Hello everyone.
There has been somewhat of a spirited discussion in the Carthage subforum that has lead to a particular impasse. Perhaps you could help us resolve it?
Note that this isn't about changing Carthage much at all, in case you were wondering.
Here's a reminder.
Unique traits
Phoenician Heritage: Cities provide 175
when founded, scaling with Era. Owned coastal cities receive a free Lighthouse, and Resource Diversity triples the value of trade routes (this means that a difference of resources in the cities adds 1.5 , up from 0.5 )
Quiquireme: 18 CS Trireme replacement with Reconaissance promotion (XP on exploration) that is lost on upgrade. Available on Fishing.
Great Cothon: Available 1 tech tier earlier than East India. +5 Gold / +3 Gold for Outgoing/Incoming trade routes respectively (up by 1 from East India).
+2
to Lighthouses
+3
to Harbor
+2
Trade routes
What's good about Carthage?
Carthage has a pretty fun early game that encourages aggressive coastal expansion to take advantage of the free early game UB and significant gold for that era. The unique unit helps them accomplish that task if they are in relatively watery maps, and allows for some quick conquest against enemies that are not equipped to handle naval rushes.
The recent gold changes have also made Carthage's gold on settlement even more potent in Ancient, with the nerfs to Progress keeping them somewhat in check.
What's the point of this thread then?
Recently, East India Company was buffed to provide +1 Trade Route. This means that Carthage's UB does not bring anything unique to the table. It's just +1 Trade Route on top of that. That's of course valuable, but would it be enough to qualify it as a unique building?
The other yields, being static in nature, do not scale into the late game. The culture bonus is definitely welcome, but that would be comparable to just making the Lighthouse produce +2 culture. Would that be enough to qualify as a unique building in VP? That's something you see in the vanilla base game. The production bonus is welcome but somewhat tangential and minimal given that Carthage is about the early game.
On top of that, the recent trade route distance penalty diminished somewhat the ability to make use of resource diversity. Previously, you would gauge trade route benefit by the amount of yields it produced. Now there's an additional distance metric on top of it. The impact of the resource diversity has been reduced.
So now we have a Carthage whose gameplay squarely revolves around the early game expansion with little to look forward to after all is said and done.
Is this a unique problem to Carthage?
Every other civilization has a scaling UB, UI, and/or UA to accompany it whose presence is felt throughout the game. I would be hard pressed to find a civilization that does not fit the bill.
Arabia, which has a UB with static yields (like Great Cothon's culture) still provides a lot of different types of yields while also buffing trade route distance. Polynesia which has a non-scaling UA (still lasts til Renaissance) has a very powerful and continuously present UI and a UU which retain its promotions.
Can you think of one?
Carthage has the gold settling bonus that scales, but that quickly diminishes after classical as gold income rises so it might as well not. How many cities do you really found after the early game rush? As a result it just falls off, depending on its previous success only and ending up quite generic mid-Classical onwards. The trade route diversity bonus can't be felt as much anymore. The difference number of trade routes has diminished.
So what needs to change?
Not much actually. Carthage is about snowballing. It should remain as such, even as snowballing mechanics have been steadily been removed from the game or reworked. The exhilaration that comes with finding good coastal spots and setting up those quick cities with rapid investment and infrastructure shouldn't change.
However we can stand to eliminate the parts that have become somewhat obsolete in favor of returning some flavor to Carthage's gameplay throughout the entire game.
What do you suggest?
There has been a lot of discussion on this topic. A few ideas that came up were
We could phase out the resource diversity bonus and possibly the harbor production bonus if necessary and have each active trade route instead reduce gold purchase amounts by a small amount. This could be in the UA or the UB.
This would not impact the early game at all (the bonus would be too small to notice), but it would:accumulate over time, adding some level of scaling to Carthage while giving players something to look forward to. It would also provide some incentive to chase trade routes whether through wonders, policies, or ideologies. Not enough to make it the default choice, but something that shapes your strategy, like every other unique does and should do.
Most importantly, it would bring something unique to Carthage again, that fits its stated gameplay style of being open to all options after a successful early game.
Thank you for reading!
There has been somewhat of a spirited discussion in the Carthage subforum that has lead to a particular impasse. Perhaps you could help us resolve it?
