An in-depth proposition on how to fix Protective: (Please read and comment!)

[Honorable_Pawn]

castles at feudalism sound great till you realize that it means you'll be trying to take out castled longbows with swordsmen.

Knights should come sooner then.

Also, How about this?

Not only do knights require horses, horsebackriding, and iron, but they should only be allowed to be built in cities that have castles.

 

[Honorable_Pawn]

Castles should be pushed back to corperation. If you have castles in most of your cities then you can safely ignore corperation for a bit. Seeing as how the +1 trade routes from castles mimic the best part of the corperation tech.

If you are going to move them up, you'd need to do so marginally as castles could be too powerful early on. Remember, a city with a castle is basically invulnerable to anyone who doesn't have catapults yet. Perhaps make Construction and Fuedalism needed to make castles.

Remerber he did say that hammers should be increased, too.

It should be a substantial increase in hammers. Building a castle should put you "behind the 8-ball" so to speak as far a city development. They definitely need to be more powerful, and they definitley need to be used almost every game. Now as it is, they are never used.

I am more concerned with making castles useful than I am making protective useful.

 

[Blaarg]

*shrug* I use them if the conditions are right.

 

[kniteowl]

how about Walls Giving +2 Happy but only under the HR civic, kind of like how Barracks give +2 Happy under Nationhood.

 

[Blaarg]

It would be nice if walls and or castles removed those pesky "we fear for our protection" faces I often get when I neglect my military early on.

 

[MrScorpio]

Agreed.

The whole reason people use spies instead of catapults...

I don't like the culture defense thing at all. I think it should be completely eliminated. A more developed city probably is harder to conquer. Nevertheless, I think the defense modifer that culture tries to emulate should be based upon the number of building (or something else) and not the accumulated culture.

How does a catapult reduce culture anyway? Isn't culture an abstract concept? How do we use a physical object to bombard an abstract concept?

Bingo, well somewhat. The culture defense thing is silly. In order to boost city defense for units, you should have to build defensive structures. Walls and Castles first, until Military Science. The reasoning for ms is because that is when I would say the game would represent you have the tech to blow up walls easily, so walled structures would obsolete. Besides, any gunpowder units wouldn't be affected by them anyway. Then, you should be able to build trenches (at gunpowder) and civil defense sirens (at industrialism). My suggested defense bonuses for each would be as follows:
Walls = +30% for melee, archery, and gunpowder units
Castle = +30% for melee, archery, and gunpowder units
Trenches = +30% for gunpowder and archery units
CD Siren = +30% for all units that can get a defensive bonus

A total of +60% available in all eras. Only the foolish soul that would attack with archery, melee, or old siege(pre-cannon) units after gunpowder is discovered by his enemy would face a +90%. But of course, these would all be able to be reduced by siege weapons.

IMO, what the strength of the culture should represent is 1) how long the city will stay unproductive if it is captured (like it does now, but it should be longer and you should be given the choice kill some pop to speed it up, something like a semi-raze, for larger culture centers) and 2) after nationalism, the effects from #1 as well as capturing a city should spawn a few conscript units, the number depending on the level of pop and culture in the city. One difference though is that if the attackers get by defensive structures, they should be able to use them to defend the cities (again depending on the culture of the city, after nationalism there should be a % chance that your "escaping" units could have "destroyed" the trenches or something)

 

[Geon]

I think that castles should have a war weariness lessening modifier. Concerning weariness, it's easier to wage war in the modern age than it is in the medieval age. That's just goofy.

Forts should have an instant non overridable cultural border increase of 1 tile surrounding the fort. This would simulate a sort of ZOC where even if the enemy took a border city but ignored a series of forts it would lose the ability to use roads in crossing the borders. It could also claim land which would require an act of war to reverse.

And really castles should = forts. Castles were usually rural fortifications where a town may develop around if I'm not mistaken. And make a dungeon/execution square city improvement for a classical/medieval war weariness reducer.

 

[kniteowl]

MrScorpio you gave me a good idea...

How about naturally upgrading defensive structures? Walls upgrade to Castles and Castles upgrade to Trenches and etc... they's be like how units upgrade,

Axe => Mace => Grenadier => Infantry... etc

Of course there will be a upgrade cost associated with upgrading your defences to defend against the current military threat.

And have the New Protective bonus as either -50% Defensive upgrades or Defensive Free Upgrade, whatever makes the Trait more balanced.

