Scaramanga
Brickhead
The difference in tech cost is too great imo. It is a tier 2 harbor building anyway and Carthage needs to get naval power much sooner.
Why do people want to see Carthage as a civ?
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Alexander's Hetaroi
Deity
Shipbuilding is in the classical era, which is where I would put it though. It's not that much of a difference in production, in my opinion, if that is what you are referring to and maybe it could be cheaper although with all that gold it might be easier to buy it. It would get all the bonuses of the shipyard and more much earlier than anyone else making them a true early naval trading power if you go with it adding a trade route capacity as well.
http://civilization.wikia.com/wiki/Shipyard_(Civ6)
Scaramanga
Brickhead
Nice rationalising but I think Carthage needs to start navy building even earlier, no matter how much it clashes with England.
I think a Hannibal leader who creates loyalty from won battles would be interesting.
Olleus
Deity
Having to build a district and two buildings to get a benefit is a large investment though. There's no way you could realistically get all that build and then still have time to go conquering in the classical era. How about this for a new idea:
Get a free naval unit when you complete a trader in a coastal city (total number of free units capped at the maximum your trade route capacity has ever been to prevent exploits).
It gives carthage a strong early navy for free if it pushes trade, and represents their unique system for building ships super quickly. Combine it with my previous idea of having extra trade routes from beating barbarians/allying city states and you have some awesome synergy going.
Get a free naval unit when you complete a trader in a coastal city (total number of free units capped at the maximum your trade route capacity has ever been to prevent exploits).
It gives carthage a strong early navy for free if it pushes trade, and represents their unique system for building ships super quickly. Combine it with my previous idea of having extra trade routes from beating barbarians/allying city states and you have some awesome synergy going.
Alexander's Hetaroi
Deity
Maybe at the end of the day they should have made the Royal Navy Dockyard the shipyard replacement and gave Carthage the Cothon as the Unique Harbor District. At least it would have been era appropriate. I still like my reasoning though, and who knows maybe this will be the first instance of two civs having a unique district of the same type. At the same time I wouldn't be surprised if the Cothon would be a early shipyard replacement.
Scaramanga
Brickhead
I do not know why Royal Dockyards do not replace Shipyard, it would make much more sense chronologically. Carthage should get naval bonuses right out of the gate, possibly at Sailing like Norway do.
SirWill90
Warlord
In keeping with the OP, allow me to post this, which I just read in the intro to Livy 21- 30, which I was inspired by this thread to read:
“Put Hannibal into the scales; how many pounds' weight will you find in that greatest of commanders? This is the man for whom Africa was all too small----a land beaten by the Moorish sea and stretching to the steaming Nile, and then, again, to the tribes of Aethiopia and a new race of Elephants! Spain is added to his dominions: he overleaps the Pyrenees; Nature throws in his way Alps and snow: he splits the rocks asunder, and breaks up the mountain-side with vinegar! And now Italy is in his grasp, but still on he presses: "Nought is accomplished," he cries, "until my Punic host breaks down the city gates, and I plant my standard in the midst of the Subura! " O what a sight was that! What a picture it would make, the one-eyed General riding on the Gaetulian monster! What then was his end? Alas for glory! A conquered man, he flees headlong into exile, and there he sits, a mighty and marvellous suppliant, in the King's antechamber, until it please his Bithynian Majesty to awake! No sword, no stone, no javelin shall end the life which once wrought havoc throughout the world: that little ring shall avenge Cannae and all those seas of blood. On! on! thou madman, and race over the wintry Alps, that thou mayest be the delight of schoolboys and supply declaimers with a theme!”
-Juvenal
Give us Hannibal!
