Page 1 of 2 12 LastLast
Results 1 to 20 of 21

Thread: Rome vs Carthage balance

  1. #1

    Default Rome vs Carthage balance

    Been playing through a Makedonia campaign, more or less following the route of conquest of Phillip/Alexander. Took Thrace, Asia Minor, Phoenicia, and now Egypt, destroying the Ptolemies.

    All that time, I've had an eye on the west, thinking that the Romans would loom large as a threat. I'm not crazy either, they've launched a series of amphibious landings against cities on the Adriatic in the north, but without success. They've also had little real success in the south, the toe of Italy remaining in the hands of their legionary rebels.

    I didn't really pay attention to Carthage until they arrived on my borders, taking Cyrenaica. It seems the Carthaginians have had far more success at fighting eleutheroi. They've taken the deep desert and have held them easily, they're turning their attention both east to Egypt and northwest to Spain now. They're also still allied to the Romans; a small Carthaginian army was bouncing around the Po Valley, helping the Romans attack cities (with little success).

    This strikes me as a rather unusual state of affairs. Is this a common thing for everyone else? Why does Carthage get the benefit of a bunch of seemingly easily taken desert provinces while Rome gets bogged down?

  2. #2

    Default Re: Rome vs Carthage balance

    Sometimes the Carthaginians have to wrestle with the Massylians for control of Africa, but yes. Rome consistently struggles to expand in my playthroughs. They almost never take Sicily or expand to the rest of the Mediterranean. I imagine part of that is that their size is the uncomfortable medium between the small 1-2 region factions that get economical boons to keep them afloat, or the massive size of the Seleukids which lets them turn a net profit.

    Historically the Romans needed to shed quite a bit of blood (both ways) to conquer northern Italy. I think one of the "Year in History" popups mention a massive defeat the Romans had to one of the Italian Celts, the thought that popped into my mind when seeing the number was "isn't that a Cannae-level loss?" I don't know about Carthaginian expansion in the desert, but the AI's success in that arena is probably because "effective logistics" is only a polite suggestion to Total War armies.

    Another part of it is that Autoresolve is not stacked in the Roman unit's favour until the Marian reforms. So the Legions that AI Rome sends out have a fair chance of getting defeated, contrast that with their outstanding performance on the battle map.

  3. #3
    Raiuga's Avatar Civis
    Join Date
    Sep 2014
    Location
    Portugal
    Posts
    156

    Default Re: Rome vs Carthage balance

    Rome Ai is plagued with pure incompetence when trying to conquer the southern Italy and expand to Sicily. For example, the city of Rhegion will resist Rome, attack after attack of numerically and superior quality armies, lead by a FM or not. The same goes for Messana. This is due mostly to the generals present in both cities that seem to be Rome greatest enemies.

    Playing has Carthage I found that to assure that Rome invades Sicily I would have to assassinate both generals in Rhegion and Messana, and destroy both rebel stacks present from the start near Syrakousai. Rome then, mostly effortless, takes Rhegion then invades Sicily by assaulting Syrakousai (even with the garrison script the city falls easily to an AI full stack), and then attacks Messana and starts the war with Carthage for you. The problem will them keeping Rhegion and Taras because they rebel allot.

    I assume the process works with other playable factions. I wished the "1st punic war" was somewhat more scripted to avoid Rome and Carthage lack of aggression to each other.

  4. #4

    Default Re: Rome vs Carthage balance

    There are some additional scripted bits around Messana in the upcoming patch to make that first clash less phoney.

  5. #5

    Default Re: Rome vs Carthage balance

    The problem I have when playing Rome is that Carthage never attacks me. There is the scripted declaration of war once they take Messena, then nothing. In fact, it's their Numidian allies who send armies (lol).

  6. #6

    Default Re: Rome vs Carthage balance

    Quote Originally Posted by Guils View Post
    The problem I have when playing Rome is that Carthage never attacks me. There is the scripted declaration of war once they take Messena, then nothing. In fact, it's their Numidian allies who send armies (lol).
    Again, that has changed.

  7. #7

    Default Re: Rome vs Carthage balance

    Don't know about another conditions in scripted Carthage-Numidia war, but once someone take Likash they are at war. But almost always they are at war before turn 150 w/o message. Perhaps once Numidia doesn't have space to expand, they just create handfull number of stack and just attack. What i don't understand, why Numidia AI right from a start send stacks into Lybia region w/o attacking Amon, just freeze there, even thought there is still Garama and second nomad camp to capture.

  8. #8

    Default Re: Rome vs Carthage balance

    Quote Originally Posted by Maroslav View Post
    Don't know about another conditions in scripted Carthage-Numidia war, but once someone take Likash they are at war. But almost always they are at war before turn 150 w/o message. Perhaps once Numidia doesn't have space to expand, they just create handfull number of stack and just attack. What i don't understand, why Numidia AI right from a start send stacks into Lybia region w/o attacking Amon, just freeze there, even thought there is still Garama and second nomad camp to capture.
    Well, at least they are not invading Massalia like they did in one of my campaigns x) But yeah, their behaviour can be very weird sometimes.

  9. #9

    Default Re: Rome vs Carthage balance

    As a Carthage player, the only negative thing I can say about the Carthaginian-Roman conflict is that the very first one feels contrived. Other than that, I am quite happy. Does Rome have hard hitting infantry? It does. Does Rome have a lot of hard hitting infantry. It does.

