Carthage Should Have A Unique Economic Golden Age

[bengalryan9]

I think Carthage is a lot of fun to play but it kind of stinks that despite being well set up to complete the economic legacy path they can't get anything out of that particular Golden Age once Antiquity is over (the economic golden age is that your antiquity age cities remain cities through the age transition, but Carthage will only ever have its capital as a city).

Maybe give them a unique economic golden age that their first two city upgrades in Exploration are free? Could lead to some fun strategies as they could instantly convert settlements in distant lands if they wanted to go that route. Could open up the option for other civs to gain their own unique golden ages (or even dark ages?) in the future, too.

 

[Boris Gudenuf]

I think Carthage is a lot of fun to play but it kind of stinks that despite being well set up to complete the economic legacy path they can't get anything out of that particular Golden Age once Antiquity is over (the economic golden age is that your antiquity age cities remain cities through the age transition, but Carthage will only ever have its capital as a city).

Maybe give them a unique economic golden age that their first two city upgrades in Exploration are free? Could lead to some fun strategies as they could instantly convert settlements in distant lands if they wanted to go that route. Could open up the option for other civs to gain their own unique golden ages (or even dark ages?) in the future, too.

Note that the game already has 'Leader Unique' selections for Attributes for the start of a new Age, so I shouldn't think it would be too hard to assign similar Unique Attribute choices to Civilizations.

Aside from Carthage's obvious Settlement-City position, other possibilities might be:

Allow a Civ to keep 'extra' Ships in the Antiquity-Exploration transition - jump-starting Expeditions to Distant Lands by a turn or 2.
Allow a Civ to keep 1 or more Siege units in a transition in addition to only infantry, ranged and cavalry units.
Allow a Civ to complete a Wonder or Building it started in the previous Age but did not finish before the Age ended. This should cost several Attribute points, especially to complete a Wonder. Such completion also, should not count towards any completion of a Legacy Path in the previous or succeeding Age.

Just thoughts . . .

 

[MutilationWave]

I think Carthage is a lot of fun to play but it kind of stinks that despite being well set up to complete the economic legacy path they can't get anything out of that particular Golden Age once Antiquity is over (the economic golden age is that your antiquity age cities remain cities through the age transition, but Carthage will only ever have its capital as a city).

Maybe give them a unique economic golden age that their first two city upgrades in Exploration are free? Could lead to some fun strategies as they could instantly convert settlements in distant lands if they wanted to go that route. Could open up the option for other civs to gain their own unique golden ages (or even dark ages?) in the future, too.

Maybe they could be played differently? Getting double settlers is awesome, but use that to supercharge your capital, make tons of military. Conquer cities instead of towns then keep them with the economic legacy.

 

[Porry]

maybe they should change the effect of the economic golden age for all civs. instead of keeping all cities they should allow free conversion for the first 3 or 4. this way even those who used carthage in the previous age can take advantage of the golden age bonus.

 

[bengalryan9]

Maybe they could be played differently? Getting double settlers is awesome, but use that to supercharge your capital, make tons of military. Conquer cities instead of towns then keep them with the economic legacy.

Well sure, but it seems kind of silly that a player is forced to go down a completely different legacy path (military) in order to benefit from another (economic).

Personally I've never really enjoyed playing more militarily so that's just not all that attractive of a path for me.

 

[bengalryan9]

maybe they should change the effect of the economic golden age for all civs. instead of keeping all cities they should allow free conversion for the first 3 or 4. this way even those who used carthage in the previous age can take advantage of the golden age bonus.

The thing about that is it means that any player could "bank" the free upgrade and use it to instantly upgrade a settlement in a distant land to a city as soon as they found it (0 gold at 1 population? Sign me up!), which I'm guessing isn't something the devs want people doing. As a unique bonus for one civ I think it's ok, but if everyone could do it I think that really changes up the game. I think the devs want founding an overseas city to be a pretty big investment in terms of growth and gold required.

I will also note that I have no idea how well my suggestion does or doesn't fit Carthage historically... that's not super important to me personally but I know a lot of other players do care about that a lot so it should at least be considered.

 

[MutilationWave]

Well sure, but it seems kind of silly that a player is forced to go down a completely different legacy path (military) in order to benefit from another (economic).

Personally I've never really enjoyed playing more militarily so that's just not all that attractive of a path for me.

We're the opposite, the combat is my favorite part of 7. But it's also why it takes me forever to finish a game.

 

[moondog385]

I think this is a great idea. You’re bottlenecked from making cities in Antiquity, so free city conversion would be a great way to reward successful completion of the Economic path.

I noticed those leader unique attributes for the first time the other day when I was playing as Hatshepsut. Not sure if they just passed me by before or I didn’t play the right way the other times.

 

[evonannoredars]

I think it's okay that some civs have weaknesses when it comes to certain things. I'd rather have to make decisions about what legacy path to pursue given the pros and cons rather than have them tailored to always have good rewards no matter what.

 

[bengalryan9]

I think it's okay that some civs have weaknesses when it comes to certain things. I'd rather have to make decisions about what legacy path to pursue given the pros and cons rather than have them tailored to always have good rewards no matter what.

