Balancing the Traits

[dh_epic]

I still don't think you guys see it - would anything so blantantly unbalanaced escape the testers???? Nobody will acknowledge Sullla's reponse!

Expert testimony aside, I haven't played the expert card either. There are other testers who feel very strongly that organized is slightly weak, but I haven't brought them into play.

I mean, I think the game is a work of genius, but it's not perfect. Numerous bug complaints (albeit impatient ones) are evidence of that.

While you're running around putting cottages on everything lol, Here's what I (NOT the AI) could do:

-My production happy cities with Theology and Vassalage (remember, I'm Organized so these wont hurt me) will rapidly build a military just for you.

-Before you know it, Hordes of angry fanatics will devestate your land, pillaging all your precious cottages

But you have to wait until feudalism and theology are researched, which happen in the middle ages. A financial civ will have a better ancient age than an organized civ with just a few coastal and river-side cities. And the fundamental rule of Civ is still true: you get 75% of the way to victory in the first 25% of the game.

What I'm saying is you won't even get to vassalage and theology if a cut-throat financial civ comes gunning for you. Financial civs get a significant early advantage on organized civs. And an early advantage is the best advantage to have.

But it gets worse for organized civs.

Early on in the game, we're talking about anywhere between 3 and 6 cities. Civic cost scales with your number of cities, so organized doesn't really kick into high gear yet. In the middle ages with a standard sized nation, Vassalage and Theocracy are probably better with a financial leader and some cottages, luxury resources, and coastal tiles -- better than ORG. The game needs to be very mature for organized to make those high cost civics matter. Financial gives you solid returns right away, and ridiculous returns by the end of the game.

And even worse, if you find yourself in a situation where high cost civics just don't make sense, organized is useless. Financial is great for all kinds of players -- warmongers, builders, large and small empires, in first place or in fourth place.

I had my earliest conquest victory with an organized civilization. That's because organized handles the burden of a large empire better. But by this point, the game was already won. I would have been just as smart to sign peace treaties with everyone, and ride out my advantage to the space race. In other words, organized starts to matter when the game is already over. That's the problem.

The exception is late start games, where you're founding your capitol city in the rennaisance era. I've heard people do marvelous things with organized in these cases.

 

[Zhahz]

First off, I don't think the leader traits should be that strong in general, otherwise overall balance is tough and certain combos would be deadly and others would be useless. As it is, I feel like I could enjoy and be successful with any leader - and that's a good thing. (Compared to Civ3 where there were civs I would simply never even consider playing.)

The only things I *might* change:

Aggressive - should have some kind of war weariness bonus/reduction or some kind of resistance bonus/reduction - something that encourages or helps with being aggressive. War weariness can be brutal and the uselessness of cities that have long periods of resistance sucks too if you're doing a lot of conquering. There are tons of ways to get extra promotions for new units and I don't think aggressive really needs more promotions (maybe to mounted (not including gunships) but that's it).

Expansive - I don't really see what health has to do with it at all. <shrug> The biggest factor in slowing expansion is the cost of city maint, so perhaps expansive should get 25% off city maint, a small reduction in the distance factor in calculating city maint, or something similar - something that facilitates a wee bit more expansion without being unbalancing to the point where every player chooses expansive.

Organized - its main bonus is nebulous but seems to help, especially if you develop a large empire. Perhaps also giving it a small bonus vs city maint would help (if that couldn't be incorporated into expansive). Even if you shift to some free civics (which come later in the game) you can still get a lot of benefit out of organized.

 

[EmperorNapoleon]

Well as I said earlier, I can't convince everyone

 

[Mujadaddy]

dh_epic: I really liked your page 1 'real names for traits' post

Did NO ONE consider this:

What you have to remember is that the ENTIRE Civilization is balanced, DarkSchneider....NOT the traits...

Rome gets Praetorians (++) but they get Organized (--) ... that's just ONE example ... Starting techs, UUs, AND leader traits are what Firaxis had to balance...and did a pretty good job of, I think...

? Which was also on page one? I haven't seen anyone discuss that....

 

[Ephor]

The main problem with Organized to me isn't even balance (I have been in instances where cheap courts would help me much more than free gold), but this:

Organized is not a fun trait.

All the other traits i've played can actually become addictive because they make a key management problem dissappear, hence you develop a distaste for civs that make you deal with such "trivial" matters.

