WARNING: This guide is no longer updated. Beware factual inaccuracies and proposed strategies which may not be optimum. For something more up-to-date, look at the Brave New World guide.

Zigzagzigal's Guide to Carthage (BNW)

Note: Carthage requires the Gods and Kings expansion. This guide is based around Gods and Kings mechanics and some elements will be outdated in Brave New World expansion.

Carthage is a powerful warmonger with good economic support. Located around modern-day Tunisia, Carthage rose from a Phoenician-influenced port to take on Rome - and do rather well at it, too.


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.

FInisher - The bonus for completing a Social Policy tree (e.g. Free Great Person for Liberty.)
Meatshield - Soaking up damage on behalf of something else. This can be on the small scale (like a Swordsman taking damage for an Archer) or on a large scale (protecting a capital city with less important cities)
Opener - The bonus for unlocking a Social Policy tree (e.g. +1 culture for every city for Liberty's opener)
UA - Unique Ability - the unique thing a Civilization has which doesn't need to be built.
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. Seeing as you get cash from sea trade routes but you get free Harbours to form them, there's little reason not to do this as Carthage.

I'm a newbie at guides and I'm by no means the best Civ 5 player around (I can put together Civ-specific strategies well, but I'm poor at more generic strategy). Corrections or better strategies would be useful.

Starting Bias

Carthage is biased towards coastal tiles which syncs well with uniques.

Uniques

Aside from its Unique Ability, Carthage has two unique units - an Ancient era sea unit and a Classical era mounted one.

Unique Ability: Phoenician Heritage

• All coastal cities get a Harbour building for free immediately when founded
  
• These Harbours have no maintenance
  
• You do not need to research Sailing to gain these Harbours
  
• You still need The Wheel to form routes
  
• After gaining your first Great General, all land units can cross mountains
  
• Units take 50HP damage if they end their turn on a mountain

Unique Unit 1: Quinquereme (Replaces the Trireme)

• Requires the Sailing technology (Ancient era, 2nd column, 3rd column overall)
  
• 13 strength, up from 10 (+30%)

Unique Unit 2: African Forest Elephant (Replaces the Horseman)

• Requires the Horseback Riding technology (Classical era, 1st column, 4th column overall)
  
• Costs 100 Production on normal speed games, up from 75 (+33%)
  
• Movement of 3, down from 4 (-25%)
  
• Strength of 14, up from 12 (+17%)
  
• Does not require Horse resources
  
• 10% combat penalty to adjacent enemy units (Feared Elephant)
  
• 200% increased contribution to Great General points (Great Generals II)
  
• Upgrade cost of 50 rather than 100 on normal speed games (-50%)

Victory Routes

Note these scores are a matter of personal opinion based on experiences with the Civilization. You may discover a way of utilising the Civ more effectively in unconventional ways.

Cultural: 2/10
Diplomatic: 7/10
Domination: 9/10
Scientific: 5/10

Carthage really should try to take over the world. Considerable cash saved from free Harbours could support a Diplomatic win, however.

Free Harbours


Above: Yes, even if you don't have Compass.

Carthage gets free Harbours in every city - maintenance-free, production-free and technology-free. Think of it almost like the Carthaginian Unique Building (and it's a good one at that.) As already stated, you don't need the Compass technology for it, and its production bonuses will get to work immediately. You still need The Wheel to form trade routes, however.


Above: Extra cash early on, and my Workers can focus on other things.

With the free maitainance, the lack of need for roads makes this ability a considerable money saver. On top of the Production bonus from sea resources, you'll be much more able to support an early army.


Above: Barbarians can shut off your entire trade network. Keep your shores defended.

As another useful point, free Harbours means one less building on the way to Seaports later in the game. This prepares new cities for building sea units considerably faster (so you can get lots of Privateers before anyone else.)

Finally, once you gain the Railroad technology, all your sea cities will instantly get the 25% production bonus. There's no need to worry about rebuilding your land routes again, as you probably don't have many! That isn't to say you should completely neglect roads, however - you may need them to get armies to front lines sooner.

Can Cross Mountains After First Great General


Above: Remember, you need a Great General. You can't cross mountains right from the start.

