How to deal with Massylia as Carthage?

[The Ferret]

I've started three Carthage campaigns now, and I'm having trouble dealing with the Massylians. (All on H/H difficulty.)

In each I have endeavored to make good relations with Massylia. In two I secured an alliance backed by long-term tribute on my part, which brings relations to Outstanding. Unfortunately, the AI doesn't seem to care about that, and when my armies go campaigning elsewhere, Massylia inevitably attacks. (In fact, the game where I didn't ally with them was when it took the longest for them to attack.)

It seems to me that Carthage is in a bind. Either you ignore Massylia and get attacked, or you leave 1-2 full stacks in Tunisia and drain your treasury without any forces to expand, or you attack Massylia and get poor lands and 3-5 full horde stacks on your doorstep (and, even as Carthage, you don't have the money to deal with that without completely abandoning all other fronts).

How do successful Carthage players deal with Massylia without neglecting other fronts?

[delra]

I typically open like this with Carthage:

1. Take Syracuse with my Sicilian army, then disband that army.
2. Disband (or hide in forts where upkeep is free) all other redundant troops to get a healthy cash surplus. Garrison with governors only in most cities (no free upkeeps for Carthage). Disband most of the navy too (I know unhistorical:-p).
3. Low taxes everywhere to promote growth.
4. Build a bunch of ports and farms everywhere to boost income and growth further.
5. When I am filthy rich (can maintain around 50k treasury) and all constructions are going, I am ready to build two armies of heavies around Carthage.
6. Full focus on Massalia until they are dead. Make them go horde, which is trivial, then when they go horde force battle when stacks separate and focus on killing generals in those battles.

Then I conquer along the coast of Africa and send smaller stacks with dumber generals to get the interior under control (which is useless in terms of money but allows me to feel nice about my empire not having to ever deal with Africa ever again). Then I look what Romans and others are up to, either kill Rome (it's a really easy D-Day sort of war) or rather take Marseilles and Emporion and look towards taking a bigger bite out of Iberia. But that differs from game to game.

A pro-tip to holding Romans off - spam spies and assassins to their peninsula and just have cities they conquer revolt from them over and over again, their population is the most rebellious of all conquered people on the entire map so a bunch of semi-competent spies can do to them what Baktrian spies do to far-off Seleukid cities.

[The Ferret]

I did try that.

Unfortunately, in the midst of steps 2/3/4, Massylia attacked mother Carthage with a full stack - despite an alliance, outstanding relations, and ongoing tribute (~500 mnai/turn) to them.

Perhaps the tribute, which I offered in the hopes that it would keep them peaceful, is letting them build enough troops to get ballsy?

[delra]

I think it's one of those M2TW things that CA just didn't get right. It varies from campaign to campaign. Sometimes AI freezes and does literally nothing for many turns, sometimes the same AI can go on a massive conquest spree early on and be very active. For example, you can watch Pergamon with four full flags of troops around their city for 50 turns, or have the same Pergamon sweep through Asia Minor and Greece conquering a dozen cities in that time (my last game they eliminated Macedonia, for example).

With the amount of games I saw Massalia do nothing at all forever, I think you got unlucky. :-)

[nvm]

I think Numidia and Carthage are pretty much fated to fight each other at the current rate. In several games I've played on the latest patches, AI Carthage has always allied AI Numidia. And a few turns later, they'd be at war all of a sudden. Forcing them to become a protectorate, or exiling them by giving them a city in Spain or some island then taking Thugga might work better.

I really don't know why would you want to be at peace with them either. Their income is really trash with one city, but the 1000 mnai per turn from tribal governments can really add up. Their troops are trash as well so you could easily turn them into target practice for your generals.

[Shadowwalker]

I was just about to create the very same thread, to be honest.

As Carthage you have several inevitable wars within the first 25-75 turns (I'm always playing on H/M):

(1) Areuakoi
They most often go for Arsé and then Mastia, unless they decide to do nothing which happens in about 25% of the campaigns I played so far, regardless of my chosen faction. If they go on conquest you not only have to defend Mastia and Gader but also Ebora and even Alalia and Nora - as soon as they have a port at Arsé or Emporion they start building fleets and enviously look at your island provinces.

(2) Lusotannan
There are two common strategies as far as I experienced - they either go for Tolé and then head north for the camps in Northens Iberia or south for Ebora and then Gader. More often than not they ally with the Areuakoi - if that happens you should instantly start shipping troops and good influential FMs (if you have any to spare, that is) to Iberia because chances are good that you will have a fullstack of both iberian tribal factionn at Gader and Mastia within the next 10 turns. If they don't ally you could be lucky and secure an alliance with the Lusotannan which provides you with the chance to defeat the Areuakoi and secure the eastern iberian coast up to Emporion.

