How to combine Phoenicia and Carthage

[humble serf]

Obviously it's open to debate, but one thing which would justify a "blob" civ (in my opinion) is the amalgamation of a colony and its mother country -- assuming you could pull it off without creating a useless mess of random abilities from each. Given their geographic proximity and their similar in-game focuses (maritime trade), I think Phoenicia + Carthage would make for a decent trial-run at this idea.

So, the Punic or Phoenician Empire.

Capital: Tyre

National Ability: Purple Empire

Spoiler :

Build Commercial Hub, Harbour and Campus districts in half the time. Receive a free melee naval unit whenever you complete a Harbour district or conquer a city with a Harbour.

Fairly simplistic, but it would give Phoenicia a meaningful early-game boost towards earning trade routes and establishing a navy. They'd be nerfed on land-heavy maps, but not into oblivion -- certainly not as bad as Norway is, anyway. On balance, I think this is more powerful than Divine Wind and roughly as powerful as Pax Britannica, which are the most obvious points of comparison (three half-price districts and an occasional free military unit).

Leader Ability: Dido -- Foothills of Byrsa

Spoiler :

The first city you found on a continent other than your capital's continent receives a second Palace building and an additional trade route slot.

This refers to the founding of Carthage and its gradual development into the metropole of the entire Punic world. If at all possible, it could be coded into the game that the city which triggers this ability is always named "Carthage." For the purposes of a domination victory, Tyre would of course be the only city considered an "original capital," and conquering or not conquering Carthage would have no impact on winning a domination victory over the Phoenicians. To me, this ability feels more powerful than the Cree CUA (the obvious comparison, given the free early-game trade route), but it would usually take longer to trigger. For the sake of balance, I don't think Phoenicia should get a free trader unit here, just a free trade route slot. If the impact of the Palace on loyalty is particularly powerful, I might drop the trade route slot altogether, and reduce this ability to just the free Palace.

Leader Agenda: Dido -- Thalassocrat

Spoiler :

Likes to maximise her trade income, and respects leaders with a large number of international trade routes. Dislikes leaders with a small number of trade routes, or leaders who focus only on domestic trade routes.

This is a fairly generic agenda which would create a reasonably Phoenician-seeming AI personality. It's pretty similar to Wilhelmina's agenda, but no more than the faith overlap of Hojo, Jadwiga and Jayavarman's agendas.

Unique Unit: Balearic Mercenary

Spoiler :

Replaces the Slinger. +1 range, +5 ranged combat strength.

The important thing here is that the melee combat strength would remain unchanged, making this one of the weaker UUs in the game. On the plus side, it's a great defensive unit and reasonably viable in very early-game combat, and it upgrades to something undeniably useful. You can use it on land maps, which keeps Phoenicia from being overly situational, and all of their other unique features create a strong enough navy that I think they can live without a unique ship. The weakness of the UU balances out the power of the CUA and LUA, and a small nod to the skill of Classical Balearic slingers and Carthage's dependence on mercenaries is a much more fun addition to the game than yet another generic War Elephant UU.

Unique Infrastructure: Cothon

Spoiler :

Replaces the Lighthouse. Provides the defensive benefits of Walls to the Harbour district, equivalent to the level of Walls in this city's City Centre. +2 production. +1 amenity if the Harbour district has two or more adjacent fishing boats.

Pretty much the mandatory UI for any Punic civilisation. The production bonus is nice, but not out-of-step with the usual yield for a unique building, and situationally worse than Norway's stave church when it comes to buffing the production of a coastal city. The amenity wouldn't trigger very often, which I think is important -- unique sources of amenities can quickly become overpowered -- but it still gives at least a small nod towards the value of the murex dye trade. Crucially, I don't think the walls should grant the Harbour a ranged strike. That would over-complicate things, and could quickly become a cheap exploit as people would spam Harbours in lake tiles to serve as unassailable extra Encampments. All the walls would do is create a "safe" tile for you to heal up a damaged ship, or park a ranged vessel to take pot-shots at invading forces.

 

[PhoenicianGold]

I'm not completely sold on the lack of a quadrireme; it could always be retconned in. I guess elephants are another option if slingers don't resonate strongly enough.

Other than that, I love this consolidation concept and your ideas for a Punic/Phoenician civ. Cothon and Thassalocracy are spot on. I liked how they implemented Chandragupta and I hope this is how they end up including a few of the classic-but-not-very-unique civs. But in the meantime, adding a couple more new civs like Phoenicia as extensions of old civs like Carthage might ease the more myopic fans into the idea that Byzantium should be an extension of Rome.

 

[Banazir864]

Since different leaders seem to have different capitals, you could make Dido's capital Carthage and an alternate, more Phoenician, leader's capital Tyre. In fact, I think Dido's capital would have to be Carthage given that several of the official leaders have capitals that relate to that leader specifically and differ from their civ's "normal" capital (e.g., Frederick Barbarossa's capital of Aachan or Saladin's capital of Cairo).

I'd go for Punic as the civilization name, since that straddles both Phonecia and Carthage (etymologically, it comes from the word for "Phonecian", but it's associated with Carthage).

 

[PhoenicianGold]

Since different leaders seem to have different capitals, you could make Dido's capital Carthage and an alternate, more Phoenician, leader's capital Tyre. In fact, I think Dido's capital would have to be Carthage given that several of the official leaders have capitals that relate to that leader specifically and differ from their civ's "normal" capital (e.g., Frederick Barbarossa's capital of Aachan or Saladin's capital of Cairo).

I'd go for Punic as the civilization name, since that straddles both Phonecia and Carthage (etymologically, it comes from the word for "Phonecian", but it's associated with Carthage).

Precisely this. Although Civ VI promotion material has been generally calling nations by proper nouns ("Norway," "Macedon," "Nubia," and the incorrect-but-still-consistent "Sumeria") rather than descriptive empires ("Vikings," "Macedonian," "Kushite," "Sumerian"). And yet they are still called "X Empire" in game. So I would just split the difference and call it both Phoenicia and the Punic Empire. And then Dido's biography could say that she led the Carthaginians, just like Amanitore's says she led the Kush and Seondeok's says she led Silla.