Carthage Battlefield Strategy Guide - Game Guides - Rome Total War

Hannibal's great victories at Cannae, Trebia and Lake Trasimeno help guide us as we plot how to best utilise the Carthaginian army in Rome Total War.
Campaign Strategy Guide: • Carthage - Campaign St...

[@iainhansen1047]

I adore that niche channels like this exist, giving people like me the very specific stuff they want.

[@ToNerdistoHumanTNH]

Marvellous!

[@Blooticus]

I live for content like this

[@richardtaylor215]

3:23 - Your commentary on Iberian infantry "They Exist" 😂

[@ToNerdistoHumanTNH]

That is my kindest commentary

[@ITSMRFOXY]

​@@ToNerdistoHumanTNHToo kind for men who would be better off picking up trash.

[@ToNerdistoHumanTNH]

0:42 Rosta Overview
3:01 Early Army vs Numidia
8:21 Early Army vs Romans
13:19 Mid - Late Army Overview
15:38 Mid - Late Army vs Romans

[@iainhansen1047]

During my first time playing as Carthage I learned one strategy that worked against nearly every faction from turn 1. Early Carthage infantry is terrible, so my solution was to have a single unit of elephants right behind my infantry line and once the infantry engagement happens I would just charge my elephants in causing the enemy infantry to crumble in seconds. This plus Carthage cavalry domination made the campaign extremely easy, to the point where I had conquered Rome using nothing but Iberian infantry, round shields and the starting unit of elephants plus one extra one I trained later.

[@youseffsalib4459]

It helps when your infantry are magically impervious to elephants. Solid Strategy!

[@ToNerdistoHumanTNH]

That certainly helps the infantry line hold. 🤣 ultra aggression to the romans is truly the only way.

[@ieajackson5518]

@@youseffsalib4459 works even better when you have jumbo oliphaunts with like eight blokes stood on top of them.

[@hannahneal1601]

"I will hold back the Elphants"
(10 seconds later) Okay, so my elephants are taking on 4 units by themselves 😅

[@ToNerdistoHumanTNH]

Welllllllll... it's hard to resist

[@boshengjones1778]

Carthage is my favourite faction in this game. Their roaster is varied and fun to use.
Against roman and spain: round shield cavalry army, maybe one unit of elephant if you looking an easy answer for enemy general. No infantry No range units needed.
Against greek: round shield + slingers. No infantry No elephant.
Slingers surprisingly good for many situations. Good for bridge and siege battle cos very high ammo. Good versus high armour infantry even urbans. They dont kill straight away, but wasting time and tire out enemy, mean while your cavalry should take care the rest. And they are The best range unit when shooting from behind.
Iberian infantry is good versus babarians and eastern faction becos they spam way too many cheap spear units which is annoying for our cavalry. And because we dont get our best pike infantry, until tier 4 city temple Baal. Use elephant against chariot, if you wanna fight eggys and pontus early and you cant build pike yet.

[@ToNerdistoHumanTNH]

Happy to see a carthage enthusiast! Aside from lacking archers they have a pretty good roster really. Though you are right to point out that slingers are incredibly useful when used well, just more fiddly than archers of course. Certainly verses greece and her slow moving phalanx, piles of slingers are very effective
A good point about the iberian infantry. They don't stand up to Rome ofr Greece but have their uses!

[@MatthewChenault]

I wouldn’t completely write off their slingers. They do have access to the Balearic Slingers as mercenaries from the beginning of the game, which are pretty good.

[@sebastianmalinowski8525]

Awsome review

[@flatbat8571]

Using the To Nerd is to Human guide to modding units, I made Carthage a bit more playable and useful. I added Scutarii from Spain to act as their early game infantry as well as Gallic Chosen Swordsmen to reflect the Gallic nature of part of Hannibal's Army.
I also reduced the training time of Sacred Band to a single turn and beefed up the attack stats of the slingers to make them more like Balearics.
It certainly makes Carthage easier to play as and more difficult to play against.

[@ToNerdistoHumanTNH]

I like this! Maybe we will see some of this reflected in the Remastered game. I think Heir of Carthage covered Carthage so maybe there are some of these changes reflected there!

[@flatbat8571]

@@ToNerdistoHumanTNH I do love Heir's stuff. It seems like there has been some rebalancing with Iberian Infantry actually standing up to Hastati and the different speeds of cavalry units being added

[@YlL-ji2sl]

I think playing carthage is pretty easy if you use only cav armies.
A full stack of round shield cav will destroy every early roman army.
The early romans are very weak against cav.

