Just to be clear, I'm still in the "Keep the UA as it is but replace the elephants with a UB"-boat because I feel sorry for all the poor double UU civs.
Carthage
- Thread starter Funak
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Just to be clear, I'm still in the "Keep the UA as it is but replace the elephants with a UB"-boat because I feel sorry for all the poor double UU civs.
How many cities are you going to found after classical era? Expansion usually ends in BC years because you run out of spots. Ai settles too. After classical you'd only probably settle some cities near newly discovered strategic resources. Of course on Archipelago or Large island the slots are available longer, but Pangea or continents are a different story. I would ditch the lump sum when founded and use the yield-when-moves trait, simply because it helps the whole game. Or merchant specialist buff xD
Elephant by itself isn't that unique or cool as there are two other elephants in game. I don't think mountain crossing is enough to justify having it when it requires so much text to describe for no real benefit. UB better.
Elephant by itself isn't that unique or cool as there are two other elephants in game. I don't think mountain crossing is enough to justify having it when it requires so much text to describe for no real benefit. UB better.
For now, we're going to go with the UA Tirian described (his latter alteration), as it is an improvement over the current one, the AI easily understands it (it meshes with their current strategy) and it is quite potent. Look beyond the lump gold and see what you can do with it: you can buy a trade unit, a defensive unit, an essential building or two, etc. We'll keep the UUs (not every civ needs a UB - I'm going to hold firm on that point), but the mountain-crossing attrition will be reduced.
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Since Carthage was an economic/trade civ and not very focused on military, UB would have been better than an UU. Also I repeat that elephants are not that representative of Carthage. , which were not found outside of Phoenician world, while elephants were widely used in battle by Epirus, Seleucids, Ptolemaic dynasty, in India and southeast Asia. In comparison cothons were only in Carthage and other Phoenician states (which are not present in game, except the unplayable city states of Tyre, Sidon and Byblos). You could argue that quinqueremes are also not very unique - as they were built by other nations - and it will be true, but then we'd have to decide whether we want them to have a naval UU or a land UU. We could also consider giving them a mercenary unique unit they were famous for using - like Numidian Cavalry in Civ 4.
Not every civ needs a unique building, but for Carthage it is more fitting to have one, especially because they built the cothons. In my opinion for example the Romans didn't need a unique building, as the UA provides them with a great advantage which stays there for a whole game. What is an additional argument for giving them the Cothon is the fact that there are great arts available for that already xD
JFD and Janboruta, TofuSojo, FramedArchitecture
Also, Gazebo, why the lump sum of gold over the on trade unit movement bonus?
Gonna play an Immortal small continents game with Dido and give feedback.
So far I am not sure if getting 300 gold when settling Carthage is right. You can just buy a shrine right away to have faith from turn one, then with the left 150 you can get two scouts or wait a couple turns to gather 160 for a monument. You could just also go monument and two scouts with this gold. Or wait for meeting two or three City States and buy a super early settler.
So far I am not sure if getting 300 gold when settling Carthage is right. You can just buy a shrine right away to have faith from turn one, then with the left 150 you can get two scouts or wait a couple turns to gather 160 for a monument. You could just also go monument and two scouts with this gold. Or wait for meeting two or three City States and buy a super early settler.
Or wait a few turns and buy a settler, sounds pretty OP tbh.
if using just CP and CBP, you have to adjust the lua files. Make sure to use CSD as well.
G
Ah dang, should be 200 per city, forgot to change that (300 was just the test number). Is good, but not quite so good.
G
As a side note, yesterday I played a game as Carthage with Cultural Diversity, Carthage Improved, Events and Decisions, C4LeaderTraits and Unique Building Collection (which replaced the improved african forest elephant and added a cothon with supply for ships and 2 culture after compass. Also something in the mods added production to sea resource tiles), I wasn't able to get it to work with CSD and C4Diplo. Carthage improved adds 100 gold on settling a coastal city and gives the quinquereme five movement points and ability to move after attacking. I played on Small Continents Plus.
At first I expanded a bit, then I started churning out quinqs like crazy, enacted Hanno's Voyage (very strong decision, also very flavorful) and started conquering with my ships. By 300 BC I conquered capitals of my direct neighbour Nappy, Harald, Pocatello and Kamehameha and I was just moving my fleet to Istanbul when the time has come that I had to go.
Of course this was made much easier by the Seafaring trait adding additional movement point (though I failed to get Magellan from P'n'M and someone was faster to GLH, I did get exploration opener though, but only after I conquered Honolulu), I guess I could have conquered just as well with that). Admiral from E&D was substantial here.