Aggressive give you wonderful promotion selection out of the box (I was so dissapointed to learn that combat I was a prereq for the best promotions). Creative makes early land-grabbing and city retention a breeze.
Expansive largely saves the trouble of health concerns, especially considering forges and the like.
Financial makes most money woes dissappear.
Industrious means very rarely having to worry about being beat to your favorite wonder.
Philosophical is just godlike if you can specialize your cities correctly (national wonders and a caste system are crucial).
Lastly, even Spiritual can be wonderful, though usually only when paired with a peacemonger trait (ind, phil, fin, creative), since it allows you to instantly switch from internal improvement to all war civics and conjur a ferocious army out of nothing.

Those are the things I find fun about every trait BUT organized. There's no in-game headache that it magically dissolves. Money issues are mostly solved by Financial, and even if it was fixed to work just as well on average, it wouldn't be unique like the other traits. There are headaches left to solved too, if organzied reduced CITY upkeep, peacful expansion would be much safer, and reducing military upkeep would make aggressive expansion much easier, both in ways financial does not cover.

It's a good idea, but from a creative standpoint at least, the trait could use revision.

 

[Mujadaddy]

Organized, as a trait, appears only SIX times in the Leaders' list.

1. with Industrious (Roosevelt, America)
2. with Financial (Washington, America)
3. with Philosophical (Mao, China)
4. with Spiritual (Asoka, India)
5. with Aggressive (Tokugawa, Japan)
6. with Expansive (Caesar, Rome)

In EACH of those cases of Organized's appearance, it is either paired with another KILLER trait, KILLER UU, -or- Good starting tech...

That is all...

 

[quail]

And no, Financial doesn't get an overabundance of gold. They get extra commerce, which translates into beakers in my dictionary.

That's the key. Most of you keep saying that Financial gives you more money, when it probably won't - it gives you more research, probably the most valuable commodity in the game. And I can usually have cities with a heap of cottages that still grow nicely (grassland and ocean with lighthouse gives you two food anyway, with huge commerce on top).

Another point is that even non-financial civs have to have commerce, because it's the only way to research; Financial gives you a huge bonus on top of that.

If the Organised civs are balanced by their unique units, then that's fine (I haven't checked it out personally). But looking at Sulla's post, he's trying to say that the Organised trait IS balanced with the others on its own merits, which is what we're arguing about.

 

[Mujadaddy]

Yeah, quail... I disagree that the traits are balanced on a trait-for-trait basis. Sullla can say whatever he likes; it's not going to make Organized a decent trait...

 

[EmperorNapoleon]

Organized, as a trait, appears only SIX times in the Leaders' list.

1. with Industrious (Roosevelt, America)
2. with Financial (Washington, America)
3. with Philosophical (Mao, China)
4. with Spiritual (Asoka, India)
5. with Aggressive (Tokugawa, Japan)
6. with Expansive (Caesar, Rome)

In EACH of those cases of Organized's appearance, it is either paired with another KILLER trait, KILLER UU, -or- Good starting tech...

That is all...

Another excellent point. I'm happy with the game balace myself

 

[Mujadaddy]

Yeah, my point is that the EMPIRE is balanced, not the traits.... I'm trying to get people to realize that "balancing" the traits with each other is only going to create IMBALANCE...

 

[Gufnork]

Organized, as a trait, appears only SIX times in the Leaders' list.

1. with Industrious (Roosevelt, America)
2. with Financial (Washington, America)
3. with Philosophical (Mao, China)
4. with Spiritual (Asoka, India)
5. with Aggressive (Tokugawa, Japan)
6. with Expansive (Caesar, Rome)

In EACH of those cases of Organized's appearance, it is either paired with another KILLER trait, KILLER UU, -or- Good starting tech...

That is all...

Explain Asoka. Identical to Gandhi except he's stuck with Organized instead of Industrious (a decent trait).

Roosevelt? The Navy Seal comes too late to be that good and Industrious isn't that good a trait.

Mao? Huang gets Industrious/Financial with the same UU and starting tech.

I'll concede that Washington is paired with a killer trait, but there are many others that are paired up. Rome is the only one I can see deserve Organized.

 

[dh_epic]

LOL

"Look at the other 6 traits! If you pair up organized with those other traits, you still have a good combo!"

Or you could take the other 6 traits and pair them up with each other.

I'm not saying organized is useless. Quite the contrary. There is a time when organized is good. But herein lies the problem between the strongest and weakest traits:

Financial is always good. You have a faster economy right from the ancient age if you use it right. It doesn't matter if you're a big or small empire. It doesn't matter if you're a warmonger or a peacenik. This one is always good.

Organized is sometimes good. You have to wait until later in the game for the expensive civics to make this worthwhile. You also get more out of this one as a bigger empire, who can actually take advantage of expensive civics. If you're a small civilization who is trying to use free speech and emancipation to achieve a space race victory, you're screwed.

