Last night I learnt Carthaginians have no late game

Last night I was matched in a 2v2. Two narrow rivers formed a T-junction across the map, splitting it into three parts. I had a quarter, my opponent (red) had another quarter, and my ally and other opponent (blue) both shared the remaining landmass which covered half the map.

My ally was taken out quickly, and red dropped already, leaving it a 1v1 between myself and blue. By this point I’d already taken complete control of the rivers uncontested, so had all the fish to myself and controlled access to the crossing with triremes. This meant I controlled half of the land-mass plus whatever was in range of the triremes, while blue turtled into a small area with rows of walls and towers.

I had the economic advantage as I controlled half the land mass and all it’s resources, with the added bonus of having all the fish to myself, and the fact I was able to sneak small groups of villagers to his side of the map and steal his resources away from his towers.

For a long time there was just stalemate. He basically had a torrent of units running out of his base into where mine were camped, and although I held off each wave, never had the strength to bust into his base with what remained. Looking back, I’m sure I could have done this better, but in my mind I had the economic advantage so was happy to wait for him to dry out rather than throw my units at his towers.

In hindsight, this was never going to work, because once the gold ran out on both sides, and with no way of exchanging gold as with AoE2+, with all the food and wood in the world, I’m limited to bowmen, axemen, slingers (until stone’s out) and triremes. (Now I recall I had similar problems doing the third campaign mission on hardest…) Chariots, which my opponent was able to make, are far superior to all of these units except triremes.

So the game turned into an endless supply of chariots crashing into an endless supply of triremes, and although I was able to crush each wave, there was no way of counter-pushing. This went on for a couple of hours until eventually I had all my triremes engaged at a crossing, he was able to stealthily build a dock and transport ship, and sneaked units across and into my villagers.

So what did I learn as Carths?

  1. Try alternative victories such as artefacts (means making scouts and finding them early) or wonder.
  2. … if that’s not an option, then you need to aim for an early military advantage and push before the late-game
  3. If you have an ally, get them to build lots of docks, and defend them with all you have.
  4. Research logistics, even if it’s the only 100g you have remaining. When you’re floating more food than you can spend, pop cap is your enemy.
  5. Prioritise more than you would normally on taking gold from beyond your own area

Thoughts…?

With Carth you need to go into the bronze age and rush quickly. Carthaginian has strong camelry so this gives you a huge advantage if you are facing mounted units. Research nobility as quickly as possible to give your camels a lot of HP. In the iron age Carthaginian is a powerful force, because it has elephants with 750 HP and helepolis with all upgrades. This combination is very hard to beat, espcially if your opponent has no catapults. So you should probably have waited until youy had a lot of elephants and helepolis to back it up.

Save some powerful units esp siege so you can do a push with them and a tower rush to reinforce your position. Have a lot of archers to build up defence of things even if it’s only bowmen. Maybe even use a priest to heal important units when you are in a war of attrition.

Leave some archers or axemen lying around to spot any stealth activities by your enemy.

@AKC_HellStriker said:
With Carth you need to go into the bronze age and rush quickly. Carthaginian has strong camelry so this gives you a huge advantage if you are facing mounted units. Research nobility as quickly as possible to give your camels a lot of HP. In the iron age Carthaginian is a powerful force, because it has elephants with 750 HP and helepolis with all upgrades. This combination is very hard to beat, espcially if your opponent has no catapults. So you should probably have waited until youy had a lot of elephants and helepolis to back it up.

Heh, at the time of playing I was totally unfamiliar with my civ bonuses, I just YOLO random and barely take notice what civ I am until I freak out because I can’t make a particular unit. It’d be nice to have something display in game so I didn’t have to tab out.

Play each civ in single player or vs bots so you can build each building and see what is available. Start from Stone Age in a DM so you can upgrade everything. Use steroids to make it faster.

You’ll still need to read bonuses such as faster speed or hp increases.

Good learning experience. You will have learnt that against civs lacking the Scythe Chariot cutting them off their gold supply is a valid tactic.

I won a 3v1 a couple of nights back which was very close but would have been a defeat had the enemy kept me from the gold mines (I was minoan)

Another point is that there is little point going to Tool Age and staying there unless you plan or are expecting a tool rush, so on the Timeline at the end there shouldn’t be a huge gap between tool age and bronze age unless there was a tool war (this game there wasn’t)

In this game one of the enemy should have tool rushed and locked down my gold mines whilst the other two went bronze.

@AKC_HellStriker said:
With Carth you need to go into the bronze age and rush quickly. Carthaginian has strong camelry so this gives you a huge advantage if you are facing mounted units. Research nobility as quickly as possible to give your camels a lot of HP. In the iron age Carthaginian is a powerful force, because it has elephants with 750 HP and helepolis with all upgrades. This combination is very hard to beat, espcially if your opponent has no catapults. So you should probably have waited until youy had a lot of elephants and helepolis to back it up.

Personally early Iron Age as Carthage for me would be phalanx with Tower shield and aristocracy and Horse Archers behind/raiding.

In terms of late game when gold is becoming scarce I would probably wall and tower and use Triremes to project power along the coast as the OP did and stick with Phalanx as both chariots and chariot Archers will struggle to get through their armour. Sure CA’s can kite but in the OP sounds as if the enemy didn’t have much kiting time before he would have been in their base.

In the OP instead of nicking the enemy resources would have been better off building military buildings or towering so that the base of the tower is protected by triremes further extending into the enemy base.

I find eles a bit too slow for my liking but yeah with a squad of HA behind to murder any priests would be gold efficient.

I remember realising many years ago in a game with good players as Yamato on hill country that I was going to have A) long term gold issues B) issues with enemy scythes in Iron and I actually took the plunge and early scout rush followed by a few cav. I then prioritised getting to Iron for Coinage and HA and then took the plunge and went for Centurions (always a debate when gold is scarce whether you are better off with more phalanx rather than the upgrade). Neither eles (standard) nor scythes dent centurion armour and with aristocracy they move decently with their deficiencies easily remediable with a few ha lurking behind.

I’m not joking when I say I can’t remember ever fielding Helepolis in the last ten years, too slow, too easy to get a rock in the middle of them, I just find HA suit the objective of hitting the enemy economy better.