Dawn of the Punic Sea [DoC]

Table of Contents

Chapter 1: Breathe
Chapter 2: Fall of the Ancients
Chapter 3: Beyond Thunderdrome
Chapter 4: Energy Drink
Chapter 5: Duke Onkled
Chapter 6: Roma Delenda Est
Chapter 7: Whoo-Boy
Chapter 8: Hey Look, A Hippo.
Chapter 9: Thank You, Based God.
Chapter 10: Time of Troubles.
Chapter 11: Attrition
Chapter 12: The Moors
Chapter 13: Surrounded
Chapter 14: Recovery
Chapter 15: Party Like It's 1999
Chapter 16: Tongue-Tied
Chapter 17: Windowpane
Chapter 18: Uh-Oh.
Chapter 19: Superhuman Rifles
Chapter 20: New Horizons
Chapter 21: My Client Industry
Chapter 22: Goodbye Baby Goodbye
Chapter 23: We The People
Chapter 24: Border Clashes
Chapter 25: Cutting The Cake
Chapter 26: Helpful Vassals
Chapter 27: Uncle Jesse & The Rippers
Chapter 28: The Cat Lady
Chapter 29: Unthinkable
Chapter 30: Endwar
Chapter 31: Fanning Flames
Chapter 32: All Directions
Chapter 33: Sunnyshore
Chapter 34: No Means No
Chapter 35: Eastern Theatre
Chapter 36: Apple Scooper
Chapter 37: Maria
Chapter 38: Blitz
Chapter 39: Saga

Hello, this is my second advertisement AAR for the excellent and superior Dawn of Civilization modmod of RFC.
As with my previous DoC AAR, I will highlight some of the changes made to
this particular civilization, as well as some of the nuances of the mod itself.

Specifically to the Phoenicians, they received some pretty big boosts in terms of viability.
Mostly in the form of a new UU and UP:
The new UU is the African War Elephant, a War Elephant that does not require Construction,
and comes auto-promoted with Shock, making it perfect for smashing pesky Legions.
Their new UP enables them to pay for reduced-cost mercenaries and lowers their maintenance,
something that accurately portrays the make-up of the bulk of the Carthaginian's military; mostly mercenaries.
And one of my favorite changes in 1.9+ onwards, (not Phoenician specific):
Building a city on top of a resource treats the base tile as an improved tile with all the improved yields that come with it.

Settings:





You ready? I'm ready.

Time to marvel at just how bad my playing style is.
What victory are you going for? I imagine you'll have a lot of trouble as you go into the medieval era. This is SVN, I assume?

An immortal is born on the shores of the Levant.
The mother and the father cradle their child, brimming with joy
at their fortune. The midwife at present is the only one to notice
the storm clouds on the horizon. She keeps this to herself.

As he grows into a young man, dark-haired and bronze-skinned,
the Phoenician peoples rally to him, attracted by his natural charisma
and sharp instincts. Soon, Hannibal takes stride and rises to the position
of the leader of his peoples. He looks thoughtfully out towards
the Mediterranean Sea. He pledges to himself that this sea,
this eternal sea of limitless bounty, will become a Punic Sea.



Kition is settled instead of whatever that irrelevant original spot is.
This site is absolutely perfect. Let me sing its' praises with the following reasons:

1. Automatic access to Copper. Spears & Axes straight out the gate.
Now that you get the full yields by settling on a resource, it's a killer capital location as well.

2. Like Dagou in my Chinese game, this is a pretty ideal location to build
The Great Cothon. Count it: 13 sea tiles around it.

3. It's protected on all sides. This will be very important in the coming updates.



Jumping ahead, Qart-Hadasht is founded.
Notice the mercenaries that we hired.



Smelling weakness, young Hannibal Barca strikes out against the civilization of the immortal Pericles.
Incensed at this sudden and unprovoked attack, Pericles suited up and donned his helmet.
Unfortunately, he put it on the wrong way and was plagued with the inability to see,
causing him to stumble to Byzantion but inadvertently saving his life in the process.



