(OUT OF DATE/2UC)A Vox Populi(CBP) Guide: Carthage

This guide is currently out of date for the 5.0 aka 4UC integration patch of Vox Populi. I thought it would be easier to make new guides instead of trying to edit these, plus they may be good to have if someone wanted to play an older version of Vox Populi. However, do note that some things in this guide may be out of date, as due to both busier life stuff and the knowledge that 4UC has been coming for a while some parts of the guides weren’t updating even with other VP changes

Carthage has had fairly significant changes, namely to their UA. This guide may not be very useful unless you are playing a very old version of VP

Once a new version of this guide comes out, it will be linked here [new guide link waiting]

These guides are designed to help players who are new to Civ but still interested in Vox Populi, familiar with Civ but new to Vox Populi, or even those well versed in Vox Populi who just want to see if there's anything they didn't know about a particular civilization. I am actually a big fan of Zigzagzigal's Civ guide series, and it really helped me learn a lot about the game, and I wanted to bring a similar experience for fans of the Vox Populi or Community Balance Patch modpack. For those interested in the modpack it can be downloaded here[forums.civfanatics.com]

Anyways, without further ado, onto the Carthaginians!

Before I go into depth with this guide, here's an explanation of some terminology I'll be using throughout for the sake of newer players.

Beelining - Focusing on obtaining a technology early by only researching technologies needed to research it and no others. For example, to beeline Bronze Working, you'd research Mining and Bronze Working and nothing else until Bronze Working was finished.
Finisher - The bonus for completing a Social Policy tree (e.g. +33% Great Scientist rate and +25% growth in all cities from rationalism.)
GWAM - Great Writers, Artists and Musicians. These are the three types of Great People who can make Great Works, a major source of tourism for cultural Civs.
Opener - The bonus for unlocking a Social Policy tree (e.g. +25% Great Person Rate and +100% construction of guilds in Artistry)
Tall Empire - A low number of cities with a high population each.
UA - Unique Ability - the unique thing a Civilization has which doesn't need to be built.
UB - Unique Building - A replacement for a normal building that can only be built and used by one Civilization.
UI - Unique Improvement - A tile improvement that can be made by workers that doesn't replace any other improvement that can only be made by a single civilization
UU - Unique Unit - A replacement for a normal unit that can only be built by one Civilization or provided by militaristic City-States when allied.
Uniques - Collective name for Unique Abilities, Units, Buildings, Tile Improvements and Great People
Wide Empire - A high number of cities with a low population each.
XP - Experience Points - Get enough and you'll level up your unit, giving you the ability to heal your unit or get a promotion.

Carthage has a coastal start bias. This is great as they are one of the most coastal reliant civs in the game, with their UA, UU and arguably even their UB relying on it
+125 when you found a city, scaling with era

All owned coastal cities receive a free lighthouse

The trade route diversity modifier is either doubled if positive, or halved if it is negative.

A naval melee unit

Positive One-Off Changes

• 20combat strength(up from 18)
  
• Obsoletes at Navigation rather than Compass

Positive Stay on Upgrade Changes

• Flanking Bonus increased by 10%. Ignores ZOC(Pincer)
  
• +25% combat strength when attacking. +25% combat strength when attacking cities(Heavy Assault)

Positive Changes

• Unlocks at Currency(instead of Guilds)
  
• Requires a market to be built instead of a customs house
  
• Incoming trade routes generate +5 for the city(up from 4), and +3 for the trade route owner(up from 2)
  
• Resource diversity modifiers for the city increase by 25% if positive, or decrease by 25% if negative
  
• Grants 2 additional trade routes
  
• All harbors gain +3
  
• All lighthouses gain +2
  
• -2 from poverty in this city

These scores are merely my personal opinions from playing and examining this Civ, you may find other uses for Carthage's uniques that make you disagree with a certain ranking
The Quinquereme is a powerful offensive option in the early game, and it upgrades quite well, but Carthage otherwise lacks any other military bonus, offensively or defensively.
The Great Cothon actually gives Carthage a very solid amount of culture, and the extra trade routes it gives can give a little bit of extra tourism
Carthage also gets a bit of a production bonus from the Great Cothon due to harbors, and arguably having more trade routes allows for more internal trading. However they do lack any science bonus.
Carthage is arguably the strongest gold generating civ in the game, throughout the entire game, with gold on city founding helping the early game, while the extra and better trade routes keep them going in the mid and late game.
Finally, Carthage does have a somewhat busy early game, so they might have some trouble founding a religion, but with how wide they build, if Carthage does found they can usually get a strong religion going.