Anyway, in player hands ability for melee ships to move after attacking seems insanely strong, while the AI wouldn't be able to utilize it correctly. Istanbul would fall in around 10 turns (taking into consideration the constant retaking of the city by the land army), then it would be just London and Jakarta. I think a complete domination victory is possible with just the quinqueremes with admiral on standard speed, standard map size if we get any movement bonus for them if the ability to move after attacking was given to them.
At first I expanded a bit, then I started churning out quinqs like crazy, enacted Hanno's Voyage (very strong decision, also very flavorful) and started conquering with my ships. By 300 BC I conquered capitals of my direct neighbour Nappy, Harald, Pocatello and Kamehameha and I was just moving my fleet to Istanbul when the time has come that I had to go.
Of course this was made much easier by the Seafaring trait adding additional movement point (though I failed to get Magellan from P'n'M and someone was faster to GLH, I did get exploration opener though, but only after I conquered Honolulu), I guess I could have conquered just as well with that). Admiral from E&D was substantial here.
Anyway, in player hands ability for melee ships to move after attacking seems insanely strong, while the AI wouldn't be able to utilize it correctly. Istanbul would fall in around 10 turns (taking into consideration the constant retaking of the city by the land army), then it would be just London and Jakarta. I think a complete domination victory is possible with just the quinqueremes with admiral on standard speed, standard map size if we get any movement bonus for them if the ability to move after attacking was given to them.
Okay, so after the hotfix I played with Carthage a bit.
The ability is definitely useful - 200 gold is nothing to scoff at. I was able to expand very fast in my games (I never played long though), in one game dropping quite hard into unhappiness (poverty mainly). I managed to get out of it via trade routes and city state alliances, also I got a religion with churches (only capital) and getting stupas from Gandhi (who spammed missionaries like crazy, also I don't know how his cities were exerting more religious pressure than mine, probably a religious belief or something).
Quinqueremes with just a bonus to strength still feel useless, as they have no role - cannot take cities, explore just like triremes, so a buff should be in order. I only built a single elephant and he was meh as usual. No need for great generals so no mountain crossing.
Generally I enjoyed the game more than usual (having more possibilities and all), also I enacted quite a lot of decisions, which adds more fun. I couldn't load the game though (crash to desktop) when I accidentally DoWed Attila, so that was the end of the game. I would still like to see the elephant replaced, as he doesn't really bring anything into the table in my opinion. And I would like to compare the current UA to what Gazebo proposed about the "on move" bonus.
What is wrong about the current UA: doesn't scale with game speed. Still 200 gold on Quick, which almost allows for buying a settler and allows for purchase of both shrine and monument on turn 0.
The ability is definitely useful - 200 gold is nothing to scoff at. I was able to expand very fast in my games (I never played long though), in one game dropping quite hard into unhappiness (poverty mainly). I managed to get out of it via trade routes and city state alliances, also I got a religion with churches (only capital) and getting stupas from Gandhi (who spammed missionaries like crazy, also I don't know how his cities were exerting more religious pressure than mine, probably a religious belief or something).
Quinqueremes with just a bonus to strength still feel useless, as they have no role - cannot take cities, explore just like triremes, so a buff should be in order. I only built a single elephant and he was meh as usual. No need for great generals so no mountain crossing.
Generally I enjoyed the game more than usual (having more possibilities and all), also I enacted quite a lot of decisions, which adds more fun. I couldn't load the game though (crash to desktop) when I accidentally DoWed Attila, so that was the end of the game. I would still like to see the elephant replaced, as he doesn't really bring anything into the table in my opinion. And I would like to compare the current UA to what Gazebo proposed about the "on move" bonus.
What is wrong about the current UA: doesn't scale with game speed. Still 200 gold on Quick, which almost allows for buying a settler and allows for purchase of both shrine and monument on turn 0.
Played a bit longer (to ideologies, then the game started processing turns way too slow. I should really just play this game on small maps...).
Continents, standard, standard, immortal. Got a nice capital (used really advanced setup to give myself two fish), expanded quite fast, gold from expansion was almost always used immediately either for rush buying in new cities or for buying things in old ones. Or enacting expensive decisions. I founded Judaism (Semitic after all xD and Carthage likes monies), got holy law, stupas, synagogues, tithes, started slowly spreading. There was a time where I got the lead, I built several wonders, I even circumnavigated with an admiral from Hanno's Voyage... And then I fell behind. AI's cities grew like crazy while mine just didn't, despite me having Temple of Artemis. Carthage was growing at a much slower rate than AI cities, Egypt became a runaway. In late reneissance there were no more spots to settle cities, so that part of UA became useless. For most of the game my happiness was fine, later I started running into huge issues because of disorder, boredom and religious unrest, and even later ideologies.