[@flatbat8571]

@@YlL-ji2sl very true. I have to force myself sometimes to avoid using lots of cavalry as it does become a bit repetitive just smashing your cavalry in and getting chain routs

[@smittycar2339]

Subscribed

[@LyricalDJ]

Carthage is, in my opinion, a victim of the Rome Total War design of locking units behind settlement upgrades. Including how (excluding the starting unit you get) elephants are quite late game even if one focuses on cavalry which I imagine most players will do. The weak early selection of infantry really did play a mental trick on me where even when I got access to higher tier units I'd always favour cavalry first, then ranged units and infantry last. This was compounded by the fact that their best infantry unit doesn't even come from their barracks. This is also why I was kind of surprised at your early game army example because Libyan infantry appeared only at the later part of the middle game in my campaign whereas I fielded long shield cavalry much earlier on.
Rome is the other main example although in the case of Rome it's less that their selection is weak but rather that I wanted to emulate the famous pre-Marian three line formation (plus equites and velites) and you only get to do so fairly late.
It's also a bit of a shame Carthage didn't get a special treatment as far as mercenaries are concerned.

[@kennethflores93]

Long shield Calvary is expensive but their upkeep is cheap. So you can field a large Calvary army with high shock damage. And of course if you keep cycling you’ll inevitably break them easily

[@RocketHarry865]

I wish that Carthage gets the mechanic of being able to recruit unique mercenaries depending on who they ally with.

[@fatnootz3466]

1:58 Correction: "Trunk" Cards

[@scringle2844]

I would love it if you did these videos for medieval 2 as well

[@ToNerdistoHumanTNH]

I will have to get to them in time! Any faction you particularly fancy?

[@scringle2844]

@@ToNerdistoHumanTNH hmmm I think maybe the Byzantines because they have expansion options to the west and the east and it might make for some good roleplay trying to recreate the roman empire and I don't see much from the more eastern factions on medieval 2 on youtube

[@smittycar2339]

Can you do one for Gaul

[@IvicaArmanas]

*After reading Ross Leckie's "Hannibal" and historical records on Punic wars, I knew that "Numidian heavy cavalry" had major role in Hannibal's victories. In game, it's pathetic light Magyar-like cavalry. Appalled AF!*

[@ToNerdistoHumanTNH]

I wish they were the brutal world beating beasts they should have been.

[@IvicaArmanas]

@@ToNerdistoHumanTNH *It's ok to make some small mistakes here and there, but to turn unmatched, Dominant, Superior heavy cavalry into this pathetic excuse for cavarly is - too much!*
*That's why you are our ONLY hope that we will be able to enjoy this game to its full potential, Thomas... one small change at a time, you move us towards Maximum!*

[@rorschach1985ify]

Where was it mentioned that all the Numidian Cavalry was heavy and not light? Most accounts I see mention how most Numidians were light cavalry so they could be mobile rather than slow. In game Numidian Cavarly is still good, yeah they will die quickly if you just recklessly charge them into other units front loaded but that is the point, you're suppose to use them how they were historically where they weakened the enemy with javelins then charged in after when they are out and in their flanks in the case of infantry or in the case of early light cavalry that you will encounter from factions like Rome, Greece, and Spain you can just have them win outright due to their numbers being weakened. I do agree there should be a heavy variant of Numidian Cavalry at least for Numidia as a faction itself since it is really lacking in game, but I almost hear nothing but Hannibal using lighter forms of Numidian Cavalry instead of just heavy so I don't get your point.

[@IvicaArmanas]

@@rorschach1985ify Well, from what I read, heard and watched in Documentaries, Numidian *HEAVY* Cavalry was the Hammer Hannibal used to smash enemy army against the anvil (infantry)...

[@rorschach1985ify]

@@IvicaArmanas Well they may very well have been a heavy variant of Numidian cavalry and I agree that it should have been in the game. However I do think most Numidian cavalry was lighter and more for skirmishing than being the hammer for Hannibal's forces so the ones you are talking about would have been the more wealthy elite of Numidian society rather than the more common light cav we see in game.

[@loganfoco1184]

How I beat early game romans, cav spam. Entire army of cav spam

[@ToNerdistoHumanTNH]

Cav spam is always the true way to play! ;)

[@harushukingseear7969]

Where is Thrace!

[@ToNerdistoHumanTNH]

East of macedonia! 😜

[@PatriciaRocha-kr7ut]

Down to third then 😅😂

[@goofyrebel9192]

First

[@julianusofcrete3729]

No archers!?!?!? pfft Terrible.

[@dudee145]

Not first