Rating: 4
How careless can a person get? There was no way the battle could have been lost after the elephants smashed into the rear of the Brutii army, yet he managed to completely squander each of the MANY opportunities after his elephants ran amok.
Both armies had...unusual lineups, the Brutii army having Urbans and...town watch? The town watches were somewhat useful in being onager fodder and as a cheap way to fight the onagers, but I would have gotten Roman archers instead. Nevermind. The Carthage army had Sacred Band and Libyan spearmen, which proved their uselessness over and over again in this battle.
The pila was wasted on the onagers; Urban cohorts could easily have taken them on without using them, saving it for the more dangerous Sacred Bands.
Both sides were quite careless when it came to the flanking battle, The Roman Julii trying to charge two Libyan Spearmen into EIGHT Praetorian cavalry, and scipio_africanus reacting very slowly in attacking the Sacred Band cavalry.
I was constantly astounded by the maneuvers the Sacred Band were doing. It appeared from the replay that the Sacred Band were given move commands in the midst of a battle against Urbans, leading to melee and defeat when they could have just stayed in formation and mauled the Urbans. There was also a flanking maneuver by Sacred Bands that failed miserably when The Roman Julii put his troops on phalanx right before they could have hit the Urbans and causing a mass rout, which probably lost him two Sacred Band units.
Over all, very entertaining to watch, as well as being a lesson on what not to do when commanding phalanxes.