14 DAY TRIAL // I love technology in strategy games and I often strive to be the one faction with superior knowledge, the one that can use intelligence and the fruits of research in order to triumph over its enemies via brain power rather than simply force of weapons.
This means that when I started to play the new Hannibal at the Gates expansion for Total War: Rome II, I was instantly tempted to play as Syracuse, the city state in Sicily that has a 10 percent bonus to its research ability, which means it can gain a tech advantage over its rivals during the Second Punic War.
I first played as both Carthage and Rome because they are the major powers of the era and then returned to the faction led by Hiero II to see what it had to offer.
Their starting position is pretty tough, because the other two settlements in Sicily belong to the Romans and war against them seems like a losing proposition.
Instead, the developers at The Creative Assembly suggest, via the missions structure, for the player to take on Libya and try to gain a foothold in North Africa, while also declaring war on Carthage in order to gain an alliance with the Romans.
The strategy seems sound, but I decided to take a few turns to prepare and then take on the Romans, secure Sicily and then try to expand into Southern Italy.
The takeover of Messina and Lilibaeum is easy to execute and done with minimal losses after I managed to deal with a crippling lack of food generated by a loss of trade with the Republic and its allies.
The problem appeared when I decided to push deeper into Italy and found that the Romans were already heading to Sicily and were not too happy about my betrayal.
I managed to defeat a big army, albeit with some solid losses, and took the southernmost two cities.
I now needed to split my troops to take the entire province and to also defeat the Samnites when I was stopped in my tracks by the plague, which struck the entire province and both my armies.
In the two turns I was affected, the Samnites and Romans quickly recruited mercenaries and took out one of my armies, forcing the other to retreat.
If I can hold the strait at Messina in a defensive posture, then Syracuse might have a future in this version of the Second Punic War.