Most civs you can get an idea of what victory types they are good at just by seeing what their bonuses apply too, but Carthage's strongest bonuses are to gold, and they lack anything pushing them extremely towards any one victory type. Gold is at least somewhat useful for any victory type, but I would argue it is most useful for Domination and Diplomatic victories. You can either use your large amount of gold to support a large military, or use you trade routes to gain city state influence, and your gold to buy diplomatic units.

It's anyone's guess as to where this gold is coming from. But then again that's pretty much modern economics

While the gold you get from founding cities scales with era (increasing to 250 in the medieval era, and then by 125 every era after) it is most important early on in the game before your economy gets going. There's a lot you could do with this gold early on. You could buy a unit, invest in a building, or save it for future use, such as for a worker. My personal recommendation is to buy a pathfinder with the money you get founding your capital. This will help make sure you get territory scouted fast for future city spots, and gives you a much better chance of getting ruins before your neighbors. Do note that you only get gold for founding cities, you get no gold from your UA for conquering a city.

My queen, we have absolutely no idea how to traverse the seas, but just in case we ever figure it out, we have set up these structures which will allow any "sea traversing contraptions" to better find the shore

The moment you found any city on the coast it gets a lighthouse, regardless of whether or not you even have sailing. The lighthouse holds 2 major benefits. The first benefit is that it gives all coastal tiles +1 food and gold. 3 food 1 gold is better then most unimproved tiles, so this helps ensure that your city will have good workable tiles right from the start. The other major benefit of lighthouses is that (once you research the wheel) it will form city connections if there is an uninterrupted line of water between the two cities. As long as you found all your cities coastal, you won't really need to build roads for city connections, as this already does that job. This saves you money, generates money, and even reduces unhappiness without you having to do anything special.

The first 2 parts of Carthage's UA are short term benefits, the last part gives Carthage a more tangible long term strength.

Above: The tooltip shows this as 50%, but it actually is 100% for Carthage

Resource Diversity works a bit differently in Vox Populi then the base game. For other civs, when sending an international trade route, for each luxury resource that one city has but not the other, the value of the trade route increases by 10%, or 20% if the city owner that has a resource has a monopoly on it. For Carthage all of these values are doubled. This means that overall Carthage can make a lot of money from trade routes, especially if they get some monopolies.

I really should've gotten a closer screenshot to see if the quinquereme actually has five rows of oars

The Quinquereme may just be one of the hardest hitting units relative to its era, coming in with 2 promotions that make it really strong. The first, and arguably most important, is Heavy Assault. This gives +25% combat strength when attacking, and an additional 25% when attacking cities. This brings the Quinquereme up to a massive 30 strength attacking a city, which is the same as a french musketeer, in the classical era!

While attacking cities certainly is a great use of the Quinqueremes if you can get away with it, arguably more useful is their ability to defend and attack against other ships, because they ignore ZOC and gain bonus flanking bonuses. With just a few Quinqueremes, you can dominate the waves anywhere you have them. Even in the medieval era they hold up well without even being upgraded

• Flanking bonus increased by 10%. Ignores ZOC
  
• +25% combat strength when attacking. +25% combat strength when attacking cities(Heavy Assault)

Upgraded Quinqueremes will have a massive 37.5 combat strength against cities, which is half a point shy of a fusilier's base strength. Further upgrades keep a similar ratio. No city on the coast, or even enemy boats in the water will be safe from your ships, as they hit two eras above their own.

The Great Cothon builds upon Carthage's two major strengths. Trade routes and coastal cities.

Above: 5 trade routes should be about the amount you expect to have when you build the Great Cothon, assuming you can't nab Petra or the Colossus. Most other civs would have 3.

Carthage's trade routes are already better then everyone else's, the only thing they needed was more of them, and the Great Cothon provides. Further building on that, it also increases the trade diversity modifier by a further 25%. The Great Cothon already retains the East India Company's bonus of giving free copies of nearby luxuries, so this further incentivizes you to build it in a city with lots of luxuries.

