[GS] Phoenicia Discussion Thread

[Alexadamz]

Wonder if other unique district graphics will be modified in the same way.

I hope so. As a brazilian, I feel really baffled with the Carnival District having those circuses and such. It is even worse that Copacabana doesn't have its unique wave sidewalks.

 

[Ziad]

Levantines have a broad range of skintones. NB that Esau and David in the Bible are both described as redheads. Civ5 Dido was fine (her 1950s evening gown was more problematic); so is Civ6 Dido.

Civ5 Dido is me in the Winter after I spent a few months in the USA.
Civ6 Dido is me in the Summer tanning on the Lebanese coast

 

[Tiger Genocide]

This civ is situationally strong.

The settler bonus is very, very strong. This allows for very early expansion without needing to go to war on Emperor to Deity. You can easily fill up the continent area without worrying about pressure. You can also expand later in game this way too by moving the capital and fill in a new continent area. Useful if you need to grab strategic resources like uranium, aluminum, oil, etc.

The thing about the harder difficulties is getting settlers out QUICK to get things rolling. You cannot keep one or two cities and always war the neighbor and expect to win. While fighting you have to find a way to get out more settlers or you will get outpaced by the AI big time. With Carthage, why bother? Policy card + Magnus, plus government building, and I will have the fastest 10 cities on the whole map with no warmongering at all. The AI won't be able to keep that pace with me.

The only thing that will screw this civ over would be a bad map without a coastal start or having to waste 3+ turns to get closer to the coast. The coastal bias works well most of the time.

I think this civ is powerful for multiplayer. You can expand faster (something that is very crucial in multiplayer) and you get a small science lead on turn 1. If you have a rough war you can move your capital back to another city until you can either beat them into a peace deal or push them back.

I think this is a T2 civ. T1 on an Island plates map for sure just for the loyalty and harbor bonuses.

Some of you guys are weird. This is probably the best civ I see for peaceful expansion out of all of those other "peaceful" sim-city builder types most of you guys like. Sure you could warmonger with Carthage but.... they are almost a blank civ for that. They should have given them the friggin elephant. The Steel and Thunder mod will have your war elephant Jewelrunna, don't worry about it.

I see what Eagle Pursuit is going with the potential for loyalty flipping, but.... that is not as easy to do as we think. For starters, you won't have the population pressure and you have no Entertainment Districts to run bread and circuses. You can use a upgraded Amani but... I dunno. I would need to test that out to really see if it works that well or not.

 

[Portinou]

Ok: instant lowest tier civilization. Incredibly weak. The production bonus and extra trade routes are ok, but the production bonus willapply to 1-2 districts. Meh. Cothon is super weak. Bireme gets obsolete super fast on deity. Will probably be on top 5 of worst civilizations unfortunately. Great design opportunities missed IMHO.

 

[Ziad]

Phoenicia is simultaneously niche (loves the coastal settling) while also being generic enough to enable any victory type.

Frankly after actually thinking about the bonuses, the only really disappointing part of this reveal was the Ottoman music mixup.

 

[Leathaface]

I think Dido will be weak on Pangea, which is my favourite map to play. I won't play water based maps until the AI can handle naval warfare better.

The 2 colonial policy cards give +15% Growth and +25% Gold (iirc) to cities on a different continent from your original capital. Phoenicia can move their original capital so that their best cities are on a different continent from it. Ergo, more Citizens and boatloads of Gold.

Ah, OK. Thank you for explaining. Those colonial policy cards will be powerful alright when playing as Dido.

 

[Ziad]

deity.

Civs shouldn't be designed based on a gimmicky one-trick pony difficulty.

And grinding out settlers and districts while defending yourself is the biggest challenge on deity. Phoenicia addresses all that.

 

[Tiger Genocide]

Ok: instant lowest tier civilization. Incredibly weak. The production bonus and extra trade routes are ok, but the production bonus willapply to 1-2 districts. Meh. Cothon is super weak. Bireme gets obsolete super fast on deity. Will probably be on top 5 of worst civilizations unfortunately. Great design opportunities missed IMHO.

I agree on the galley part. It will be completely worthless on Immortal and Deity. Military and/or Domination wise they are absolutely plain. That is indeed a missed opportunity.

 

[Portinou]

This civ is situationally strong.

The settler bonus is very, very strong. This allows for very early expansion without needing to go to war on Emperor to Deity. You can easily fill up the continent area without worrying about pressure. You can also expand later in game this way too by moving the capital and fill in a new continent area. Useful if you need to grab strategic resources like uranium, aluminum, oil, etc.

The thing about the harder difficulties is getting settlers out QUICK to get things rolling. You cannot keep one or two cities and always war the neighbor and expect to win. While fighting you have to find a way to get out more settlers or you will get outpaced by the AI big time. With Carthage, why bother? Policy card + Magnus, plus government building, and I will have the fastest 10 cities on the whole map with no warmongering at all. The AI won't be able to keep that pace with me.

The only thing that will screw this civ over would be a bad map without a coastal start or having to waste 3+ turns to get closer to the coast. The coastal bias works well most of the time.

