Are the Warlords leader traits better than the Vanilla Civ IV ones?

[diablodelmar]

It so appears that way to me! I mean look at charismatic! Someone make me feel better and explain that they are all even....

 

[PMabey]

Charismatic is good, protective and imperialistic not as good but i prefer spiritual/financial/philosophical so i have to disagree. Charismatic isnt much good if you cant keep up in tech race to build decent units.

 

[Thyrwyn]

Spiritual, Financial, Philosophic, and Aggressive are still great traits. The Warlords versions of Creative and Expansive are better than their vanilla counterparts, but Vanilla Creative was still pretty darn good.

 

[MrCynical]

Charismatic is second only to Financial in strength at the higher difficulty levels, where the extra one or two happiness is worth a lot. The quicker promotions are just the icing on the cake. At the lower levels it doesn't stand out quite as much, but is still a strong trait.

Protective and Imperialistic on the other hand are very weak traits at the high levels, and are still well down the bottom of the list at the lowest levels. Protective only aids you to defend, which is not a game winning strategy. Not bad for an AI which merely has to survive, but no good to a human. Imperialistic's faster great generals, while nice, are not that much of a boost, and the fast settlers are barely noticeable at the high levels, since you'll only found a few cities even with that boost.

 

[KMadCandy]

as do a lot of things with civ, it varies on your style, difficulty level, and other civs in the game which are 'better' in any particular case. i'm no pro, so take this as the usual KMad thoughts/chattering rather than "the truth", and feel free to skip it since it's the usual KMad-length post.

i really loved philosophical at first in vanilla, and imperialistic in warlords, but the longer my games go on, the less they seem to contribute since the numbers you need for late-game guys get so high anyway. i'm probably statistically/mathematically wrong there and they are still helping a TON, but it just feels like the big help is only at the start so those have moved down on my list.

i have no one favorite still, altho i do often play several different types of games with one leader in a row to learn better how to use their traits/UB/UU. and i read the ALCs with great interest, and the EMCs now that i discovered them.

one thing i pore over before deciding who to next try for the first time is the synergy of their UB with their traits, or in some cases how their UB can just about sneak in the benefit of having a third trait. i really like cyrus (despite what i said about imperialistic before), his grocer is basically
expansive without the cheap buildings/workers, altho later it comes in much later the game. i like some cities to be quite big--flood plains + lots of citizens = ugly green clouds.

huayna is another i love for the combo of traits/UB. financial i value more and more as i've played more games, industrious is fun for going crazy on wonders, and his UB is like wowsa. terrace, granary replacement that has +2 culture. i always always build granaries in my cities (i'm even learning sometimes to whip them! i'm not a good whipper so that's an improvement trust me). yes it's not the immediate +2 culture you get from the real trait, but once you've invested the hammers (or sacrificed the citizens) to build the infrastructure, there you go--you have the +2 culture for that city, all game long, as if you were creative (altho without the cheap buildings they get).

i always always think (perhaps due to remembering the "spain on a lake" phrase that isabella is spiritual/financial rather than spiritual/expansive. and that hasn't even changed, it was always that way. i did make a mini-mod changing XML/Civilizations once where i changed her to that combo and WOW she rocked, so i think i know why she's not. mansa is but does not start with mysticism. and he sure does well even that way.

hubby played his first warlords game as tokugawa for the aggressive/protective combo. he really enjoyed it, altho it was an atypical situation...we were teamed, and i was cyrus, so our units were able to complement each other in a way that's not possible in a solo game. he was our melee/gunpower force and i was the royal canadian kilted yaksman division for the most part. i did end up hogging GGs and gifted a couple to him.

the ones i'm most interested to try soon are churchill to try out protective for the first time (after seeing how well it worked for hubby offensively, i'd just assumed it was for turtling up my home cities which often never see any action), and spain for the UB (altho it can go obsolete sooooo early, it looks really nifty during the period it is active).

lalala sorry for going on and on.

