Does anyone else think this will be a pretty powerful strategy?

Numidian Cavalry:

Replace horse archers
5 strength
Starts with flanking 1
+50% vs. melee units

Hannibal is charismatic, so his units ned 25% less xp to get promoted.

So, in your stack of horse archers, you promote half of them to flanking II and half of them to combat I. Next promotion (I'm assuming there's no flanking III) on the first half, you give them combat I and the second half, you give them shock.

The first half will have 30% withdrawal chance, 5.5 base strength, and 50% vs. melee.

The second half will have 10% withdrawal chance, 5.5 base strength, and 75% vs. melee.

Use the first half to wear down defenders, hoping a bunch of them withdraw. Use the second half to finish them off...even if they have spears, the 75% bonus vs. melee should come in really handy...

Cost.

How much do they cost? If they cost 50 hammers like normal horse-archers, then i wouldn't even bother. Sure they will be able to beat melee units, but they do this at the cost of reduced effectiveness against archers.

They can't take cities, so all they can do for you is provide an effective military escort for your city-raiders.

I suppose that they could also be used as pillagers, but all of this really comes down to their cost. 50 Hammers for a speedy axeman (with no CR potential) just won't cut it.

Unless you can get at least a 50% withdrawl chance for your unit, the flanking promotions are going to be generally useless.

What the Numidian mercernary will excell at is barbarian-hunting. It will be able to take the Sentry promotion right off the bat to see accross wide swathes of terrain, and the melee bonus will let it clean them up in the open fields.

It might be alright in multiplayer where you get lots of players who just defend with axemen. It won't be so good against the AI's archer stacks.

I think these will be AMAZING pillagers in all situations. rarely does a human send anything but spears against incoming horse archers.. these guys will be working with 7.5 vs 8 which is far better than 6 vs 8 for the standard horse archer.. throw in a promotion and you should do fairly well.

NaZ

if player got axeman in MP then he'll surely get spearman as well as son he'll notice carthage with it's UU. Only hope is to get Shock prom to get further +25% vs mellee.

I think these will be AMAZING pillagers in all situations. rarely does a human send anything but spears against incoming horse archers.. these guys will be working with 7.5 vs 8 which is far better than 6 vs 8 for the standard horse archer.. throw in a promotion and you should do fairly well.


Just a quick nitpick but, assuming you're attacking the spearman, you're actually looking at 5 vs. 6, not 7.5 vs. 8. Small difference and still better than the standard horse archer, but not quite as good as you say.

Math: 4 * (1 + (100% - 50%)) = 6

If you're on the receiving end of the attack, it'll be 4 vs. 3.33; exact same odds.

And since you get no defense bonuses, and a speaman costs less, it;s an effective counter.

What the Numidian Mercernary will do is it will force your opponents to fight with a mixed spear n' axe army, which will ease things up on your own axes.

I don't think the Numidian Mercernary will roxors any soxors on its own.

If you want that, take Egypt! :)

Wow. I was thinking the Numidian Cavalry would be dominant. Cool. I guess Shaka will cause some trouble for the Numidian Cavalry then.

Still, I like the idea of early quick Axemen :)

I guess Carthage will be a little better against the Romans than other civs.

Numidian (7.5 w/ speed) v Praetorian (8)

A few promotions and combined with say, a few swordsmen to take out archers in cities and Carthage could be deadly in a late early game war. Instead of going for a rush, perhaps it would be better for Carthage to wage war when it and other civs are more developed, but before the mid ages of course.

All this being said I think Carthage is an all in all very good civ with good traits, a decent UU, a decent UB and two of the best starting techs

Why would you want to use them against Praetorians?
Axemen have the same strength vs meele and are cheaper. And you are going to research bronze working anyway for slavery.

Why would you want to use them against Praetorians?
Axemen have the same strength vs meele and are cheaper. And you are going to research bronze working anyway for slavery.
Probably because they're faster, can withdraw, and can benefit from the new stables building. You'll still use axemen but the speed is a big factor in early wars. Especially in your cities farther away from the front.

Stacks of axemen are going to need spearmen regardless, now that chariots receive a 50% bonus against axemen.

Anyway, the Numidian Cavalry looks like an alright unit, but I'm not sure that's it going to dominate so much.

Stacks of axemen are going to need spearmen regardless, now that chariots receive a 50% bonus against axemen.

Anyway, the Numidian Cavalry looks like an alright unit, but I'm not sure that's it going to dominate so much.
Its 100% bonus. The 50% is a misprint in the manual apparently, I've got the game installed and mauled a barb axe to be sure ;) .

They'll make interesting pillagers and good mobile units to support your stacks.

double post

The 50% is a misprint in the manual apparently, I've got the game installed and mauled a barb axe to be sure ;)

The Warlords manual can always use another misprint. >_>

I think +50% would have been better. As if you needed another reason not to build Horse Archers. m i rite?

not only is there that misprint, but all horse archer class units get -10% city attack.. sucks to say the least. and horseback riding costs 2x what it used to.. on par with construction etc. so there goes the early advantage you could have had with them. I'll probably skip horseback riding until i'm getting ready to produce knights or calvary from now on

NaZ

not only is there that misprint, but all horse archer class units get -10% city attack.. sucks to say the least. and horseback riding costs 2x what it used to.. on par with construction etc. so there goes the early advantage you could have had with them. I'll probably skip horseback riding until i'm getting ready to produce knights or calvary from now on

NaZ
Yeah but stables are a damn nice building. I used stables to mass twice promoted elephants and the korean UU to take some metal off my neighbors.

i gotta admit the korean UU does kick some serious ass. i'm not going to diss stables at all but horses are now penalized against cities. meaning you will have to overcome that with either siege or other units. since they all move slower that does negate your movement advantage by quite a bit.

elepants are another thing though since they are high strength and only 1 move. would be a nasty army to see if you had like
8 elephants
4 axemen (to counter spears)
6+ cats
and maybe either a couple of HA or chariots to deal with incoming infantry.. or chase down workers etc.

armies are going to be a lot more interesting now.. especially in MP

NaZ