I've been on a Hannibal trip recently, reading a number of different accounts of his various adventures, and was wishing for a game that would allow someone to make the same sort of decisions that Hannibal did...so I picked up EU: Rome and played as Carthage during the 2nd Punic War. The follows is both an AAR and a review of the game I posted online.
By the by, there's a great BBC documentary on Hannibal, here:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wXnxdVcnqI0&feature=channel_page
I was looking both for fun, and for historical accuracy in the game.
I played with Hannibal as my main general, trying to recreate his campaign from Spain through Italy as accurately as I could. The game responded very realistically in some respects... in other respects, it is just weird. The game's economy is very screwy. By frame of reference, the entire income of the Carthaginian Republic is around 6 or 7 gold a month (that's with trade routes set up for maximum income instead of for strategic gain). About half that goes for upkeep on the army and navy, leaving ~3g a month. Building a forum (which opens up a new trade route worth .06g per month) costs 45g to build, which is a bizarrely low cost-to-benefit ratio. Things like sacrifices to increase stability (which is necessary to change back National Ideas after your stupid senate messes it up!) and even presents to foreign governments are unaccountably expensive.
I like the complexity of the game, but I'm not sure having to read a 70-page strategy guide should be necessary in order to understand everything that is going on.
So, here's my After Action Report, trying to replicate the 2nd Punic War as accurately as possible:
1) I built up a navy to try to give myself protection from Roman sea dominance. The Romans crushed it in a battle off the shores of Tunis, just like in real life. This made my navy only capable of ferrying limited amounts of troops around, in quick raids to Sicily and Sardinia before their navy could reappear and destroy my remaining ships. Losing naval superiority sucks - just like it did in real life.
2) I engaged in an island-hopping campaign to focus their attention away from Hannibal. This was not historically accurate, but neither was the randomly-rolled general that I got that was better(!) than Hannibal. I stuck him on Corsica and Sicily and proceeded to slaughter every army the Romans tried to land, as they met the shore. This helped even out the bizarre manpower differences between the two Republics.
3) I tried to make diplomatic alliances with the various Iberian tribes in Spain. The Carthaginian senate didn't allow it(!?), though, so I ended up having to conquer the hostile tribes and barbarians, and just stationed small armies to watch the other tribes. I was able to hire them as mercenaries, so that sorta-kinda replicated the experience. The one diplomatic mission I was able to replicate was sending an envoy to Emporion, a Greek colony a bit north of Barcelona, near the Pyrenees - with a large army stationed on his border, he preferred to let me march through, rather than face the rage of 3,000 elephants. I also conquered the Roman states on the way north.
4) On the way to the Alps, the Romans harassed me at the Rhone, just like in history. =) I was also attacked by barbarians while passing through, which also happened in history. I paused to blow up the Roman colony at Massila, which Hannibal decided to bypass in real life.
5) I marched over the Alps. By this point, I'd lost a far amount of troops to attrition and battle losses (historically accurate). After routing the Roman army in northern Italy (we'll call it the Battle of the Trebia), I should have been able to resupply and re-man my cohorts with the friendly Gaulish tribes in the region, but in EU: Rome, all of northern Italy is "Roman", which meant that my armies kept suffering attrition, and so went down in size instead of up (this is very historically inaccurate). The game also doesn't allow more than 5,000 troops to live off the land in any foreign province, which is also wildly inaccurate, as the central part of Italy was so fecund, Hannibal was able to feed his army for 16 years in a foreign land without needing supplies. He had something like 50,000 to 60,000 men with him. He rather famously would swoop into a region right before the harvest, the defenders would flee behind the city walls, then his army would harvest the crops for them. =) He also kept thousands of cattle stolen from Roman farms.
6) So, with his army melting away instead of replenishing itself, the Romans threw enough armies at Hannibal that he eventually lost. (Historically inaccurate) I also couldn't figure out how to get my Numidian allies across the sea into Rome, but that could just be my own ignorance of the game. Also, the Romans seemed to have unlimited manpower reserves to restock the men in their army, whereas Carthage had about 3,000 manpower reserves across the entire Republic at the start of the game. It was kind of ridiculous.