 

[futurehermit]

protective and imperialistic suck. i will qualify that by saying that protective is a good trait for the ai and also if playing multiplayer. imperialistic is just not that good. earlier great generals is handy but not game breaking, especially now that military academies have been bumped to the middle ages...cheaper settlers is "nice" but i build like 1-2 a game maybe...

edit: forgot charismatic. it rocks!!!

 

[Uncle_Joe]

Warlords 'weakened' Financial quite a bit IMO since cities can now convert Hammers to Science or Wealth at 100% efficiency instead of the previous 50%. This means that high production cities can become very versatile compared to Cottage Spam from a Financial optimized city.

Financial is still a great trait, but its not really over the top IMO. As for the new traits, I'm not a fan of Protective either. Imperialistic is interesting, but I'd prefer it to give something else that endures a little longer. Charismatic is strong, but I dont really think its all much 'better' than some of the others...its just easier to use.

 

[Blake]

The way I see it there are a bunch of good traits, with creative and aggressive being the best, and then there's a couple of really bad traits : Protective and Imperialistic.

Some combinations are ok though, Protective/Financial (Korea) is fine, but that in part is due to Korea's awesome UU - but the financial trait at least gives protective something to protect.

Creative/Imperialistic (Catherine) is basically fasted possible city spam (expansionist/creative might be better) so I think that leader is ok. Aggressive/Imperialistic has some decent synergy (aggressive units are good for generating exp..), also Agg/Pro (Tokugawa) and Cha/Pro (Churchill) are solid for having double-boosted units and UU's which benefit from traits (in Churchill's case, twice), Tokugawa is still one of my favorite leaders since anyone who tangles with Tokugawa's army is going to pay dearly.

The worst leader is IMO Saladin since Spiritual and Protective just don't mesh together well, there's no way for one trait to leverage the other and it's hard to play entirely to the strength of either trait - both are what I think of as supporting traits (With spiritual being a top-tier supporting trait, but it's still hard to play entirely to the strengths of spiritual until much later in the game - compare with Hatty (cre/spi) who gets cre for the expansion phase and then spi for later game fun).

 

[Mr. Civtastic]

really bad traits : Protective and Imperialistic.

I dont know if I'd call them really bad. You can get some use out of them depending how much to try to leverage them...and if trying to leverage them hurts other parts of your game.

Of the two, Imperialistic I think is better. The cheap settlers are nice but not THAT helpful...and on prince and up you're arent going to build more then 7 max.

The GG bonus, well...when Ive played a imperialistic leader Ive always been like "eh, so what". But then play without an imperialistic leader and youll think "where the heck is my first GG?"...at least thats what I thought. They are more helpful then I originally thought. Getting an early medic 3 unit is HUGE for your SoD,especially when standing up to siege attacks...my last non-imp game I didnt get it till trebs. Adding a couple gg specialists will give you two promotions (or three if youre genghis) without having to run vassalage or theocracy...or you can run those civics and build units at lvl 4 if youre cyrus or building mounted units. Another thing Ive done is saved a couple GGs for education, get it quickly with lightbulbing, then build those acadamies (one for a city with heroic epic). You can have a couple real mean troop production cities. The main drag on the GG bonus is that you have to fight to take advantage of it...something that aggresive doesnt have to, and charismatic doesnt have to fight nearly as much to take advantage of either.

Really, its not that bad. Im not saying I prefer it to aggresive or charismatic, but its decent. My highest domination score in warlords has been with victoria. I think the trait by itself is ok, but gels with the combinations...imp/org, imp/cre, imp/fin, imp/agg. I think if they added another small bonus, it would be on par with all the other traits.

Protective isnt all that great. To me, the best part about the trait is the free first strike to archery and gunpowder units. This makes protective, I think, great with the chinese UU and british UU. The city garrison is nice but rarely does it come into play...I dont feel like it will make a huge difference in saving you unless youre a longbowman on a hill. The walls and castles bonus...not that helpful, especially since theyll provide no defense past gunpoweder. I actually really like this trait with the chinese or churchill but otherwise I think it is the worst out of all traits. This trait needs some love.

