Best starting strategies for Carthage?

I'm a huge fan of naval maps, and so am trying out playing as Dido. I love the UA, and the naval UU, though the UA took some research to figure out (for instance, I'm playing on Tiny Islands maps to maximize Carthage's advantages, and so was skipping The Wheel entirely while I could, making the free Harbor not nearly as useful as I wanted it to be.)

My personal issues are:

1.) I'm finally starting to try to play like an adult, I guess, and so am playing Prince for my first time. That's not a particular difficulty, but I don't know what exactly to expect from the differences in difficulty down the line.

2.) I generally favor mid-game rising civs. Netherlands are a good example, but also Korea, and I'd consider Inca to even be this as well due to the techs required to build a terrace farm (though in reality Inca is pretty pan-era, with a useless UU and a UA which never ceases to be useful.) Carthage is early-rising, and that takes a lot of expertise which I don't yet have in managing them to get them up and running.

Particularly, it seems as though I can no longer blow through individual tech trees, which I expected and is fine, but I still need a strategy for how to handle things now. The free harbor UA lends Carthage VERY heavily towards REX, I would think, and so Liberty would seem to take prominence, but I also need some old standbyes from the Tradition tree (like free monuments in my first four cities, or faster wonder production), and the Quinquerime makes me want to open up Honor early as well to train them up so that I can take out Barbs for CS bonuses early, as well as take advantage of my chances to eliminate a few rivals in the classical era.

How are the more experienced players handling their Carthage starts?

Start by getting in a war after you build some elephants!!!

I forgot to mention there is also, of course, the issue of religion. Usually I will build a monument, then a shrine, then a worker, so that the starting techs (which in this case I would have to imagine would be Pottery & Sailing, then likely AH or Mining depending on the roll) would allow him do actually do something.

Maybe religion just isn't worth that much effort with Dido, but I'm interested in Messenger of the Gods for the early and continuing science boost.

One key with Carthage is getting that pantheon relatively quickly, and then taking either Messenger of the Gods (+2 per city w/trade route) or God of the Sea (+1 per fishing boats). I'm generally partial to MotG, unless my start area is riddled with sea resources or someone beats me to it.

I'm not a big fan of Tiny Islands because I feel like it places too much emphasis on beelining to Optics, especially if you're playing with Carthage. With my preferred Carthage map (Large Islands), I like to fill in my island ASAP (usually 3-4 cities), and then spend a while building up my economy & navy; preferably, I don't want to try any overseas conquests until I unlock the galleas to support my q-remes in city-taking--while the q-remes will dominate ancient naval battles vs. anyone but the Byzantines, they need some help to take cities without suffering mass losses. So with that in mind, I usually go for a Tradition/Honor opener, the rationale being that filling out Tradition makes it so much easier to assure me of the wonders I want (Great Library, Great Lighthouse, Oracle, Colossus ideally, although you're probably only going to get 2-3), while Honor makes it easier to fill out Tradition quickly. Then it's on to Commerce as soon as it's available.

The biggest issue I had in adapting to Prince vs. easier levels was having to watch my happiness & gold counts throughout the early game, and learning to work trading with the AI civs. Carthage on a water-based map is a great equalizer, as all those water tiles will help tremendously with your economy, and the free harbors make it relatively easy to grab new luxuries quickly. Which of course means that you do want to grab optics pretty early for exploration purposes, but with a little more land mass around your capital you can afford to research writing and some techs to build necessary improvements first.

Thanks! That brings up another question I had, re: MotG. This seems pretty basic, but can one only create trade routes domestically now, or would foreign trade routes pop up once friendly civs build harbors of their own?

Additionally, I guess, is the MotG benefit based purely around the capital or holy city (i.e. does it matter if the trade routes are in cities not following the pantheon?)

It would seem to make a huge difference in the value of MotG.

Foreign trade routes don't exist anymore, so they don't count. At least, I assume they don't; I've never actually checked the math during a game.

I'm not 100% on your second question. With my strategy that I outlined above, I generally have my religion up & running and all of my cities converted by the time I'm looking to start conquering, and usually the first couple civs I DoW on are ones I've already converted, or am at least putting massive religious pressure on. Spreading my religion through Religious Texts and judicious use of follow-up great prophets usually means that by the time I start conquering, the target civ has either already converted or is under massive amounts of pressure.

Navelgazer said:

TAdditionally, I guess, is the MotG benefit based purely around the capital or holy city (i.e. does it matter if the trade routes are in cities not following the pantheon?)

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MotG applies to every trade route you have, irrespective of the religion/pantheon of your cities.

In addition to the previous posts re. getting a decent pantheon, my thoughts on starting with Carthage:

- the Great Lighthouse is obviously synergistic with Carthage being naval orientated but it's quite hard to get as the AI seems to prioritise it on watery maps, if you want to go for it you really have to (beeline the tech, chop any forests, max production, starve the city for a while, etc).

- the quinqueremes are a nice and very cheap unit but they rapidly get outclassed by city defences, if you're going to use them to attack cities be prepared to lose quite a few.

