Just played the Punic War for the first time, chose the Romans, and won the game after conquering Sicily.
Unfortunately, I either had the "luck of the gods", or there was a bug with my Consuls. I never once had an inactive Consul or Dictator, which made the campaign a whole lot easier than it should have been. Even a meager 2-1-3 was active every turn, essentially eliminating one of the Romans biggest handicaps.
I am playing with 1.02b. Has anyone else run into this problem?
Gameplay Notes
The Carthaginian AI was somewhat disappointing.
First, their Naval superiority never came into play, as once I developed a medium sized fleet of Triremes I was able to blockade the various cities of Sicily at will. I can only remember one naval battle on turn 1 or 2, in which an isolated Roman fleet was defeated.
Second, Hanno the Elder managed to defeat one of my consular Armies, forcing me back to Syracuse to regroup. He himself moved on to besiege Messana, with a slightly smaller force, which was fine. I reinforced my defeated army, effictly merging the two Consular armies, and kept an eye on Messana while taking besieging other targets. However, his siege failed when he couldn't force a breach. He called it off and went after the easier target of Tauromenium, but instead of assaulting the level 1 walls, dug in for another siege. But what this allowed me to do was safely cross a Dictators Army, and begin the process smashing Hanno back and forth between the two cities (Messana and Tauromenium), as I had encircled and controlled the surrounding regions. After a long while, his army was totally destroyed. I was curious to see if there were any other significant forces in Sicily to battle with, so I opened up the Carthage file and discovered a strong army in Agrigentum. My question then is why didn't the AI use this strong force to either attempt a rescue of Hanno's Army, or at least pose a distraction by raiding and recapturing the lightly held cities in central Sicily? The army there did not move until I attacked, and by this time I had two separate armies capable of defeating it. The game was over within 10 turns of Hanno's defeat. Perhaps the troops locked in Africa should become available if the situation in Sicily becomes too desperate, not just because of a Roman African invasion.
Finally, the AI has to learn to avoid Italy, unless attempting a full scale invasion. Carthage launched a decent sized expedition into Italy, but not nearly enough too stand a chance against Dictator Armies, and also this invasion left the forces in Sicily too thin. Twice I was able to summon Dictator Armies, which allowed heavy reinforcement in Sicily while still having plenty of troops to deal with slippery Carthaginians. It was annoying, and took much of the game to do, but eventually that force was wiped out. The main problem is that Carthage removed troops from the principle battlegrounds, and in the process doubled the amount of Romans they would have to face.
I had a great time playing, but hopefully the AI can continue to be improved to create a more challenging experience. I'll probably play Carthage next to see the difference. And obviously I know that the AI can only be made so good, and that humans are the real challenge, so perhaps PBEMs will be the next step.
arsan wrote:Regarding the leader activation... probably is a stupid question but... could it be that you had the "always active" option enabled by mistake on the game options??
No, I have the middle activation settings on. Too bad, I wish it was something that simple! The Praetor I bought was working, as he was active and inactive about an equal amount of time (3-1-1).
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