Balancing the Traits

[dh_epic]

I'm a big fan of creative as well. I've found it surprisingly helpful against the AI at higher difficulties.

Creative's weakness is almost the exact opposite of organized. Organized doesn't do ANYTHING in the ancient age. Creative does TONS in the ancient age. And because the first age is always the most important, creative is worth a lot here.

But if you play a late era multiplayer game, being creative doesn't help you much, whereas organized becomes a very balanced trait.

Creative just needs a bit more juice for later eras, and organized needs significantly more juice for the earlier eras. Financial -- since someone brought it up -- is solid in the early eras, but too powerful later on.

 

[Mujadaddy]

Especially at higher difficulties, when the AI will be outproducing you by a good %, it's important to culturally claim as much land as fast as possible...

Point taken---I probably wouldn't CHOOSE Creative on a Late-start game...

Organized still doesn't excite me (or most anyone else )...it's like getting Combat I on a unit...not "secksey"

Lategame, Creative will STILL get a 5-turn Culture-Bump for each and every new city you found...

Earlygame, Financial gets you from 2 gold to 3 gold (+50%), but going from 8 gold to 9 gold (lategame, obviously) is only +12.5%...so it's not as dominant lategame as it appears... still pretty dominant though

 

[Ex Mudder]

Having played Ghandi, I think Industrious is overrated. I'd fix it by weakening Stone and Marble to a 50% improvement in build speed, instead of doubling. I hate losing the Oracle to someone who has marble (I need Oracle for Metal Casting), and I hate restarting games in which I don't have marble, because I keep losing out on wonder races.

It would also prevent Industrious civs with marble or stone from being overpowered.

 

[Mujadaddy]

Aww, why do you quit after getting beat to a Wonder?

 

[DarkSchneider]

Well, for the most part, based on the poll results, it looks like you agree with me that Spiritual and Organized should probably be improved. Here are some more thoughts on how to do that (some of these have been suggested by other people)

Spiritual - I'm not sure, but if it doesn't, it should allow you to change civics every turn if you want, in fact, maybe even during the same turn. I think half price monestaries would also be nice, since most of the other traits got 2 half price buildings.

Organized - Have the courthouse give +1 happy faces to civilizations with Organized. Have Organized help with city upkeep costs.

Also, I'm a little curious, but why does virtually everyone dislike Combat I as a promotion, it's the only promotion out there that pretty much every unit should get. As far as a know, getting combat's 1-4 is the only way to get commando, which is probably the most useful of all unit promotions.

 

[Mujadaddy]

How to improve Spiritual? Make non-Spiritual civs have Anarchy for longer

No one "dislikes" Combat I ... it's just so useful, so utilitarian... that it's basically a given that many of your units will have it... therefore, it's not "Sexy"

 

[Cu Chulainn]

Two words for anyone who doubts the power of Organized: Prat Rush. But, what does organization have to do with Praetorians? Easy, half priced Courthouses combined with Organized Religion (which has high upkeep btw) can get them built in less than 10 turns for a freshly conquered town. Thus allowing Rome to absorb the financial burden of the massive early expansion demanded by their superior military presence. Could a non organized Civ fund a huge empire early in the game?

Not likely. This could be easily applied to peaceful expansion, especially the way the traits are matched up. No one is going to be able to support more big cities faster and use the Spiritual Civic flip better than Asoka. No one is going to be able to conquer on a large scale earlier than Caesar and Tokugawa. And absolutely no one is going to be able to manage as healthy an economy as Washington. (the only one I really don't get is Roosevelt. Org/Ind? Doesn't really seem to mesh well)

Provided, of course, that one plays to exploit the organized trait to the fullest. In example: playing an organized Civ shuffles your tech priority a little. Code of Laws becomes all important as, excepting Asoka, Confucianism is likely to be the first religion you will manage to get and Org is pretty worthless without Courthouses to build. Organized is just peachy if you use it correctly but doing so goes somewhat against most peoples standard way of playing the game.

 

[Gufnork]

A financial civ can afford early warlike expansion even better, since they can set their conquered cities on commerce production and have them pay for themselves. And it only takes them a little longer to get courthouses.

 

[dh_epic]

It's true that the courthouses only start becoming worthwhile when you have LOTS of cities. Otherwise, you're spending turns and turns to shave off 2 or 3 gold. Financial handles the financial burden of an empire marvelously.

I'm not saying that organized isn't useful. It is. But it takes a while to become as useful as some of the more balanced traits, and that's a problem. Code of Laws, Feudalism, and Theocracy all come later. The ancient era is still the most important.

I actually think the civics cost thing should be moved to expansionist, but with the additional health as well -- which would make expansionist do what it SAYS it's supposed to do.

And organized should instead receive cheaper upgrades -- which are useful at every point in the game. As soon as you can upgrade your first warrior to an axeman, you're getting value out of that.

But hey, that's just me.

 

[Common Sensei]

Unknown how unbalanced it would be, but one thing that comes to mind is to scrap the Civics discount completely. Economic boosts from a trait is stealing from Financial's portfolio anyway, so to speak. Instead, one might give it the flipside of Financial's effects, but applying it to production instead. Give one extra hammer where there is two or more (alternatively three or more if two is too powerful).