Phoenicia 1.18

xerxess

Chieftain
Joined
Mar 17, 2018
Messages
11
I've been trying Phoenicia the last couple days on Regent/Normal. With some luck the first two goals are managable, but I can't figure out the third one.

What you need to do

1. Control five Dye resources and have 15 trade routes by 300 BC
2. Build a Palace and the Great Cothon in Carthage by 400 BC and control Italy and Iberia by 150 BC
3. Reveal half of the African coast by 1 AD

City placement

I usually settle Messana 1N of the Olives in Italy, Tanja 1NW of the Ivory in Morocco, Y 1N of the Marble, Eusperides 1N of the Spices and Mursiyya 1E of the horses in Spain, in that order. With the Great Lighthouse and some work boats this is enough to accomplish the first goal. Usually Surru makes the first two settlers and then the rest are done in Carthage. Once I'm done with Rome I settle two more core cities to avoid collapsing. Sometimes you can grab Jerusalem which is better than having it being a barbarian or enemy city.

Techs

My tech order is Calendar » Navigation » Bloomery » Arithmetics » Riding » Construction » Mathematics » Contract » Generalship. After that's done turn off research to have some gold to face off Rome.

Civics

I run Despotism/Slavery/Deification, then adopt Thalassocracy after Navigation is researched. Being able to whipe is just too good to justify going with Republic instead.

Wonder building

Two wonders are crucial for this UHV. The first one is the Great Cothon. After settling Carthage I build Baalist Temple and two work boats, whipping the temple and the second boat. By that time the Stone is set up so I can start it. Here is where the luck starts to show up. Usually, I'd say 1/3 of every game, Greece builds it way too early. Otherwise, you can get it no problem. The second wonder is the Great Lighthouse, needed to get the 15 trade routes. That's why I rush Navigation and Bloomery, to build it ASAP in Surru and to improve the Iron. If you don't trade techs with Greece, you can always get it doing this.

Surviving

The biggest threat to getting this UHV is that basically everyone will declare on you and you'll have to face off some barbarians. With 3 Archers, 2 Sacred Bands, walls and a War Elephant I have survived every Persian and Greak invasion of Surru. Sometimes they will fight each other, which just makes everything easier. One game a Greek army spawned near Eusperides, but I have never seen it happen again.

Barbarians on Africa aren't that much of a threat and usually dealt with a Sacred Band per city. What I've found to be the biggest problem is when barbarians capture Jerusalem, which makes the city an Axeman horsehockeyshow. They usually avoid you (guess this is intentional so that you can basically survive?), but if Jerusalem is barbarian, then the Axeman start wandering inside your borders. That makes improving your tiles imposible and delays everything. I had to restart a couple times because of this.

Then we have the big boy Rome, who will declare war around turn 145. With enough money is possible to crank up a big enough army to face them. Again, very luck dependant where the two armies spawn. One will be near Carthage and the second one near Mesanna. If they end up both on plains, a couple War Elephants are enough to deal with them, but if they spawn on hills they become much more of an issue. Another problem is if Rome settles Naples and Tarragona. The latter one is not that hard to conquer, but trying to get Naples and Rome has cost me some games, and getting the three is even harder.

Third UHV

Here's where I struggle the most. Circumnavigating Africa is impossible because you can't get past the Sahara. What I do is build 4-5 scouts and send them explore the continent by foot. The thing is this is no where near enough to 50%.

Spoiler :
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So I'm here asking for help. Is there a more reliable strategy for getting the first two goals? How on Earth do you accomplish the third goal? Getting caravels seems impossible. Even cogs, which I'm not sure if can get past the Sahara, are really far in the tech tree.
 
I haven't played Carthage myself, but can you not just get a Red Sea port and build a ship there to explore down the east coast?
 
You don't even need a Red Sea port. Adopting Deification, which you should be doing anyways, gets you pleased with Ramesses pretty early, so you can sign open borders with him. Then, I just send a scout to scope out the Red Sea, and the African lakes, which also currently count as African coast.
 
Don't forget you can also build a city by the capes in west africa to allow passage through them. That will give you all of west africa by boat. Compass is the tech to allow bypassing capes, but there's prolly no way to research it in time.
 
About the third goal. I attached a great general to a numidian cavalry and promoted it with sentry and mobility. Sent it to scout the eastern and southern coast of Africa. Another numidian cavalry with the sentry promotion scouted the west coast and it was already enough for the goal.
 
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