“Put Hannibal into the scales; how many pounds' weight will you find in that greatest of commanders? This is the man for whom Africa was all too small----a land beaten by the Moorish sea and stretching to the steaming Nile, and then, again, to the tribes of Aethiopia and a new race of Elephants! Spain is added to his dominions: he overleaps the Pyrenees; Nature throws in his way Alps and snow: he splits the rocks asunder, and breaks up the mountain-side with vinegar! And now Italy is in his grasp, but still on he presses: "Nought is accomplished," he cries, "until my Punic host breaks down the city gates, and I plant my standard in the midst of the Subura! " O what a sight was that! What a picture it would make, the one-eyed General riding on the Gaetulian monster! What then was his end? Alas for glory! A conquered man, he flees headlong into exile, and there he sits, a mighty and marvellous suppliant, in the King's antechamber, until it please his Bithynian Majesty to awake! No sword, no stone, no javelin shall end the life which once wrought havoc throughout the world: that little ring shall avenge Cannae and all those seas of blood. On! on! thou madman, and race over the wintry Alps, that thou mayest be the delight of schoolboys and supply declaimers with a theme!”
-Juvenal
Give us Hannibal!
If so, they need to make it cheaper too. Shipyards take way too long to build. A lot of civ's have stuff that sound good on paper, but is just too costly to invest production in.
But rather than add a third way for a city to ranged strike, I would rather see encampments go in the water. Would have to also lift the restriction on encampments being non-adjacent to the city.
Yep, bravo. Unfortunately, then comes the reality check, that Hannibal's more notable for the feat of getting to Rome than he was for the quality of his siege once he got there. And even that feat entailed a huge waste of manpower for a very questionable investment in pachyderms.
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Scaramanga
Brickhead
He had some incredible victories in Italy but yeah, no siege of Rome.
Still, the ability to cross mountain impediments and catch someone unawares is something I'd like to see replicated in the game. It's not his fault that his government abandoned him when he got there. Great general, terrible government.
Yeah, true, but it was his fault that he chose a few elephants over the lives of thousands of soldiers, and ultimately he needed the gimmicky shock value of war elephants far less than he needed to have the proper implements for sieging the capital of a military powerhouse.
Definitely do want some mountain-traversing mechanics somewhere. Carthage works. If not them, maybe Inca. Or hey, if we actually do get Italy as a civ in some fashion (as the R&F video somewhat suggests) maybe we'll get Alpini units.
Olleus
Deity
Honestly, crossing the alps is *not* Hannibal's greatest achievement. He lost 1/3 of his army in the crossing, that is not a successful military operation by any stretch, even if he had had no elephants he would still have lost tons from the conditions and the hostile tribes he was moving through. His true brilliance showed in the battle of Cannae and those immediately before it. The ability to turn the allied Roman cities against Rome was also a shrewd bit of strategy. But ultimately this campaign was always extremely unlikely to work and even his genius was unable to turn the odds.
Even if he had rudimentary siege weapons instead of elephants, actually taking Rome (just after Cannae was the best shot) would have been a huge challenge due to its sheer size. With his army stationary to enforce the siege, his genius in manoeuvres ambushes and deception would have gone to naught. The only way he could have won would have been for Rome to negotiate terms, but the Romans were too stubborn and proud to do that. In the end it became a war of attrition, and Carthage simply didn't have the resources or political system to win it.
His government abandoned him because, while he was having adventures in Italy, they had lost Spain, and Africa was becoming seriously threatened by Scipio. With complete Roman domination of the sea, there was simply nothing to do but bring his troops back to where they might actually be useful.
If Carthage was ever to win the 2nd Punic war, they needed a genius Admiral, not a genius General.
Even if he had rudimentary siege weapons instead of elephants, actually taking Rome (just after Cannae was the best shot) would have been a huge challenge due to its sheer size. With his army stationary to enforce the siege, his genius in manoeuvres ambushes and deception would have gone to naught. The only way he could have won would have been for Rome to negotiate terms, but the Romans were too stubborn and proud to do that. In the end it became a war of attrition, and Carthage simply didn't have the resources or political system to win it.
His government abandoned him because, while he was having adventures in Italy, they had lost Spain, and Africa was becoming seriously threatened by Scipio. With complete Roman domination of the sea, there was simply nothing to do but bring his troops back to where they might actually be useful.
