Is Carthage a bit too powerful?

[mystikx21]

Carthage can trade the purple for other luxuries. There's an upper limit on this, but it basically means as long as you aren't isolated, happiness is not a significant factor to (coastal) expansion.

It's also potentially more powerful on larger map sizes or with more players.

 

[ExpiredReign]

Liberty - Representation: +1 per City plus the +4 from Tyrian Purple all from the practically free Cothon.
Free in the sense that you don't need to research to get it. Not maintain it.

I don't have a problem with the building, it seems to fit well. The problem I see is giving Sailing at the outset which makes these great bonuses available from the first turn.
Most civs can settle 3 cities early, fairly easily, with the Cothon another 1 or 2 cities are almost a given. So +4 from the luxury and another +4 with the connected cities mean 2 cities without the penalty. This is too much.

Why the need to give them Sailing? If you play Carthage you would beeline this tech anyway to gain the bonuses. Giving it for free is amazing.

What is wrong with removing the free tech but giving them 1 or 2 biremes upon researching it? None of the design is lost. They still sit as a seafaring civ but without the handout that makes them an EARLY powerhouse.

 

[jwerano]

I just started a 3.10 carthage game and was disappointed by the lack of the free bireme. I definitely prefer the free ship to free sailing.

Overall I still think Carthage is not overpowered even with all the old bonuses as I can think of several other civs that have equally good or better starts partially due to a powerful starting unit. Iroquois, Egypt, Huns, Shoshone, Persia can all consistently steal a neighbor civs worker, and pillage 100 or so gold during the first 20 turns of the game without losing their unit. If lucky they can go on to steal 2 workers and pillage 2 enemies.

Rome can intimidate city states out of 280-420 gold in the early game with their powered up liburna guaranteed wheras carthage will probably fail to intimidate even 1 city.

This gold is key in purchasing an early smithy which will also give you an early manufactory so that you can build half of the early wonders. That tends to be more significant than tyrian purple. Do other people who have used these strategies early game really think carthage is too strong?

I strongly feel Carthage only feels powerful due to people not realizing how to exploit many of the other leaders starting unit in the early game and I hope we get the free ship back at least as an accompaniment to sailing when its researched.

I respect the argument that Carthage receives alot extra happiness early on but are people really building more than 3 cities in the early game? Why? Its always seemed to me under normal circumstances building a 4th city that doesn't get a palace too early slows your empire down and that its superior to save that happiness for growth in your original 3 cities. If im wrong can someone enlighten me?

 

[mitsho]

Yeah, Carthag is very straightforward. I wouldn't have thought to intimidate a CS w a liburna as Rome to buy a smithy, but it's a very logical step to do.

As for Carthage, the free starting bireme is very fun and should be kept imho. Does Carthage get Pottery as well or only just sailing? One could reduce it to this though why not concentrate on other stuff for now, it doesn't have to be perfectly balanced.

 

[ExpiredReign]

What? Hang on. When did the bireme get removed? I haven't played Carthage since this thread was started so I never noticed. I can't remember that ever being an option Thal agreed to. He did mention removing the Warrior.

@mitsho
No, you still have to research Pottery.

It looks like this topic =

@jwerano
You are right, I hadn't looked at other civs to see how they might be exploited to gain an early advantage. The reason for that was I focused on civs that I thought we had changed substantially and was examining if they needed tweaking.
I just might try your CS bully tactics in an upcoming game.

 

[Thalassicus]

A luxury resource is not the same as 4 free happiness. We must trade it to gain any benefit, and when we trade, we help other players as much as ourselves. Opponents rarely accept an unequal trade. Consider the game summary I posted earlier:

In my current game as Carthage [...] Cothons give me 4 and 6/turn. My opponents gain 12 from my Cothons. My opponents get more happiness from the Cothons than I do.

Something else you should know is when there's 8 players on a standard map the game creates 1 to 8 deposits of each type of luxury. This means, on average, everyone trades for everyone else's resources, and there are none left over. Adding a new resource only one person can acquire will not have trading partners (on average). This is especially true once we meet everyone and the map's heavily developed. Cothons get weaker as the game progresses and our trading partners get filled up.


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Why the need to give them Sailing? If you play Carthage you would beeline this tech

The answer's in the question. I like giving people more options. Carthage was forced to research sailing first. Starting with sailing lets us choose any early research path we want, and gives us more city construction options in the early game.

 

[ExpiredReign]

"Why the need to give them Sailing? If you play Carthage you would beeline this tech"

The answer's in the question. I like giving people more options. Carthage was forced to research sailing first. Starting with sailing lets us choose any early research path we want, and gives us more city construction options in the early game.

I just don't follow that logic.

If we think this a good idea, why don't we give everyone an extra tech based on their trait?

Japan and Rome really like units that use IRON, why not give them TECH_MINING?!

I'm not averse to radical change so long as the change makes sense and is balanced. Sorry Thal, I don't think this is balanced.

And my examples of Rome & Japan don't need to be argued against, I am just ranting.
The change to Carthage won't happen so I will just button my lip.

 

[Ahriman]

I'm with Expired here. I really don't see why any civs should be getting free techs. I also think the free military units that some civs get can be quite unbalancing, and make those civs often dramatically stronger than other civs with no early game bonus.

 

[Thalassicus]

@ExpiredReign
I'm okay with the idea to give each civ a starting tech to provide them more options. Some past versions of the Civ series did that. It's something I've considered in the past, but hasn't ever come up in conversations, so I haven't pursued the idea further. It's not something I plan on doing for everyone. I picked it for two civs (Mongolia and Carthage) to make them more unique and improve their early-game options.

I reduced the power of Carthage by increasing the maintenance of their unique building. A civ's overall power includes the power of all their unique traits, units, and buildings. If it turns out Carthage is still too strong later, I'll look at other ways to reduce their power in the future.

 

[Tomice]

One minor addition:

Please don't let Elephants become obsolete at chivalry. They are ressourceless and thus remain useful even if knights are available.
I just came into a situation where I had to delay chivalry just to be able to defend myself.