This guide is for Carthage played on "very hard" settings.

Historically, the Carthaginians were traders descended from Phonecians (also a trading culture). As such, the Romans were quick to designate them as backstabbers, a typical stereotype for commercial persons at the time. YOU must internalize this stereotype in order to win. You will make and break treaties, and spam plenty of unfair overpowered units simply because you have to in order to survive, let alone win.

On turn 1 you need to do some specific things....

You will be abandoning one ally to save yourself. You need the lands of Libya to consolidate the African province. Its the only one you can afford to keep because it already has Punic culture. You won't even have to rebuild the buildings because they are already Punic. The youtuvbe channel "Total War Zone" rates Africa-province as the #4 best province in the game. No reason why Carthage shouldn't own it.

The rest of your lands (Iberia, Sardinia, Sicily) will slowly turn to rebellion, and sadly you DON'T have the money to afford more than 1 main army right now. You will have to say goodbye to those holdings in about 8 turns. If you can defeat Libya by then you will end up with positive income

- CHOOSE HANNANOID DYNASTY for the diplomatic bonus, you'll need it to prevent a world war against you.

Do the following in order:

- Make peace with Turdetani
- Get a non aggression pact with Cessetani
- Get a non aggression pact with Cyrenaica
- Break your client treaty with Libya
- Keep your client treaty with Nova Carthago
- Research Civil tech 1 and then Diplomacy 1 (so you can make a diplomat on turn 4)
- Build an elephant General in Carthago
- Move your orignial gen to the Libyan border, build 3 Libyan Javs
- Move your fleet (in forced march) south to the Libyan border, build 2-3 jav raiders
- Send your army at Qart Hadesh back to Carthago via the ocean, delete the 2 merc swords in that army

Crazy first turn!

TURN 2

- With your original general, hire 1 Baeleric Slinger and 1 Italian swordsman. Use your army, navy, and elephant general (in forced march) to attack and occupy the Libyan city of Thapsus.
- In this battle and all battles, fight it yourself to save troops. Be conservative, use all your skirmish ammo before going into hand to hand combat. In each battle hire 1 or 2 cheap mercs to just fight first and die so your cheap regular troops stay alive long term (mercs are cheap if you don't let them survive the battle - no upkeep!).

- Try and make non-aggression pacts with Nasamones and Masaesyli if you can, pay for it (500-1000) if you have to. You CAN'T afford a war with more than 1 African faction at a time. Currently your war is with Libya

- If Gaetuli or any Iberian factions declare war on Nova Carthago, keep them as a client.

- If Masaesyli (your light blue neighbor in the south) declares war on Nova Carthago at any time - abandon Nova Carthago and hope the Masaesyli capture the city of iol. If this happens then you can just steal it right back and now you have lumber to trade! It is worth more than the client-state relationship in the long run because Nova Carthago usually dies early anyways.

- Use your army, navy, and your elephant to take the Libyan cities as quickly as possible. When you cap a city, build 3 more cheap inf with your main army. Then on the next turn, move out towards the next city (takes 2 turns to move from city to city in Africa province).


-Use the elephant to your advantage. With the ele's and jav spam you can stomp Libya without heavy inf and with minimal losses (you NEED your army to win every battle lopsided so you can have Africa controlled by turn 9 max).

- Build a barracks and military wharf in Carthago when the war with Libya is almost over.

- After you've researched diplomacy 1, recruit a diplomat and then research military 1. After that research all of construction tier 1, followed by the heavy-inf military tier (to heavy inf barracks III)

- Make sure your small army from Qart Hadesh is moving every turn in forced march to reinforce Carthago

- Once you conquer Libya, expect Garamatia to declare war on you soon. (This is why you NEED non aggression pacts with Masaesyli, Cyrenaica, and Nasamones, because Garamatia will refuse non-agression and they have no-one to logically attack but you).

- By now both Rome and Syracuse have declared war on you. Its fine. Just NEVER enter Sicily or the AI will build an army to attack you early.

- By now you should have 3 generals and 2 "armies". The main army with the elephant is about to fight a defensive war with Garamatia. Your smaller army is in Carthago to protect it and Thapsus from Roman and Syracusan attacks. Your navy is on its way to Carthago for the same reason. Build up your navy with jav spam/ballista ships to harass enemy navy/transports.

THE AFRICAN ECONOMY
- In Emperor Edition patch 15, Carthage simply has to wait until late game to get an advantage on Rome. So now is the time to build the economy you need to spam elite stuff you'll to use in late game like heavy cav, heavy sword inf, ballista ships, assault navies, and siege.

- The whole point of betraying Libya is that you get a legit economy developing on turn 10 for no major economic investment. You just can't do that in Iberia, Sardinia, or Sicily because of the cultural split in those provinces.

- Build a farm to ensure you have food when you lose your lost territories in Iberia, Sardinia, and Sicily (they should have rebel armies closing in on turns 9-12).

- Build up agriculture and commerce in Africa. Build commerical buildings and most importantly, 3 commercial ports in Thapsus, Lepcis, and Macomades. Growth (polulation growth) is important so you can build more buildings, and hence grow your tax-income.


THE WAR WITH GARAMATIA
- Fight Garamatia defensively first if your army is a little weak from the Libyan war. Use 2 diplomats to work in Garamatia buffing up Punic culture. Spam up an extra Elephant Gen or two (only 200 upkeep, more cost effective than Carth Phalanx or Carth Cav) before entering Garamatia.

- When you go on the offense, take their capitol of Cydamus first. You will gain access to Furs.

- Build exclusively temples in Cydamus. Those combined with the diplomats will quickly get Punic culture dominant (and hopefully order will follow).