  10. #10

    Default Re: Rome vs Carthage balance

    Quote Originally Posted by Rad View Post
    As a Carthage player, the only negative thing I can say about the Carthaginian-Roman conflict is that the very first one feels contrived. Other than that, I am quite happy. Does Rome have hard hitting infantry? It does. Does Rome have a lot of hard hitting infantry. It does.
    The tactical superiority of Roman heavy infantry is rather negated when it has severe strategic disadvantages of being surrounded by extremely strong eleutheroi. Carthage can build an income and recruitment base far larger than that of Rome. The Carthaginians had an extremely hard time of trying to beat the Romans even with excellent commanders.

  11. #11

    Default Re: Rome vs Carthage balance

    Quote Originally Posted by IrishHitman View Post
    The tactical superiority of Roman heavy infantry is rather negated when it has severe strategic disadvantages of being surrounded by extremely strong eleutheroi. Carthage can build an income and recruitment base far larger than that of Rome. The Carthaginians had an extremely hard time of trying to beat the Romans even with excellent commanders.
    In my campaigns, it takes them time to break through the northern eleutheroi wall, but once they do, I have to intervene to stop them taking over everything.

  12. #12

    Default Re: Rome vs Carthage balance

    Quote Originally Posted by Rad View Post
    In my campaigns, it takes them time to break through the northern eleutheroi wall, but once they do, I have to intervene to stop them taking over everything.
    Which is historical enough.

    Rome not even getting to Sicily is a problem. Rome being unable to deal with its own deserters, and Rome not challenging the rising power of Carthage as a dire threat to its own existence as a sovereign state... you see the issue.

  13. #13

    Default Re: Rome vs Carthage balance

    Quote Originally Posted by IrishHitman View Post

    Rome not even getting to Sicily is a problem. Rome being unable to deal with its own deserters, and Rome not challenging the rising power of Carthage as a dire threat to its own existence as a sovereign state... you see the issue.
    They eventually do deal with the deserters and land on Sicily. But yeah, they don't take Carthage serious enough.

  14. #14

    Default Re: Rome vs Carthage balance

    Perhaps the straits of Messena has to be reopened so it's easier for them to go to Sicily.

  15. #15

    Default Re: Rome vs Carthage balance

    Quote Originally Posted by Guils View Post
    Perhaps the straits of Messena has to be reopened so it's easier for them to go to Sicily.
    No need for that.

  16. #16

    Default Re: Rome vs Carthage balance

    One thing that AI Rome does right in my campaigns, they do try to take down Illyria and Illyria Hellenike and succeed fairly often against the Eleutheroi, or the faction (usually Epeiros or Makedon) holding it leaves it poorly garrisoned. They also take Sardinia and Corsica with regularity (also maybe the Balearic Islands?).

    Sicily and Qarthadast are big, but the Romans also expanded throughout the Mediterranean. Their naval game and numbers in general need to be upped. A less extreme version of the AI Sweboz is what I imagine Kineas saw when he made his Hydra comparison.

  17. #17

    Default Re: Rome vs Carthage balance

    Quote Originally Posted by Lusitanio View Post
    No need for that.
    Indeed. Rome is not hesitating at all to launch naval invasions. They're not exactly playing ruthlessly, they seem to abandon easy sieges in my current campaign, but the getting across the water part is going just fine.

  18. #18

    Default Re: Rome vs Carthage balance

    Quote Originally Posted by IrishHitman View Post
    Indeed. Rome is not hesitating at all to launch naval invasions. They're not exactly playing ruthlessly, they seem to abandon easy sieges in my current campaign, but the getting across the water part is going just fine.
    Indeed. The next patch will add more difficult to the player and some new things for the Carthaginian player which will make his campaigns a lot harder, especially if the team decides to put in the game some events I created, if they don't, I will create a submod for them, 'cause they are awesome and make the campaign much harder.

    Edit: Just to say that most of the events are not specific to Carthage but can be for all the factions! But even without my events, the team already did (and does) a great work with a lot of new things for the next patch. You just have to see the twitter to know that the Celtiberians will be very fun to play due to their new looks.
    Last edited by Lusitanio; August 27, 2019 at 03:15 PM.

  19. #19

    Default Re: Rome vs Carthage balance

    Quote Originally Posted by Lusitanio View Post
    Indeed. The next patch will add more difficult to the player and some new things for the Carthaginian player which will make his campaigns a lot harder, especially if the team decides to put in the game some events I create, if they don't, I will create a submod for them, 'cause they are awesome and make the campaign much harder.
    Yes, please!!! We need some randomness and unexpected events to make it more interesting. Thank you so much, looking forward to it

  20. #20

    Default Re: Rome vs Carthage balance

    Quote Originally Posted by Lusitanio View Post
    Indeed. The next patch will add more difficult to the player and some new things for the Carthaginian player which will make his campaigns a lot harder, especially if the team decides to put in the game some events I create, if they don't, I will create a submod for them, 'cause they are awesome and make the campaign much harder.
    I have to say that I am quite happy with the current state of the Carthage campaigns. One of the many reasons I love Carthage is that it's quite stable to play. You don't have to fight constantly. Instead, there is a pleasant balance between trade, development and war. Making it harder will only make me more aggressive. Idk about you, but stomping the world is not my idea of fun.

Page 1 of 2 12 LastLast

Posting Permissions

  • You may not post new threads
  • You may not post replies
  • You may not post attachments
  • You may not edit your posts
  •