If Carthage was ever to win the 2nd Punic war, they needed a genius Admiral, not a genius General.
chronoturner
Chieftain
- Joined
- Dec 4, 2017
- Messages
- 88
Carthago delenda est.
Jokes aside, Carthage is practically a staple and also a really interesting civilization. A colony rising up to become an Empire is very much a fun story, and Carthage makes that story a reality. However, I do think Dido and Hannibal can be a bit overused. Perhaps Mago I, founder of the Magonids, the guy who made Carthage rise to greatness, would be a good alternative to the two. Of course, he didn't manage to throw off the shackles of being a colony and being ultimately controlled by the Phoenicians, but he built the way for that path.
Jokes aside, Carthage is practically a staple and also a really interesting civilization. A colony rising up to become an Empire is very much a fun story, and Carthage makes that story a reality. However, I do think Dido and Hannibal can be a bit overused. Perhaps Mago I, founder of the Magonids, the guy who made Carthage rise to greatness, would be a good alternative to the two. Of course, he didn't manage to throw off the shackles of being a colony and being ultimately controlled by the Phoenicians, but he built the way for that path.
Scaramanga
Brickhead
For the purposes of Civ, not every enemy you encounter is going to be a determined Roman player so it doesn't invalidate certain tactics that in hindsight were lackluster. It should be the quality of the Carthage player that determines losses when crossing a mountain range (using the health loss if ending a turn on one).
Safe to say that getting his army to Rome is viewed as an impressive achievement of ingenuity in respects to military engineering, separate and distinct from his doomed siege. Getting panic-prone elephants to cross bodies of water, for instance, was not a light undertaking.
History admires commanders for ambition and determination, as well as end results, and thus men like Hannibal and Leonidas are given more air-time than generals who came out on top by playing from the textbook.
I don't know. They switched from Hannibal to Dido in Civ V, and I think that despite her questionable historicity was a good move given that Hannibal should occupy a spot amongst the GG's. For the devs to turn around and swap out an easy case for a female leader (insomuch as the aforementioned are the two names for Carthage that have some clout) with a male would be mildly surprising. Not unwelcome by any means, but surprising.
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Olleus
Deity
What siege?
That's not the point I was trying to make anyway. Imagine two different scenarios:
1) Hannibal crossing the Alps (with the same horrendous casualty rate) and then lost the battle of lake Trasimene and was captured just afterwards
2) Hannibal crosses the alps in summer (or goes around them by ship), but the rest of his Italian campaigns unfolds in exactly the same way.
If 1) happened, Hannibal would just be remembered by a few military historians as an examples of why you don't cross mountains in Winter, his loss at Trasimene would be blamed on the casualties he had crossing the alps, and he would be held strongly responsible for Carthage losing the second Punic war by throwing away an army.
If 2) happened, Hannibal would be remembered almost as well as now, if a little bit less famous in popular culture.
In other words, his crossing of the Alps is definitely memorably, but it is only remembered favourably because he then went on to win a series of impressive battles afterwards. This is a classic case of the narrative leading the interpretation of the facts.
Scaramanga
Brickhead
Hmm, I'm under the impression that the Alps crossing was memorable in itself despite the losses. But because he had to rely on mercenaries to fill his thinned ranks it meant sieges were out of the question. That's why I think a bonus to pillage movement would be good for representing Carthage reliance on mercenaries in general - mercenaries work for plunder.
chronoturner
Chieftain
- Joined
- Dec 4, 2017
- Messages
- 88
Good point. I was more in thinking of giving other leaders who are a bit more obscure a chance to shine, that haven't been in the game yet. Dido and Mago I, I think, would be good choices for Carthage, as they both represent an important part in the history (it starting as a colony and it's rise from simply being a colony). Dido could be more faith based, while Mago could be more military, again, representing two different parts of Carthage.
Hannibal should also be a GG, I agree.
Olleus
Deity
Maybe I've just studied too much ancient history recently to remember what the lay opinion is.... Someone above suggested generating loyalty by winning battles. This could be very fun, and certainly represents the same thing you mention; in particular Hannibals ability to flip the allied roman cities of southern Italy to join him.
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