[GS] Phoenicia Discussion Thread

[Chefofrats]

I'm playing as Phoenicia and I'm completely clueless as to the "move capital" mechanic. It's supposed to be a city project, but I'm in the medieval era already and the project still does not seem to be available. When does it unlock? I can't find anything on the subject in the Civilopedia.

 

[Disgustipated]

You need a Cothon built and then the city project is at the bottom with other city projects. Cothons unlock with Celestial navigation, easy to miss that tech, so make sure you researched it. You may know that already, just wanted to cover all bases.

 

[Chefofrats]

Thanks for the answer. I had a cothon in the city I wanted to move my capital too. I guess the problem might have been the fact that it was the former capital of an AI civ.

 

[Starwars]

I think you can only move the capital to cities you founded yourself.

 

[Lord Lakely]

Phoenicia's abilities only apply to cities they have settled themselves.

 

[Uberfrog]

Does anyone else find the Move Capital project prohibitively expensive?

I settled a bunch of overseas colonies in the medieval era, but it would take 40+ turns to complete the switch for my planned Loyalty slingshot. That's a lot of production when you want to be establishing the city's infrastructure. Even with free builders from the Ancestral Hall and chopping, that wood is better spent building Cothons. In the end I resorted to more traditional means of securing their allegiance, i.e. governors, monuments, and taking foreign cities with knights. By the end of the game I held over a third of the "New World" without having shifted my capital once.

In particular, Dido's achievement to switch her capital to 4 different continents seems like an unhealthy waste of production.

 

[IvoryPavane]

Does anyone else find the Move Capital project prohibitively expensive?

I settled a bunch of overseas colonies in the medieval era, but it would take 40+ turns to complete the switch for my planned Loyalty slingshot. That's a lot of production when you want to be establishing the city's infrastructure. Even with free builders from the Ancestral Hall and chopping, that wood is better spent building Cothons. In the end I resorted to more traditional means of securing their allegiance, i.e. governors, monuments, and taking foreign cities with knights. By the end of the game I held over a third of the "New World" without having shifted my capital once.

In particular, Dido's achievement to switch her capital to 4 different continents seems like an unhealthy waste of production.

Yeah, to be honest out of 10+ games with Phonecia now, I tend to seek out a city whose sole purpose is to be the capital on a contintent if it’s own, to activate Casa and Colonial cards.
I usually seek to do this just before I unlock Casa and it’s almost always in the tundra esque places or corner of the continent that no one wants.

I always settle so the Cothon is +4 (ideally +5) and then buy the Cothon with Reyna, then I buy the lighthouse and shipyard outright. With Reyna adjaceny bonus, you get +8-10 production and then I chop the capital switch out in about 10-12 turns. It’s aboit 2000 gold to go, but Dido is RICH. I’ve never had a Civ where i have so much gold, esp if there’s a coastal city state so I’ve always got enough to do it.

Depending on the map setup, sometimes I do the above a bit early so I can colonise another contintent without loyalty concerns. However, with the pace I can output settlers, I often just take four over to a new continent and settle them nearby to each other, they usually stabilise each other with a little attention.

I rarely war with her but if there is an early coastal city, I’ll always take it because Biremes are pretty devastating early. If I pop a city next to it, I can take most coastal cities with two Biremes by rotating them with the full heal.

I do actually have the Purple Reign achievement hahah! But only because I was doing a lot of testing of the capital switch mechanics, not as a serious thing lol

 

[Eagle Pursuit]

Something I've been ruminating on about Phoenicia is the Colonial policies that make cities on continents other than your capital better.

The policies are good for Phoenicia, which can game them up by moving the capital around a bit.

But they aren't amazing either.

I feel obligated to use them because of the unique synergy, but I wish they were better because I feel like a lot of the policies I use regularly anyway are preferable still.

 

[IvoryPavane]

Something I've been ruminating on about Phoenicia is the Colonial policies that make cities on continents other than your capital better.

The policies are good for Phoenicia, which can game them up by moving the capital around a bit.

But they aren't amazing either.

I feel obligated to use them because of the unique synergy, but I wish they were better because I feel like a lot of the policies I use regularly anyway are preferable still.

I think they are generally optimised on Phonecia because she earns so much gold in her cities, so that 25% becomes meaty. But tbh, I only use the 25% gold and 10% production one. I generally leave the 15% growth and loyalty because I tend not to care about my city size, so long as they can accommodate a Cothon and a Campus.

It usually adds up to around 250-500GPT which is sizeable, but I generally think Didos most important policy is naval tradition/double adjacency to Harbours. Most of her early/mid game rush hinges off that and Free Inquiry!

I think her game lives and dies by that early game advantage (multiple cities and each cothon providing 8 gold, 8 science and eventually 8 production), and then turning those early science and gold advantages into something tangible, and a win condition (9/10 science for me, if I’m honest). Or domination if that map has a lot of water.

 

[newbie2]

Does anyone else find the Move Capital project prohibitively expensive?

I settled a bunch of overseas colonies in the medieval era, but it would take 40+ turns to complete the switch for my planned Loyalty slingshot. That's a lot of production when you want to be establishing the city's infrastructure. Even with free builders from the Ancestral Hall and chopping, that wood is better spent building Cothons. In the end I resorted to more traditional means of securing their allegiance, i.e. governors, monuments, and taking foreign cities with knights. By the end of the game I held over a third of the "New World" without having shifted my capital once.