Carthaginian land units can move on mountains, including civilian units. This only uses one movement point (hills in comparison use two) meaning it's quite safe to move slower units over one-tile-thick mountain ranges. Be careful on denser ones, however, as it'll do 50HP damage - half a unit's maximum health!


Above: Ow. Mountains hurt.

The main use of this ability is to attack an enemy at multiple angles - mountain crossing African Forest Elephants on one side, Quinqueremes taking the coast. Both these routes tend to be less well defended than traditional land routes. You'll do exceptionally well at surprising the Incas (who tend to settle around mountain clusters) and Scientific nations (who favour mountains for Observatory buildings)


Above: A considerable problem with crossing mountains - as unit pathing favours faster routes, they may risk more dangerous mountain roads. Be sure to check which path your units are taking before you assign them a long route.

Right. The conventional out of the way, there's a strange additional utility of mountains. The Great Carthaginian Road. Surprisingly, you can actually build roads on mountains which cuts route lengths to inland cities and keeps units safe. Move in a worker to a mountain, start building a road, then move out the following turn to heal. Repeat this until the road is up.


Above: What happens if a worker stays in a mountain two turns running.

Don't let the fact it's a naval unit put you off. Quinqueremes are incredibly strong for their era and very cheap to build (plus, cash from free Harbours means maitainance costs are less of a problem.) Just two technologies will unlock the ability to build them, giving you the ability to build a strength 13 unit before most people can build a strength 11 one.

Usually, Barracks slow down an early rush. In the case of Quinqueremes, however, the advantages of early promotions likely outweigh the opportunity cost of more units (though they're so cheap to build that it barely makes a difference anyway.) A city highly exposed to the coastline is an ideal target.


Above: Three Qunqueremes with Coastal Raider I and one with Coastal Raider II attack Monaco (with an extra one as backup) This is just one turn's damage. I take the city the following turn.

For less exposed coastal cities, use a combined arms approach. Threaten the coasts with Quinqueremes and use African Forest Elephants with other units of your choosing to attack by land.

Promotions kept on upgrade

None. Use your Quinqueremes early and often!

The African Forest Elephant has attributes in common with the other elephant UUs: High cost, slower movement, higher strength and no horse requirement. Unlike India or Siam, however, African Forest Elephants are for offensive campaigns.

Before you even start building these Forest Elephants, consider the lack of horses needed. This means you don't need to build cities inland just to reach horse resources. Don't worry about strategic resources so much for now, just concentrate on cash and production.

With the same strength (14) as a Swordsman, your African Forest Elephants make excellent "meatshields" to defend your Composite Bowmen behind them. Feared Elephant bonuses (the one that gives a 10% penalty to adjacent enemy units) makes enemy Warriors and Swordsmen easy prey and helps even up things a bit against Spearmen. Three movement points is still enough to pull back Elephants even on rough terrain if they get two injured. A gap in the front lines isn't too bad due to Zone of Control stopping enemies slipping into that space.

It may seem odd using units without defensive bonuses as meatshields, but it's higher mobility than Swordsmen and the Feared Elephant bonus that's the trick.

A good formation of units is to have Elephants on the front lines (with possibly some Spearmen or Swordsmen to deal with rogue enemy Spearmen) and Composite Bowmen backing them up. Surround your opponents to take full advantage of the Feared Elephant bonus - something being able to cross mountains helps with - and pepper them with arrows.

The Great General bonus triples your Forest Elephants' contribution to the Great Generals counter. This works best when you're attacking units rather than cities (and attacking cities is something that Forest Elephants are bad at anyway.) What can you use lots of Great Generals for? Splitting up your army, for one. Two forces with their own Great General can come together from different angles to surround a city in a pincer movement. Otherwise, just spam Citadels or whatever you like with the Great Generals. You'll have plenty seeing as the promotion keeps on upgrade.

And speaking of upgrading, because the Forest Elephant costs more than the standard Horseman, its upgrade cost is much lower. If your economy is struggling with all those units to maitain, this is a handy leg up to stop your army falling behind.

So, to summarise, Forest Elephants are support units - higher strength makes them last longer, the Feared Elephant bonus makes other units do more damage and the Great Generals II promotion can also help strengthen your army. Forest Elephants are not so effective alone.

