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

Perhaps a bonus - both attacking and defending - in combat when you're in your own territory? That would remove the complaint that the trait benefits the worst kind of defense; sitting still and letting their stack hit your city.
 
I'm not sure I see protective as needing a boost, but castles and forts (even after the BTS improvements) could do with something to make them more appealing.
There are a lot of good suggestions on this thread but most of them leave me with the same feeling as many of the unique buildings. "Oh look...yet another way to get +1 happiness (or +1 health, or +n XP)". I would like to see something radically different that introduces new options for the player rather than yet another way to achieve the same old stuff.

My suggestions for forts (which I have mentioned in other threads) and castles (which now that I think about it can be thought of as just forts that happen to be in a city and have similar effects).

1. Inhibit enemy culture. The role of castles and forts historically was as much control of the local area (and populace) as defense. There is no equivalent to this in the game today and I think it would give the player a new option to combat encroaching enemy culture. For forts it would inhibit the spread of enemy culture in just the adjacent tiles, for castles the area of effect should be greater, maybe just the fat cross or even a 3 tile radius.

2. Breaking supply lines.
Historically it was poor strategy to leave fortified enemy positions behind your front line as they could deal significant blows to your supply lines. In the game this could be modeled by forts and cities with castles. Any enemy unit that passes adjacent to a fort or through the fat cross of a city with a castle without stopping to remove the threat they pose should be considered out of supply for a number of turns and suffer damage each turn due to lack of secure supply lines.

3. Castles should count as two military units for the purposes of hereditary rule.

4.I also like the idea that castles should generate extra culture and even commerce from tourism in later eras.

Oops, I've just been summoned...I would like to give more thought to other modern effect of castles and military bases but I don't have time right now. Anyway I'm going to hit send on what I've written just understand it is only in draft form, thanks.
 
I find castles to be quite useful, mostly for how much life they can give to your cities' defensive bonus. I tend not to unit spam, so often I end up in a bad position where the enemy has a large stack w/ a decent number of siege units and the castle gives me the extra turns i need for reinforcements to arrive.
 
I'm not sure I see protective as needing a boost, but castles and forts (even after the BTS improvements) could do with something to make them more appealing.

Yeah, I feel the same.

Theres an angle to protective that lots of people often don't look at. The AI generally do pretty well with it. When it's paired with another good trait I think protective is one of the best 2nd tier traits for an AI. Leaders like Wang Kon, Churchill Saladin, Quin and Sitting bull often do very well.

The AI puts quite a high emphasis on walls and castles, so having them cheap will save the AI quite a few hammer throughout their entire civ. The extra promotions make them a more difficult opponent for humans to attack, so often they're left till last..... and the promotions definitely help a lot in AI-AI wars.
 
If forts still need improvement and they're supposed to control the area, then why not bring back the old 'zone of control' rule from past versions and apply it to forts? I was playing on a map that had some narrow valleys between mountains, but I still needed four forts and a lot of units to block the path.
 
Here's my 2 pence

Castles make it a little more expensive and give it-
-15-20 city maintenance
-needs 2-3 walls like cathedral( citadel doesn't have its effect)
-25% bonus wen creating military units
+1 exp to Ships

protective
give drill to ships /intercept to planes
cut price dry docks

Ballanced?
I know its mod-able.
aggressive
cut price stables
 
Another idea: Have castles double the effect of units reducing the chance of cities going into revolt from competing culture. Fits in with someone else's suggestion of castles increasing the effect of units under hereditary rule.
 
Maybe hered rule doesn't get it's benefit without Castles? Major change I know, but Kings have always neededf to use Castles to this effect- see what William I did when he took over England. Castles to keep order, the Normans couldn't keep down the plebs otherwise.
And Protective would seem angled towards an interception upgrade, wouldn't it?

Has anyone mentioned espionage for protective yet? Like an icnreased chance of caputre?
 
I'm curious...

As I am new to these forums (joined a long time ago, but visited sparingly), I was wondering what exactly a thread like this accomplishes? I don't mean that as mean as it sounds, cause I agree with a lot of what has been said in this thread (I like playing the protective trait cause it goes with my peace-nik playstyle, but castles and forts could use some help). But how do you folks that are proposing changes change the game? Do you mod it yourself? Or is this this something that you're hoping that Firaxis or whoever is in charge of the patches sees and incorporates into the next patch?
 
Hoping a Firaxis dev sees this...I know Firaxis people supposedly poke around here from time to time.
 
I'm curious...

As I am new to these forums (joined a long time ago, but visited sparingly), I was wondering what exactly a thread like this accomplishes? I don't mean that as mean as it sounds, cause I agree with a lot of what has been said in this thread (I like playing the protective trait cause it goes with my peace-nik playstyle, but castles and forts could use some help). But how do you folks that are proposing changes change the game? Do you mod it yourself? Or is this this something that you're hoping that Firaxis or whoever is in charge of the patches sees and incorporates into the next patch?

I think it is both options overall. Some posters hope the ideas might be incorporated into the main game to improve some deficiencies, and others like myself like the multitude of ideas to cherry pick for possible incorporation into my personal mod.
 