 

[troytheface]

i could not understand the op's fix page- Protective gets ragged on by many as the "weakest" trait- but i think its pretty straight forward- defense bonus for troops- not a bad trait for those that ride on as few units as u can get away with for as long as u can get away with it-
Think Creative Protective (Summaria) or Phil/Protective might be good traits actually- (think i will look up who is Phil/Protect )

 

[Blaarg]

(think i will look up who is Phil/Protect )

Sitting Bull

 

[Powerslave]

I think the real solution is to play a Middle Ages scenario, unfortunately. The age of feudalism, castles, and knights is awful in Civ4. It's over as soon as it begins, excepting a longbow or knight rush.

Maybe it's because I beeline my favorite Renaissance/Industrial techs (Liberalism, Economics, Rifling, Assembly Line) and use these in trades to fill in everything from the Middle Ages that I ignored. Certainly, I beeline Feudalism and Theology in some of my more military-themed games, but it's only a matter of time before I get back on track to Liberalism and Rifling.

 

[troytheface]

thnx there u don't hear to much about The Native Americans, or summaria for that matter. hafta to try ol sitting bull.

 

[Blaarg]

It would be nice if his UU could take advantage of his Protective trait.

 

[armoredcrawler]

I love this thread...I too am troubled by the wimpiness of the Protective trait. I've come to terms with Imperialistic after learning to exploit it better, but whenever I draw a Protective leader through the random leader generator, I groan. My initial fix was to give 2x production of Great Wall, which worked pretty well to get me excited about the trait except for one small problem - Qinshihuang (Pro/Ind), who can then ridiculously build it in like ten turns or something. So I think the OP is definitely on to something - buff Pro by buffing its 2x speed buildings, especially Castles which I NEVER build ATM and which I would like to see elevated to their level of historical importance. My 2 cents:

1A Earlier Availability.
I think Feudalism + Construction makes the most sense here - pure construction is too early, and its too late as it exists currently. I might even go Monarchy + Construction but I'd have to test it out first.

2A Later Obsolescence.
I know this isn't later, but the tech that makes the most sense to me is...Liberalism! Generally a very valuable tech, would you now hold off to keep the castle benefits...this seems like it might make for some interesting decisions - cling to the feudal past, or embrace modernity? A people liberated via free speech and free religion aren't going to care what the overlords in the dark dank castles think anyways. Remember, their defense value already obsoletes when your opponents start using gunpowder, which is right, but the other bonuses should obsolete

3A Buff the Bonuses.
I like the idea of providing additional culture, 2 per turn sounds about right. Also the maintenance reduction idea I like, but 25% seems excessive. 10% maybe? I'd like to see a base espionage bonus rather than a modifier, 1 per turn should be right.

4A Increased Cost.
This works well with the other changes, it is available earlier but is a hefty chunk of hammers, and the more it takes to build the bigger the Protective bonus is. The exact # would have to be discovered through trial and error.

I like the reduced cost bunkers and bomb shelters as well.

I think this is a great idea and am very interested in hearing further discussion on the particulars.

 

[KrikkitTwo]

Liberalism has a problem in that you can avoid researching it entirely.. if you are going Warlike, then you can keep that extra trade route and espionage bonus indefinitely [although once you get Rifling, you can't build castles in new cities because they won't have Walls]

(Which is why I favor obsolete with Corporation... you can put it off, but only until you need to get Factories+Infantry)

 

[armoredcrawler]

Ah, that is a problem, thanks Krikkitone. I actually have never realized that the ONLY tech Liberalism is a pre req for is Communism...interesting...though State Property is a powerful civic to forego!

 

[Minor Annoyance]

How about a moat? Like if a city is build next to a river or oasis and has a castle, then any unit attacking gets a crossing river penalty.

 

[Honorable_Pawn]

How about a moat? Like if a city is build next to a river or oasis and has a castle, then any unit attacking gets a crossing river penalty.

Excellent suggestion.

 

[Lightwave]

I thought that castles should reduce maintenance. The reason being that castles weren't just an extra good wall, they were also the home of the local government. That's kind of modeled by the extra trade route, but I think castles should also take 50% off distance from palace maintenance.

I am a little late to the discussion, but after reading this suggestion, I thought it was a great idea as long as it is coupled with a longer effective life span. I think the maintenance costs are brutal (excessive actually) in the unmodded game, so another maintenance reducing building is welcome as far as I am concerned.

 

[Mesix]

To make castles more interesting, why not have there benefits change instead of becoming obsolete in the late game. Castles were important defensive structures in the middle ages, but cesed being so important as modern warfare changed. Today, castles are very important for a different reason: tourism. How many tourists visit Germany every year from all over the world to see the historic castles of crazy King Ludwig (which were built n the 1800s) or the more historic castles on the Rhine River?

Perhaps castles should only be available to build in the middle ages, but become cultural icons in the modern era. Once they become obsolete, castles could provide culture and money to the cities that have them. This gives players an added incentive to build castles while they are available so that they can get a bigger benefit later.