Is this overdoing it?

I was just tinkering with the editor. I want to prop up the traits that are weak in general on standard-sized continents maps (which happens to be the setting I typically play at. Gasp.), so I was browsing around in the editor for ideas. Here's what I've been thinking of.

First, each of the traits I deemed semiweak - religious, seafaring, militaristic, commercial, and expanionist -- got a custom tech ("being religous", "being seafaring", and so on) so I could use it for wonders and such.I would then give it to each civ that applied (i.e. Spanish get the "being religious" and "being seafaring" techs) Then I thought about letting the techs actually DO something. Here are my ideas so far:

Commerical Tech:
-- enables trade embargos.

I thought this might help the commercial civs early on, to demonstrate that they have a lot of clout when it comes to trading.

Religious Tech:
-- permits sacrifices.

I then added the "sacrifice" tag to Worker and made stadiums double the sacrifice value. ( A nod to the Roman Empire there. )

Seafaring Tech:
-- enables trade over sea tiles

Well....they're SEA-faring, after all.

Militaristic Tech:
either Conscription of Mobilization.

I thought this might help militaristic civs REALLY shine in war. Can you imagine the power of China or Persia if they mobilize during their UU period?

Those were just some random thoughts. I have no idea what to do for expansionist, though. Early bridges? Some other ideas I was thinking of:

-- Giving Seafaring access to one bonus ship per era.
-- Giving religious civs a second FP (Church Headquarters)
-- giving Industrious early factories (mills that must be by rivers)
-- giving expansionists two scouts at the beginning instead of one.
-- giving Militaristic the opportunity to build an "Arch of Triumph" after an army win that adds a happy face to each city, civ-wide.


Comments would be MOST welcome.

Hey SC... hit Next Thread, and what did I find... but a fellow SGer. I think those are great ideas... except for conscription with miltaristic... the AI will never grow if they can get conscripts... think about it... you can go to war with them, let them pop their 20 or so Impi, and then when they die on your size 8 towns, you can do send some horseman in to take their tiny little city... maybe they'll have 2 or even 3.... I mean, Shaka usually doesn't get much beyond 10 cities the whole game... would make them very weak I believe.... now mobliization... that may hurt their infra, but they never build that much anyway... but a Zulu Impi moblization... (shudders in fear)

I dislike conscription, myself (I hate how the AI abuses it and fills the map with conscript defenders) which is why I'm leaning more toward mobilization.

Interesting ideas.
Sounds good to me.
Gives the civs more individuality.

Sounds like some great ideas.

I like it, only one problem, expansionist (two scout) is nothing with the late Map Trading. Maybe a special building or wonder...
Otherwise I love the ideas! But no DRAFTING!!!

I'm having a hard time thinking of something to prop the Expansionist civs up. I was thinking of a two-movement settler, but I'm not sure where in the tech tree to plant him. Perhaps replacing the settler for expansionist civs with one that only takes one pop point?

Originally posted by Smellincoffee
I'm having a hard time thinking of something to prop the Expansionist civs up. I was thinking of a two-movement settler, but I'm not sure where in the tech tree to plant him. Perhaps replacing the settler for expansionist civs with one that only takes one pop point?

Click to expand...

I like it! As the Colonist in AoD! Good idea!

just make the two movement settler the replacement for the one movement settler (a one pop unit cost would be too big of an advantage) ie put it at requiring 'being expansionistic'

A couple of other thoughts:

Militaristic - You could give them a few extra attacker-type units at start-up (I'm doing this in one of my mods...)

Expansionist - rather than replacing the Settler with a 2-move one, you could make this an additional option, but wheeled (represented by a wagon anim), so that/in case sometimes you still need to use the 1-move unwheeled one...

I'm not a big fan.

Expansion & Seafaring shouldn't be on the list, because they can either be the strongest traits, or pretty weak. Boosting the up because half the time they're wasted is pointless, why not downplay them for those games that they dominate?

Religious is weak, I agree. But that's only because it's weak for my playing style, I don't need much culture when pursuing my goal of crushing thy enemies. However for cultural victories or any game where you'll be switching governmenst more then once it's very powerful.

Commercial is the only trait that becomes more powerful as the game progresses, rather then peaking early & slowly tapering off. I view it as slightly weak, but to others playing style it is the dominant trait for large sprawling empires.

Militaristic is already powerful, at least in my opinion. Armies are killers in C3C, more armies equals crushing your enemies. Half priced barracks means no regular units, and more troops faster. Giving them the ability to mobilize pre-Nationalism is rediculous, the reason Mobilization comes so late is that it's so freaking powerful.

IMHO the traits are already pretty well balanced overall. Notice how every "Favorite Trait" poll has votes in pretty much across the board, and the reason that Ag, Ind, & Sci dominates is they're the only traits that you don't have to play to the trait(well Ag you do but that's not the point). What's a weak trait to one person is a gold mine to another.

Just my $.02

I was hoping for some argument, actually. I played an incomplete test game. I'm playing as the Brits, though I've not been able to use trade embargos successfully (I sort of took over the continent and no one has anything spare to trade each other) I take it my enhancment to the Militaristic trait worked pretty well. The Aztecs are the most powerful civ on the earth (and I've got 60 longbowmen butchering the Maya. I own most of my continent, yet I'm still second in land, Aztecs being first).

I think I'll keep the seafaring and religious modifications, but I think a few more trial games with militaristic are in order. The Aztecs might be powerful due to good land and good neighbors (France and Iroquios). Of course, it's only early medieval, so I don't know what their nation looks like.

I tried giving the settlers of expansionists 2 movements points instead of one ages ago in my huge mod. The problem is the AI would insist on taking a military escort with it, but the escort only has one movement point so the settler still moved at the original pace.

Same problem I have had with fast settlers. Maybe expansionists should be left as is. With the ability ot get goody huts with no Barbarian threat and a scout to start the game, it gives them an excellent start to the game, I think.