Special promotions kept on upgrade

• Great Generals II

Remember: Though it may appear like a promotion, the Feared Elephant bonus isn't retained when you upgrade the unit.

Carthage is one of many Civilizations with a unique ability affecting units' abilities. This still applies to UUs, including those gifted from Militaristic City-States. The ones present in your game are random, but here's a pick of some of the best units you could have (and you should definitely prioritise such City-States)

Classical Era: Companion Cavalry

Basically your War Elephants but faster and with weaker support options. A movement speed of 5 lets you speed across mountains and take enemies very much by surprise.

Medieval Era: Berserker

You can cross a mountain and pillage an improvement on the other side all in one turn, with a unit that's relatively hard to kill (and can just cross the mountain again the following turn.) If you're extremely lucky and get this in a game where the Inca are present, well... Smashy smashy.

Medieval Era: Camel Archer/Keshik

These are probably the best units to go with crossing mountains. Because they can move after attacking, you can move them onto a mountain, fire and move off to safety again in the same turn. This makes them near untouchable by opponents due to the fact mountains tend to form in ranges and the enemy would have to go all around the range to reach your safe point.

Renaissance Era: Hakkapeliitta

You'll have plenty of Great Generals from African Forest Elephants, so you can take full effect of these units.

Renaissance Era: Sipahi

Now you've made them the bane of farmers everywhere. With high movement, free pillaging and the ability to cross mountains into safety, you can really pillage like no tomorrow with this thing.

Industrial Era: Norwegian Ski Infantry

Mountains are usually surrounded by hills, so a significant bonus in them will make your efforts all the more effective.

Industrial Era: Hussar

Plays well to the Carthaginian strategy of surrounding enemies.

Atomic Era: Panzer

With the most movement of any land unit, you'll sweep across even thick mountain ranges with ease or position yourself well.

Carthage's cultural route is fairly straightforward - Honour, Commerce, Autocracy. If there's Social Policies left over, some policies in Liberty (earlier on) or Rationalism (later on) is a good idea. If you're heading down the Diplomacy route, make your way through Patronage (as you'd expect.)

Honour - Opener

You can even more easily kill lots of Barbarians for experience. Getting Forest Elephants promoted is a good idea to make them last longer in wars.

Maximum experience from Barbarians is just one level away from the Charge promotion for Mounted units. Forest Elephants with the Charge promotion tear apart enemy units, and extra damage on Barbarians will help them get there faster.

Honour - Warrior Code

This is pretty much mandatory to get early. Besides from unlocking mountain-crossing, (which speeds up your army travel times and aids exploration,) it's the only way to get an early Great General before a war, which will be a great help later.

Honour - Military Tradition

As mentioned before, the Forest Elephant + Charge combo is pretty powerful. More XP in combat gets there faster and makes those hits count even more in the Great General counter. Additionally, it gets Siege or Archery units up to particularly powerful high-tier promotions like Range or Logistics sooner.

This won't immediately help in a fight, however, so it may be a good idea to pick up the Discipline policy first before this one.

Honour - Discipline

A very good choice as it stacks nicely with the Feared Elephant bonus.

Honour - Military Caste

This one's probably best picked after the previous three unless you're having trouble with happiness. It's more useful as a support for having a wide empire than going to war, but seeing as you'll be building wide to take advantage of free Harbours, this will still be a good policy to take. Culture for garrisons allows you to ignore building Monuments in smaller cities and still enjoy expanding borders, so you can focus on more important buildings.

Honour - Professional Army

You'll be doing plenty of unit upgrading with a strong economy and the fact Forest Elephants' Great Generals bonus keeps on upgrade. Therefore, this policy helps your cash to go further. Happiness for defensive buildings offers a maitainance-free way of getting happiness to cover building wide, hence, even more cash.

Honour - Finisher

Gold for units killed. Not the greatest of bonuses, but hey - even more cash for a strong economy.

Commerce - Opener

Capital cities tend to have large volumes of luxury resources - hence a fair gold yield. This'll let it go further.

