I enjoy Carthage quite a bit, but was wondering if people found them to be an effective civ?
They seem to have the Greek syndrome. Their UU's are ancient + classical and seem strong on paper, but suffer from not being part of a decisive strategy (read: rushing fools). Has anyone been able to use either the quinquireme or the elephants in a conquest strategy? The quinquireme in particular is a great unit (45 hammers for an ancient strength 13?), but it's unlikely that you will find good target cities for it early in the game when it is viable. The one good use I've found for it is to jack up your military rating and then go on a CS shakedown world cruise, which I guess isn't bad.
The UA is nice though and leads to a fun playstyle, so I want to like Dido.
I was always a shameless Great Lighthouse player in CIV. There's something really fun about building a coastal empire; I feel that you experience the geography in a richer way. One of my big disappointments with CiV is that coastal cities are still uncompetitive with inland cities due to the extra infrastructure it demands. Carth's free harbors do push them over this tipping point, so you get to return to a completely different empire building style.
They seem to have the Greek syndrome. Their UU's are ancient + classical and seem strong on paper, but suffer from not being part of a decisive strategy (read: rushing fools). Has anyone been able to use either the quinquireme or the elephants in a conquest strategy? The quinquireme in particular is a great unit (45 hammers for an ancient strength 13?), but it's unlikely that you will find good target cities for it early in the game when it is viable. The one good use I've found for it is to jack up your military rating and then go on a CS shakedown world cruise, which I guess isn't bad.
The UA is nice though and leads to a fun playstyle, so I want to like Dido.
I was always a shameless Great Lighthouse player in CIV. There's something really fun about building a coastal empire; I feel that you experience the geography in a richer way. One of my big disappointments with CiV is that coastal cities are still uncompetitive with inland cities due to the extra infrastructure it demands. Carth's free harbors do push them over this tipping point, so you get to return to a completely different empire building style.