Free lighthouses was already a great bonus for Carthage, but the Great Cothon pretty much turns them into a free monument as well. Considering at this point you are probably both still founding cities, as well as possibly not building many other culture buildings, this is a massive boost to culture. Later on, once you build harbors(because why wouldn't you be anyways) they will also give you a good amount of production. I would argue the production isn't as important since you have to build the harbor first, but it is still a very useful bonus.

Terrain/resource specific pantheons are not listed here unless they have some other synergy with a civ's uniques, however they can often be a great choice if the terrain/resources you start with favors them

God of Commerce: Since you effectively get free city connections, this is a top tier pantheon for you, unless you get real unlucky with your starting location, but then you have bigger problems then your pantheon

God of the Sea: Most of your cities will be coastal, so this will be a lot of bonuses. Still can be good even if you have few coastal resources, but is stellar if you do.

Goddess of Festivals: You do want to try to get a lot of luxuries for better trade routes, so if you do manage to grab a lot early, this is a good pantheon

Council of Elders: The big thing Carthage lacks is science. This gives you a fair bit and scales well with a wide build

Hero Worship: Gives a ton of bonuses if you plan to be doing lots of conquest.

Theocratic Rule: More gold to go on top of your hoard

Pagodas: Given the amount of trading, and potential naval conquest you'll be doing, you're likely to get a lot of pressure from different religions, making pagodas very strong

Teocalis: A nice boost to your military, especially good if you have any solid naval rivals to destroy

Orders: Great choice if you plan to go domination

Synagogues: Production and science, both good things to have

Orthodoxy: Since you have a ton of trade routes, and likely a ton of cities fairly spread out, this will massively increase your religious pressure

Universalism: Similar reasons to pagodas as to why this is good for you.

Holy Land: If you're going for a diplomatic victory, this gives a lot of extra votes for the congress

Crusader Spirit: While this unfortunately doesn't effect your navy, you don't strictly need it on your navy, the help to your army is still very useful

Faith of the Masses: The purchasing of culture buildings is decent, but you're actually here for the happiness

Carthage should start with Progress to support their early wide expansion in the long run. They should then go Statecraft to help build on trade routes. What policy tree they choose last depends on their victory type. Industry for diplomacy, and Imperialism for domination

Opener: If at all possible, try to avoid growing your capital much before you get this, you'll get more science that way. The culture you immediately get from this will likely almost be enough for the next policy too

Liberty: If you don't have any worker techs yet, it might be a good idea to save this for later, otherwise this makes sure you're improving stuff ASAP

Organization: Faster workers, settlers, and even great people all help infrastructure get built just a little bit faster

Expertise: Faster building construction is great, especially in the early game where production might be sparse.

Fraternity: The science and food are both pretty welcome, and they're easy to get with your near instant city connections

Equality: You'll be building a lot of cities. This won't 100% fix your happiness problems, but it doe go a LONG way

Finisher: This should be a good bit of gold, which you don't technically need, but more gold doesn't hurt

Opener: Small bit of gold and a few extra yields in the capital can't hurt

Trade Confederacy: Yay better trade routes!

Foreign Service: A nice collection of misc. bonuses

Shadow Networks: A good boost to science that you definitely need

Exchange Markets: An extra trade route that is superior to basically everyone else, and some happiness from your trade routes on top.

Consulates: Helps give an early leg up in the world congress.

Finisher: A few yields every world congress session, not too shabby

Opener: Two free trade routes is incredible for you, allowing you a massive increase to your gold output

Free Trade: Extra gold from trade routes is always nice

Division of Labor: Seaports and Train Stations are normally expensive buildings, but now they are in line with other buildings. Also a large boost to your production and gold outputs

Entrepreneurship: Gold and production, the industry tree knows what it wants, and you do too.

Mercantilism: A good bit of extra science and culture. Who ever said Industry was just gold and production? Wait a minute...

Protectionism: Better use of your gold, as well as more food and science, can't complain really

Finisher: You're bound to have specialists somewhere, so this is definitely helpful

Opener: You probably have a solid navy leftover from Quinquereme conquests, and now it just got a lot better.

