So how does Dido's capital thing work?

[ZeroSuitSenpai]

Nope. It has to be a city founded by Phoenicia.

Oh really? I was under the impression that Harbors were converted to unique districts upon capture. E.g. in my England games I capture coastal cities so the harbor converts to a RND for the free +4 loyalty. Does the Cothon in a taken city just not have the project option?

 

[Ziad]

Oh really? I was under the impression that Harbors were converted to unique districts upon capture. E.g. in my England games I capture coastal cities so the harbor converts to a RND for the free +4 loyalty. Does the Cothon in a taken city just not have the project option?

Phoenicia's coastal city loyalty bonuses and their capital switch project require the city be founded by Phoenicia. Harbors are still converted to Cothons even in conquered cities. It's what makes naval conquest with them hilariously efficient. I conquered a string of cities within 25 turns in the early game once with the same 3 ships.

I think the idea is that you are supposed to colonize many continents yourself (the earlier the better) and then switch around the capital for empire building and/or domination.

 

[ZeroSuitSenpai]

I see, thanks for the info!

 

[Datian]

I finally tried Phoenicia and had a very nice scientific victory (first one on GS, and I must say it's still tedious...).

I played on an "island plates" map of course, and was very lucky to meet Mohenjo Daro, which helped immensely : I did not have to settle near fresh water, only look for the best cothon+CS spots, and my cities grew fast which allowed for a ton of districts.

Ok I was quite impressed, it was really easy to chop a cothon, buy a lighthouse and a shipyard because of the massive money, buy a CS (Reyna or Moksha take time to settle, just enough to reach 4 pop), buy a settler, rinse and repeat.
Meanwhile, build a massive fleet, with the bireme which can face barbarian quadrirems (finally !), send lucrative sea trade routes and have bireme watch over them.

There are some drawbacks however.
First, building a ton of harbors, before CS, means more admiral than merchant points, and merchants are way more useful, especially when you rely on trade routes.
Without Mohenjo Daro, you won't be so free to choose great cothon spots and/or you won't have a very high pop, which means you won't build so many districts, and you need more more more because of the cothon.
And on big landmasses, well it's not so fun.

And that whole ICS on island maps is something you can pull with another civ.
But it won't be so easy. You'll have less money. And you will face loyalty issues. And you won't have the "move capital remotely then build casa and enjoy" trick.
Ok I see the point and the synergy now

 

[IvoryPavane]

If I can get away with it, I sometimes buy both the Harbour AND the Commercial hub, but only if I can place them next to each other.

With Free Inquiry you can end up with 8 science with them together and it’s esp good when you get the Harbour and commercial hub policy card in one.

Again, the science boost is temporary but the game is very much about tempo and the initial wave of science is pretty potent, and eventually you can just buy the science buildings to catch back up.

Glad you had a more successful second stab though! I really think Dido is a sleeper hit so I’ll be fighting the good fight to showcase the benefits

 

[chazzycat]

Free Inquiry is really the key part of the Dido strategy that holds the whole thing together IMO. It's how you can allot all your early hammers towards settlers, cothons & navy without falling behind in science.

 

[Ziad]

Free Inquiry is really the key part of the Dido strategy that holds the whole thing together IMO. It's how you can allot all your early hammers towards settlers, cothons & navy without falling behind in science.

Yep, and it's no real sacrifice either. It's pretty easy to get with Dido and it greatly overshadows the other GA choices for her.

It's evident that they balanced Phoenicia with Free Inquiry in mind. That's basically her "science bonus" as it's virtually guaranteed and very efficient to put up with relatively little investment on her part.

Ultimately, Dido's strengths come from very efficient exploitation of existing mechanics.

 

[Ziad]

There are some drawbacks however.
First, building a ton of harbors, before CS, means more admiral than merchant points, and merchants are way more useful, especially when you rely on trade routes

Merchants are definitely more useful for the purposes of empire building, but you can and should build both if you can get high enough adjacency bonuses as a lot of their bonuses tie in together. There's a lot of synergy there. You don't need Theater Districts and you don't need Campuses til the Renaissance, so there's no reason not to build both.

Of course it's more difficult in the early game but you can get away with not having that many Commercial Hubs through GP investment. Phoenicia makes so much gold in the early game that it's rather easy to snatch the + trade route merchants for relatively little cost. Even easier with any investment in faith.