Commerce - Naval Tradition

As a coastal nation, having faster naval movement is a useful thing to have. The problem is the timing - in the Medieval era, where this policy comes avaliable, it's very hard to fight naval battles due to the lack of a melee sea unit. It's probably worth getting Trade Unions first, unless you want that +3 production from coastal cities from Merchant Navy sooner rather than later.

Commerce - Merchant Navy

Pratically all your cities gain lots of production! New cities near a sea resource get off to a great start.

Commerce - Trade Unions

Free Harbours aren't enough. Now, let them actually make money. Alternatively, think of this policy as making Seaports maitainance-free (Harbours now make one gold, Seaports now cost one gold, cancelling out.) True, this policy is most powerful for players with extensive roads, but free money is free money.

Commerce - Mercantilism

A strong economy deserves somewhere for it all to go. What makes this policy particularly strong is the fact you'll probably pick up the Autocracy tree, and the cheaper unit purchasing from there. That stacks with this bonus to make very cheap unit purchasing (and if you can manage it, Big Ben will make that even cheaper)

Commerce - Protectionism

This tree almost seems tailor-made for Carthage. Protectionism gives you lots of happiness that won't be limited by population unlike Military Caste or Professional Army in the Honour tree. This lets you build even more cities or support more city-conquests.

Commerce - Finisher

Here's the weak link in the chain. Double Great Merchant profit isn't very useful as a wide, militaristic empire unlikely to produce many Great Merchants if any. More gold from Trading Posts is limited by the fact coastal cities have less land to build them on.

Autocracy - Opener

Reduced maitainance costs! Always useful, and it means even more cash for gold purchasing or just supporting a very large army.

Autocracy - Populism

Keep your units surviving longer. You should probably pick up Militarism first before this policy.

Autocracy - Militarism

You'll probably have Mercantilism in the Commerce tree at this point. Buy your way to a vast army!

Autocracy - Fascism

Great Generals with more move points are particularly useful on two-tile thick mountain ranges which otherwise would be dangerous. Double stategic resources reduces yet another restriction to having a world-conquering army.

Autocracy - Police State

This encourages you to keep rather than burn cities. Seeing as you've focused on bonuses for building wide up to this point, that isn't a bad idea (and previous conquered cities will now suddenly generate lots of happiness.)

Autocracy - Total War and Finisher

Nothing much unique relating to Carthage here (other than a reminder that the bonuses apply also to naval units, and you'll probably have Seaports in a good deal of your cities making large navies quick to build) but otherwise a strong bonus. TIme it right to make the most of that 50-turn attack bonus.

Carthage can live without religion, but there are some very handy bonuses out there for a player who wishes to go down that road.

Pantheon - God of the Sea

Send your early-game production through the roof. Fishing Boats with a Lighthouse now make 5 Food, 2 Production and 1 Gold, and that's before Seaports. As sea resources are some of the first tiles to be worked by cities, you'll nearly always be using this production bonus.

Pantheon - God of Craftsmen

If you can't manage God of the Sea, God of Craftsmen offers a weaker substitute to help support coastal cities and their generally poor production. Nearly always God of the Sea is a better option, so choose it if you can.

Pantheon - Messenger of the Gods

Like God of the Sea, an excellent choice. As you'll be building lots of cities, you'll be getting lots of Science.

Founder - Ceremonial Burial

Supports wide expansion. Preferable to Peace-Loving for Carthage for obvious reasons.

Founder - Church Property

Building upon strengths even more, but it could be argued that the extra happiness from Ceremonial Burial is more useful than the extra gold from Church Property due to the fact you'll probably have a healthy surplus of gold most of the time anyway.

Follower - Pagodas

Faith goes in, happiness comes out. Not to mention more faith, that allows more of these buildings. If you can't manage Pagodas, Mosques or Cathedrals are still good. In fact, you could always choose two such buildings for your religion...

Follower - Asceticism

Shrines are cheap to build and it's not hard to reach three followers in a city. Hence, this is useful when you need just a little happiness really quickly (as all the conquests and wide-building is likely to require)

Enhancer - Just War

An seemingly obvious choice, but as Carthage doesn't excel at religion, it may be difficult to convert enemy cities to your religion to take advantage of the bonus.