Before I quit I planned to attack Egypt but just couldn't find a good time to do that as I was constantly behind. Also, not enough coal. Overall I found that I didn't have any advantage left later except for some gold from the UA and I felt like there was no way I could catch up with the AI. Probably done something wrong, but well...
Anyway, the new UA feels good in the early game, but it also says "expand or don't get anything - and sometimes you have to delay that expansion. Later, while the gold stays useful, there are no more good spots for cities, or there are no spots at all (because of the AI settling all the land, even ). Which means it stops doing anything lategame.
For the whole game I didn't build a single elephant, never crossed a mountain. I did build many quinqueremes which pretty much just explored and fought some barbarians, protecting embarked units.
Continents, standard, standard, immortal. Got a nice capital (used really advanced setup to give myself two fish), expanded quite fast, gold from expansion was almost always used immediately either for rush buying in new cities or for buying things in old ones. Or enacting expensive decisions. I founded Judaism (Semitic after all xD and Carthage likes monies), got holy law, stupas, synagogues, tithes, started slowly spreading. There was a time where I got the lead, I built several wonders, I even circumnavigated with an admiral from Hanno's Voyage... And then I fell behind. AI's cities grew like crazy while mine just didn't, despite me having Temple of Artemis. Carthage was growing at a much slower rate than AI cities, Egypt became a runaway. In late reneissance there were no more spots to settle cities, so that part of UA became useless. For most of the game my happiness was fine, later I started running into huge issues because of disorder, boredom and religious unrest, and even later ideologies.
Before I quit I planned to attack Egypt but just couldn't find a good time to do that as I was constantly behind. Also, not enough coal. Overall I found that I didn't have any advantage left later except for some gold from the UA and I felt like there was no way I could catch up with the AI. Probably done something wrong, but well...
Anyway, the new UA feels good in the early game, but it also says "expand or don't get anything - and sometimes you have to delay that expansion. Later, while the gold stays useful, there are no more good spots for cities, or there are no spots at all (because of the AI settling all the land, even ). Which means it stops doing anything lategame.
For the whole game I didn't build a single elephant, never crossed a mountain. I did build many quinqueremes which pretty much just explored and fought some barbarians, protecting embarked units.
Good feedback. We'll need to think about what to do with elephants - the fact that you didn't use them doesn't necessarily mean that they're bad, but I'm open to ideas.
G
Honestly I did choose continents to make sure there would be neighbours and that there would be land to utilize the mountains and elephants.. Of course all of my cities were coastal. There weren't any wars though, our continent turning into a love fest (dofs between Lizzy, Ramesses and me).
What could be my downfall is that I only finished Liberty, opened piety and might (barb culture is quite strong) and took three policies in imperialism. Ramesses however finished liberty, tradition and imperialism before ideologies - not sure why I was lagging behind in culture so much, perhaps because I didn't build amphitheaters for a long time (not used to prioritizing them in unmodded game, here they add quite a bit of culture).
What could be my downfall is that I only finished Liberty, opened piety and might (barb culture is quite strong) and took three policies in imperialism. Ramesses however finished liberty, tradition and imperialism before ideologies - not sure why I was lagging behind in culture so much, perhaps because I didn't build amphitheaters for a long time (not used to prioritizing them in unmodded game, here they add quite a bit of culture).
Honesty IMO, to motivate a earlygame UU, it needs one of the following,
1. Have other uses besides combat, because early wars are generally just a bad idea, you're behind the AI by default, and running around DOWing people tend to make you a lot of enemies, and you generally want some friends early on so you can catch up.
2. Have a crazy promotion making it worth building it early on but not using it and then save it for upgrading. Same reasoning as above.
3. Extremely crazy bonuses, basically making them able to capture cities by itself, exemple would be battering rams, siegetowers horsearchers to some extent. I personally think this is the worst kind of UU, because it forces you into a role. But others seem to enjoy early wars so I guess I should take that into account.
As it is now, the elephants, and actually the quinquereme doesn't fill any of those roles, making both of them close to dead weight. Them both being available in the same era(almost) and being on different sides of the techtree(almost) makes the matter even worse. Sure in theory you should have a pretty strong army with two different UUs in the same era, but in reality both your UUs combined are way worse at taking cities than a siegetower or a batteringram. They both lack meaningful promotions that stay when upgraded and they don't fill any role outside of combat.
1. Have other uses besides combat, because early wars are generally just a bad idea, you're behind the AI by default, and running around DOWing people tend to make you a lot of enemies, and you generally want some friends early on so you can catch up.
2. Have a crazy promotion making it worth building it early on but not using it and then save it for upgrading. Same reasoning as above.