Financial is good when you need it the most, awesome when you need it the least. Financial can get you producing big money right from the start, although the financial value peaks later in the game when a clear winner and loser are already defined.

Organized is good when you need it the least, and useless when you need it the most. You can't take advantage of this one until the medieval era (with code of laws, theology, and feudalism), and it doesn't become fully useful until the industrial era (with fascism, communism, and economic techs). The fact of the matter is that you win 80% of the game in the first 20% of the turns. Organized only gets going in the second half, when it really needs to get you a strong start to be useful.

Organized IS useful. But only in special circumstances, and only when it's too late.

 

[Abacus]

and to the person that says aggressive is weak they need to experiment a bit more.

That was me.

Please, explain it to me. I'd be glad to learn a new strategy.

I say aggressive is weak because I never choose combat 1, except for a few units I want to become medics. I know all about the shock, cover, etc traits, but I'd rather have 2 or 3 levels of city raider or city garrison than +25%against one type of unit.

And aggressive does nothing for tanks, knights, or siege weapons. Maybe it's not optimal, but I use far more of those units than swordsmen or infantry.

I suppose 10% more strength for a few units can't hurt, but losing some other potentially more beneficial trait does hurt. I've never found aggressive to be strong enough to make a difference in war.

 

[Abacus]

To add another question to the debate, can an industrious civ beat a philosophical civ to wonders (except the first few, of course)?

A philosophical civ that rushes to metal casting can get great engineers pretty early.

Anyone have experience with this in multiplayer?

 

[Gufnork]

Aggressive is fairly weak for Melee units, until they get their fourth promotion. It's really useful for Gunpowder units however, since they can't get City Raider. It really, really ought to give it's bonus to Horsemen. The Khans are both aggressive and their UU doesn't get the benefit from it, which sucks.

 

[Mujadaddy]

Explain Asoka. Identical to Gandhi except he's stuck with Organized instead of Industrious (a decent trait).

Roosevelt? The Navy Seal comes too late to be that good and Industrious isn't that good a trait.

Mao? Huang gets Industrious/Financial with the same UU and starting tech.

I'll concede that Washington is paired with a killer trait, but there are many others that are paired up. Rome is the only one I can see deserve Organized.

All three that you mentioned are in a "shared-leadership" role...meaning, you have the OPTION not to play as them. (In other words, thank-your-lucky-stars when the AI shows up as Mao, Roosevelt, and Asoka not Huang, Washington, or Gandhi )

I'm not here saying Organized is tehp0ne; I'm just saying that Traits aren't the only thing to be balanced when it comes to entire civilizations.

 

[Abacus]

Aggressive is fairly weak for Melee units, until they get their fourth promotion. It's really useful for Gunpowder units however, since they can't get City Raider. It really, really ought to give it's bonus to Horsemen. The Khans are both aggressive and their UU doesn't get the benefit from it, which sucks.

I hadn't thought of that - I use gunpowder units for defense, they can get City Garrison.

The Mongols UU not benefiting from it either really sucks.

 

[dh_epic]

Aggressive does unlock those shock/ambush/pinch promotions more easily, which is key. But it also gives you easy access to medic one and two, march, and more...

This may not seem like a big deal if you're thinking in Civ 3 terms. But in Civ 4 terms, the most important combat often takes place outside the city walls. Pillaging and luring them out is important for attackers, and cutting an attacker off at the borders is more important for defenders. Having these key promotions can be much more important than city raider.

And you'd be surprised how much +10% combat can help you if you're trying an early rush.

 

[KevinTMC]

Well, what a lively debate we have going on financial vs. organized.

All I have to say about that issue is that I understand why organized would be misunderstood--I know I don't really grok how it works yet--and also why financial would attract such devoted partisans.

After all: "Everybody needs money! That's why they call it 'money'!" (Apologies to David Mamet and Danny DeVito.)

Now, my real reason for chiming in: the Creative trait.

Creative seems to me to be overpowered at the beginning of the game, while possibly underpowered towards the end. It might be a good idea to scale its effects. For instance, one culture per turn for cities that produce fewer than x culture on their own; three culture per turn for cities that already produce more than y on their own.

Such an adjustment would, however, complicate the trait just a smidge...and that in itself might have been a strike against such an idea in the developers' eyes.

-- Kevin​

 

[Mujadaddy]

Kevin--I also am a big fan of Creative (I've gravitated toward playing Hatshepsut (+spiritual ) .... Every City that lasts 5 turns gets to the next cultural level ... Nothing wrong with that!! Sure, it tapers off long-term, but I really, really, really, really miss it when I don't play a Creative civ!