I guess what I object to calling them "really bad" because they CAN be helpful.

The worst leader is IMO Saladin since Spiritual and Protective just don't mesh together well, there's no way for one trait to leverage the other and it's hard to play entirely to the strength of either trait - both are what I think of as supporting traits (With spiritual being a top-tier supporting trait, but it's still hard to play entirely to the strengths of spiritual until much later in the game - compare with Hatty (cre/spi) who gets cre for the expansion phase and then spi for later game fun).

Agreed. Then add his UU is ok but not great to begin with and doesnt take advantage of the protective promotions. I think he is one of the worst leaders, right up there with Roosevelt.

 

[jimbob27]

I find protective to be one of the better traits. People that say "it only allows you to defend" really don't have any kind of imagination. When I play protective, as soon as I've got gunpowder troops as long as I'm not fighting another protective civ, it basically feels like every gunpowder unit is a UU. Its not that useful before gunpowder, so probably won't benefit the billions of players who seem to insist on playing a difficulty level way below their standard of play. You know... the people that never get to see the end game because they're already pretty much won by the middle ages. For the harder levels though, when you're playing catchup for the first 3 eras, its invaluable. You suddenly get very powerful when you get gunpowder units.

Sure, it "only allows you to defend" but this is incredibly important for attacking. You can field bigger armies because you know your defenders are going to hold their own, so you don't need so many units sitting in cities.

Whilst you're trudging through enemy culture towards one of their cities, chances are your stack is going to get attacked. The protective civ gets a boost with drill units, as they are more likely to defend any attacks against your stack, and don't recieve as much collateral damage from stack-killing siege weapons. You don't need to worry so much about taking defenders to hold up in recently captured cities, because you can use some of your main units. Once you've captured a city, you don't need to worry so much about counterattacks because all your units will be decent defenders.

I think protective is like creative or spiritual. Rubbish if you don't know how to use it properly, but very powerful if you do.

 

[notagoodname]

The original traits for washington, Fin/Org is one of the best trait combos.
It really sucks that they got rid of that one, although a lot of people agree it was a really overpowered combo. It even beat phi/fin for tech when you had a large empire, with org making civics cost less and fin bringing in more gold.

 

[Moxxa]

Imperialistic and Protective are good traits. It's just a matter of the game settings.

If you're playing Large/Huge maps or a Lakes/Great Plains map, Imperialistic is an awesome trait to have. You'll be glad that your settlers are coming out quickly to grab the best city locations. The faster GGs are very nice, too. If you war a lot, you can easily get eight of them over the course of the game, which means two cities cranking out 9XP (or more, depending on your civics) units 50% faster.

Protective is also great if you play with raging barbs. You can get away with defending your cities with only one or two units, which will end up being highly promoted. It basically makes barbs a nonfactor. It's also much easier to defend captured cities from counter attack. I hardly ever build defensive units if I'm not protective.

I don't think there is any question about how amazingly awesome Charasmatic is. +1 happiness (OH YEAH!) and cheaper promotions? Give me a break...

 

[Titus]

Protective and Imperialistic on the other hand are very weak traits at the high levels, and are still well down the bottom of the list at the lowest levels. Protective only aids you to defend, which is not a game winning strategy. Not bad for an AI which merely has to survive, but no good to a human. Imperialistic's faster great generals, while nice, are not that much of a boost, and the fast settlers are barely noticeable at the high levels, since you'll only found a few cities even with that boost.

I quite agree. Protective could have cheaper bunkers and bomb shelters (not really important for the most part, but it's something). Imperialistic could have better general-created buildings. Make military academies created by an imperialistic leader boost military production by 75 or 100% instead of 50, and their "military instructors" add 3 or 4XP instead of 2. Or maybe just cheaper...uh, what's left? Monuments and jails.

