Decent Carthage early game units?

[✚ Mariel ✚]

Iberian Infantry are their militia tier units and they seem barely better than town watch, no match for hastati or swordsmen. Seeing as my main concerns are the Roman factions who all seem to be invading Sicily and the other islands, and the Gauls and Spanish who both have it in for me in Spain, this is a problem for me.

Currently I'm fielding primarily round shields since they can traverse Africa at a good speed, and can perform hit and run strikes on Rome/Barbarian units, but its not ideal. Barbarian use a lot of spear warbands, Roman hastati are still a bit tough even though I'm trying to isolate them and hit and run. Also it seem Greek Cities decided to go all in on Sicily and I've seen a boat full of Greek troops on the horizon so no idea how I'm gonna handle their phalanx units without any infantry production facilities on Sicily.

I'm on the verge of just pulling out of Sicily/Spain and trying to spread through Africa towards Egypt. Carthage will likely fall to the Roman factions if they keep up this aggression but maybe I can get my feet under me in Egypt and expand through Arabia and Asia Minor, buy time to get my sacred band units so I can retake lost land. So frustrating that the AI seems to prioritise me over anything else!

Only other thing I can think of is to go all in on navy and try to launch surprise raids with elephants to sack all of the Italian cities so the Romans cant make any more hastati, or at least keep them occupied long enough to get to sacred band units

Do these early Carthage just suck or am I using them completely wrong?

[To Hell With The Trolls!]

I always take a beating at the start of Carthage campaign.

[ObsessedEddie]

economy is huge and getting ports up and running early. use cav to hold and take africa, use inf and cav for both sicily and spain, you have to take out brutii and scipii as fast as possible

[ObsessedEddie]

1 army for numidia of cav and javs. 2 armies for spain once u get 2 cities, strong navy to cover sicily and italy. 1 crack army for the romans and syracuse. then onto italy with said crack army

[✚ Mariel ✚]

TYVM

[76561198814511849]

Originally posted by Kiri:

Do these early Carthage just suck or am I using them completely wrong?

Maybe it is a combination of both. The units carthage can recruit below the city level are weak. Essentially they are not meant to be used. Use mercenaries instead and utilize your extremely valueable elephants instead. Your elephants are the perfect unit to crush legionaries.

Your first goal must be to take out rome. The best approach is use your elephants to take Messana before you end the first turn. This helps a great deal to shift the balance in your favour. Here is an example of how it is done at vh/vh. So at least a lower difficulty settings you should be able to reproduce the approach:

{LINK REMOVED}https://www.civforum.de/showthread.php?43040-RTW-Die-H%E4ndler-von-Karthago

[✚ Mariel ✚]

Wait, elephants are good against legionnaries? I've been treating them like siege scythed chariots, basically an anti-cavalry unit that can break through gates and doesn't slow your force down. I thought archers/skirmishers and infantry were the counter to elephants and that they were mainly supposed to defend your flanks from cavalry!

[✚ Mariel ✚]

Also I was thinking about mercs but it's hard to find anything decent. I've got some hoplites but I'm planning to use them to defend syracuse when the roman troops arrive since that city has stone walls and hoplites are good in tight spaces

I was also thinking of sending a general out to crete or something to try to recruit cretian archers. I'm not sure how exactly merc recruitment works but it seems like it applies to an entire region and the mercs renew every few years so I should be able to get the odd archer unit there and send them back to carthage to be upgraded right? Since Carthage can't make archers, and since they tend to have a low casualty rate for me, especially the cretian ones who wrack up massive body counts for me I would consider it a good investment, but I should probably wait til I have a shipwright so I can use fleets of 2-3 triremes to ferry them

[76561198814511849]

Originally posted by Kiri:

Wait, elephants are good against legionnaries?

They are not just good, they excel at destroying tight formations of heavy infantry. Hastiti are not formally heavy infantry, but being even weaker than princeps they fall or rather fly just as well.

Originally posted by Kiri:

I thought archers/skirmishers and infantry were the counter to elephants and that they were mainly supposed to defend your flanks from cavalry!

Spearman and phalanx may have a shot against elephants. But the best approach against them is probably to shot at them. Artillery like ballistae is especially effective against such big targets.