(3) Rome
The conflict you should not avoid (for historical reasons) but also the conflict you can avoid the easiest. Rome is the only faction around you that will accept an alliance without much effort. But as said - you should not do that unless you want to have a campaign that just "feels wrong". If you don't ally with them you will have naval invasions at Alalia early on, a bitter fight for southwestern Italy/Sicily (depending on who holds Rhegion/Messana) and the need for at least 2 fleets to break off the blockades of the ports of your core provinces.

(4) Epeiros
The least probable war early on but if they manage to take Rhegion and fend off the Romani they will go for Messana and blockade your ports in Sicily/Sardinia/Carthage/Atiqa/Adrumeto/Lepki as well. They are unfortunately too determined at war to accept a ceasefire in the early game (unless you offer like 10k+map info+trade rights, which is nothing you can afford in the first turns)

All these conflicts are potentially dangerous but not threatening your very survival. The last potential theatre of war though is a different matter:

(5) Massylia
Massylia is both the weakest and the most dangerous opponent for Carthage, because of two things.
First, Thugga is bordering most of your starting african provinces (all of them if they manage to take Kirtan). So while you are spread out and simply don't have the funds to defend every province - from Ippone to Lepki - at the same time, Massylia can strike in all directions.
Second, they horde. And whatever you do, you will not be able to prevent them from doing so. At least I never succeeded at that. (Which is effectively the reason why I was about to start a thread about Carthage and Massylia, see below).

(6) random port blockades and thereby wars with factions far away
The AI has become a lot more active on the naval front with the latest patches, which is a good thing. Unfortunately this also means that every nation with a port has to deal with rather "silly" wars due to this. For Carthage it means that you should have a diplomat in the eastern mediterranean as soon as you can spare one, because there's a good chance that you are at war with Koinon Hellenon or Makedonia or the Seleukids or the Ptolemaioi or Pergamon or Pontos or the Bosphoran Greeks at some point in the campaign, just because they sent a fleet to the west, stumbled upon a port of yours and decided that this is the right port to block.
I usually don't use Force Diplomacy at all since the diplomacy in EB II is way superiour to EB I and in most cases sensible and predictable enough for my liking. ( ) But in case of such "wars" I simply use FD to establish peace again. Only exception being the "close-by" factions (Makedonia, KH, Ptolemaioi) since they could invade with a proper force as well.


Okay, that said, I'd like to share my initial strategy for Carthage before I ask the question this wall of text is preparing for.

Turn 1:
Select Annon (in Sicily) as potential Successor.

Use your diplomat to approach the Massylian fort just southwest of Carthage, secure trade rights. Send the Diplomat to Cape Bon, transport him to Lilybaeum via ship. After that, disband the fleet completely. Even with the now lower upkeep the three units still cost you 2k/turn. You simply cannot afford this in the first turns.

Combine all your forces in Sicily (except the governor of Lilybaeum) and march towards Messana. The elephants capture the fort just west to Messana and stay there (free upkeep for a 2000mnai-upkeep-unit is too benefitial to not use it).

Combine your african forces (field army west of Carthage, garrisons except the respective governor in Carthage and Atiqa) and send them along the coast towards Kirtan. Send the garrison of Adrumeto (except the governor, as usual) behind that force. Don't combine that garrison into the army before you move. You have to be very quick to get Kirtan before the Massylians and the garrison of Adrumeto would slow you down significantly.

Send your assassin to Kirtan and try to kill the FM there. The chances are good that he'll succeed.

Build port garrisons in Atiqa, Adrumeto and Carthage. It costs you 8k mnai but will pay off very soon.

Lower taxes in Atiqa as this will be the second settlement where you can build a Carthage council government, thereby speeding up the colonization process (that government is basically what Hellenistic Metropolises are for the greek factions).
You need a large city for that so you want to make sure Atiqa grows as fast as possible.

Lower taxes in Alalia, build farms there.

Lower taxes in Gader and Mastia, build a temple of Baal-Hammon in each of those settlements. Gader will be at 70% public order after lowering taxes so you need to instantly enhance the infrastructure there to prevent a rebellion (the settlement would grow quick enough to bring the public order down to 65% within 5-10 turns).

