Balancing the Traits

[DarkSchneider]

Alright, we've all had a reasonably long time to play Civ 4, and explore what the various trait combinations have to offer. It seems to me, that all traits were not created equal, some not even close. When the first major balance patch comes, what can be done within the spirit of the traits to make the game balanced. HEre are some of my thoughts, and a poll.

Aggesive: Personally, I think this should be beefed up a little, I think it would be more in line with the others if the free combat upgrade applied to more unit types, include armor in there at least, and either archers or horsemen.

Creative: Probably good the way it is, but maybe something to improve it late game.

Expansive: I hate to suggest this, but Expansive would be a little more relavent if health was more of a concern. Perhapes if the penalty for going over the limit was increased a little more. Right now, I still think happiness is the limiting factor.

Financial: I think this one needs to be toned down a little bit, but I can't think of a clear cut way to do it. Maybe instead of extra cash per tile, it should be a blanket bonus, and additional trade routes per city.

Industrious: Good as is.

Organized: This one still seems terrible, its only bonus over Financial is that you don't have to build specific improvements on tiles to make it work. Perhapes it should defray some of the distance penalties (if they really do exist) or give some benefit even with low-no upkeep civics.

Philosophical: Good as is.

Spiritual: This one seems a little weak, as far as I can tell it ammounts to 6-8 non-anarchy turns per game, and a little flexiblity if you need it. The bonus on temples is good, maybe it could extend to monestaries...

 

[Shillen]

I think spiritual is one of the best traits. Calculate how many hammers/gold/beakers are wasted in those 6-8 anarchy turns. Also, there are many times during a game where I'd like to change my religion or civics and I don't do it because it's not worth the anarchy. Spiritual lets you do it.

I think aggressive should give a free combat promotion to all units.

I think organized should give you a 10% production bonus in all cities.

All others are fine as is.

 

[DarkSchneider]

I think spiritual is one of the best traits. Calculate how many hammers/gold/beakers are wasted in those 6-8 anarchy turns.

I'm sorry, but overall, it would be extremely low, most of the big changes came early enough that my production wasn't all that good anyway. I guess your evaluation of it would probably be closely linked with your impression of golden ages. Personally, I don't think golden ages are really that good either, in a game as long as Civ anyway....

 

[Mujadaddy]

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...

 

[Abacus]

I'm exploring the possibilities with Rome (expansive, organized) right now. Even though those are arguably the two worst traits, the Praetorian rules. The cheap graneries and courthouses help Rome to support and improve its conquests. And health is more important on immortal/diety when you only start with 1.

There's more to balance than the simple calculations - isn't it a little early to feel we've explored every path?

Edit: Mujadaddy beat me to it - Rome rocks.

 

[Mujadaddy]

I'm only going to add this ONE thing....regarding Spiritual...

A spiritual civ can IMMEDIATELY switch from Building/Trade civics to the Unit XP civics when snuck attacked and NOT miss a beat...(I did it earlier today, lol) .... Plus, 5 turns later, they can switch back ... Spiritual allows you to MICRO your entire Civics lineup!! Don't knock the Spiritual! (Plus 1/2 price temples )

 

[Lord Chambers]

I haven't played spiritual civs, mainly because I'm steeped in a land-grabbing Civ3 strat, but I was thinking that in a mulitplayer game spiritual would be much more valuable trait, since they are usually composed of fewer turns than a single player game, and the ability to micro as Mujadaddy mentioned.

 

[phungus420]

All the traits seem good. Except Organized, which is a pointless trait.

 

[DarkSchneider]

Well, right off the bat it looks like the early winner is improving organized (~65%) followed closely by improving spiritual (~50%) You hear that Firaxis, the people have spoken

 

[Dairuka]

Organized would be better if they boosted it by giving it a +1 to happiness for courthouses. You'd be willing to bet there'd be alot of people who'd want that; especially for the later difficulties.

 

[Gufnork]

You should consider that the traits vary in usefulness based on settings. Expansive is actually quite good on harder difficulties, happiness isn't that much more of a problem, but health is. Industrious is way worse, since you're usually behind in tech.

Spiritual needs a very specific playstyle to be useful. You can change civics to that which suits you best each turn. You can change your state religion and civics to match that of the civ you wish to trade with, then change back. It requires quite a bit of micromanagement, but it's not that bad.

Aggressive is quite good, but that could be because I hate horsemen, since their counters are too powerful.

 

[petey]

I think the main difference is that some are early game traits and some are late game traits. Creative is good during the initial land grab, but becomes relatively meaningless later in the game. Aggressive gives a 10% bonus to the early units, which can tip the balance quickly, but is less of a factor with more advanced and powerful units that come later on.

On the other hand, Spiritual is useless before you have any Civics to switch to, but can be leveraged in the later stages if your gameplay requires it. Philosophical doesn't do a whole lot before you get things that can generate GPPs to begin with, but you can eventually spam out GPs like nobody's business. Organized is a waste when you only have a few cities and no Civics to choose from, but can seriously cut down maintenance costs later on.

It really depends on how your gameplay goes and what stage of the game is most important to you.

 

[dh_epic]

In my experience, all the traits are useful. The problem is that some are imbalanced in that they're sometimes useless, and others are imbalanced in the fact that they're sometimes UBER.

SOLID WHEN:
Aggressive: Combat 1 unlocks lots of promotions. Great for early rushes.
Financial: Money is great
Philosophical: Great people are as valuable as money
Industrious: Wonders are great
Creative: Great for early expansion in the ancient era
Organized: Great for expansion in the late era
Expansionist: Great when you're low on health resources
Spiritual: Sold if you know the value of swapping civics a lot.