Colonialism: You'll have lots of monopolies by now, get some more use out of them.

Regimental Tradition: Faster Great General and Admiral generation, as well as making them stronger, good to have on the land or on the sea

Martial Law: You'll definitely have plenty of puppet cities, and conquered ones too. Both of them will be less of a burden now.

Exploitation: A good bit of yields across the empire, especially if most of your cities are coastal, which they presumably are.

Civilizing Mission: Gold from conquering cities, and production in said conquered cities, everything you need to push the front line.

Finisher: Now your navy defends better, and you can use air units to help better defend and stabilize your empire.

A diplomatic Carthage should go Freedom due to their trade focus, but a domination Carthage should go Autocracy

Economic Union: 2 trade routes, 2 more City States getting influence.

Covert Action: Makes your spies better at getting those tricky city states your diplomatic rivals don't want to give up.

Avant Garde: Some more great people, and a bit less unhappiness

Universal Healthcare: A free hospital in every city, possibly before you even have biology researched, is amazing.

Arsenal of Democracy: Get a bit more out of your great people with extra influence whenever you use them.

Treaty Organization: Save your trade routes for City States and you should be able to keep them loyal
Elite Forces: Need some new units? They're better. Have lots of old units? They upgrade faster

New World Order: Carthage needs every help they can get with unhappiness, and here it is.

Military-Industrial Complex: You may have tons of money but cheaper upgrades never hurt

Commerce Raiders: A little bit of production is nice, but you mainly want this for the better ships, the extra resources is decent if you are keeping up city state allies too.

Third Alternative: Speaking of resources, have some more!

Air Supremacy: You'll probably need some land units, and while you'll probably have a solid navy, air travel will still be faster.

Petra: Might be a bit hard due to terrain requirements, but the extra trade route is nice

Pyramids: The faster you can get a city out the more gold you can get.

Statue of Zeus: The faster you can kill a city with your Quinqueremes the better.

Colossus: Much easier to get then Petra, probably just as valuable to Carthage.

Great Lighthouse: Your Quinqueremes aren't quite obsolete yet, so this will still help them out, and it's a nice boon to your future navy.

Forbidden City(Progress Only): You may already have pretty much as much money as you'll ever need, but that's exactly why you should make it go farther as your main resource
Summer Palace(Diplomacy): A major help to your diplomatic game, should really help make sure you can compete with strong diplomatic civs.
Palace of Westminster(Statecraft Only): Will help you either win the world congress for a diplomatic game, or keep a solid stance to prevent bad decisions from passing in a domination game

Neuschwanstein: A bit hard to get due to terrain, but will help unhappiness a ton

Broadway(Industry Only): Should give you a solid amount of culture

Prora(Autocracy Only): Should almost eliminate your happiness problems.

Statue of Liberty(Freedom Only): A good amount of production, but you mostly want the free policy

Pentagon(Imperialism Only): If you need air units, they come out faster and with more xp
CERN: 2 free techs, and a ton of influence. This is all you could ever want.

Carthage may seem a bit simple on paper but they require an unorthodox and aggressive playstyle, which can lead to some mistakes.

If you don't found a city on the coast, it doesn't get a free lighthouse. And as land trade routes are inferior to sea routes, you are arguably losing out on the better trade routes, so you effectively are wasting 2/3rds of your UA by not founding on the sea. If a city spot is genuinely good enough inland to warrant it do it, but if you have the option of founding on the coast you should do it.
Assuming all your cities are coastal, you won't need to build roads to get city connections, but that isn't the only use of roads. Without roads all of your troops move slower, and if you are being invaded your units can't retreat effectively. You don't necessarily have to build roads directly between cities, but having some is still useful.
If you are properly utilizing the Quinquereme this shouldn't be an issue, but one barbarian ship, or enemy civ parking a boat outside of your capital can completely wreck your city connections if you aren't properly defended. One way to avoid this is to build a road between your capital and at least one other city. It is unlikely, especially from barbarians that both cities will be blockaded.
While early game you will have lots of money through many sources, mid and late game trade routes are pretty much all you have. You need to be sending out as many as you can to keep making money.

Carthage has a metric ton of gold, and they have a scary early naval rush. However they are a bit unfocused, and gold can't solve every problem.

