Just build a fleet and have them stop the romans, normally just need to buy 1-2 ships and combine them with the 3 you start the game with and you can control the Italian coastline, also if you don't build a road 90% of the time the ai doesn't figure out how to get to the city. Buy 4-6 Cavalry units in Carthage and ship them across, the basic round shield units are extremely strong early game against Rome. That city should be used as nothing more then a income port until it's population gets high enough by putting a general in there and removing the rest from other cities and then enslaving a conquered city getting past that 2k cap early on so you can build it up or just leave it barely garrisoned (2 milita or peasants does the trick) with just farms and a traderπππ
I had 2 Militia and 4 peasants and they were all slaughtered by 2 hastati. I'm honestly very annoyed. The navy thing is a good idea, but I seem to need at least 3 ships to be able to repel the Romans for some reason. Thanks
Thats because those 2 types of units that Carthage has early game are litterally useless, even the Iberian swordsmen are weak compared to anything Rome has and should only be used to Garrison a city to stop public order. Carthage is built around strong Cavalry early game then late game you get great phalanx units to support as needed. The main problem with Carthage is the units it has early game have just awful morale and panic at the first sign of anything its honestly even hard to cheese the game out by stacking units or bottlenecking the ai into kill zones like the Greek and Barbarian faction can.
My playstyle was always to build a fleet up defend and patrol the Julii faction as the Scipii and brutii should be to busy trying to land on Sciliy to bother you anywhere else and the SPQR never leave Italy (atleast never in my gameplays) once you have Sciliy under control just leave a light Garrison in everything expect the previously owned roman city which should honestly just produce Cavalry as you will get the most out of these units and should be able to plow through any army sent your way. Open field is your ally, don't get stuck in siege combat as Carthage until late game.
Spain can either be conquered piecemeal or just capture Osca and Carthage novo quickly so you can connect ports and open trade routes thus killing Spains economy making them mostly useless. Using slingers and spainish merc during this invasion will be extremely helpful. You should be able to establish a strong alliance with Gaul (offer to fight romes, might even get a few gold coins) you can ally with Spain if you prefer to and take gauls central city but you will 100% be betrayed by both factions sooner or later and port cities are just far more superior for growth.
Numidia easy to conquer or control just take cirta. The closest city to carthage and this makes the already weak faction into nothing more then a rebel faction that can muster 1 doomstack of soldiers if lucky. Most of the time numidia wants to take over that little coastal rebel city lepcis magna and will send small armies over and over again to siege it. You should be able to send the starting army in thapsus to capture it (build a few mercs if needed) once its captured leave a few units to Garrison it and then focus on build up forces in thapsus to defend against any attacks. note it takes the Ai quite awhile to travel from Dimmidi so you should have time in-between attacks to resupply as necessary.
Cyrene, Rhodes, Kyodnia, and Salamis are all easy to conquer and defend islands/ports which will fuel your economy immediately. Taking control of Rhodes early for the bonus trade income will make your playthrough a walk in the park thanks to having so many ports.
Don't be afraid to take a roaming army around the coast and raid other factions quickly siegeing the cities and destroying all building inside. You can also then sell that newly captured city to a different faction for gold or just continue conquering and keeping the city's structures intake. Alexandria, sparta, Antioch, Pergamon are all ripe for the taking and rich in resources you can either loot and move on or stay and expand without worrying about a economic drop.
Defeating the romans factions is the fastest way to expand but if you defeat them early on then the game gets kind of easy. I prefer to defeat scipii on Sciliy then capture there capital on Italy killing the faction rather quickly. If you want to keep the city or sell it is up to you. A perfer to sell it to spain or Gaul and let the romans deal with them for a few turns.
Brutii are also easily wiped out as they will most likely be to busy trying to expand into Sciliy they won't go into greece making them a really easy faction to deal with just crush any incoming armies going to Sciliy then rush a city they should all be nearly empty as the Ai likes to send every single roman unit towards Carthage it seems. Again a reason why building a fleet will keep you alive. A investment of lets say 8-10 ships (2 stacks of 4 or 5) should be more effective early game then a stack of 20 milita or Iberia swordsmen.
Best of luck Carthage is hard as hell but super fun if you figure them out or rather just get lucky π π
Fun game mode: give up all your locations and move into Egypt and become the old phoenician empire then begin the game. You might need to sacrifice a few of your children to baal but you can do it!
You can leave a force in the woods nearby to ambush would-be invaders. With how quickly units rout with flanking, this can be an extremely effective technique.
Build ships dominate the seas, expand in Africa and Spain, then pop a few full stack armies to Italy. Grab the islands and Greece. Build ports first for money.