Send the fleet southeast of Gader to the port of Mastia, disband the Trieres, keep the Quinqeremes. You'll need them within a few turns.

Lower taxes in Lepki. Send the field army there into the settlement and disband all forces, the two generals are enough to keep public order in check.

Disband all forces in Nora, disband the maure infantry in Alalia, disband all forces in Ebora, disband the Batoroi in Ippone.

There's still some starting money left, use it to build temples of Baal-Hammon in the outlying regions (Ebora, Lepki, Ippone) or farms in Lepki and Nora.

Turn 2:

If your assassin was successful at the first turn, send him to Siga (and later Lixus/Sala) were 4 other rebel FM wait to be assassinated.
If he wasn't and still lives, try again at Kirtan.
Unless the Massylians have done it (they usually don't before turn 3), siege Kirtan with the african army. Send the former Adrumeto garrison towards that army.
Siege Messana (use the southern of the two possible positions to lay siege as the will give you a nice hill to gather your army on when the sally happens).
Send the diplomat towards Capua, don't even bother to get a ceasefire with the Epeirotes. You don't have 10k to spare, after all (perhaps you are even in the red).


These steps are what I always do first in a Carthage campaign (and I have started quite a few in EB II ) after that it starts to depend on too many factors to follow a "standard strategy" anymore.
What I always do in the following turns is trying to secure an alliance with the Lusotannan (see above) and the celtic faction that seems to reach Massalia and/or Tolosa first (usually the Aruernoi) just to make the midgame a bit easier.
For the Lusotannan you have to offer about 10k as well (in additioon to map rights and trade rights), but the benefits are so huge that I usually do it nevertheless as soon as I have the money.

General advices for Carthage:

(1) Lower taxes as often as possible to allow your settlements to grow to 6k households as soon as possible (as this opens up the opportunity to upgrade the factional government).
(2) Concentrate your colony buildings on a very few settlements in the early game, you desperately need more colony points. The settlements you focus on should also be the first to get farm improvements and good governors. I usually focus on Atiqa, Lilybaeum and Nora.
(3) Build temples of Baal-Hammon everywhere. The corruption in your spread-out empire would eat your income, otherwise.
(4) Don't build Mines in Mastia and Gader as soon as you have the money, rather build strategic fortifications + mines in Nora. Iberia is a black hole of corruption and you need serious law improvements before building mines there.


Okay, after all this text which I basically wrote to give you an idea how I approach a Carthage campaign - how do you deal with the dreaded Massylia horde?
Or in other words: Is there any way to prevent them from hording at all?

Recently I trapped all their FMs in Thugga, assaulted the settlement, made sure to kill every single soldier of theirs (and all FMs, of course) - and they still horded.
I always thought that a faction can only horde if you capture their last settlement but they still have at least one FM around. Or if you autoresolve that attack at the last settlement, since via autoresolve the FMs technically don't die.

But it seems that there is no chance to prevent a faction from hording.

And due to the fact that Carthage is so very spread out and that the horde is consisting of several fullstacks which move to Lepki or Adrumeto or even Ippone, I have no idea how to prevent my african provinces from being overrun once I took Thugga (or whatever is Massylias last settlement).

This bothers me with Carthage but it is a problem for me with for example Baktria (which has to extinct 2 horde factions) or Saba (which has to kill of the Nabataeans), too.

Any tips would therefore be very much appreciated.

I'd also welcome any advice about how to remove the horde feature at all.

[V.T. Marvin]

I'd also welcome any advice about how to remove the horde feature at all.

This last question is the easiest one - simply comment out (add the ";" semicolon) the relevant lines in descr_sm_factions.txt:

faction						f_numidia	;;; Faction number 21culture						cul_7
religion					rel_a
symbol						models_strat/symbol_f_numidia.CAS
rebel_symbol					models_strat/symbol_rebels.CAS
primary_colour					red 61, green 58, blue 117
secondary_colour				red 61, green 58, blue 117
loading_logo					loading_screen/symbols/symbol128_f_numidia.tga
standard_index					26
logo_index					FACTION_LOGO_F_NUMIDIA
small_logo_index				SMALL_FACTION_LOGO_F_NUMIDIA
triumph_value					5
custom_battle_availability			yes
;horde_min_units					40
;horde_max_units					60
;horde_max_units_reduction_every_horde		20
;horde_unit_per_settlement_population		1
;horde_min_named_characters			4
;horde_max_percent_army_stack			80
;horde_disband_percent_on_settlement_capture	20
;horde_unit					numidian cavalry general bodyguard
;horde_unit					numidian cavalry general bodyguard
;horde_unit					numidian cavalry nobles
;horde_unit					numidian cavalry nobles
;horde_unit					numidian cavalry skirmishers
;horde_unit					numidian cavalry skirmishers
;horde_unit					numidian cavalry skirmishers
;horde_unit					numidian cavalry skirmishers
;horde_unit					numidian cavalry skirmishers
;horde_unit					numidian cavalry skirmishers
;horde_unit					numidian cavalry skirmishers
;horde_unit					numidian infantry picked
;horde_unit					numidian infantry picked
;horde_unit					numidian infantry picked
;horde_unit					numidian infantry skirmishers
;horde_unit					numidian infantry skirmishers
;horde_unit					numidian infantry skirmishers
;horde_unit					african infantry slingers
;horde_unit					african infantry slingers
;horde_unit					numidian infantry archers
;horde_unit					numidian infantry archers
can_sap						yes
prefers_naval_invasions				yes
can_have_princess				no
has_family_tree					yes
;;can_build_siege_towers				no

[Shadowwalker]

This last question is the easiest one - simply comment out (add the ";" semicolon) the relevant lines in descr_sm_factions.txt:

faction                        f_numidia    ;;; Faction number 21culture                        cul_7
religion                    rel_a
symbol                        models_strat/symbol_f_numidia.CAS
rebel_symbol                    models_strat/symbol_rebels.CAS
primary_colour                    red 61, green 58, blue 117
secondary_colour                red 61, green 58, blue 117
loading_logo                    loading_screen/symbols/symbol128_f_numidia.tga
standard_index                    26
logo_index                    FACTION_LOGO_F_NUMIDIA
small_logo_index                SMALL_FACTION_LOGO_F_NUMIDIA
triumph_value                    5
custom_battle_availability            yes
;horde_min_units                    40
;horde_max_units                    60
;horde_max_units_reduction_every_horde        20
;horde_unit_per_settlement_population        1
;horde_min_named_characters            4
;horde_max_percent_army_stack            80
;horde_disband_percent_on_settlement_capture    20
;horde_unit                    numidian cavalry general bodyguard
;horde_unit                    numidian cavalry general bodyguard
;horde_unit                    numidian cavalry nobles
;horde_unit                    numidian cavalry nobles
;horde_unit                    numidian cavalry skirmishers
;horde_unit                    numidian cavalry skirmishers
;horde_unit                    numidian cavalry skirmishers
;horde_unit                    numidian cavalry skirmishers
;horde_unit                    numidian cavalry skirmishers
;horde_unit                    numidian cavalry skirmishers
;horde_unit                    numidian cavalry skirmishers
;horde_unit                    numidian infantry picked
;horde_unit                    numidian infantry picked
;horde_unit                    numidian infantry picked
;horde_unit                    numidian infantry skirmishers
;horde_unit                    numidian infantry skirmishers
;horde_unit                    numidian infantry skirmishers
;horde_unit                    african infantry slingers
;horde_unit                    african infantry slingers
;horde_unit                    numidian infantry archers
;horde_unit                    numidian infantry archers
can_sap                        yes
prefers_naval_invasions                yes
can_have_princess                no
has_family_tree                    yes
;;can_build_siege_towers                no

Perfect! thank a lot.
From the looks of it it seems that I just received another tool to tinker with.

[Shadowwalker]

EDIT: Rereading my post, I realized that I somehow managed to almost completely miss the topic. *cough* Sorry.
EDIT #2: And now I managed to make a doublepost and can't delete it. Hmph.

[delra]

Or maybe just cut the number of units to something reasonable?

Quintus should look into maybe reducing the size of the Carthage faction, they seem to have way too many family members at start, more than there are cities to govern even with very quick expansion.

[Jervaj]

The only way to prevent the horde was through assasination or revolt if I remember correctly. Conquer will always lead to horde.

Alliance with Rome is actually historical accurate. But it should break as soon as Rome starts to show any interest in the mediterranean control, islands and such.

I thought thats was properly implemented. At least as Rome Chartage declares war on me if I start wandering arround Sicily

[jordiebenardus]

It might not be a historical way (or too far fetched to be realistic) but usually I tried to eliminate all the FMs except the ageing FL and leave the eldest one alone until he died and the faction is destroyed. Or option 2 is that I give a region close to my armies as gifts to them and proceed to conquer their capital city, eliminating the FMs but not taking all of their territories.