally have no idea what they were going for with that one. Along with the 800 income thing, it's hard to read it as anything other than a deliberate attempt to cripple Carthage, but that makes no sense either.

I think it was an attempt to simulate the Barcids vs Hannonids and trade vs agriculturist conflicts of Carthaginian politics. But they didn't do it well.