In particular, Dido's achievement to switch her capital to 4 different continents seems like an unhealthy waste of production.

I came into this thread, solely for this. ok im not a deity player, but I kinda know my stuff. I just finished a large island plates map with them (emperor). After a slow start (because i rarely play something else than continents), i got the ancestrall hall + cothon + colonization combo going and went crazy colonizing the smaller islands the AI had missed, using reyna to quickly buy cothons to make more trade routes and more money.

So when i got the colonial taxes (which is an industrial policy, so midgame), the cost to move the capital was 300 to 400 production. Which is borderline insane, given that the new city is always behind in production (especially on an island plates map). In the modern era, this jumped to 900. I could be building wonders for that
I don't know how the cost is calculated (number of cities? turns? both?), but it is basically a useless feature, unless im doing something very wrong.

I checked the first look video again, and there the cost to move the capital in a new city with 8 production, was 1 turn... Offcours i know it is set up especially (also playing on quick), but its quite a big difference...


As for the achievement, ill probably set up a quick game and cheese it out...

 

[GenyaArikado]

what sort of victory is Phoenicia more suited for? cuz i have actually never finished any of the games i start as dido cuz i feel lost

 

[Disgustipated]

Kind of like the Mali, they can be geared towards any victory path, though they are quite weak at religion, I don't recommend that. I find I can make even more money with Phoenicia than Mali with the right kind of map. You just have to pick something that interests you. If you have a lot of cultural heavy civs in the game you may want to avoid cultural victory as that may be tedious, and focus on science instead.

 

[IvoryPavane]

I tend to go science on Phonecia because Free Inquiry gives such a strong early game boost, you can ride that early advantage into an overall science win.

In terms of move capital, it’s not something you can do willy nilly, but it’s also not that hard. It scales with game age, so if you are doing it early game to loyalty settle, it’s not so expensive. In later eras, if you can get the Cothon in and hard buy the light house and shipyard, you can get the capital moved in 15 turns or so. I generally always do it once per game, to activate the colonial cards but it’s defjnitely not something you will “game”.

 

[Eagle Pursuit]

I tend to go science on Phonecia because Free Inquiry gives such a strong early game boost, you can ride that early advantage into an overall science win.

In terms of move capital, it’s not something you can do willy nilly, but it’s also not that hard. It scales with game age, so if you are doing it early game to loyalty settle, it’s not so expensive. In later eras, if you can get the Cothon in and hard buy the light house and shipyard, you can get the capital moved in 15 turns or so. I generally always do it once per game, to activate the colonial cards but it’s defjnitely not something you will “game”.

I believe you can use the Royal Society to rush the capital move with builders as well, to speed things up.

 

[GenyaArikado]

So i decided to go for a SV game as Dido (not a fan of dom games and it's fitting with Dido's runaway theme y'know). My starting location was basically a narrow sea without many ocean tiles even so i settled on both continents shorelines. I ended up finding an amazing location that didn't even suffer loyalty pressure in a 3rd continent next to Hạ Long Bay so i decided to go for the Cap switch game. The most satisfying part is that when i settled that city....it was named Carthage. I still haven't finished the game but God is real guys

 

[Navelgazer]

Agreed that Science is probably the best bet for them, with Cultural as a second strategy. Religion is probably out unless you hit the Pantheon lottery and can get Earth Goddess somehow, which is even better for Dido because of all the coastal cities you'll be founding. Domination doesn't really synergize with them very cleanly (as noted above, her abilities only apply to cities she founds) but with Science and Culture you can get a ton of Campuses/Theatre Squares up and running, lots of room for wonders, and the strategic resources you want/need. Because of your sheer number of trade routes and lock on strategic and lux resources you could also make a go at Diplomatic if you've got five years of real-time to get there.

 

[IvoryPavane]

Yeah, I wouldn’t ever go full domination on her, but woe betide any coastal Civs that live with Dido in the first era because Biremes are scary customers.

I always take any coastal Civs or city states early on with 3 Biremes and a Cothon. It doesn’t synergise entirely with her kit, but it is pretty cost effective. (Once the Cothon is in, you can pump out Biremes in 2 turns with the right policy).

I always use a terribly unoptimal starting science path. While I’m building a few military defence units, I beeline straight for Cothons. I used to hold off on the Cothon to support the second golden age but I really think the sooner she gets the Cothon the better. And what you lose in science and infrastructure for the first 30 turns, you will more than make up in the next 50.

 

[tedhebert]

Playing my first Dido game... Sure it's been said many time in this thread, but not going to go though all 43 pages...

I like the civ, but really disappointed about the capital moving thingy. I mean, you can't use it on a conquered city ? What the hey is the use of this if not when you capture a city on another continent, exactly ?

So unless you found on another continent pretty early, there won't be any room left for a new city and you won't be able to use the ability...

Anyways... Not sure I understand the logic behind this. I thought it was going to be fun to go capture a city, move reyna in, buy a cothon with gold, then move the capital... no loyalty problems... nah... not happenin ;-(

 

[Eagle Pursuit]

Make room. Raze cities.

 

[tedhebert]

Make room. Raze cities.

Hmmm... sometimes the solution is so simple it eludes the best of us ;-) Thx, didn't even think about this, since I never ever raze ;-)