Best starting strategies for Carthage?

I found it annoying that the terror promotion doesnt carry on, like the War Dance promotion for Polynesia. The GG promotion does, but its just not the same.

I also discovered that fact this weekend and was equally annoyed.
 
Okay, so I stumbled onto what I think is pretty close to a perfect starting strategy with Carthage, and immediately thought of this thread.

Map: Large Islands, Standard size, Standard time

Research path: Pottery > Writing > Calendar > ????
Build path: Monument > Shrine > Great Library > Oracle > ????
Social path: Liberty tree, left to right

"????" just means it's whatever feels needed at that point on your map; the opening is what counts.

I nailed this perfectly 3 times in 3 starts on King, and I'm 1 for 1 on Emperor now (and I'd never played Emperor before).

The key here is that it's Large Islands, so unless you crank up the # of AI civs or get a freak unlucky start you have your own 3-4 city-sized "continent", and building a scout or other unit isn't necessary for a while. Getting the monument in place kicks you up to 4 :c5culture: per turn when Liberty is unlocked (which should happen a few turns after you finish the monument, or earlier if you catch a lucky ruin), while the shrine gets you going towards your pantheon (Messenger of the Gods unless your terrain literally screams for something else). If you have any extra turns between finishing either building and being able to start the next one, put them towards building a worker (but shift to the new building as soon as the tech is unlocked).

Beelining to writing and then starting the GL immediately should get it for you, particularly with your automatic +1 :c5production: per sea resource plus the +1 :c5production: from your second policy. Use the free tech to pick up philosophy (hence researching Calendar third), and then immediately start The Oracle. The Oracle should net you the Golden Age policy, and 8-10 turns or so later you should be able to close out Liberty. I've used the "free" great person on a great prophet, which I then used to found my religion (first religion in 3 of the 4 games, second religion in the other one, but I only drew the Celts once). You will want to micromanage your citizens to make sure you're getting as much production as possible without stagnating your growth.

While I was building GL & Oracle, I worked on researching Sailing, whatever techs I needed for tile improvement, and Archery > Wheel (so the trade routes kicked in); if you wanted to really go for it, I'm pretty sure you could instead beeline for Theology and knock out the Hagia Sophia next for your second prophet (even with other techs & builds in between, I managed to get the HS in my Emperor game).

Give it a shot & let me know if it works for you. :)

At these difficulty levels its pretty easy to get a religion (worst case scenario build HS) and with Carthage I actually think its more beneficial to delay the religion and REX (since your MOTG pantheon will auto spread to all your new cities UNTIL you found a religion when you need to do it manually). Use a religious CS friend or Ally to knock out a prophet if you feel its needed or just build shrines in all your new cities for decent faith per turn
GL->Philosophy for NC is a good move you can use up to Emperor. You'd be fine to delay the Oracle until you have built some settlers in your capital after the GL
 
I have won my 1st 2 games on King level, both on Naval maps, by exploiting how over powered the Quinquereme is in the early game.

I go Pottery > Sailing, and then start making boats. 1st one explores, 2nd one follows it. 2 is enough to intimidate most city states this early (around turn 20), so I intimidate all that I find, using the cash to buy another boat while my 3rd is building. Once I have 4, I surround a weak (strength under 13) City State that has 4 water exposed tiles, and it's mine in 2 turns.

These attacks allow you to upgrade all the Quinqueremes with City Raider 1, and then it's on. I'll add a 5th boat right away, and this Navy is usually enough to puppet 4-5 City states by turn 50-60. It usually intimidates other Civs too - in my 1st game, the Aztecs were 'Afraid' of me for the first 50+ turns, then turned Friendly.

Happiness takes a serious hit, so I usually stay down around 1-2 cities for a while to keep it manageable, but I def miss the early Golden Ages the AI gets. Still, in both cases I had approx 2x the score of ALL other competitors around 1AD. Once Optics kicks in, you are flush with cash and resources - I bought about 85% of my building and units, and just had my cities cranking out Wonders nearly all the time...

I went on to win Sci and Cult Victories...
 
Thanks to everybody, these are great responses! I've tried the initial strategies brought up here to get me up to about the Medieval era, but I've been busy moving since I posted the question, so I haven't gotten to do everything I've wanted to yet (for instance, trying the mountain rail tunnel, which I'm curious to see (is there a special new graphic for it?)

I'll definitely try chaoswarriorx's strategy soon as well.
 
I found it annoying that the terror promotion doesnt carry on, like the War Dance promotion for Polynesia. The GG promotion does, but its just not the same.
It doesn't? That's a shame. But I guess it is enough to get you a few cities on your own continent.
It is a good UU, excellent early on & it performs fairly well against spears (16.1 vs 17 with one promo from barracks). U should bring about 2-3 of ur naval UU with city attack promos + 2 catapults + 2-3 elephants. That is enough to take down a coastal capital easily. Another plus is it has GG II promo which has a good synergy with UA. It is certainly more useful than some other horse UUs like cataphract.

Edit : I later compared African elephants with companion cavalry & they are significantly inferior. They cost 33% more & have 2 less :c5moves:. :(
Yeah, companion cavalry are really fast. Good strategy, but it might take some time to carry through. I wonder how useful the Elephants are on Deity?
 
I just finished a game as Carthage on prince on a huge archipelago map. It was a great game. I really focused on early expansion and settled all over the place, just getting the best resources. My capital had a couple of whales and so I rushed to get the colossus thinking that would increase my sea resource income, but they changed it in the new expansion and it now gives big bonuses to trade routes. so I focused on my trade routes, and a huge bonus for Carthage is that the free harbor also increases trade route income. from there on I focused on gold. it was rediuclous, at one point I was making around 330 gold per turn. So with so much gold I was able to buy tons of buildings, I focused on science and manufacturing, also, founded religion with a GP I got from completing liberty and got cheaper missionaries and gain science when spread religion, that gave a good science boost. in the end I easily won a science victory, but with so much money I could have won diplomatic too. whats really helpful in a science victory at the end game is using most trade routes to send production to capital, I had over 250 production in Carthage at the end.

I really love Carthage, expand early and get best resources, focus on trade and you'll have so much money you can win any way you like. just don't forget the wheel.
 
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