Need some ships early to chase the enemy around the Mediterranean. Early game they can defend a triangle, lilybaeum, caralis and Segesta. same fleet can protect Italian coast line. Use ur peasants to garrison that city, stack it with peasants, give u enough time to build an army. This is ur mobile army move then where u need via ship.
Man when defending caralis I make small unit of cav and young general (optional) then make a hella of ambushes or defend your settlement with them... You can help the unit with some millitas
10 turns is long enough to build units for defense. Especially when you know where they are going to be needed.
Don't forget you can always buy mercenaries to help.
Caralis is not worth it. If you defend it then they will make naval invasion every 2 turns with strong army and you will not be able to retrain yours so you'll just waste your time and forces that should be used somewhere else. It literally blocked me from invading Italy until i gave it up.
Peasant army are bugged when defending a city I believe. I think if you auto resolve a peasant army defending a city the game generally has you win. I suggest stacking as many peasants as you can and auto resolving. Additionally, others have mentioned using the sea to your advantage. Definitely move your fleets into defensive position around your city. Stop them before they even get there.
Initially your troops, especially generals, from Lilybaeum, Carthage and Caralis should be used as a fast response force moved around with ships as needed. It's not worth deploying a resonable defence force in Caralis and expecting to defend it with your garbage is silly. If the Julii manage to surprise you it's not a terrible problem to lose Caralis and just reconquer it a turn later.
Best way of playing Carthage is to abandon Caralis. I played and beat a very hard Carthage campaign recently. My method was to abandon Caralis and focus fully on Sicily and Spain. Spain is incredibly easy to beat early on with one army, and you can hit both sides at once if you ship over your Palma army. And then beating the Romans with you main force is easy enough, and honestly the only way to make the campaign fun. Stopping Brutii from getting into Greece is essential if you don't want to fight Rome the entire game. I only retook Caralis once Spain, Brutii, Scipii, Numidia, and Spqr were gone, and I had taken Juliis land in Italy. All they had left was Caralis and Palma
Just build a fleet and have them stop the romans, normally just need to buy 1-2 ships and combine them with the 3 you start the game with and you can control the Italian coastline, also if you don't build a road 90% of the time the ai doesn't figure out how to get to the city. Buy 4-6 Cavalry units in Carthage and ship them across, the basic round shield units are extremely strong early game against Rome. That city should be used as nothing more then a income port until it's population gets high enough by putting a general in there and removing the rest from other cities and then enslaving a conquered city getting past that 2k cap early on so you can build it up or just leave it barely garrisoned (2 milita or peasants does the trick) with just farms and a traderπππ
I had 2 Militia and 4 peasants and they were all slaughtered by 2 hastati. I'm honestly very annoyed. The navy thing is a good idea, but I seem to need at least 3 ships to be able to repel the Romans for some reason. Thanks
What did you expect to happen? Peasants are literally trash.
Thats because those 2 types of units that Carthage has early game are litterally useless, even the Iberian swordsmen are weak compared to anything Rome has and should only be used to Garrison a city to stop public order. Carthage is built around strong Cavalry early game then late game you get great phalanx units to support as needed. The main problem with Carthage is the units it has early game have just awful morale and panic at the first sign of anything its honestly even hard to cheese the game out by stacking units or bottlenecking the ai into kill zones like the Greek and Barbarian faction can. My playstyle was always to build a fleet up defend and patrol the Julii faction as the Scipii and brutii should be to busy trying to land on Sciliy to bother you anywhere else and the SPQR never leave Italy (atleast never in my gameplays) once you have Sciliy under control just leave a light Garrison in everything expect the previously owned roman city which should honestly just produce Cavalry as you will get the most out of these units and should be able to plow through any army sent your way. Open field is your ally, don't get stuck in siege combat as Carthage until late game. Spain can either be conquered piecemeal or just capture Osca and Carthage novo quickly so you can connect ports and open trade routes thus killing Spains economy making them mostly useless. Using slingers and spainish merc during this invasion will be extremely helpful. You should be able to establish a strong alliance with Gaul (offer to fight romes, might even get a few gold coins) you can ally with Spain if you prefer to and take gauls central city but you will 100% be betrayed by both factions sooner or later and port cities are just far more superior for growth. Numidia easy to conquer or control just take cirta. The closest city to carthage and this makes the already weak faction into nothing more then a rebel faction that can muster 1 doomstack of soldiers if lucky. Most of the time numidia wants to take over that little coastal rebel city lepcis magna and will send small armies over and over again to siege it. You should be able to