- Build a reserve army in between the African cities of Macamades and Lepcis in case Garamatia (or Syracuse) attacks them instead of trying to retake Cydamus.

- Slowly build up your reserve army in Carthago with cheap infantry in case Rome or Syracuse attempts a crossing. If they do and have a large army, build an elephant general as backup.

- After Cydamus has temples, go after Garama. Build temples there too. Downgrade the army so that you can use the upkeep on new units in Carthage.

- After Garamatia is no more, take this moment to reinforce your non-agression pacts with the African nations. Pay gifts to them all to get bonuses and keep them in the green. Its just more cost effective to pay off the African states rather than pay for a full army to fight them in all directions. They can spam cheap inf armies like wildfire and will overwhelm you if you're occupied with other wars (which you will be).

TRADE
- When you take Cydamus you get furs, which means you will be able to get more factions to trade with you. Have a spy move to Greece and attempt trade with the Athenians, Epicurians, Macadonians, and the islands of Knossos and Rhodes as you meet them one by one. Also try another trade run at the Cessetani, Edetani, Arevaci, Turdetani, and Celtici. The Iberians will be less mad at you since youve kept peace with them and don't even have terriitory near them anymore. The trade routes will soon become equally as profitable as the taxes you made earlier. Paying 100-500 denarii is enough to make most friendly/neutral factions trade with you.

- Use turns 20-30 to continue maxing out Africa province. You'll need the money soon.

- You'll likely be fighting defensive wars against Rome and Syracuse. Hopefully the rebel state that developed in Sardinia is still independent.

- Use your income to build another navy, and cycle those navies into Roman waters to raid them. Only raid seas that DON'T border states you are enaging in diplomacy with. Other states hate raiding and it causes a major diplomatic penalty.

- OK so at this point you can either go after Sicily/Magna Graecia, Sardinia, or go after Mauretania. If Nova Carthago is weak at this point, I suggest taking Mauretanian territories and dropping temple spam. Especially iol and Migdol, as they have lumber and dye, which you can use to get more trade partners. Sardinia is a decent 2nd choice because you can likely take it, drop temples/diplomats for culture spam, and then just use your navies to protect it once order is established. I suggest skipping Sicily/Magna Graecia. This Province has no trade resouces, and Rome can just march down at any time to fight you (which it will). The Roman AI seems a little obsessed with Magna Graecia, simply landing troops in Lilybaeum seems to always result in a Roman counter attack in a few turns.

Three Directions of Expansion

The three conventional directions of expansion for Carthage is into East Africa/Iberia, West Africa/Egypt, or Italy. Alot depends on circumstance - which factions are strong/weak, and which factions already like you? How strong is Rome? Does the Etruscan leage still exist?

When to go for East Africa & Iberia

This is a conservative strategy in which you take over as much of Mauretania-Province as you can, and once Mauretania is pacified you retake the Baeleric Islands and Carthago-Nova. The Iberians mostly use light-inf & javelinmen, so you can defeat their armies using mainly tier 2 infantry such as carthaginian-hoplites to hold a main line without breaking. Again you'll need to use the conservative strategies talked about during the war with Libya. NOTE - be careful with elephants! The Iberian swordsmen always carry extra javs you you'll need to rely on Carthaginian Cav & mercenary cav to do most rear charges.

PS - keep an army in Carthage! Keep a navy near Sicily to soften roman invasion fleets.

When to go for Rome

This is a radical strategy designed to prevent Rome from developing tier II infantry. This is basically recreating Hannibal's campaign in many ways. It is expensive and risky!

If going after Rome early, you must know you likely can't defeat them head on. You will need to take an army up to the islands of Corsica/Sardinia. Garrison the city of Karalis. Rome will likely send 2 stacks after you. When they do march north to Alalia and recruit high-level mercenaries (this is the expensive part). Then land your troops in North Italy next to Velathri (the Romans will likely have it by now).

You will now be sacking Roman cities. If you're lucky Rome will be undefended and you can just pillage it. I always pillage/sack Roman cities because the Roman stacks in Corsica/Sardinia and Sicily will quickly turn around and try to fight you in overwhelming numbers. You can afford one major loss against the Romans on this campaign - so pillage as many Roman cities as possible in order to turn a profit. After your first pitched battle with Rome your mercs will likely be depleted. At this point dissasemble them to save money and do one of 2 things - retake Corsica/Sardinia or try and fortify either Rome or Brundusium.

When to go for Egypt

Aegyptus-province was rated the #1 province in the game by "Total War Zone". Carthage is so close to it! Usually Iberia is the natural expansion route for Carthage, but going into Egypt has its own rewards. It has trade resources, and just south of Aegyptus-province is Ethiopia-Province, which was also rated #5 by "Total War Zone".

If Rome is weak you can usually safely expand into Egypt. If Rome is strong you'll need a strong defensive army/navy combo to hold them back. This can be expensive so its usually best to weaken Rome first before sending your main armies far away to the east.

- I have been playing the Carhage campaign again and again in Emperor Edition patch 15, constantly losing and trying new strategies to figure out how to create a situation in which the player can finally kick back and say "The world is a Carthaginian oyster".

- My biggest discovery is that Carthage needs peace on 3/4 of all its fronts at all times to stay alive because simply put, Carthage is poor in Rome 2. Get non-aggression pacts and trade routes with African states quickly in order to build up trust you need for later. Pay gifts to stay in the green with all the African states because you can't afford an extra army to deal with a surprise front - and losing that city you just built up will ruin your food/economy.

- Carthage also needs to be patient in order to slowly build the economy it needs to field legitimate armies.