Is Carthage a bit too powerful?

[Dunkah]

I am currently playing as Carthage and ended up on a large island alone.

I have found a few CS's on an island south of my position but it took nearly 150 turns before I have found more than half the Civs in the game.

Currently I am in 8th place out of 9 in score and am in last in the Tech race.

I do not feel they are over powered. And if so. Then really, so what? Direct people that are struggling with the game to start with them. Avoid them if you think they are too easy.

There are plenty of other Civs to play.

 

[ExpiredReign]

@Dunkah

I'm not sure if I am following your logic?

The game you are playing doesn't seem to be indicative of the general feel of Carthage games. You're not trying to tip the balances here are you?

The reason why we should look at whether Carthage is OP or not is because it is a direct result of a change made by the mod. It isn't a case of looking at the vanilla civ and asking the question.
I can't think of any other civ that gets such a massive free boost to their expansion strategy for the early game. It is a piece of cake to have 3 cities up and running nicely, very quickly. All other civs I play have to juggle the desire to expand with the need to keep the empire in check, happiness wise. Carthage doesn't.

 

[Ahriman]

Yeah, I think we're trying to create a balanced gameplay experience; I don't think "so what" is a good answer to a balance problem.

Being alone happens sometimes and can be a struggle for any civ, but I don't think we should judge balance by those rare occasions when a civ's advantages can't be used.

I'll try Carthage for myself next game and see how they feel.

 

[Dunkah]

I am not using Vanilla. I am using 3.9.3

But still you're right. My game is more of an anomoly than normal.

I'll zip it.

 

[tlaurila]

Playing Carthage on King/Standard Size/Epic Speed with 3.10.1. I'm doing good, but the Civ's abilities don't seem to have been that overpowering.

I started on a decent location with a fish I could grab early and take some advantage of the early sailing. It's bordering tundra, however, and my capital is facing the "north passage sea" that is usually on the north side of continents. No other good coastal locations to settle next to the capital.

I went Honor (for Opener and Spoils of War, which is a must due to Raging Barbs) and Liberty. Settled my second city in the middle of the continent south of the capital, where some good land was surrounding a lake. Very quickly after that built the third city still more south, on the southern shore of the continent. Then settled a sub-standard location on the tundra on the northern coast to get some resources (iron+whale).

In the late classical, I had gathered enough forces to stomp on my closest neighbor Siam. A militaristic CS ally did most of the work there, 2 gift chariots and 3 gift warriors upgraded to Elephants/Swords nicely. I had to construct the catapults myself, but after I DoW'd, I was surprised how quickly they fell.

So, toughts about the Civ's abilities:

The insta-harbors are for not much. Guess this ability only shines if you find early city locations off-continent and/or further from your capital. But that's very circumstantial. It does relieve the pressure of building roads early, freeing some worker time, but that's minor, especially with Liberty. Maybe it could also help early sea trade, but I didn't find much use in that either.

Elephants are nice, but seemingly nothing special to other UUs. Horses I usually have surplus of, much more so than iron, so not much advantage to not needing the resource. It's a good unit, but I'd rather have Legions, especially with their earlier arrival, and upgrade from warriors, any day.

The starting bireme has been quite useful in the early game to hunt barbarians for the culture/gold (Honor). Certainly much better than the Roman's Liburna. The bireme helped to get to the free settler+workers from Liberty quite much earlier, but with the cost of first taking Honor policies, so probably not that great overall.

The starting Sailing allowed some early fishing, which helped the capital grow. That could be a lot more useful with a more sea resource heavy start, but that is also highly circumstatial.

Purple has helped to relieve some pressure from happiness, and to get some gold after the third city was up. It's proven by far the most useful of Carthage's abilites, at least in this game.

Overall, a early-game heavy civ, as expected, but not overtly so. I think I could have done at least as good with Romans given the same start. With legions taking on Siam earlier and stomping on barbarians even better.

Still, the free tech of Sailing at the start is a bit odd. As Carthage is the only one with a free tech (afaik), it might as well go. You might instead have the cothon available earlier (say, pottery) and/or cheaper.

 

[mystikx21]

I find with the decreased city connect values in the mod, I don't bother using workers for roads unless I have a very large distance to cover for my armies for much of the early game anyway. So the harbors are quite valuable there because I will use them to get the free happiness in the liberty tree instead of dedicating workers to connect.

If the trade value of city connects were moved toward to a positive gain, the roads would be a higher priority and then the harbors too would be a higher value object (as they would often be cheaper than building roads, allowing even greater profits in some places).

 

[Thalassicus]

It sounds like the main concern is Carthage gets its bonuses very early in the game.

What if they starts with only a ship, instead of a warrior? This would delay access to ancient ruins. It would significantly reducing their power while keeping the unique flavor of the starting ship.


@mystikx21
Roads are economically profitable if 10 cities are 6 tiles apart or closer (7-8 tiles for larger cities). I normally space my cities about 4 tiles apart. What's your normal spacing?

 

[Ahriman]

@mystikx21
Roads are economically profitable if 10 cities are 6 tiles apart or closer (7-8 tiles for larger cities). I normally space my cities about 4 tiles apart. What's your normal spacing?

You mean that they break even on maintenance, or go just above that.

But that shouldn't be the goal. Trade routes in Civ5 are supposed to be a source of profit, not just enough to cover road maintenance. They are supposed to reward you for investing in workers and worker time and worker-build-time wonders/policies in building the roads, and for keeping them unprotected from barbarians or other pillagers, and for having contigious empires, and for getting open borders with other civs so I can piggyback on their road network. It's also a nice mechanic in that it is something that the AI handles very well.

