Carthage Civ Strategies & Tips in Civilization 7

With the release of Civilization 7‘s first DLC, Crossroads of the World Part 1, players have access to a new leader and two new Civilizations. Ada Lovelace has been added as a new leader with a focus on Cultural and Scientific Strategies, while Great Britain has been added as a new Modern Civilization with an Economic and Expansionist speciality.

The second new Civilization in Civilization 7: Crossroads of the World Part 1, is Carthage. This is an Age of Antiquity Civilization with an emphasis on Militaristic and Economic Strategy, and comes with the unique drawback of being unable to have more than one City. In exchange for this trade-off, they receive some exceptional benefits revolving around Merchant and Settler creation, and reaping the benefits of well-positioned towns.

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Carthage Civ Overview

Carthage Abilities, Units, Buildings, Civics, & More

Carthage is a Militaristic/Economic Civilization available in the Age of Antiquity. Their unique ability is a bit of a double-edged sword, preventing them from establishing cities beyond their capital but also letting them double the number of merchants or settlers they receive when producing them. This, paired with their unique settler and buildings, allows them to expand shockingly quickly, while establishing strong trade relations with any other civilizations they encounter.

The Wonder associated with this Civ is Byrsa, which prevents trade routes from the settlement from being plundered and creates walls on all eligible coastal districts in that settlement.

Carthage Civ Civics Tree

Carthage’s Civic Tree provides traditions, buildings, and bonuses that reinforce Carthage’s trade-oriented playstyle with a secondary focus on military units (of the Cavalry and Navy variety.)

Best Carthage Victory Condition/Legacy Path:

Carthage excels at completing the Silk Roads Legacy Path thanks to its incredible power as an economic civilization.

Civ 7 Carthage General Strategy

During the Age of Antiquity, Carthage will excel at trade and rapid expansion, utilizing its doubled settler production to quickly claim key resources and establish its territory. By quickly making contact with other civilizations, Carthage can build strong trade routes to expedite their progress on the Silk Roads Legacy path and earn the gold needed to build up their towns with incredible speed.

Carthage Starting Tips

When starting, it’s important to remember that Carthage only gets one city, so you’d better make sure it’s well-positioned in terms of resources. Once you’ve settled Carthage, you’ll want to send out a scout as soon as possible to locate strategic locations for future settlements. Researching irrigation early will help a lot with the growth of your cities and raise your settlement limit so you can start claiming those key resources. Always settle adjacent to a resource so that you can benefit from the +1 Population bonus exclusive to Colonists.

Other important pieces of research to aim for early are Writing and Currency, to give you access to much-needed science and gold buildings to help you progress through the tech tree and build the infrastructure needed to complete the Silk Road Legacy Path. Navigation is also important, since lighthouses provide extra resource slots for a settlement and also generate additional gold.

In terms of Civics, you’ll want to unlock Wisdom of Tanit and Wisdom of Tanit II/Mastery as soon as possible, allowing you to take advantage of Dockyards to generate gold and food in the capital and in any towns you create. Having Mastery also increases the amount of resources you can slot in the Capital by 3, and unlocks the Gaulos tradition to make purchasing buildings adjacent to coasts or navigable rivers cheaper. One final Civic you’ll want as soon as possible is Rule of Law, unlocking merchants and allowing you to establish those crucial trade routes.

Continued Expansion

Once you’ve begun establishing towns in key locations and building trade relations with other civilizations, you’ll want to build Byrsa in Carthage to protect your trade routes from pillaging, earn some extra gold, and create free walls on all eligible tiles near the coast in that settlement. This is probably one of the best wonders you could want for this strategy, so aim to build it once you can get it done in 15 turns or less.

You’ll want to unlock Sicilian Wars in Carthage’s Civic Tree at this point, raising your settlement limit by 2 and unlocking the Suffetes tradition, boosting food yield from fishing or farming towns, and production yield from mining towns, by 20%. Raising the Settlement limit is tremendously important for Carthage, with their heavy focus on establishing towns and claiming resources, so you’ll want to pick up Entertainment and Organized Military once you get the chance, too. Entertainment also provides access to the Coliseum, which is a very useful wonder for boosting culture and happiness.

The end goal in this age is to slot 20 resources across your civilization, so it’s important to proactively settle locations that are rich in resources so that you can hit that limit. Certain resources will be more useful than others, with those that boost production, culture, or gold gain being especially helpful to this strategy. Bonus resources are especially important since they can be slotted into towns and thus aren’t limited by Carthage’s one city limit.

Best Leaders For Carthage:

There are four leaders that we’d particularly recommend for Carthage: Augustus, Ibn Battuta, Lafayette, and Xerxes (The Achaemenid.)

Augustus is a no-brainer here, since his unique ability provides additional production to the capital for each town you have, and allows you to purchase culture buildings in your towns, which greatly increases their effectiveness and functionality. Since Carthage isn’t able to establish more than one city, this ability gets a lot of mileage. Augustus also gets +50% gold toward purchasing all buildings in towns, which makes him even more effective when utilizing Carthage’s town-focused strategy.

Ibn Battuta is another decent pick here, offering free Wildcard Points after you establish your first policy, which can be used to get a head start on useful parts of the Attribute tree to jump-start your strategy (unlocking the first Cultural and Scientific Nodes is usually a good idea here.) He can also use the “Share Maps” unique Endeavor to more easily gain an overview of the map and find good locations for new towns.

Lafayette is a decent choice for bonus happiness and culture in your settlements, and the “Reform” unique endeavor will make it easier to get extra Policy Slots to make use of Carthage’s exclusive traditions. He also boosts the combat strength of his units by +1 for every tradition you have slotted, further incentivizing this strategy.

Finally, Xerxes (The Achaemenid) offers some excellent benefits for a trade-oriented strategy like we’ve suggested for Carthage. His trade route limit with all other leaders is increased by 1 from the start, he gets 50 Culture and 100 Gold per age whenever establishing a trade route, and receives +1 Culture and Gold per age on unique buildings and improvements, allowing him to synergize well with all elements of Carthage’s strategy.

Released

February 11, 2025