[GS] Phoenicia Discussion Thread

[Ziad]

Have they ever tweaked a civilization before release?

 

[God of Kings]

See @God of Kings reply above. They invented the alphabet we now use today, so it is a little nod to that.

Today, much of the world's population (excluding in China, Korea, and Japan) writes in a script ultimately deriving from Phoenician script. Even the Chinese, Koreans, and the Japanese occasionally write in a script ultimately derived from Phoenician script.

 

[marius_kaparius]

So if the palace moves and it has a great work of writing that moves too? Good for expanding borders.

 

[BrotherInJah]

If you are on a war path and want conquered cities to be loyal, you change capital to a city on the same continent. But I agree it wouldn't be much in a game.

Settle on new continent -> harbour -> conquer

 

[Phoenix1595]

After thinking about the FL for a bit, I think the Phoenicians fit well into the expansionist builder civ category. They aren’t necessarily an aggressive domination civ, like the Ottomans, but with settler perks, multiple trade route opportunities, and a district discount, they’d be a solid early expansion civ that could get their empire online faster than most.

I’m glad they went this route rather than another round of angry Hannibal and his elephants.

 

[Giskler]

Have they ever tweaked a civilization before release?

Minor tweaks, yes.

 

[God of Kings]

After thinking about the FL for a bit, I think the Phoenicians fit well into the expansionist builder civ category. They aren’t necessarily an aggressive domination civ, like the Ottomans, but with settler perks, multiple trade route opportunities, and a district discount, they’d be a solid early expansion civ that could get their empire online faster than most.

I’m glad they went this route rather than another round of angry Hannibal and his elephants.

The Incas took the role of ancient-era mountain-crossing with their Qhapaq Ñan tunnels.

 

[thecrazyscot]

The Phoenicians ARE a heavy trade civ in this design.

Cheap settlers = cheap cities
Cheap harbor + cheap cities = lots of cheap trade routes
Government Plaza bonus = extra trade routes (2 very early)
Coastal cities = extra gold on trade routes

Granted, I think it would be cool to have a more flavorful trade bonus, but the Phoenicians are absolutely a trading powerhouse.

 

[ehecatzin]

I'm going to guess that it was nerfed in playtesting.

Could be, let's hope that enough of a boost.

I’m glad they went this route rather than another round of angry Hannibal and his elephants.

I was resigned to seeing Elephants again, I'm so happy its not the case, now we have an actual Phoenicia that is focused on trade, and Incas that can actually move through montains.

I'm rather curious about how Dido will interact with other leaders, She's probably going to be best friends with Mansa Musa and Pachacuti everytime, and bump heads with Victoria and Gitarja. oddly enough, it seems like Dido and Trajan could get along most of the time, he stays inland, she has a large empire...

 

[bbbt]

I'm in the underwhelmed camp. Some sort of actual benefit from setting on the coast (see Australia) besides loyalty would seem to be necessary given them being encouraged to. Maybe they thought the UD was enough, but the harbor cones pretty late comparatively.

 

[Alexadamz]

Well, I cannot say I am not underwhelmed. Ok, making them exclusivelly settled on coast would be too much a handicap, that I can understand what they did. Besides their loyalty control on coast of the same continent is good way of doing that, without much issue. Maybe if we could have sea's names that would work better and would be historically accurate, as on TSL maps the Mediterranean is surrounded by 3 continents.

I was expecting more, though. The Cothon would be a good unique replacement for the City Center. They could make the same mechanic they used for the Palace change, making the Cothon an UD that was buildable from a city project, converting the City Center from a coastal city to the Cothon. Doing that would make cities able to build Harbor buildings + City Center buildings on the same District - and combining 2 districts on one is good, as that would free space for other districts. Maybe that would be harder to implement on game codes, but it would be way more interesting.

As it is, I just hope they make things earlier available for Phoenicia. They could be able to embark settler and workers at Sailing. Cothon should be available at Sailing too. And Celestial Navigation without the Cothon would be a forgettable Tech, so it should make embarked units able to go to ocean tiles (that would be a nod also to Phoenicia being the more peaceful counterpart of Norway, as Norway gets the ocean passing ability at Shipbuilding).

But I was really hoping for something more unique. I guess the other civ they said would get a huge malus to balance their bonuses was Mali, besides the Maori. As the crazy uniqueness of the Maori was revealed too early, it built up the hype, but the other civs were way less unique as the Maori and nothing was on par - and so I am really underwhelmed in the end.

And, last but not least, if nothing of the above changes, I really hope they make Writing free, and not only its Eureka moment. Unless they changed the Eureka for that.

 

[Ziad]

K I was thinking about it (rather than working of course) and I think this is how Phoenicia is played out.

You start the game focused on science and growth completely. You just beeline to Writing and get that Campus online immediately. The Eureka will help you with this regardless of your location.

Meanwhile you want the State Workforce tile ASAP in the capital. Build that Government Plaza as soon as possible.

You'll still want an early Settler or two. Don't just ignore settling. Get the Ancestral Hall immediately.

Use the Government Plaza to construct a Cothon in no time as soon as population permits.

Aim for Magnus governor bonuses for no population loss.

Now that you're set, start expanding like a maniac. Build settlers like crazy, grabbing any coastal tile that you can on in any continent where loyalty permits focusing mostly on your home continent at first and then shifting to others.