The capital of Athenai was captured and seized.
The beginning of a Mediterranean Empire starts here.

The Phoenicians lay siege to Byzantion and take the city,
although this time, the Greeks have had time to prepare,
making this victory significantly more costly.
The Anatolian interior still bristles with hordes of hostile Greek troops
so the garrison at Byzantion is instructed to stay on high alert.



Cyrus, invoking the glory of Ahura Mazda, brings the independent city
of Jerusalem under his wings, announcing his arrival on the world stage.
The Babylonians, the traditional hegemons of the region,
are infuriated at the presence of the new upstart Persians, and declare war.
By this time, the Greeks have already faded into the sands of time,
Pericles having stumbled off a cliff with his helmet on backwards.
With no one to lead them, the Greeks descended into obscurity in Anatolia.



Hannibal bathes in the moonlight of Tanit.



Actually, we finish The Great Cothon.
I was just trigger happy with the PRT SC button.
But again, similarly to Dagou in my previous AAR,
this is going to be a great Cothon city.
We immediately reap the benefits as we are already working the Fish.



Babylon too, is destroyed and laid low by the energetic new Persians.
Hannibal studies the situation carefully, via his spies and informants.
Will the Persians become his friends or his enemies?

Subbed once more. I can't stand the new Phoenicians, especially in SVN, with the Moors added. The old ones were far superior for my playstyle. Though I admit the bireme was rather useless.

EDIT: Reminds me of how I used to play, but as typical TD, much much more aggressive.

Subbed.

Bair_the_Normal said:

EDIT: Reminds me of how I used to play, but as typical TD, much much more aggressive.

Click to expand...

If you think I'm aggressive in Civ, you should watch me play some other games.
Namely Persona 4: Arena (I like getting real close and laying down pressure against Kanjis and Yus as Yukiko of all characters)
and Dokapon Kingdom (I consistently screw over my friends the most by far).



The two men stood facing each over on the shore of Qart-Hadasht, staring one another down.
They said nothing and this continued for several minutes,
leaving the legionaries on Caesar's side uncomfortably shifting around
and Hannibal's own Numidian and Greek bodyguards watching restlessly.
From the look on Caesar's piercing eyes, Hannibal knew he
had come face to face with the man whose destiny was tied to his own.
Neither dared to say it, but it was clear that they would eventually be drawn to conflict against one another.
The Mediterranean would eventually become the ring in which they would fight.
They both knew. Two men enter, one man leaves.

"We are the Romans. We are pleased to meet you here today in your fine city."
"I'm happy that you've fattened up this city in preparation for the day I take it."

"As are we. Perhaps one day, I can have the pleasure to set foot in yours." Hannibal responded.



The two leaders began to walk through the Carthaginian streets, with their entourages in tow.

"I'm quite impressed. I've come to understand that a magnificient temple honoring the Greek goddess,
Artemis, has recently been erected in your capital. Say, didn't you conquer the Greeks not very long ago?"
"You, the Greek bodyguards. What say you join me instead of your conqueror?"

"That is a matter of fact. Pericles had the misfortune to wander off a cliff.
Not surprising considering he wore his helmet backwards all of the time."



"Well. I must be going now. Roman power grows by the day. I trust I shall see you again. We certainly appreciate your gift of arrows. We hope you will enjoy our alphabet the same."
"We enjoyed speaking with you, Hannibal. Odd, since you are so far inferior, but personality goes a long way."

"We certainly shall meet again, Caesar."



The Oracle is finished and we grab the most expensive tech.
I don't know if I've mentioned this before, but in DoC, The Oracle and Liberalism
can only snag you a free tech from your current technological era.
Really, really keep this in mind before you commit to completing them.



And we trade it to Cyrus for Monarchy.
Oh I just can't wait to be King.

Subbed, there is nothing like a Dawn story.

subbed, let's see how our Phoenician playstyle differs

Thusfar, the only thing is the capital

Another great story from Dawn!