Note that this isn't about changing Carthage much at all, in case you were wondering.
Here's a reminder.
Unique traits
Phoenician Heritage: Cities provide 175
when founded, scaling with Era. Owned coastal cities receive a free Lighthouse, and Resource Diversity triples the value of trade routes (this means that a difference of resources in the cities adds 1.5 , up from 0.5 )Quiquireme: 18 CS Trireme replacement with Reconaissance promotion (XP on exploration) that is lost on upgrade. Available on Fishing.
Great Cothon: Available 1 tech tier earlier than East India. +5 Gold / +3 Gold for Outgoing/Incoming trade routes respectively (up by 1
from East India).+2
to Lighthouses+3
to Harbor+2
Trade routesWhat's good about Carthage?
Carthage has a pretty fun early game that encourages aggressive coastal expansion to take advantage of the free early game UB and significant gold for that era. The unique unit helps them accomplish that task if they are in relatively watery maps, and allows for some quick conquest against enemies that are not equipped to handle naval rushes.
The recent gold changes have also made Carthage's gold on settlement even more potent in Ancient, with the nerfs to Progress keeping them somewhat in check.
What's the point of this thread then?
Recently, East India Company was buffed to provide +1
Trade Route. This means that Carthage's UB does not bring anything unique to the table. It's just +1 Trade Route on top of that. That's of course valuable, but would it be enough to qualify it as a unique building?The other yields, being static in nature, do not scale into the late game. The culture bonus is definitely welcome, but that would be comparable to just making the Lighthouse produce +2 culture. Would that be enough to qualify as a unique building in VP? That's something you see in the vanilla base game. The production bonus is welcome but somewhat tangential and minimal given that Carthage is about the early game.
On top of that, the recent trade route distance penalty diminished somewhat the ability to make use of resource diversity. Previously, you would gauge trade route benefit by the amount of yields it produced. Now there's an additional distance metric on top of it. The impact of the resource diversity has been reduced.
So now we have a Carthage whose gameplay squarely revolves around the early game expansion with little to look forward to after all is said and done.
Is this a unique problem to Carthage?
Every other civilization has a scaling UB, UI, and/or UA to accompany it whose presence is felt throughout the game. I would be hard pressed to find a civilization that does not fit the bill.
Arabia, which has a UB with static yields (like Great Cothon's culture) still provides a lot of different types of yields while also buffing trade route distance. Polynesia which has a non-scaling UA (still lasts til Renaissance) has a very powerful and continuously present UI and a UU which retain its promotions.
Can you think of one?
Carthage has the gold settling bonus that scales, but that quickly diminishes after classical as gold income rises so it might as well not. How many cities do you really found after the early game rush? As a result it just falls off, depending on its previous success only and ending up quite generic mid-Classical onwards. The trade route diversity bonus can't be felt as much anymore. The difference number of trade routes has diminished.
So what needs to change?
Not much actually. Carthage is about snowballing. It should remain as such, even as snowballing mechanics have been steadily been removed from the game or reworked. The exhilaration that comes with finding good coastal spots and setting up those quick cities with rapid investment and infrastructure shouldn't change.
However we can stand to eliminate the parts that have become somewhat obsolete in favor of returning some flavor to Carthage's gameplay throughout the entire game.
What do you suggest?
There has been a lot of discussion on this topic. A few ideas that came up were
- Scaling number of trade routes with respect to number cities on Great Cothon
- Culture in cities after construction of naval units (similar to Ottomans)
- Gold investment reduction per unit trade route
We could phase out the resource diversity bonus and possibly the harbor production bonus if necessary and have each active trade route instead reduce gold purchase amounts by a small amount. This could be in the UA or the UB.
This would not impact the early game at all (the bonus would be too small to notice), but it would:accumulate over time, adding some level of scaling to Carthage while giving players something to look forward to. It would also provide some incentive to chase trade routes whether through wonders, policies, or ideologies. Not enough to make it the default choice, but something that shapes your strategy, like every other unique does and should do.
Most importantly, it would bring something unique to Carthage again, that fits its stated gameplay style of being open to all options after a successful early game.
Thank you for reading!
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