Wait, the Great Cothon and the UA both have the double trade diversity?I don’t really like that bonus, since it’s just a repeat of the UA. I would rather see a bigger, 100%-200% diversity mod on a Wonder, and the Cothon be given something else
Can somebody explain how this works
I'm pretty sure you sometimes get an extra gold from trade routes, maybe two extra. From what I can tell the resource diversity modifier tends to be extremely small even in a situation where the tooltips suggest it would be large.
I can tell you that playing as Carthage with the Great Cothon and Colossus in my capital, the external trade routes still weren't very notable in their gold output and I ended up using pure ITR until later on when a sent a few to city states, for the science and culture (the gold was still pathetic).
Yea I find that bonus relatively negligible.
Well it would be nice if you could at least feel some semblance of playing your civilization beyond the Classical Era. I don't think any other civilization suffers from as much lack of character as Carthage does after the initial rush.
It's a very strong rush and can catapult them to victory, as I have done many times, but I also feel Carthage hasn't kept up with the imaginative changes to other civilizations and the new systems that have come out (such as happiness) over the years.
The UB is very weak. The UA doesn't scale well at all. It's all about the early game and after that there's nothing that says "I am playing Carthage". Compare that to Rome which continues to feel impactful with its focus on capital infrastructure and a bonus that is always relevant.
I feel a renewed emphasis on Sea Trade Routes and a return to free Harbors over too much gold in the early game would restore some flavor while balancing them out somewhat. You'd still have all the advantages of rapid expansion, but you'd also feel like you're Carthage well past Classical.
You can make harbours give city connections again. It’s just a Boolean value that you can switch back on. There shouldn’t be any issues with 2 buildings giving city connections, so if the instant connection is important, but people wanted harbours, there is a very easy way to split that baby.
With all of the absurd bonuses stacked on lighthouses at this point: military supply, base food yield, 1 to all sea tiles, giving a free harbour at turn 1 would actually be a nerf. Your trade routes would be worth less gold because of the range penalty, and your instant tourism bonus would be non-existent. The main advantage would be you could buy cargo ships, caravels, galleasses, and explorers as soon as you unlocked them, and you would have the long-term benefit of saving 2 on building maintenance rather than 1
The gold on settle could be reduced to a round 100 from where it is now. In exchange, I would add some power to the cothon, because Carthage’s UNW is basically 1 more trade route and an early unlock. That’s it.
You didn't say anything about the UU, which is a powerful Melee ship, and likely high-level ones at that, from Exploration EXP. If you start fighting navally in the classic, it is fairly easy to have some real city killers.
Because Carthage was a thalassocracy, and they didn't control territory that wasn't on the coast.
Phoenicians made new colonies mainly based on the presence and depth of a natural harbour, and access to fresh water. They didn't check for the presence of a natural Caravansary.
They had 1 division of Phoenician/Carthaginian soldiers (the sacred band), and the rest were sailors. As you say, the Phoenicians employed local mercenaries for everything else.
Even though they lost to the Romans, they were still considered the superior shipmakers and sailors. Generally, the better seamen prefer ramming, while the inferior navy opts for boarding. It just so happened that boarding was the stronger strategy overall, and heavily favoured the Romans. Know one could have known at the time that Roman marines' skill at hand-to-hand combat outweighed the Carthaginian's superior rowing, sailing, and navigation for winning a naval war.
The UNW that we have was a massive port and drydock, so it makes sense to give bonuses that are pertinent to that
Other possible bonuses could be related to Carthage's massive export of food. In the Roman era and later, the Tunisian coast continues to be an extremely productive wine and olive region, and exports lots of agricultural products. Mago, a Carthaginian noble, wrote one of the largest and most influential manuals on Mediterranean agriculture.