- personally I think Carthage is actually a good classical era warmongering civ, the elephants are a strong early unit, especially if you can bring the mountain-crossing bonus into play. On the other hand the AI quite often builds pikemen now since they're generally the strongest melee unit at that point in the game, so be careful with your elephants.

- for most civs I still believe Liberty is a good opener, especially to get the free worker. But I've found myself that Tradition (and maybe Honour as a previous poster suggested) seems to fit better. The bonus to production is handy as this is often lacking in water-based maps, and Aristocracy for the wonder bonus is also very helpful if you're prioritising Great Lightouse or Great Library. Expand quickly and bee-line Wheel to get the trade routes running and you will have quite a lot of cash for buying workers and possibly settlers.

- the cheap quinqueremes mean you can spam a few out and explore the whole map much quicker than everyone except maybe the English: extra cash for CS, meet all the civs for trade (and later on sell open borders), prove the world is round, find ruins to explore while you're consolidating your empire, etc.

I've been playing Carthage on large islands maps. The start that seems to be working:

Research Pottery, start a Worker, Tradition opener. Set Citizen Management priority to Food.

Build Shrine once pottery is researched (Change production from producing your Worker if he isn't finished). Set Worker to building farms. It's a rare start that doesn't have a few tiles on which you can build a farm so the Worker is good for adding early Food and he'll already be there to chop, or build mines, quarries, etc.

Take Liberty opener.

Research Sailing and build at least two Quinqueremes, send them exploring. It's worth it to build the Quinqueremes, even at the expense of Work Boats, for the reasons that Stride Colossus laid out in his last paragraph.

Building a Shrine ASAP is essential at King and above because at those levels the AI starts with Pottery. The two openers will provide enough culture for early border pops which obviates the need to immediately build a Monument.

I know it's a little off topic but I just started a self-created 'Emperor' level OCC scenario with Carthage where I made my city surrounded Mountains i.e
``M
M C M
M M M

My Strategy was, create a scout, monument and anything else I can create without filling up my city, meanwhile waiting for culture to build up to get 'honour' policy so I can get an early game Great general thus allowing me to move units across the Mountains.

This means that I cannot lose my city (sort of cheating, but I call it good strategy ) Therefore I can be ultra aggressive towards other civs without fear, I then went for 'tradition' policy and all other border expanding methods in order to get lots of resources, as the mountains create 6 non-productive tiles.

I also started producing units as fast as possible and start a war with the least liked civ in the immediate vicinity to take advantage of my cities invincibility .

It doesn't go along with your favouritism toward naval progression but it is making the most of a unique ability.

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 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 per sea resource plus the +1 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.

Just discovered something interesting in my latest Carthage game...
Apparently, if your willing to sacrifice enough workers... you can make railroads through mountains. Very useful in this particular game, where the city where I purchased most of my units from was separated by a huge mountain range from my puppet empire. The railroad over the mountain allowed easy access for my troops.

Nyanko said:

Just discovered something interesting in my latest Carthage game...
Apparently, if your willing to sacrifice enough workers... you can make railroads through mountains. Very useful in this particular game, where the city where I purchased most of my units from was separated by a huge mountain range from my puppet empire. The railroad over the mountain allowed easy access for my troops.

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Now that's interesting. I usually delete all but one worker after I build railroads anyway.

Nyanko said:

Just discovered something interesting in my latest Carthage game...
Apparently, if your willing to sacrifice enough workers... you can make railroads through mountains. Very useful in this particular game, where the city where I purchased most of my units from was separated by a huge mountain range from my puppet empire. The railroad over the mountain allowed easy access for my troops.

Click to expand...

I can see this tactic being incomprehensibly painful on Marathon.

Lyoncet said:

I can see this tactic being incomprehensibly painful on Marathon.

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You move up on the mountain, start road building.

Click next turn, loss half health.

Move of the mountain and move a new one up that continues road.

Wont that work?

What do we think about the African Forest Elephants? I found them pretty useless as they are too expensive, take too many techs to research, and just aren't effective as they are easily countered by spearmen, do poorly against cities, and made obsolete by Knights.

I lol'd ...

because I hadn't though of it. Now I need to do that, just to have railroaded mountains. They should add an achievement for that. Call it "Guadarrama Tunnel", since Carthage owned the Iberian Peninsula awhile.

Miravlix said:

You move up on the mountain, start road building.

Click next turn, loss half health.

Move of the mountain and move a new one up that continues road.

Wont that work?

Click to expand...

Yea I was thinking that too. You only need like six or so per tile then so the first can be fully healed by the time it is their turn again.

ShahJahanII said:

What do we think about the African Forest Elephants? I found them pretty useless as they are too expensive, take too many techs to research, and just aren't effective as they are easily countered by spearmen, do poorly against cities, and made obsolete by Knights.

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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.

ShahJahanII said:

What do we think about the African Forest Elephants? I found them pretty useless as they are too expensive, take too many techs to research, and just aren't effective as they are easily countered by spearmen, do poorly against cities, and made obsolete by Knights.

Click to expand...

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 .