Video evidence of the superiority of Protective

Protective is clearly awesome, as this video demonstrates:


Link to video.

Best viewed in fullscreen and HD. It happened, and I had to record it.

My eyes started glazing over after about 30 seconds since you don't have quick combat on. Aren't you sick of those animations, it slows the game down terribly.

Anyway, so what, the point most are making is we would never let the enemy attack our cities in the first place.

lymond said:

I agree that protective is awesome and it is now my favorite trait in Civ IV

Click to expand...

Thank you.

Frankly, whether you had the Protective trait or not is irrelevant at that point imo. First of all, your crossbowmen is level is somewhere around 9, in a city that has walls (+50%) and a +20% culture defense, and on a hill. So for now, the multiplier is at +145% at that point for non-melee units, and +195% for melee units unmodified. Lets not forget that your crossbowmen are also lead by a Great General, which explains its high level. So examining the upgrades you gave it, that's another +20% on hills, +75% defending in cities, +6 first strikes, -60% to collateral damage, plus another +10% against melee and mounted units. That puts that one single unit's combat modifier against enemies at +240% against all non-melee/non-mounted units with six extra first strikes and -60% to collateral, and +300% against all melee units with 6 extra first strikes and -60% collateral, and +250% with all the aforementioned collateral and first strike bonuses against mounted.

Doing a little math, that would make the strength of your crossbowmen against most units 14.4 with 6 extra first strikes and -60% to collateral damage. Versus melee units, that strength gets boosted to 18, and against mounted it is 15. And I'm not even going to go into the possible extra +25% for digging into that city in the first place. Frankly, it wasn't you traits that saved you, but rather your science and great general. I could get the same conditions quite easily without the Protective trait.

And a castle! I build castles. Protective makes them cheaper.

Castles are great, the best building in the game.

But yea, tbh Cyrus is way too much better at this kind of thing. The thread was mostly facetious.

I spent most of the video trying to figure out whether the insane cackling throughout was the Great General, or you

6K Man said:

I spent most of the video trying to figure out whether the insane cackling throughout was the Great General, or you

Click to expand...

You, sir, have won the thread! The other comments were entertaining, but that one still has me laughing.

Actually, I'm quite impressed with how many games that bhavv is able to play in such a short period of time.


I still prefer Protective the most when on offense, to help with holding captured Cities, or in the hands of an AI to have a zany AI like Monte waste more units against said AI defender.

Well your crossbowmen were being attacked by swordsmen and spearmen plus a few catapults, so it's not really surprising they come out on top. If your enemy had a few horse archers (immune to first strikes) then you would be toast.

Yup thats right, but I did have access to training pikemen too.

@Dhoomstriker, I go through so many games because I rarely play past 1200 AD. I get bored in the mid - end game and just enjoy the initial land grab phase.

Crossbows decimate swordsmen whether they're protective or not. this isn't evidence of anything.

What mod is this? looks awesome!

pandamancer said:

What mod is this? looks awesome!

Click to expand...

It's BAT.

You can get the terrain graphics alone, if you look for "Blue Marble" . The last one can be used with BUFFY, BUG or BULL, BAT however is a standalone afaik.

^^yeah, BAT is made by the BUG team, specifically her highness, Lemon. Has all the BUG/BULL juicyness, Blue Marble, and extra graphic stuff from VD. Best unaltered mod there is.

It is standalone, yes

I keep forgetting to load the mod though, I cant figure out how to have it load automatically when I start the game.

Make a copy of the shortcut for BtS, rightclick and select properties, then change the Target field in the end by adding mod="\ModNameHere"

example :
"D:\Games\Civilization 4\Beyond the Sword\Civ4BeyondSword.exe" mod="\VIP"

Doesnt seem to work with the steam version of the game QQ

- Right click Beyond the Sword in your Steam library
- Go to Properties
- Click Set Launch Options
- Enter mod=\modname
- OK

I got it working thanks.