Rome vs Carthage (playing Rome)

[nunz]

I'm currently at Turn 58, playing H/N .. I'm kind of stuck here.

I've crushed wave after wave of 12000 man Carthaginian armies as they try landing on the shores of Southern Sicily. I must have won over 3-4 of these in the last 10-12 turns. I've spent the last ~15 turns researching Naval Maneuvers and now working on researching Double Plank, so I can build a Drydock in Taras.

My main issue is that the Carthaginian fleets are literally just full stacks of Pursuit Trihemiolia's with archers, compared to the Pursuit Trihemiola's I can recruit that have only javelinmen - side note - I do not fight naval battles manually. They feel terrible to play and I hate it.

I've spent many turns now delaying their attempts to retake Sicily, but I can't do anything to counter them due to the insane amount of troops they have. They have two full stacks of Pursuit Trihemiolia's, and ONLY those, and it seems the game Auto-Resolve really favors that extra range. I've been trying to build ramming ships to counter. I built an 18 unit fleet mixed of Assault Quadrireme, Trireme, and Pursuit Trihemiolia's, and to my surprise, the Carthaginian fleet of 19 Pursuit Trihemiolia's and a flagship had the Auto-Resolve showing an absolute crushing defeat. I retreated my fleet, confused, and now I'm stumped..

I notice that the Drydock isn't really offering me much that will help besides some artillery ships. Maybe the range will help with the Auto-Resolve, but the insane cost of each ship+upkeep will be an issue. I'm curious what others have done to figure this out.

I've made peace with Epeiros after kicking them out of Italy, and they've done well. Liguria and the Veneti to the North have continued to wage war on each other with no one currently winning. Massalia was overtaken by the Volcae, and the Volcae have just declared war on Liguria, so I'm trying to get a hold of Corsica et Sardinia, and hopefully begin a ground invasion of Africa, before the Volcae reach me and force me to push North. The Macedonian's were just wiped out by the southern Greek states.

The Ptolemy and Carthage have a non-aggression pact and trade. They seem to be good friends, so I've been trying to convince the Ptolemaioi to begin trade with me, so that I can start shoveling money to them to break the peace between them. Currently Carthage is really only focused on me and I think that's part of the problem - the issue is getting anyone to go to war with them as, even when compared to me, they are heavily favored in the balance of power.

[nunz]

Update-

Turn 66 and we made landfall on Qart Hadasht, and the mighty Gaius Fabricius slaughtered some Punics

I don't know what happened. I had a fleet of 18 units with one supply ship, managed to sneak them over to Akragas port, and then loaded my full-stack army on. It took 2 turns to made landfall, but the Carthaginian fleet did not intercept me. They have 2 fleets of 15 units each that are between Sicily and Southern Italy, and they just stayed there. I got lucky, I guess..

[devu]

My preference for defending southern sicily is to put 6-8 ballista + 6 principes in an army inside the settlement and have no fleet defending the port.

Smart positioning of the ballista inside the settlement make it so an infinite number of ships cant land before getting blown up meaning the main threat to the garrison is elephants/cavalry that spawn on the map instead of in ships.

If you have the fleet in a port and get attacked, your non-garrison land units spawn on the edge of the map and ballista cant deny ships landing.

Other people plant an army in defensive stance between the 2 minor settlements so it can defend both at the same time.

[struckat]

I have yet to make it across to Africa. I can hold Sicily, but also have guard the coast of Italy. Yet to figure it out

[AdrianTotalWar]

Usually, the Carthaginians are dominating me at sea until I conquer the northern part of Italy along with the islands.

[rovert]

Get the tech for extra ramming + you can upgrade your Navy General with extra ramming ( The Red Option ) , Just leave him parked in port until he has the upgrade but the tech ramming should be enough , you can 1 poke those annoying archer & slinger boats into the drink with Quadarimes , Naval battles are not that hard just line up your front with there's and ram , once you smash down there front line with 1 poke it get a bit annoying but its over from there anyway

[AdrianTotalWar]

It tends to be pretty hard if I don't match the Carthaginian fleet in numbers roughly. As they always have 1-2 full stacks of navies, it's pretty costly for Rome to keep a full navy early on to support the crossing of your armies. Sometimes, if you subjugate Syracuse, they will build a navy and start doing damage to their fleet making it slightly safer to navigate the waters.

[Kruik]

Best option is to just not deal with the fleets, honestly. Land troops in the far eastern edge of their empire in Euphranta and work your way West. You'll still have to deal with stacks of troops, moreso even at times because of Carthage's vassal Masaesyli, but you'll at least be making progress towards taking their capital. Once that's done, it becomes far easier. You can also try to distract them by paying other empires to join war against them. The fellow in Rutubis, Mauretania can be amenable to that.

[struckat]

In one campaign I kept throwing money at Syracuse, and before I realized what happened they took all of North Africa....Doh!

[AdrianTotalWar]

That's so funny. I did this to Massalia and they took over Gaul ....

[ceasarhater]

What usually happens in my campaigns against Carthage is they throw their fleets into the meet grinder by capturing undefended Sicilian towns. I then sweep in with an army, kill the fleet and loot the town. PO won’t matter since you’ll have local troops to maintain order. You can entirely avoid Carthage basically by liberating Sicily and take Corsica et Sardinia. Fighting Carthage in Africa is an insane grind because of the client states. Using Corsica as a staging ground for assaulting the coast of Spain is fun.

[colonel klinck]

Hello,

Your feeling about naval battle to be « terrible to play » is just a feeling. There are some quite initial placements and moves to know and master. I always choose ram attacks and get crushing victories often with no vessel loss or sometimes only a couple. The secret is to quickly sail against the ennemy ships without waiting for them to come and block your own moves. There are some tutos in the web to play naval battles and it really gives you fun once you’ve taken the hand of it. It’s even easier when there are only the slow and vulnerable transport ships of an army. The real interest for me playing VH/VH is to mostly prevent land battles in Sicily. Carthage seems to have infinite manpower and keeps launching countless troops trying to retake feet on the island. As roman I always play as historical as possible. The only thing I canot do is to let the Syracusians alone. They always take an hostile stance, no way to trade with them and putting feet on the island without their accordance makes them more and more hostile. On top of that they have a main harbor and a superstrategical position for trading. Last but not least, taking only punic possessions in Sicily without having the control bonus for having the entire island is extremly harsh for your economy, reinforcement and resplenishment. So against Carthage it’s a bit more challenging. I try to put an end to the first punic war around 241 BC after having made last it about 20-22 years on land and sea. At this period your economy can barely afford having only one single fleet. Climax comes when you manage to land an army in Africa near Qar Hadast, deal a couple of land battles, raid a minor city then re-embark to Sicily with a more or less ragged army. After that things will gradually calm down and peace possible. Till second punic war carthaginians can remain a rater good regional power if you let them grow in Spain. Keep an eye on diplomacy and don’t make military alliance too early with some celtiberian tribes especially those hostile to your african némésis....Before and between second and third punic wars Carthaginians could even be interesting trading partners as well as client state. Business with them may become so lucrative that it would be a pity to have them utterly and for good destroyed around 140BC �� But as a true roman always remember : delenda est Carthago !