Yeah, I feel the same.

Theres an angle to protective that lots of people often don't look at. The AI generally do pretty well with it. When it's paired with another good trait I think protective is one of the best 2nd tier traits for an AI. Leaders like Wang Kon, Churchill Saladin, Quin and Sitting bull often do very well.

The AI puts quite a high emphasis on walls and castles, so having them cheap will save the AI quite a few hammer throughout their entire civ. The extra promotions make them a more difficult opponent for humans to attack, so often they're left till last..... and the promotions definitely help a lot in AI-AI wars.

I agree that it's a nice trait for the AI. However that's not how I evaluate traits. If I want to compare traits I look at how much they appeal to me as a player.
Interestingly, Protective is very weak in single-player as you will often be able to avoid situations where it would be useful. It's better in MP because it can be a deterrent for an attack (the usually lightly-garrisoned player cities are much stronger fortified if they have two Longbowmen with G2 and D1 instead of G1 only), but I still wouldn't call it much more than 'meh'.

The main problem is that with collateral damage you simply can not defend a fortified position. A few suicide cats or other siege units will always do the trick of weakening the defender enough to be able to take him out easily. And then you'll have lost your whole defensive force in the city.
Therefore, to fix protective is to fix this problem in my opinion, hence my proposition for a collateral-damage-reducing promotion instead of drill.
 
I'm curious...

As I am new to these forums (joined a long time ago, but visited sparingly), I was wondering what exactly a thread like this accomplishes?

A chance to learn and talk and debate and become better.

Sure, little is gsained, but every little helps. Might influense a mod soemwhere, one or two threads might start a ball rolling...

keep us sane!
 
I'm curious...

As I am new to these forums (joined a long time ago, but visited sparingly), I was wondering what exactly a thread like this accomplishes? I don't mean that as mean as it sounds, cause I agree with a lot of what has been said in this thread (I like playing the protective trait cause it goes with my peace-nik playstyle, but castles and forts could use some help). But how do you folks that are proposing changes change the game? Do you mod it yourself? Or is this this something that you're hoping that Firaxis or whoever is in charge of the patches sees and incorporates into the next patch?

Mostly, I think people are just trying to kill time at work, school, or some other place/time they can't actually play the game. It is fun to think about this stuss, if you are really into a game and your mind wonders.

But there are the occaisional ideas that become a reality in the game, or as a mod and make you feel good. Hope this one gets some play one day :goodjob:
 
Yeah, sorry guys, didn't mean to sound as . .. .. .. .. .y as it did. :) I too am passing time while at work talking about this stuff. ;)

Mostly I just wanted to know where I should anticipate the possible changes discussed here. So, hopefully Firaxis will do something. But, for you guys who do personal mods along these lines (especially the stuff about the castles and forts) do you ever publish this stuff here on the forums? I'd like to know what or how to change the files and mod it like the stuff we've been talking about here.
 
Yeah, sorry guys, didn't mean to sound as . .. .. .. .. .y as it did. :) I too am passing time while at work talking about this stuff. ;)

Mostly I just wanted to know where I should anticipate the possible changes discussed here. So, hopefully Firaxis will do something. But, for you guys who do personal mods along these lines (especially the stuff about the castles and forts) do you ever publish this stuff here on the forums? I'd like to know what or how to change the files and mod it like the stuff we've been talking about here.

Your original question was legitimate, especially for a newbie.

It's a process. We start a discussion on these boards about what's the most useless or expoitable or unhistorical building, unit, civic etc. A frontrunner emerges, then somebody else defends the status quo on historical, or gameplay , or multiplayer grounds,or maybe they just explain a uniqe strategy to utilize the game as is. Then somebody says why that doesn't matter on such and such a difficulty level, game speed, or map size and type.

Then we get opinions & suggestions about what would correct things.

Then we rinse and repeat.


In the course of a great discussion, you can sometimes reach a consensus about what would be better from various viewpoints. Then Fireaxis or a modder puts it into testing , then they adapt it, and it it turns up in recognizable form in an expansion or a mod on the mods forum or in somebody's sigline.

It's fun and educational.
 
Awesome topic. Castles do need to be rebalanced badly. Things that could be done in order to make them a useful building:

Can draft 2 units in combination with serfdom (it was very common for the castles to organize "levas" or forced recruitment among the pheasants).

Castles gives one extra specialist in combination with hereditary rule (remember that castles generated the vast majority of the demand of artisans, blacksmithers and artists at its time).

Also, a cultural bonus that remains once castles have became obsolete is absolutely needed if you want to be realistic. Castles have been major turistic atractions and icons of their respective lands, way more than say, monasteries. +2 or +4 :culture: would be fair, depending on the additional bonuses.
 
Castles are useful buildings, they just aren't useful for long enough.

They may not be worth building in every city like Granaries, but if you
1 are protective
2 have stone
3 need defense to slowdown an attacker
4 really need to boost your spy capabilities

Then they are definitely worth bulding
 
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