I think this civ is powerful for multiplayer. You can expand faster (something that is very crucial in multiplayer) and you get a small science lead on turn 1. If you have a rough war you can move your capital back to another city until you can either beat them into a peace deal or push them back.

I think this is a T2 civ. T1 on an Island plates map for sure just for the loyalty and harbor bonuses.

Some of you guys are weird. This is probably the best civ I see for peaceful expansion out of all of those other "peaceful" sim-city builder types most of you guys like. Sure you could warmonger with Carthage but.... they are almost a blank civ for that. They should have given them the friggin elephant. The Steel and Thunder mod will have your war elephant Jewelrunna, don't worry about it.

I see what Eagle Pursuit is going with the potential for loyalty flipping, but.... that is not as easy to do as we think. For starters, you won't have the population pressure and you have no Entertainment Districts to run bread and circuses. You can use a upgraded Amani but... I dunno. I would need to test that out to really see if it works that well or not.

The settler bonus comes at the cost of building a Harbor which you do not want and comes late in tech tree. You are probably better off just building settlers right off the bat.

 

[Ziad]

The settler bonus comes at the cost of building a Harbor which you do not want and comes late in tech tree. You are probably better off just building settlers right off the bat.

Why do you not want a Harbor? Is this pre-GS talking? Harbors were weak pre-GS because they didn't receive many of the benefits Commercial Hubs did. In GS they do.


I really hope they use the Phoenician stream to address the naval changes because this perspective, while understandable, is leading to some misconceptions and unfortunate preconceptions.

 

[Steamboat Willem]

I think the Writing Eureka is meant to be a nod to them inventing writing, but having Campuses from turn 1 would be too much.

I noticed on the blog that the later Harbor buildings are even Cothon themed. It's so cool.

Going for Campuses with Phoenicia seems a sucker's game to me. Cothon are cheap, and with both your UU and your UI in the ancient Era, and on the same tech path, you shouldn't have a problem hitting a Classical Golden Age for Free Inquiry.

 

[IvoryPavane]

Her production bonus doesn’t just come from one source though...

If you settle another city and make it your capital, if you have one envoy in Hong Kong, plus your palace, you have +4 production in that new city, let alone other shenanigans with policy cards, wonders etc.

I think anyone who thinks she is weak, isn’t using their imagination quite enough. There is a lot of interesting stuff going on. And if that isn’t for you, there’s always Korea.

She probably falls somewhere in the middle. She’s not Amanitore, but she’s hardly Tamar.

 

[Tiger Genocide]

I think Dido will be weak on Pangea, which is my favourite map to play. I won't play water based maps until the AI can handle naval warfare better.

If you think of a pangea map like a cookie, you can fill up the map without wars, as if you dunked the cookie into milk. You will own the entire edge and some land towards the middle in both directions.

 

[Ziad]

Phoenicia still has the loyalty bonus on Pangaea. Just settle the outskirts of the continent while settling inland lakes.

 

[Siptah]

Cothons would be stronger if the AI would attack you every now and then with naval units... but it doesn't. At least it makes those barbarian caravels that can get on my nerves easier to deal with.

 

[Ziad]

Cothons would be stronger if the AI would attack you every now and then with naval units... but it doesn't. At least it makes those barbarian caravels that can get on my nerves easier to deal with.

I think the most amusing implication of their design is that it's somewhat desirable to flip cities and raze them to place your own cities rather than just keeping them.

Call it cultural absorption. Those citizens just moved to your cities.

 

[Portinou]

Why do you not want a Harbor? Is this pre-GS talking? Harbors were weak pre-GS because they didn't receive many of the benefits Commercial Hubs did. In GS they do.


I really hope they use the Phoenician stream to address the naval changes because this perspective, while understandable, is leading to some misconceptions and unfortunate preconceptions.

Harbors do not generates GM points. Admirals are useless anyway, since AI cannot deal with naval warfare anyway and they do not provide the same bonuses as GM.

 

[monstercat]

Bit late to the party, but might as well give my thoughts. They look to be geared towards wide play, and the bireme will help on water maps towards naval supremacy, and then there's extra trade routes that can't be plundered in the water for some economic focus. Based on that, many victory paths look available. And Dido's leader image looks awesome

Would have thought that Phoenicia would get a bit more focus towards trade routes and economy than settlers, and no Tyrian Purple FXS

Overall a relatively early game, low-mid tier, and by no stretch of the imagination overpowered. I'll take it.

 

[Josephias]

The settler bonus is very, very strong. This allows for very early expansion without needing to go to war on Emperor to Deity. You can easily fill up the continent area without worrying about pressure. You can also expand later in game this way too by moving the capital and fill in a new continent area. Useful if you need to grab strategic resources like uranium, aluminum, oil, etc

Adding to this, and even if we are missing the Tyrian Purple, this also means Phoenicia can get quite a bit of Luxes to trade, if you wanted to do that.

 

[Ziad]

Harbors do not generates GM points. Admirals are useless anyway, since AI cannot deal with naval warfare anyway and they do not provide the same bonuses as GM.

And? You can still build Commercial Hubs. This has nothing to do with the power of Harbors. The mere fact that you get bonuses from commercial city states in Harbor buildings now greatly reduces the power discrepancy.

Admirals are also hardly useless. There are a few you really want as Phoenicia.