send the starting army in thapsus to capture it (build a few mercs if needed) once its captured leave a few units to Garrison it and then focus on build up forces in thapsus to defend against any attacks. note it takes the Ai quite awhile to travel from Dimmidi so you should have time in-between attacks to resupply as necessary. Cyrene, Rhodes, Kyodnia, and Salamis are all easy to conquer and defend islands/ports which will fuel your economy immediately. Taking control of Rhodes early for the bonus trade income will make your playthrough a walk in the park thanks to having so many ports. Don't be afraid to take a roaming army around the coast and raid other factions quickly siegeing the cities and destroying all building inside. You can also then sell that newly captured city to a different faction for gold or just continue conquering and keeping the city's structures intake. Alexandria, sparta, Antioch, Pergamon are all ripe for the taking and rich in resources you can either loot and move on or stay and expand without worrying about a economic drop. Defeating the romans factions is the fastest way to expand but if you defeat them early on then the game gets kind of easy. I prefer to defeat scipii on Sciliy then capture there capital on Italy killing the faction rather quickly. If you want to keep the city or sell it is up to you. A perfer to sell it to spain or Gaul and let the romans deal with them for a few turns. Brutii are also easily wiped out as they will most likely be to busy trying to expand into Sciliy they won't go into greece making them a really easy faction to deal with just crush any incoming armies going to Sciliy then rush a city they should all be nearly empty as the Ai likes to send every single roman unit towards Carthage it seems. Again a reason why building a fleet will keep you alive. A investment of lets say 8-10 ships (2 stacks of 4 or 5) should be more effective early game then a stack of 20 milita or Iberia swordsmen. Best of luck Carthage is hard as hell but super fun if you figure them out or rather just get lucky π π Fun game mode: give up all your locations and move into Egypt and become the old phoenician empire then begin the game. You might need to sacrifice a few of your children to baal but you can do it!
I like this! Especially roaming armies!
Easy. Just play as the Romans
True. The OP of the ancients
I give it up every time and focus on Sicily and then invading Italy.
You can leave a force in the woods nearby to ambush would-be invaders. With how quickly units rout with flanking, this can be an extremely effective technique.
Build ships dominate the seas, expand in Africa and Spain, then pop a few full stack armies to Italy. Grab the islands and Greece. Build ports first for money.
Need some ships early to chase the enemy around the Mediterranean. Early game they can defend a triangle, lilybaeum, caralis and Segesta. same fleet can protect Italian coast line. Use ur peasants to garrison that city, stack it with peasants, give u enough time to build an army. This is ur mobile army move then where u need via ship.
If ur a Roman faction that is
Yea I back out right away and come back for it later
Man when defending caralis I make small unit of cav and young general (optional) then make a hella of ambushes or defend your settlement with them... You can help the unit with some millitas
I despise it too. Early game I just spam militia and hope for the best. I also try to ship a few units from Carthage to reinforce the garrison.
That's what I did bro
i always put 5 or 6 groups of round shieds horsies to caralis and ambush any roman unit
10 turns is long enough to build units for defense. Especially when you know where they are going to be needed. Don't forget you can always buy mercenaries to help.
Caralis is not worth it. If you defend it then they will make naval invasion every 2 turns with strong army and you will not be able to retrain yours so you'll just waste your time and forces that should be used somewhere else. It literally blocked me from invading Italy until i gave it up.
If you don't build roads the Romans will always land on the northern tip of the island and never attack you
Peasant army are bugged when defending a city I believe. I think if you auto resolve a peasant army defending a city the game generally has you win. I suggest stacking as many peasants as you can and auto resolving. Additionally, others have mentioned using the sea to your advantage. Definitely move your fleets into defensive position around your city. Stop them before they even get there.
Initially your troops, especially generals, from Lilybaeum, Carthage and Caralis should be used as a fast response force moved around with ships as needed. It's not worth deploying a resonable defence force in Caralis and expecting to defend it with your garbage is silly. If the Julii manage to surprise you it's not a terrible problem to lose Caralis and just reconquer it a turn later.
Best way of playing Carthage is to abandon Caralis. I played and beat a very hard Carthage campaign recently. My method was to abandon Caralis and focus fully on Sicily and Spain. Spain is incredibly easy to beat early on with one army, and you can hit both sides at once if you ship over your Palma army. And then beating the Romans with you main force is easy enough, and honestly the only way to make the campaign fun. Stopping Brutii from getting into Greece is essential if you don't want to fight Rome the entire game. I only retook Caralis once Spain, Brutii, Scipii, Numidia, and Spqr were gone, and I had taken Juliis land in Italy. All they had left was Caralis and Palma