3. Extremely crazy bonuses, basically making them able to capture cities by itself, exemple would be battering rams, siegetowers horsearchers to some extent. I personally think this is the worst kind of UU, because it forces you into a role. But others seem to enjoy early wars so I guess I should take that into account.
As it is now, the elephants, and actually the quinquereme doesn't fill any of those roles, making both of them close to dead weight. Them both being available in the same era(almost) and being on different sides of the techtree(almost) makes the matter even worse. Sure in theory you should have a pretty strong army with two different UUs in the same era, but in reality both your UUs combined are way worse at taking cities than a siegetower or a batteringram. They both lack meaningful promotions that stay when upgraded and they don't fill any role outside of combat.
jma22tb
Prince
Tactics, gentlemen.
Early wars are actually the easiest wars besides late game wars with a massive tech advantage. All you need is about 3 infantry units, 3 siege units, and as many cavalry units as you can afford. Move the infantry in front of the siege units so nobody can flank them, use your cavalry to wipe out their units by luring them into the open field. Surround the city with infantry, turtle them up, bombard them with siege, and laugh your way to the city square with your flag.
I think Carthage is strong because you do not ever have to build a road unless you really want an landlocked city for horses, iron, or whatever. That saves a lot of GPT. Their version of cavalry is slower, but man those elephants hit like a truck.
Early wars are actually the easiest wars besides late game wars with a massive tech advantage. All you need is about 3 infantry units, 3 siege units, and as many cavalry units as you can afford. Move the infantry in front of the siege units so nobody can flank them, use your cavalry to wipe out their units by luring them into the open field. Surround the city with infantry, turtle them up, bombard them with siege, and laugh your way to the city square with your flag.
I think Carthage is strong because you do not ever have to build a road unless you really want an landlocked city for horses, iron, or whatever. That saves a lot of GPT. Their version of cavalry is slower, but man those elephants hit like a truck.
I don't think anyone complained about early wars being hard, because they aren't. The thing I mentioned was that you usually don't want to be the first one declaring war, because that pretty much leaves you with no tradepartners for the rest of the game.
jma22tb
Prince
That depends who you declare war on and how you handle the war.
For example, in the playthrough I'm doing right now Assyria conquered Antwerp, which was perfect for me because even through everyone is afraid of Assyria, I am similar in military score, so I attacked Antwerp b/c it was closest to me, liberated them, and took on Assyria having gained international prestige. I can raze all their cities and conquer their capital with the political currency of having liberated a city. The Hero saves the world from the Tyrant and all that jazz.
Trade partners are a bit overrated if you have already taken a capital or two, especially once you hit the 8 to 12 city total (on Standard.) If you use CSD, you can pass Cassus Belli through the WC and make everyone forget your exploits. Even then, you can denounce the right rival and get people to like you, spread your religion to all their cities, send them a free luxury you already have a bunch of, protect your trade routes, focus them into your Market/East India city to cover your GPT, and any number of other things that mitigate a "nobody likes me" situation.
Just look at China. They care as little about what the US says or does up until the point where they actually threaten them. They are buying up businesses in the US, land and resources in Africa, businesses in the EU, trading with a publicly denounced nation, trading with their own currency instead of the "reserve currency"... Once you rule over the largest population in the world, if you do it right, nobody can touch you.
For example, in the playthrough I'm doing right now Assyria conquered Antwerp, which was perfect for me because even through everyone is afraid of Assyria, I am similar in military score, so I attacked Antwerp b/c it was closest to me, liberated them, and took on Assyria having gained international prestige. I can raze all their cities and conquer their capital with the political currency of having liberated a city. The Hero saves the world from the Tyrant and all that jazz.
Trade partners are a bit overrated if you have already taken a capital or two, especially once you hit the 8 to 12 city total (on Standard.) If you use CSD, you can pass Cassus Belli through the WC and make everyone forget your exploits. Even then, you can denounce the right rival and get people to like you, spread your religion to all their cities, send them a free luxury you already have a bunch of, protect your trade routes, focus them into your Market/East India city to cover your GPT, and any number of other things that mitigate a "nobody likes me" situation.
Just look at China. They care as little about what the US says or does up until the point where they actually threaten them. They are buying up businesses in the US, land and resources in Africa, businesses in the EU, trading with a publicly denounced nation, trading with their own currency instead of the "reserve currency"... Once you rule over the largest population in the world, if you do it right, nobody can touch you.
That's not quite as accurate as it was before the fall patch (and whoward/my changes).
G
jma22tb
Prince
Yeah I have definitely noticed that rivals do not get as upset for as long about warmonger penalties. In the immediate aftermath, denouncing a conqueror does have advantages, but it doesn't turn into total isolation like before.
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