Carthage gets gold from founding cities, but not from conquering them. So take potential city spots from Carthage, and you deny them their gold. This also somewhat prevents them from getting as many free lighthouses, although that isn't necessarily any better or worse if you have less cities.

As for their better trade routes, you can always just try and make sure to pillage them whenever you have the opportunity. Later on, an embargo will really cripple Carthage, so keep that in mind.

The Quinquereme is an absolutely terrifying force. My best recommendation against them is to just not have any cities on the coast. However if that isn't an option, probably because your capital was founded coastal, all hope isn't lost. Walls are going to be your best defense. I've found cities do an oddly large amount of damage to Quinqueremes with their ranged attack. Naval units will struggle to heal, especially this early on, so get a unit weak enough and you probably won't even have to bother killing it. Getting to philosophy will be helpful as well. Triremes and liburnas of your own will probably still lose to Quinqueremes, but they will slow them down and deal some damage. The longer it takes for Quinqueremes to start really attacking, the worse off they will be. Later on in the game your best option is to have ranged units, preferably siege units stationed on the coast to take out any upgraded Quinqueremes without fear of retaliation.
The Great Cothon mostly builds on Carthage's trading strengths, so just keep doing what you were already doing. There isn't a ton you can do about the bonuses they get to lighthouses and harbors, but while certainly helpful doesn't give Carthage a massive advantage anyways, so you shouldn't worry about it much.
Early-Game Warmongers: If you aren't coastal, Carthage shouldn't prove too tough, as they will focus most of their efforts on ships, making them an easy conquest. However if you are on the sea, even if you aren't an early naval power like Denmark or England, you will need to worry. You could try to conquer Carthage faster then they can conquer you, but that is likely a losing fight. I would stay on the defense if Quinqueremes are going to be an issue

Mid-Game Warmongers: Carthage's navy will be as scary as ever, but hopefully by this point you can either build up enough of one yourself, or preferably, have a good land force that can actually keep their navy at bay, or ignore them entirely

Late-Game Warmongers: By this point Carthage will only have so many units with Heavy Assault. Take them out, and Carthage's only defense is their strong economy

Diplomatic Players: An embargo will destroy Carthage. Besides Quinqueremes money is all they have

Scientific Players: Use your tech lead to get to medieval defenses fast, and continue to use that tech lead for further defense, and Carthage should prove absolutely no issue past the early game.

Cultural Players: Just do your best to get through the early game, and Carthage shouldn't prove any direct competition.

These guide cover every civ in the game, and can be used as a quick reference

• Civ Summaries

• America (Domination/Science/Culture)
  
• Arabia (Culture/Science)
  
• Assyria (Science/Domination)
  
• Austria (Diplomacy/Culture)
  
• The Aztecs (Domination/Science)
  
• Babylon (Science)
  
• Brazil (Culture)
  
• Byzantium (All)
  
• The Celts (Domination/Culture/Science)
  
• China (Domination/Culture)
  
• Denmark (Domination)
  
• Egypt (Culture)
  
• England (Domination/Diplomacy)
  
• Ethiopia (Science)
  
• France (Domination/Culture)
  
• Germany (Diplomacy/Science)
  
• Greece (Domination/Diplomacy/Culture)
  
• The Huns (Domination)
  
• The Inca (Science/Domination)
  
• India (Science/Culture)
  
• Indonesia (Domination/Culture/Science)
  
• The Iroquois (Domination)
  
• Japan (Domination/Culture)
  
• Korea (Science/Domination)
  
• The Maya (Science/Domination)
  
• Mongolia (Domination)
  
• Morocco (Culture/Diplomacy)
  
• The Netherlands (Diplomacy/Domination)
  
• The Ottomans (Domination/Science)
  
• Persia(Domination/Culture)
  
• Poland (Domination)
  
• Polynesia (Culture)
  
• Portugal (Science/Diplomacy)
  
• Rome (Domination/Science)
  
• Russia (Science/Domination)
  
• The Shoshone (Domination/Science/Culture)
  
• Siam (Diplomacy/Science/Culture)
  
• Songhai (Domination)
  
• Spain (Domination/Culture)
  
• Sweden (Domination)
  
• Venice (Diplomacy/Culture/Domination)
  
• The Zulus (Domination)