Rise of Rome Conquest Strategy (as Carthage)

[Elephantium]

We were talking about strategy in the SparGamez2 thread, and I had the notion that it might be easier/faster to win by spamming settlers throughout Africa than by pushing hard against Rome. You'd still have to do SOME fighting, but settling a bunch of empty desert cities would be a bit easier than wading through Legions for every new tile gained.

What do you think? Would this be a good way to sidestep Rome's power, or would this scenario be better played at Rome?

 

[aukrest]

Copied from SparGamez...

My general strategy for Carthage is to take Sicily and fortify the island from initial roman countermeasures. I start by building defense in Spain and making sure the Celts won't MA with Rome against me. I go for the Ivory outside Leptis Magna as quick as I can for Ivory to upgrade Spears to Numidians. At this point I amass three seperate forces . All this time I will build settlers to grab the dyes of northern Libya, and several other cities in a southwest direction from Carthago.

One attack force in Spain from the cities around Tingis and from Spain itself. One from the rest of Carthage that meets in Carthago to head to the northernmost Sicily city, and the last one in Leptis Magna (or my easternmost city) to go for a battle against Egypt.

Egypt is really easy to kill. a fair amount of War Elephants can lay waste to them. Rome is a lot tougher. I start working the Spanish force north, killing any Romans that have settled in Spain. At this point I usually MA with the Celts and/or Goths against Rome (if only to distract them) and I get the attack force in Sicily (includes Hannibal's army) to head to Calabria and take the city there (Croton, I believe) and I slowly will work north up to Rome.

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There are a lot of different ways to tackle this scenario, and I've personally been thinking a strategy of mostly ignoring Rome (unless it begins to runaway) and going straight to Egypt, killing them and then moving on through Persia or maybe a sea invasion of Macedonia.

In response to the settling projects of Africa, this is a good idea to spred settlers throughout all the habital non-Sahara parts of the continent, but to reach the domination limit we need 50% world population and 20% territory. Territory isn't that hard to get to, but it's the pop limit that is troubleesome, because a swarm of tiny sahara cities will contribute less population than that of a size 12 city.

 

[TheOverseer714]

Yes, your settlers have to really count to build your population. Other hints, do a ton of alliances and trades on turn 0 to cut down on alliances against you early. There is a critical hill between Carthage and Thenae that when settled, allows irrigation east of there, as dry plains aren't much better than desert.

Edit: Get the Ivory hooked up ASAP, the Roman Legions are waaaaay overpowered early.

 

[Hasdrubal Barca]

As Carthage in this scenario the key to victory is
- develop Astro asap;
- abuse contacts for money vs techs and alliances;
- build massive amounts of spearmen early and accumulate money after getting astro, connect ivory and upgrade all spearmen to Numidian Mercs;
- build settlers and populate north africa, spain, Sicily (1 city on the wine hill), Corsica, Sardinia and the Baleares;
- make embassy with Celts and Goths and declare war alliance on Rome;
- massive produce Horsemen before having Elephants, then upgrade them all at once to Eles/Hvy Cavalry;
- Coastal block islands with warriors early on, pindown Rome in the Pireneos; make galley superiority;
- Deny Rome Lighthouse (if you can)
- Settle the Greek islands west of Sicily to provide a safe healing port for galleys, controlling the Med this way.
- Build a SOD with Heavy Cav + Num Mercs + Catapults + Archers and attack Rome capital directly.

 

[Spoonwood]

I haven't even started this as Carthage, but as Rome you can buy workers on turn 1. That and MA against Rome/Carthage straight away as they are locked at war with each other.

 

[GamezRule]

I think that the first priority in this scenario domestically should be settling the core and getting more workers. Then you can worry about spamming North Africa and Iberia.

 

[Stoertebeker]

As Carthage it's very, very helpful to fill up your army early on with Numidians and Swordmen and to get this army to Italy as fast as possible: Rome has only two sources of iron early on: If you can disconnect them, you won't have to fight legions and Rome will be one of the easiest opponents to beat.
It's because of this little trick that Carthage might be one the easiest tribes to play in this conquest.

 

[BMartini28]

stoertebeker is right, and launching a 3 pronged attack via spain sicily and egypt will gain the land youll need for a victory