Carthage starts the year off by converting and capturing the Alpine Gaulish.

While the Romans use  their troops in Africa after last years successful campaign to convert 2 spaces and thus secure a majority of control in western Numdia.

The bastard son Hannibal then plays Senate Replaces Consul!!
Now I don’t know if this can be done to the Pro Consul, but this hurts. My best General with the best ratings currently available is swapped for the hapless Longus.

This will mean a +2 battle card difference when Hannibal crosses the Alps to attack via the Southern Route.
Now he could go around via the Northern Route and surprise my smaller 3 CU army there, but I feel he is spoiling for a fight.

Meanwhile in Afrika the erstwhile Paulus who started the year replacing Nero got to work consolidating troops and moving into Sitilis, ready to seek battle next turn with Hanno’s marginally smaller army.

 

Paulus was two options. Leap to Carthage to go for a difficult but possibly lucrative Siege.

Or attack Hanno and break the army down in Afrika. With 2 strong cards in the hand to aid the Roman effort this could be viable.

Ideally if I can delay Hannibal one more year that would be super, and take  more PU than last year that would be even better.

Neither of the Sicily or Corsica cards have come up yet, and Jeff is getting antsy to fight.

While historically by this time Hannibal was deep into Romes fertile lands running amok and attempting to power convert the Italian Allies, the Romans were fighting in the Iberian Peninsula.

The two approaches were very different. Hannibal demonstration of his ability to defeat the Romans was impressive, but the cultural and political process of being allied to Carthage left a lot to be desired.  This contrasted to Romes, easy, mostly honest approach. They treated loyal allies and vassal states with respect and did not double cross them. They wooed their Allies.

Hannibals approach of inciting fear via tactical prowess was less enamoring to the Italian Peninsula  tribes, hence the reluctance to join unless under duress.

More soon.