Enhancer - Holy Order

As your faith generation may be hardly spectacular seeing as it's unlikely to be your main focus, cheaper Missionaries will be more efficent with what little faith you have.

Enhancer - Holy Texts

Alternatively, if you want to focus faith purely on faith buildings, making it spread faster will help compensate a little for the lack of missionaries.

Carthage has trouble building wonders due to the nature of building wide around coastal areas. Still, some are particularly useful.

Ancient Era - Colossus

Already, your sea resources will immediately have +1 production (or +2 with God of the Sea and fishing boats.) Make that stronger for one lucky city with the Colossus. As a wonder that tends to be ignored, you're more likely to be able to finish it before anyone else.

Ancient Era - Statue of Zeus

Remember that your Composite Bowmen and Quinqueremes will also gain from the city attack bonus as well as everything else, making city attacks particularly effective (and making up for the fact Forest Elephants aren't great against cities by making other units more competent at it.) As it applies for the rest of the game, if someone else builds it, why not target that city to take the bonus for yourself?

Classical Era - Great Lighthouse

A naval empire like Carthage's will gain from this wonder, but you've probably got better things to build at this stage of the game than risking a wonder. You're probably better off trying to capture the city which built it.

Medieval Era - Alhambra

A free promotion! Useful for getting to those top tiers sooner.

Medieval Era - Machu Picchu

Defensively speaking, founding cities near mountains is a good idea as you can easily attack invaders from multiple angles (while they move around a mountain range, you can move units over it to attack them from behind.) Alternatively, you may have cities near mountains from conquests (as they're easier for Carthage to take.)

Either way, you'll be more prepared than most to build this wonder, and with pretty much every one of your many cities connected to the trade network, you'll get more out of it than most. And besides, if you fail to get it, that means someone somewhere has mountains you can take advantage of to take that city and win that bonus!

Medieval Era - Notre Dame

Happiness lets you build wide or support captured cities. Simple.

Industrial Era - Big Ben

A great wonder for Carthage, due to the fact you'll probably end up with the cheaper gold purchasing policies in the Commerce and Autocracy trees. Stacked together, your gold will go very far indeed...

Industrial Era - Brandenburg Gate

The XP bonus together with other XP-boosting buildings puts new units in the respective city straight to three promotions as soon as they're out the door. Particularly useful for Privateers as you can take them straight to Logistics with all three City Attack promotions, or if you manage to get it in the same city as the Alhambra.

Modern Era - Neuschwanstein

This may seem an odd choice as a wonder, but consider this. One, you'll probably have the Professional Army policy which adds happiness to Castles and other defensive buildings. Two, this adds even more happiness helping to sustain a wide empire. Three, it adds gold which goes well with all your other money-based bonuses. Four, you need a mountain to build it which you probably have by that point.

Atomic Era - Pentagon

You'll probably have Professional Army from the Honour tree. Together, these stack to make late-game upgrading very cheap. Remember that the penultimate tier of units doesn't go obselete, so you can save production by building them and then cheaply upgrading them to the top tier.

Carthage is a pretty strong nation but that doesn't mean you should cut corners in strategy. Here are some easy mistakes to make.

Don't end your military units' turns on mountains!


Above: Deja Vu all over again. I have to use this image again just to drive the point.

50 damage is signficant. It's there to say "you're not supposed to stay on mountains" without being too evil (as an instant kill would be.) As mentioned earlier, when you send units on a long route, they take the fastest path possible even if it includes ending a turn on a mountain so watch out! Plan the route carefully and make sure your units aren't walking to their deaths!

Mountainous areas aren't that easy to invade!

Linking to the previous point, you can't stay on mountains. Hence, you have to move your units into normal ground some time sooner or later where they're vulnerable to enemies. While moving on mountains allows surprise attacks and easy retreating, a more open area is probably easier to invade.

African Forest Elephants are still bad against cities.

They may have 14 strength rather than 12, but a 33% penalty vs cities makes it strength 9.33 rather than 8. Spearmen would have more luck, never mind Swordsmen. Just use them to act as meatshields for your Composite Bowmen or Catapults instead.

Don't neglect Quinqueremes!