TOO POWERFUL WHEN
Financial: Cottages blossom into towns -- HUGE money.
Philosophical: Combined with the GP generating power of wonders -- snowball effect.
Industrious: Combined with marble/stone -- nearly unbeatable.

TOO WEAK WHEN
Creative: Classical or later starts, when culture is easy to come by -- MANY multiplayer games.
Organized: Earlier than rennaisance starts, when civics are limited -- MANY single player games.
Expansionist: When happiness is the REAL limitation for growth -- many games.
Spiritual: You end up in a position where you are dependent on specific civics -- many games.

REAL NAMES
Aggressive is Aggressive: I actually think this is the most balanced trait. Always useful, never weak, never too powerful.
Financial is Suburban: Because cottages with financial is so powerful, this trait FORCES you towards lots of suburbs.
Philosophical is Inspirational: What does having a deep thinker as a leader have to do with great people?
Industrious is Wonderful: This is just a touch too powerful with marble and stone.
Creative is Ancient Expansionist: In the ancient era, lets you snatch lots of tiles and territory quickly. Useless on later starts, when culture comes easily.
Organized is Modern Expansionist: Lets you handle lots of cities by the late game. But considering the early game is still the most important, this one sucks.
Expansionist is Perfectionist: Doesn't help you expand outwards, but helps you expand upwards.
Spiritual is Organized: Rather than being the civic of peaceful transition, this is the civic of constant reorganization and micromanagement.

Again, all the traits are useful in certain contexts. But some can be ridiculously powerful, and some can be unbelievably useless. They should always be useful, never too powerful, never too weak. And it couldn't hurt to make them more in line with their description.

 

[harry_horse]

There is certainly a lot of value in switching civics I do this regularly, since there is only 1 turn of anarchy.

 

[Astax]

EXPANSSIVE should be able to atleast chop down jungle fromt he start :/ if not chop trees also (Altough chopping em without bronze shouldnt yield production or maybe yield a percentage). Or keep it as it is and add production from chopping jungle. Makes sense to me!

 

[Common Sensei]

TOO POWERFUL WHEN
Financial: Cottages blossom into towns -- HUGE money.

Also, keep in mind that a cottage on a square next to a river gets the bonus gold as soon as the cottage is built. It doesn't have to wait for growth. If your capital is built along a river, and you beeline for Pottery, you're getting a big jumpstart.

 

[EmperorNapoleon]

Organized and Spiritual are very balanced - besides, don't you think balance flaws that obvious would be caught by the testers? Well I PM'ed Sullla, and this is what he has to say:

Organized is much like the Commercial trait in Civ3 - it's very useful, but it operates "under the hood" so to speak, where players don't really see it working. Organized can save you an immense amount of money each turn if you're running expensive civics and/or have a large amount of territory. It also helps out more on the higher difficulties, and becomes more and more powerful the longer the game goes on.

New players are not likely to "see" the effects of Organized, since 1) it's not immediately obvious that you're saving tons of money when you're Organized, and 2) Organized literally does nothing when you first start out a game. Try looking at the Financial advisor (F2) a lot, and you'll realize just how useful half-cost civics can be. Or, take a look at the Succession Game that Sirian and I are playing - if we were Organized, we'd be saving more than 30 gold per turn!
In short, I don't buy the argument that Organized is underpowered.

Sullla

When I asked if Financial was better...

Not necessarily. A lot depends on the map that you're playing. On maps with a lot of water, Financial tends to be very powerful. On a Pangaea or all-land map (like Lakes or Great Plains), Financial tends to be considerably less strong. Again, you'll have to experiment more with different civics and difficulty levels to form an opinion, but for what it's worth, myself and several of the other expert testers felt that Organized wasn't underpowered. (We did predict that it would quickly become the most mis-understood trait, however! )

Sullla

Hope this puts people's balance fears to rest

 

[Gunner]

Organized is Modern Expansionist: Lets you handle lots of cities by the late game. But considering the early game is still the most important, this one sucks.

How does Organized help you significantly in the late game? By then you are usually using advanced civics most of which are low cost. And you also already have built the courthouses and harbors which are organized's real advantages I think.

Where you thinking that it reduces the city maitinence costs?

 

[dh_epic]

How does Organized help you significantly in the late game? By then you are usually using advanced civics most of which are low cost. And you also already have built the courthouses and harbors which are organized's real advantages I think.

Where you thinking that it reduces the city maitinence costs?

It's indirect. The cost of running civics depends on the number of cities you have. And late in the game, it's not a nobrainer to use cheap civics like free speech. This is often the best time to combine Police State with Vassalage and Theocracy. The end result is that organized civs can handle the weight of a huge empire much more easily.

The problem with organized is it really only comes into play late in the game, when it's already over (usually you can tell if you've won the game by 1000 AD, if not sooner)... unless you're playing a game where you start at the industrial or modern era.

I'll always pick financial over organized. Organized is useful in this very specific context (late game, high cost civics), whereas financial is pretty much always useful, and sometimes CRAZY powerful. That suggests that a rebalance is necessary.

 

[DarkSchneider]

About the only thing that keeps Financial fom being overpowered is that you have to build cottages rather than farms. Personally, I like farms better, especially after refrigeration, since they allow me to support a huge number of specialists in my towns. Combine that with Representation, and those specialists are doing more for my research than the financial tiles could.

As far as I can tell, the optimal Civic set for most of the game is:
Representation, Free Speach, Emancipation, Free Trade, Free Religion. Notice that a lot of these Civics have the word 'Free' in the title! This certainly isn't helping Organized as a trait.