7) Rome did invade North Africa and then demanded a white peace (ala Scipio Africanus), which was kind of neat. But my Numidians and I fought them off.
8) Like in reality, the political situation in Carthage made conquest difficult. They demanded to put one of their own generals in charge of a large army, who was completely incompetent (historically accurate), and the governing party would switch every couple months, which could also switch my National Ideas around (which was annoying, since it would cost like 20 years of income to switch it back). While it was somewhat accurate, it was perhaps too unstable for my taste. I wanted to just overthrow the Republic and declare a dictatorship, since they kept picking the most incompetent people possible to run the Republic. They also shut down most avenues of diplomacy, which was also unrealistic, since Hannibal and Hasdrubal's diplomacy with the various tribes in Africa, Iberia and Gaul was central to their success - they essentially had a free hand in dealing with them, not the senate. Also the tribes hate Carthage in the game (they start in the negative hundreds), whereas in real life they flocked to Hannibal since they saw Rome encroaching on their territories and establishing colonies on their lands. Due to the lack of money for gifts (one gift = 3 months GDP) and the obstinate senate, this whole avenue of gameplay was shut down.
9) There's no siege weapons in the game, which is an oversight, IMO. Hannibal lost his siege train by the time he got to the Po, and this was a major reason why he never conquered Rome - he couldn't destroy city walls, and was repulsed whenever he tried a direct assault. His brother, Hasdrubal, was killed when he also crossed the Alps and brought reinforcement and a siege train with him. One of those quirks of fate that made all the difference.
10) Cavalry in the game are the counter to elephants. In real life, they... weren't. Hannibal was defeated by Scipio when his troops at the start of the battle suddenly yelled and blew trumpets and startled the elephants into Hannibal's own cavalry, scattering them and allowing Scipio's Numidian cavalry to decisively win the battle. If anything, properly formed heavy infantry or even skirmishers were the solution to elephants. (Also, Numidians are locked in at 200 loyalty in the game, so the bit of drama with Sophonisba and Massinissa can't really be replicated.)
11) So, long story short, I think the game was amazingly accurate in a lot of respects, but the inaccuracies were enough to kind of turn me off overall. On the third hard, the music in the game is brilliant.
12) I do want to try this again in multiplayer with my friends.
By the by, there's a great BBC documentary on Hannibal, here:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wXnxdVcnqI0&feature=channel_page
I was looking both for fun, and for historical accuracy in the game.
I played with Hannibal as my main general, trying to recreate his campaign from Spain through Italy as accurately as I could. The game responded very realistically in some respects... in other respects, it is just weird. The game's economy is very screwy. By frame of reference, the entire income of the Carthaginian Republic is around 6 or 7 gold a month (that's with trade routes set up for maximum income instead of for strategic gain). About half that goes for upkeep on the army and navy, leaving ~3g a month. Building a forum (which opens up a new trade route worth .06g per month) costs 45g to build, which is a bizarrely low cost-to-benefit ratio. Things like sacrifices to increase stability (which is necessary to change back National Ideas after your stupid senate messes it up!) and even presents to foreign governments are unaccountably expensive.
I like the complexity of the game, but I'm not sure having to read a 70-page strategy guide should be necessary in order to understand everything that is going on.
So, here's my After Action Report, trying to replicate the 2nd Punic War as accurately as possible:
1) I built up a navy to try to give myself protection from Roman sea dominance. The Romans crushed it in a battle off the shores of Tunis, just like in real life. This made my navy only capable of ferrying limited amounts of troops around, in quick raids to Sicily and Sardinia before their navy could reappear and destroy my remaining ships. Losing naval superiority sucks - just like it did in real life.
2) I engaged in an island-hopping campaign to focus their attention away from Hannibal. This was not historically accurate, but neither was the randomly-rolled general that I got that was better(!) than Hannibal. I stuck him on Corsica and Sicily and proceeded to slaughter every army the Romans tried to land, as they met the shore. This helped even out the bizarre manpower differences between the two Republics.