Well sure but as Carthage you're already kind of limited in what paths you can pursue by being limited to one city. You've already got an uphill battle to finish the cultural legacy path (7 wonders in one city?) and scientific path (which isn't as bad but you'll most likely have to set your towns to trading post specializations to get more codex slots and that's... not ideal IMO) so you're pretty strongly encouraged to pursue economic... why shouldn't they be able to benefit from an economic golden age when literally every other civ in the game can? Is there a single other example of a civilization that can't take advantage of any golden age policy in the entire game? I don't think so.

And sure, the counter argument to some of this is just "play aggressively and go conquer other cities", but should someone playing Carthage be forced to go down that road (especially when this is such an easy fix)? Doesn't being strongly encouraged go in that direction kind of go against what you're asking for in that a player should have to make choices during the course of their game?

 

[evonannoredars]

Well sure but as Carthage you're already kind of limited in what paths you can pursue by being limited to one city. You've already got an uphill battle to finish the cultural legacy path (7 wonders in one city?) and scientific path (which isn't as bad but you'll most likely have to set your towns to trading post specializations to get more codex slots and that's... not ideal IMO) so you're pretty strongly encouraged to pursue economic... why shouldn't they be able to benefit from an economic golden age when literally every other civ in the game can? Is there a single other example of a civilization that can't take advantage of any golden age policy in the entire game? I don't think so.

And sure, the counter argument to some of this is just "play aggressively and go conquer other cities", but should someone playing Carthage be forced to go down that road (especially when this is such an easy fix)? Doesn't being strongly encouraged go in that direction kind of go against what you're asking for in that a player should have to make choices during the course of their game?

They can still benefit from other legacy path points. It's not exactly a significant downside to Carthage that they don't benefit from one of the options.

 

[Krikkit1]

They can still benefit from other legacy path points. It's not exactly a significant downside to Carthage that they don't benefit from one of the options.

Exactly... they can Get Gold for a bonus in the next age... or they can get 2 extra Economic Attribute points

 

[bengalryan9]

They can still benefit from other legacy path points. It's not exactly a significant downside to Carthage that they don't benefit from one of the options.

You don't think it's the slightest bit odd that one civ alone doesn't get to benefit from a Golden Age policy? I'm not saying that it's a game breaker or anything, and sure, you can take other rewards instead (though I think the extra GPT from antiquity age trade routes is pretty insignificant, personally), it's just... odd.

And to answer my own question earlier in the thread, I did come up with another example of a civ in this game that doesn't necessarily get to take advantage of a golden age in an area they are likely to achieve one - Mongolia. Mongolia is pretty much built from the top down to go for the military path. They even get a unique bonus in that they get extra points towards that path when conquering their own continent. So if a player chooses Mongolia and plays them exactly they were designed to play them - conquering their home continent to finish the military legacy path - their golden age reward is... free infantry units in current distant land settlements (which they might not have even bothered with). Yay?

Again, none of this breaks these civs by any stretch, these are just odd situations that would be really easy to fix while adding more flavor to the game. I don't see the issue. I'm also guessing as the game expands with more civs being added some of those new civs are going to have similar unique legacy path related bonuses, too, so it's only going to become more common over time.

The different golden age option(s) don't even have to be unique to these civs (though I think that would be more interesting) - give everybody in the game a choice between the two if you really want.

 

[UWHabs]

You don't think it's the slightest bit odd that one civ alone doesn't get to benefit from a Golden Age policy? I'm not saying that it's a game breaker or anything, and sure, you can take other rewards instead (though I think the extra GPT from antiquity age trade routes is pretty insignificant, personally), it's just... odd.

And to answer my own question earlier in the thread, I did come up with another example of a civ in this game that doesn't necessarily get to take advantage of a golden age in an area they are likely to achieve one - Mongolia. Mongolia is pretty much built from the top down to go for the military path. They even get a unique bonus in that they get extra points towards that path when conquering their own continent. So if a player chooses Mongolia and plays them exactly they were designed to play them - conquering their home continent to finish the military legacy path - their golden age reward is... free infantry units in current distant land settlements (which they might not have even bothered with). Yay?

Again, none of this breaks these civs by any stretch, these are just odd situations that would be really easy to fix while adding more flavor to the game. I don't see the issue. I'm also guessing as the game expands with more civs being added some of those new civs are going to have similar unique legacy path related bonuses, too, so it's only going to become more common over time.

The different golden age option(s) don't even have to be unique to these civs (though I think that would be more interesting) - give everybody in the game a choice between the two if you really want.

I don't think it would hurt anything to give civs a unique golden age option. But at the same time, more often than not, you have a couple golden age options available to you to select from. And sometimes they're not even that great as an option. Often I'd rather just grab a couple attribute points to move up the trees.

 

[JNR13]

Very good idea. I have already made some mods extending legacy options and am planning to make more as to bundle them into a larger "Legacies++" mod eventually for when Workshop support comes. An alternative econ golden age for Carthage would fit right in. Currently considering this:

When you create a Merchant Unit, gain a copy of that Unit. Start the age with 2 free Traders.