Originally posted by Kiri:

Also I was thinking about mercs but it's hard to find anything decent. I've got some hoplites but I'm planning to use them to defend syracuse when the roman troops arrive since that city has stone walls and hoplites are good in tight spaces

I was also thinking of sending a general out to crete or something to try to recruit cretian archers.

Going for crete seems like a good idea. I am less sure about moving them back to carthage.

All the mercenary slingers are a good choice, too. They have 40 ammo instead of just 30 that cretan archers have.

C:\Program Files (x86)\Steam\steamapps\common\Rome Total War Gold\data\world\maps\campaign\imperial_campaign\descr_mercenaries.txt

This is the file where mercenaries are explained.

Spain for balearic slingers, Northern_Greece for greek hoplites, Northern_Italy for samnite, Greece for cretan archers and greek hoplites, Southern_Italy for samnite and greek hoplites, Balearics for balearic slingers, Sicily for greek hoplites and balearic slingers, North_Africa for balearic slingers, Sparta for greek hoplites, Libya for greek hoplites and Aegean for rhodian slingers, cretan archers and greek hoplites matter for you.

1. Get all balearic slingers from Spain.
2. Get all balearic slingers from Palma.
3. Get all balearic slingers from the region west of Carthage.
4. Get everything from Sicily. The pool there also includes Sardiania, so no need to fish in both places.
5. Crete is a bonus, but a big one.
6. The other regions listed above are also nice to utilize, but not quite important.

Your generals are important to recruits mercenaries, but their bodyguards are also a very strong unit. Use them well.

The samnites with one experience are as strong as libyan spearmen. So they are a mediocre choice. Once you can recruit libyan spearmen or even carthaginian sacred band infantry from the awesome temple for Baal, they are no longer needed. The awesome temple for Baal really changes the balance in your favour by quite a margin.

[✚ Mariel ✚]

Thanks for the detailed response! I like Slingers more than skirmisher,s but their short range and lack of arc fire bothers me, especially against roman infantry who can chuck a couple of spears at them

[76561198814511849]

The mercenary slingers have a range of 120 meters just like regular archers. Cretan archers have a range of 160 meters, but those are better than regular archers.

[✚ Mariel ✚]

Oh wow, merc slingers are so much better than standard slingers? The lack of arc fire is a pain, I like to be able to shoot town garrisons to death without suffering casualties, but I should have no problem dismantling hastati with slingers like those!

[NekRon99]

Carthage has always been my fav faction. Forget about infantry. Your 1 unit of elephants with a general and whatever he can muster can take Rome out of Sicily by turn 1, sail to Italy and take out the Brutii by turn 3 or 4, then finish off Scipii by turn 7. Provided your elephant unit is used to smash and rout the enemy infantry and you use your other units solely to chase them down. Once 2 of the 3 roman factions are dead your home free. If killing off Rome early isnt what you want, Spain can be held with nothing but generals and round shield cav because gaul and spain have lousy units early on. Likewise Numidia has nothing to threaten you with that round shields cant chase down. 3 units of round shields can take out however many skirmishers they throw at you. As for Greece simply sink their boats before they disembark and drown them. Even if you only damage them the pirates that cruise those seas will finish whatever you start. Elephants by the way are also siege units and can batter down walls and gates, allowing you in to those lightly defended roman or other owned cities without waiting to build equipment. So that 1 elephant unit you start with is actually the key to your domination.

[NekRon99]

As an aside, forgoing recruiting infantry for costly battles that are unnecessary, your income will be very healthy and you will never find yourself unable to buy upgrades for your cities.

[✚ Mariel ✚]

Thanks for the detailed advice NekRon! I'll try being less precious with my elephants and use them more aggressively from now on!

[76561198814511849]

Originally posted by Kiri:

Oh wow, merc slingers are so much better than standard slingers?

Yes. Regular slingers only have 80 meters range. That together with much better combat values, much better morale and the better hardiness make the difference a difference like day and night.

Carthage of all factions has the grip at all pools of balearic slingers. At crete you can supplement them with rhodian slingers and of course cretan archers. But in the western Mediterranean balearic slingers are the mercenary unit matters.

Your regular slingers have a ranged attack of 4, balearic slingers have a ranged attack of 9 and 11 with 2 experience.

You recruit them with 2 experience at the Balerics and thus near Palma.

The rhodian slingers are near identical to balearic slingers. At crete you can recruit them with 1 experience ad thus a ranged attack of 10.