Build those Cothons in every city and then use that Cothon to build even more settlers to expand from there. If faced with enemy resistance, move your capital to promote settling in that location til you are solid in loyalty. The moving capital will also be useful for Palace yields which will supercharge your expansion. Later on use Reyna for free district purchases.

Use your navy to secure your holdings and threaten other civilizations with coastal cities. THAT will be your security net. With naval empires being a lot stronger in civilization, the appeal of coastal settling will increase for everyone, and you will always have the biggest baddest navy out there. Just don't engage in land wars. Threat of mutually assured destruction ftw

All your Cothons will provide additional trade routes. Use those to really reel in the income. Your navy will protect your trade routes (and I'm fairly certain the effect isn't lost on upgrade).

Early on you'll want that Free Inquiry. You'll likely have Cothons in every city, so it will be spectacularly powerful for Phoenicia giving you an additional source of unrivaled science strength.

The more I think about it, the more I'm impressed. They nailed Thalassocracy. Bonus yields here and there would be powerful, but that's not what builds great empires. Cities do. And Phoenicia can settle them safely and securely.

As long as you leverage your bonus to expansionism, you are set. Fail, and you are done for.

I love it. This is Phoenicia to a P. Maybe not uniquely suited to one victory type, but they can do anything and everything except land wars.

I'm ultra excited now. This is how I always played Dido in Civ5 anyway. Spam cities in the early game and use that early advantage to snowball.

 

[PhilBowles]

Looks somewhat flavourful but extremely weak, and ideally the Cothon would have been available earlier than a normal Harbor to make the settler production boost more relevant. As a naval settlement civ (which is presumably why they went with Phoenicia over Carthage) they seem to be on par with Norway without any of that civ's other advantages, and a long way below the Maori. Early access to one of the eurekas you tend to get automatically and which is off an optimal tech path to exploit early harbours is nothing to write home about, and weirdly this civ has no trade bonuses despite the Phoenicians being famous as maritime traders.

 

[Ziad]

Looks somewhat flavourful but extremely weak, and ideally the Cothon would have been available earlier than a normal Harbor to make the settler production boost more relevant. As a naval settlement civ (which is presumably why they went with Phoenicia over Carthage) they seem to be on par with Norway without any of that civ's other advantages, and a long way below the Maori. Early access to one of the eurekas you tend to get automatically and which is off an optimal tech path to exploit early harbours is nothing to write home about, and weirdly this civ has no trade bonuses despite the Phoenicians being famous as maritime traders.

Their early game city spam will be the source of those bonuses. They don't need them, unlike other civilizations with trade route count bonuses like Mali that struggle with expansionism or England that takes a while to take off in comparison.

I feel people aren't really grasping the strength of their early game snowballing.

 

[Jaybe]

The real intent behind moving Phoenicia’s capital:

So that Domination players can say “Carthago delenda est” and have to wipe out the Phoenicia AI entirely. It’s....kinda ironic.

I am really hyped! Since I have only played civ as ROME, I cannot wait till I encounter Dido who has expanded quickly into areas I wanted and have to have extended war (or wars) to do them in.
Just for the historical parallels, of course.

 

[Steamboat Willem]

The Phoenicians ARE a heavy trade civ in this design.

Cheap settlers = cheap cities
Cheap harbor + cheap cities = lots of cheap trade routes
Government Plaza bonus = extra trade routes (2 very early)
Coastal cities = extra gold on trade routes

Granted, I think it would be cool to have a more flavorful trade bonus, but the Phoenicians are absolutely a trading powerhouse.

Phoenicia also starts out with stronger, faster, cheaper, fast-healing ships that protect your sea trade routes. They can also use those ships to plunder other sea trade routes and capture coastal cities, so noone in their vicinity can benefit from sea trade.

 

[SammyKhalifa]

I think they DO have trade bonuses:

Extra routes
All (or mostly) water routes
cheap harbors

They don't do explicitly better things, but they're easier to get.

I do wish the cothon was earlier/easier to get though.

 

[Ziad]

Man they thematically nailed Phoenicia. I love Firaxis.

 

[Zaarin]

So, my thoughts as usual:

• Dido's outfit is a little plain and it's the wrong shade of purple, but I love her overall design. I may kind of have a crush. What I could hear of her dialogue over Sarah sounded better than Civ5 Dido.
• I really love the design--a civ that can change it's original capital was not foreseen but very thematic.
• Cothon may beat out the Lavra for "prettiest unique district."
• She and Gitarja are not going to get along.
• Unfortunately Phoenicia's city-list appears to suffer from the Egypt problem.
• Only real disappointment is no reference to Tyrian purple (beyond Dido's wrong-colored outfit) or cedars of Lebanon.

 

[IvoryPavane]

I don’t understand how people don’t think they don’t have a trade route bonus... they literally get 4.

Similar to the Mali for every golden age (assuming they can get one).

I think the danger here is the Maori have set a dangerous precedent by being very unique and (let’s be real), likely absurdly overpowered. It’s hardly a fair benchmark for the other civs.

Dido is possibly a victim of overhype but she’s not weak by any means, and I think she has a lot of interesting quirks that we haven’t even considered yet. (Flipping your capital over to another continent and supercharging your base city with policy cards is really cool, and that’s just at a first thought).