Subbed. The Cyprus idea is actually genius.

Tomorrow's Dawn said:

I don't know if I've mentioned this before, but in DoC, The Oracle and Liberalism
can only snag you a free tech from your current technological era.
Really, really keep this in mind before you commit to completing them.

Click to expand...

Why? When is a free tech (even a cheap one) not a good thing?

So what victory are you going for?

DC123456789 said:

So what victory are you going for?

Click to expand...

I'd rather not give it away just yet.

In Asia, Egypt declares war on Persia and seizes Jerusalem from right under their noses.
Also, see that I am building Ishtar Gate.
Since this game, I have re-evaluated and revised my previous opinion on the Wonder.
It's not as useless as I previously believed considering the following points:

1. It's cheap.
2. Like any other Wonder, it provides a small Economy boost.
3. The effect is actually very powerful within the context of DoC;
specifically, I've been finding it difficult in most games to get very desirable vassals;
i.e: Russia, China, Mongolia, etc.
This actually accelerates capitulations by widening the gap between your war weariness and theirs.
Passively, it also just screws over every other civ to suffer quicker in their own wars as well.
If it can't help get them to capitulate, then it will certainly assist in encouraging them to accept peace deals sooner.
We all know how notoriously bull-headed DoC AIs can be sometimes.
Think of the Ishtar Gate as a diplomacy-aid to help ease prediction and quicken AI agreements and it will be well worth the hammers.



Hannibal's charisma is so much that it reduces prices on mercenaries.
Here's a little look at how much you can expect most starting mercenaries to cost.



The Colossus is finished in Athenai.
We need this to cement our sea commerce, as well as to empower Kition.
Thanks to The Great Cothon and The Colossus (plus a Harbor!),
a lowly sea tile provides our capital with 2 Food, 1 Hammer and 3 Commerce.
That's actually just a decent tile in my opinion, but again, the best part
about settling Kition is that you are protected from all sides.
Nobody can touch you, and this has important strategic implications.
Because we are expanding westwards, we have to worry about North African
and Germanic barbarians.
The barbs have gotten an overhaul as well in recent revisions; with many barb types being able to spawn within your own borders.
Had I settled my capital in the Levant, it would've been a nightmare to defend against Parthian Horse Archers and Hulus on a third, and unnecessary front.

Think of this as trimming the fat.



Hannibal had heard the tales of Roman expansion from his Gallic and Celt-Iberian mercenaries.
Caesar was ravaging their lands with his legions, and spreading across Europe like a plague.
It was true that Rome boasted the most military strength of any world power at the time, especially impressive for such a young nation.
But brute strength was not the answer to everything. Trade was the answer to everything.
And Roman isolation from Egyptian and Persian markets thanks to Phoenicia's undisputed control of the sea was already a major thorn in their relations.
It was inevitable, really.

Hannibal had remembered the first thing that the immortal Roman had said to him on the day they met.



It certainly is a pleasure to step foot in your city, Caesar,
Hannibal thought to himself as he watched his mercenaries pillage and plunder Rome.

Subbed!
Ha! Capital at Pompeii? I don't think Vesuvius likes that.

Subbed.

I assume you're not going for the UHV, since AFAIK, the Great Cothon needs to be built in Carthage.

Yet you're still stable. I've got to get the newest SVN.

Very nice. Rome being guarded by archers was to be expected

Last time I played as Phoenicia I also settled at Kition, I found it very useful to prevent the Arabian and Byzantine flip too.

instead of Rome being the main empire of the world, the Phoenicians are... Marx was right. capitalists want to conquer the world.

On a tangent, I found a new strategy after trying the Phoenicians for the first time in months. Capital at Kition again, second city was Cagliari on Sardinia. Rush Monotheism and Zoroastrianism will usually be founded at Cagliari and will help push the Romans back a bit. Third and fourth cities would be Algiers and the city east of the Libyan wheat respectively.

Back on topic, very nice Phoenician empire so far.