How many UUs have a 30% strength bonus with no strings attached? Only the Babylonian Bowman has that kind of a boost, and that's only because Archers have such a low strength that any boost is significant. That aside, Quinqueremes are the joint-strongest unit of the Ancient Era along with Greek Hoplites with a strength of 13, and it's both cheaper and can move faster making early sea conquests closer to reality.

Don't forget to defend your coasts!

If you don't neglect Quinqueremes, this shouldn't be too much of a problem (unless you expand much faster than your navy can cope with.) Remember that a Barbarian ship passing by can cut a city off from the trade network, and woe betide you if you let one pass your capital. To avoid the latter problem, link your capital to a nearby coastal city by road if need be. It'll cost a little cash in maitainance but just one turn with a troublesome Barbarian could make that all back.

Don't completely ignore roads!

Roads aren't just about trade routes - they're about faster movement, too, and if you don't have any roads, land armies will take forever to get anywhere. Those turns could be the difference between an enemy having a better defending unit and not. Additionally, lacking roads makes it harder to defend your own lands as you can't outrun enemies, as may otherwise be the case.

Carthage loves the sea but can fight decently on land too.

Playing against the UA: Phoenician Heritage

Carthage tends to neglect roads. "Why need them when all your cities are connected by Harbours?" they might ask. Well, for one, it slows down their defending forces. This is even more significant by the fact they'll likely have a long and thin empire (meaning each end is a long way apart so it takes a very long time to get an army across.) If you want to really get them worrying, attack one end of their empire while they're waging a war in the opposite direction.

Besides this weakness, lack of roads also means it's very easy to turn off Carthage's trade network. Build a decent navy, blockade their capital and watch their economy fall to pieces.

Now for the mountain part. It's useful to know that crossing mountains is less of an advantage as the game goes along. In the Industrial era, Artillery can fire over them, meaning Carthage can no longer use them as cover. In the Modern era, air units can bombard their units without even taking mountains into account.

Until then, a good move is to force Carthage to end a turn with one of its units on a mountain to deal it damage. Placing a unit adjacent to a mountain ridge may encourage them to climb the mountain, attack your unit and suffer a 50HP penalty. If a unit's already on a mountain, try surrounding it to stop it coming off, thus killing it. If there's not many units, (such as a group just out for pillaging,) try ambushing them on their side of the mountain range. They'll have nowhere to run to.

Overall, Carthage in bad hands pretty much hands you the tools to its own destruction due to easier blockading and forcing their units onto deadly deadly mountains.

Playing against Quinqueremes

Quinqueremes are the difficult ones to face. Galleasses will smash them to bits, but until then your options are limited. Your best option is probably to use ranged units to pick them off without risk of retaliation.

Playing against African Forest Elephants

African Forest Elephants are still weak to Spearmen despite their strength bonus. And thanks to lower speed, you can more easily catch them out. Being weak against cities, a good tactic is to target other melee units such as Swordsmen first to buy yourself time.

Archers and Composite Bowmen are unthreatened by Feared Elephant penalties so long as they keep their distance.

Strategy by Style

Early-game Aggressors - Carthage's defence is likely to be weak. Give them a surprise attack while they're off invading someone (even you - it'd certainly mess up their plans.)
Mid to Late-game Aggressors - Build Spearmen to repel Forest Elephants and Archers/Composite Bowmen to deal with Quinqueremes. Later on, build a strong navy and keep it hidden. Attack at first by land, then blockade their capital with sea units to choke their economy. This assault on two fronts will be hard for them to stop.
Scientific or Cultural Nations - Defend against the first attack with Archers/Composite Bowmen and maybe Spearmen if you can manage it. After that, there's no real difference between them and any other warmonger.
Diplomatic Nations - Give Influence a rest for a moment. Instead, focus some attention on bribing other Civilizations to declare war on Carthage. Early warmongering will make them unpopular, and lots of civs declaring war on them will put their economy's attention on defence rather than City-State influence. That gives you the space to quietly ally all their favourite City-States.

There are four other guides based on Gods and Kings mechanics available. After Brave New World comes out, these guides will be kept in their current form for the sake of players without, but updated versions will be made to account for changes.

The Huns
The Incans
The Mayans
Spain