 

[Rancid Sushi]

I find protective to be one of the better traits. People that say "it only allows you to defend" really don't have any kind of imagination. When I play protective, as soon as I've got gunpowder troops as long as I'm not fighting another protective civ, it basically feels like every gunpowder unit is a UU. Its not that useful before gunpowder, so probably won't benefit the billions of players who seem to insist on playing a difficulty level way below their standard of play. You know... the people that never get to see the end game because they're already pretty much won by the middle ages. For the harder levels though, when you're playing catchup for the first 3 eras, its invaluable. You suddenly get very powerful when you get gunpowder units.

Sure, it "only allows you to defend" but this is incredibly important for attacking. You can field bigger armies because you know your defenders are going to hold their own, so you don't need so many units sitting in cities.

Whilst you're trudging through enemy culture towards one of their cities, chances are your stack is going to get attacked. The protective civ gets a boost with drill units, as they are more likely to defend any attacks against your stack, and don't recieve as much collateral damage from stack-killing siege weapons. You don't need to worry so much about taking defenders to hold up in recently captured cities, because you can use some of your main units. Once you've captured a city, you don't need to worry so much about counterattacks because all your units will be decent defenders.

From my last game with Qin, I have to agree. Cuz a protective Chu-Ko-Nu is like the swiss army knife of UUs.

 

[jimbob27]

Aye... sometimes you have to think a bit on the best ways to use it, but when you do find something that works well it can be very powerful. Its just not as simple to use as some of the no-brainer traits, like finacial or organised.

 

[uncarved block]

I'm not sure any discussion of traits is complete without factoring in the UU and UB. A good military UU (Immortals, Praetorians, etc) gives you an era where you can leverage military force, while a strong UU can do the same in a different way-- Monty has a bad UU, but the Altar and his traits more than make up for it. (The main exception to this is, of course, the two Romans, who dominate in all facets of the game. Hard to argue with history, though.) For my money, when a factor affects the game is almost as important as the power: the Russian Lab is very powerful, sure, but doesn't help much for the first two-thirds of the game. Even after the nerf, though, Cossacks are a nice chance to dominate an era, though.

So my vote for worst combination would have to go to Bismarck. Wonders can be even dicier than resources to rely upon, and there's really little chance for him to catch up in the early or mid game should you fall behind. (And I've argued before that the Panzer may be one of the worst three UUs in the game.) Now, somebody here will probably come along an disagree, but IMO, if you can win easily with Bismarck, that should be a sign that you're ready to move up a level. Stalin ranks second, with his saving grace being the Aggressive trait--if you get in trouble early, just whip an army and make quantity do when quality is unavailable, and hope those Cossacks make the difference later.

 

[Mr. Civtastic]

Monty has a bad UU

I actually really like his UU. Cheaper then regular swordsmen, starts with two promotions but easy to get four promotions (combat II and III, or add in a city raider) with barracks and theocracy, 10% against cities, doesnt need copper OR iron, cheap cost works with UB's rushing strategy.

He has one less strength then swordsmen, but its balanced (imo) by its cheaper costs and the fact I can build them in any city (what i mean by that is new cities that arent connected by roads) and i dont need a resource to build them.

 

[notagoodname]

I actually really like his UU. Cheaper then regular swordsmen, starts with two promotions but easy to get four promotions (combat II and III, or add in a city raider) with barracks and theocracy, 10% against cities, doesnt need copper OR iron, cheap cost works with UB's rushing strategy.

He has one less strength then swordsmen, but its balanced (imo) by its cheaper costs and the fact I can build them in any city (what i mean by that is new cities that arent connected by roads) and i dont need a resource to build them.

Agreed totally. In small multiplayer maps monty is one of the worst civs to start next to.
You just know the guy next to you is going to start sending massive numbers of those cheap jaguars at you from around turn 20 onwards.
Considering that you don't always start anywhere near metal chances are good that monty will kill you.

 

[acidsatyr]

it depends what level you play and how you play but to me all warlord traits are much weaker than original traits

 

[icemanjsg]

I think the only person who has been made worse by the change is Napoleon,

Out of all the leaders he deserves to be Agg, cha

Did you know he won more battles that Alexander the great, the khan and Hannibal combined?

What a military genius

But now he is not aggressive seems a little strange ?