In this mod I find roads generally not worth building - and definitely not worth prioritizing. There is just no reward for getting my trade network up and running. I might build a few for some military purposes, but domestic trade is basically inconsequential, and I'm probably better off with harbors. Road building is always something that only happens once there is nothing else important my workers should be doing. I'll definitely never both getting open borders specifically for trade purposes, and I won't be annoyed if I mess up the diplomacy and lose it - neither of which are true in the vanilla game.

 

[ExpiredReign]

Yes, the problem with Carthage is the early advantage.

No, the problem is not as easy as removing the land unit.
As stated at the outset, the biggest problem is the free TECH_SAILING gives them an easy step to building their UB which, in turn, gives them a boost in .
This then allows them to grow quicker and with automatic connections in coastal cities they never really suffer from unhappiness at a time when other civs are struggling to grow.

Solution: remove the free tech or modify the Cothon to be not so powerful early.
Easiest method is remove the free tech.

 

[jacktannery]

You mean that they break even on maintenance, or go just above that.

But that shouldn't be the goal. Trade routes in Civ5 are supposed to be a source of profit, not just enough to cover road maintenance. They are supposed to reward you for investing in workers and worker time and worker-build-time wonders/policies in building the roads, and for keeping them unprotected from barbarians or other pillagers, and for having contigious empires, and for getting open borders with other civs so I can piggyback on their road network. It's also a nice mechanic in that it is something that the AI handles very well.

In this mod I find roads generally not worth building - and definitely not worth prioritizing. There is just no reward for getting my trade network up and running. I might build a few for some military purposes, but domestic trade is basically inconsequential, and I'm probably better off with harbors. Road building is always something that only happens once there is nothing else important my workers should be doing. I'll definitely never both getting open borders specifically for trade purposes, and I won't be annoyed if I mess up the diplomacy and lose it - neither of which are true in the vanilla game.

Ahriham, I disagree with this for the reasons I quoted in the thread on connection income: basically, since BNW roads are no longer the same as trade routes; and I support removing the gold bonus from building roads and instead throwing it all into trade routes. The only thing I will say is that it would be nice if Trade Routes gave a LOT more gold if they ran along a road or connected road network - but I think that would be impossible to implement.

I frequently build roads in order to move my units around quicker - and this is particularly crucial when playing with raging barbs. The way I see the connection gold bonus is that it makes my roads free if the cities at either end are big enough; I prefer that building roads are not a good method of getting gold as that makes no sense to me.

In the extremely unlikely case that anyone feels that current CEP has too little gold sloshing about (really, it is FAR too much) then the extra gold should come from trade routes, not road building.

 

[Ahriman]

and I support removing the gold bonus from building roads and instead throwing it all into trade routes.

My main complaint about this is that the AI is good at building domestic road trade networks, but is not good at making smart choices about or maintaining/protecting international trade routes. So I think we are much better off with a balance of gold coming from the two mechanics, as in the vanilla BNW, than to try to put all the gold into the mechanic that the AI doesn't handle well.

 

[Thalassicus]

I'll increase the maintenance of Cothons. This will weaken the civ without removing the things that make them fun.

 

[ExpiredReign]

Sorry, I don't follow that logic.

The Cothon is powerful because it gives a source of that can't be pillaged or lost. In the early game is much more easier to produce than , making the Cothon cost more won't weaken it because no matter how much it costs, the benefits it gives are that much more valuable. I will still build it if it cost double to maintain.

The ability to build this UB needs to be delayed. Carthage can too easily have 3 or 4 cities before the other civs can blink, mainly due to the lessening of "expansion = unhappiness" that everyone else faces.

No matter what the cost, if I can gain by having connected harbour cities with Cothons in them, then that is what I wil build.

 

[BrokenSky]

how about cheap sailing tech?

I mean remove sailing, but make it cost less for carthage?

 

[ExpiredReign]

It would appear an executive decision was made and there is now an increase in the maintenance on the Cothon.

 

[mystikx21]

I think the increase in the upkeep on the Cothon/harbor was probably needed for other reasons besides balancing Carthage (balancing roads and interior settlement for example). So we're still left with Carthage having a problem, and I'd still say it's at least the free tech that has to go. We could give some kind of reward at sailing instead (the way the Mayans or Babylon work).

 

[ExpiredReign]

We could give some kind of reward at sailing instead.

I like that idea. Perhaps give them their free bireme then, or two? To make it feel like a 'bonus'.

That means they don't get a huge advantage in mapping out the coast too early, but still get their cultural advantage a bit later.

So they have to research Sailing like everyone else, but once they do, their cultural bias really kicks in.

 

[mystikx21]

Right, I'm fine with the powerful effects of the Cothon and possibly a free boat, but from just starting a game, no. It allows you to go research something else instead of jump into your advantage, such as to go get a religion or start hooking up some other luxury.

 

[Hreat]

Perhaps give them their free bireme then?

So they have to research Sailing like everyone else, but once they do, their cultural bias really kicks in.

That sounds perfect to me.

 

[Thalassicus]

No matter what the cost, if I can gain by having connected harbour cities with Cothons in them, then that is what I wil build.

I don't understand what you're saying. Carthage only gets 4 more happiness than other civs, enough for 1 extra city. This is less than the happiness bonuses of some other leaders. Most cothons give gold from trades in my games.