3) I tried to make diplomatic alliances with the various Iberian tribes in Spain. The Carthaginian senate didn't allow it(!?), though, so I ended up having to conquer the hostile tribes and barbarians, and just stationed small armies to watch the other tribes. I was able to hire them as mercenaries, so that sorta-kinda replicated the experience. The one diplomatic mission I was able to replicate was sending an envoy to Emporion, a Greek colony a bit north of Barcelona, near the Pyrenees - with a large army stationed on his border, he preferred to let me march through, rather than face the rage of 3,000 elephants. I also conquered the Roman states on the way north.
4) On the way to the Alps, the Romans harassed me at the Rhone, just like in history. =) I was also attacked by barbarians while passing through, which also happened in history. I paused to blow up the Roman colony at Massila, which Hannibal decided to bypass in real life.
5) I marched over the Alps. By this point, I'd lost a far amount of troops to attrition and battle losses (historically accurate). After routing the Roman army in northern Italy (we'll call it the Battle of the Trebia), I should have been able to resupply and re-man my cohorts with the friendly Gaulish tribes in the region, but in EU: Rome, all of northern Italy is "Roman", which meant that my armies kept suffering attrition, and so went down in size instead of up (this is very historically inaccurate). The game also doesn't allow more than 5,000 troops to live off the land in any foreign province, which is also wildly inaccurate, as the central part of Italy was so fecund, Hannibal was able to feed his army for 16 years in a foreign land without needing supplies. He had something like 50,000 to 60,000 men with him. He rather famously would swoop into a region right before the harvest, the defenders would flee behind the city walls, then his army would harvest the crops for them. =) He also kept thousands of cattle stolen from Roman farms.
6) So, with his army melting away instead of replenishing itself, the Romans threw enough armies at Hannibal that he eventually lost. (Historically inaccurate) I also couldn't figure out how to get my Numidian allies across the sea into Rome, but that could just be my own ignorance of the game. Also, the Romans seemed to have unlimited manpower reserves to restock the men in their army, whereas Carthage had about 3,000 manpower reserves across the entire Republic at the start of the game. It was kind of ridiculous.
7) Rome did invade North Africa and then demanded a white peace (ala Scipio Africanus), which was kind of neat. But my Numidians and I fought them off.
8) Like in reality, the political situation in Carthage made conquest difficult. They demanded to put one of their own generals in charge of a large army, who was completely incompetent (historically accurate), and the governing party would switch every couple months, which could also switch my National Ideas around (which was annoying, since it would cost like 20 years of income to switch it back). While it was somewhat accurate, it was perhaps too unstable for my taste. I wanted to just overthrow the Republic and declare a dictatorship, since they kept picking the most incompetent people possible to run the Republic. They also shut down most avenues of diplomacy, which was also unrealistic, since Hannibal and Hasdrubal's diplomacy with the various tribes in Africa, Iberia and Gaul was central to their success - they essentially had a free hand in dealing with them, not the senate. Also the tribes hate Carthage in the game (they start in the negative hundreds), whereas in real life they flocked to Hannibal since they saw Rome encroaching on their territories and establishing colonies on their lands. Due to the lack of money for gifts (one gift = 3 months GDP) and the obstinate senate, this whole avenue of gameplay was shut down.
9) There's no siege weapons in the game, which is an oversight, IMO. Hannibal lost his siege train by the time he got to the Po, and this was a major reason why he never conquered Rome - he couldn't destroy city walls, and was repulsed whenever he tried a direct assault. His brother, Hasdrubal, was killed when he also crossed the Alps and brought reinforcement and a siege train with him. One of those quirks of fate that made all the difference.
10) Cavalry in the game are the counter to elephants. In real life, they... weren't. Hannibal was defeated by Scipio when his troops at the start of the battle suddenly yelled and blew trumpets and startled the elephants into Hannibal's own cavalry, scattering them and allowing Scipio's Numidian cavalry to decisively win the battle. If anything, properly formed heavy infantry or even skirmishers were the solution to elephants. (Also, Numidians are locked in at 200 loyalty in the game, so the bit of drama with Sophonisba and Massinissa can't really be replicated.)
11) So, long story short, I think the game was amazingly accurate in a lot of respects, but the inaccuracies were enough to kind of turn me off overall. On the third hard, the music in the game is brilliant.
12) I do want to try this again in multiplayer with my friends.
