Charismatic Vs. Aggressive

[IAM]

27 post Weaselslapper; I hope I spelled that right... most excellent post.

 

[Udey1]

voted Charismatic... As did everyone else. 62-0 so far. I am sure someone will choose Agg eventually to be a ccccc-ombo breaker

 

[eireksten]

Agh! Drafting and Cheap Barracks Tokugawa ftw!

I don't know, though charismatic is a decent trait, I've never had much fun playing it...

 

[mirthadir]

Cha is flexible, actually being very useful in completely peaceful games. Agg is a one hit wonder - go beat something up more efficiently. Cha wins just in military terms for:
1. Applying to all units - most importantly SIEGE and MOUNTED. To a lesser extent naval and air are also ownage with CHA.
2. CHA makes it much easier to open up the HE.
3. CHA allows you to get nearly 3 promo units (1XP down) in all cities with ease.

 

[mariogreymist]

I don't think Naval is a "lesser extent" advantage with CHA. Ever see what CHA privateers can do when you get to Chemistry first? I've had fleets of blitz destroyers on the day I discovered combustion with Cha leaders. And even w/out a big tech lead, in a warlike world, Frigates/SotL are pretty much the same story. Put West Point and settle a couple of GGs in a good coastal production city, and you will be generating blitz naval units out of the box! (again, easy to do when you get those privateers out against caravels/galleons)

 

[Rittmeyer]

I don't even understand how both can be compared. Charismatic is excellent, agressive is plain bad (only imperialistic and protective are that bad, or worse).

 

[Udey1]

I don't even understand how both can be compared. Charismatic is excellent, agressive is plain bad (only imperialistic and protective are that bad, or worse).

whoa whoa whoa, Lets not say things we cant take back! unless we edit them.

 

[Aaroc]

whoa whoa whoa, Lets not say things we cant take back! unless we edit them.

I don't see anything in his post worth taking back. Protective is a pretty bad trait unless you play as China or maybe sitting bull (china because of their Cho-ko-nus and Sitting Bull because of his totem poles). And really, it's just more of an annoyance, especially since I always seem to start surrounded by protective leaders, which means I often don't have any chance of declaring wars until at least construction (and usually by that time, my opponents have researched vassalage and thus have longbowmen for me to contend with, which pushes my wars back even more)

One might get some decent use out of IMP if they were playing a marathon game, but even then I think the exp it takes to get a great general is scaled with the game speed, so it's still not that great, aside from an early rexxing.

Aggressive, on the other hand I used to love. Kubai Khan was my favorite leader for a while when I played on Warlord because of his Creative and Aggressive mix, but lately aggressive has just lost its luster for me. There are a bunch of better traits to shoot for than aggressive, I think.

 

[mirthadir]

I don't think Naval is a "lesser extent" advantage with CHA. Ever see what CHA privateers can do when you get to Chemistry first? I've had fleets of blitz destroyers on the day I discovered combustion with Cha leaders. And even w/out a big tech lead, in a warlike world, Frigates/SotL are pretty much the same story. Put West Point and settle a couple of GGs in a good coastal production city, and you will be generating blitz naval units out of the box! (again, easy to do when you get those privateers out against caravels/galleons)

Ehh, Naval strength is mostly a game of tech leads and numbers; if you get a tech lead it really doesn't matter if the ships are CHA or not, you will still crush the AI. Conversely, if you are down a tech (until around flight) there is little being CHA will do for you to come back.

Each 10% bonus is an effective 121% increase in combat strength in the long haul getting two promos up gets you a whopping 144% effective strength increase ... which is decidedly inferior to just getting an extra naval pump up and running (200% if your baseline is one, 150% if your baseline is 2). The ability to take an extra city or three, thanks to getting CRIII cannons vs rifles for instance, utterly dwarfs what promos give you at sea. Even if CHA lets you completely hose the AI at sea ... at the end of the day you can only blockade and sap up a limited amount of production. Useful, but rarely even war winning, let alone game winning. The backbone of beating the AI tactically is collateral damage; most often that's SIEGE, more rarely air, and finally missiles (nukes or otherwise). You can win efficiently without siege - which is two move warfare using spies ... this would be mounted, choppers, and armor. As siege or mounted are your mainstay damage mechanisms - where MOST of the you destroy are going to be taken down - until air/nukes this makes them the paramount strength.

And for the record I've maxed out promotions on a leadership CHA Privateer (I eventually had him hunting frigates in peace time); at the end of the game I ran out of promotions; but I still killed more enemy units on land by far than on the naval side.

Agg is definitely in my bottom two traits. Cheap rax is useless in so many cities (cheap walls -> castles is at least useful in peace). CI is only useful if you are going to war with units that get it; cannons and mounted not being effected limits its utility.

IMP is just too useful at securing extra territory early.

 

[madscientist]

I don't even understand how both can be compared. Charismatic is excellent, agressive is plain bad (only imperialistic and protective are that bad, or worse).

Imperialistic can be the most valuable tech at higher difficulties, securing the best city sites because you got settlers out faster can overcome alot of other good traits.

Regarding the eternal Protective bashing, you gotta remember that alot of leaders have traits/UBs/UUs that feed into the trait

Churchill Charismatic drafted redcoats are the best in the game.

Toku's gunpowder units, three free drafted promotions!

The Chinese CHo-nuks.

Sitting Bull's mega archery units that retain those promotions upon upgrade. Drill IV Longbows turn into very nasty Crill IV rifles.

Charlemagne with extra Great Generals, and the game's best UB plus a REXING trait (IMP) are very dangerous if used correctly.

Saladin and Wang are probably the worse leaders with Protective however the other traits well off-set that disadvantage.

 

[WeaselSlapper]

I'm going to be honest with everyone and say that I was not expecting this kind of reaction to my simple little pole, nor was I expected the overwhelming one sided results (currently the pole is 89 to 6). However I did learn something that I hadn't considered was the extra benefit aggressive gave to the early axe rush (I don't know why I didn't think of that when I do use it from time to time). However I still feel that CH is the better trait due to it's vastly superior flexibility.

 

[DigitalBoy]

*double post*

 

[DigitalBoy]

Charismatic is the stronger trait overall. +2 is potentially ~50% more worked tiles in the early game for the same amount of cities; that's a massive boon to productivity, and it's always useful.

From a promotion standpoint, I think free Combat I trumps -25%XP for promotions, but charismatic doesn't get pigeonholed into using melee/gunpowder units. Like previous posters have said, aggressive is useful primarily for rushes and for drafting.

 

[Udey1]

edit not worth my time.

 

[Rittmeyer]

Pro abuse via UB/UU was not even my point. I'm talking about the trait's features, and they are pretty bad. Even when combining the UU power, I still don't like the trait. I'd rather be Elizabeth and get earlier to rifles so that I'll attack longbowns with them, then be Churchill and face rifleman with "super" Redcoats. As of japan, tokus traits are so bad that in bad starts/maps i'll problably not even get to gunpowder in a decent enough position to win out of super draftees. Again, I'd rather have good traits to get better land/tech and go for a tech advantage war then having super promoted gunpowder units at tech parity (or worse).

Also, I don't see the point in comparing Combat I to the promotion discount. The big deal with CHAR, imo is the +2 happinesse right in the beggining of the game. That's an economy trait, not a war trait. I see the promotion discount as merely a plus.

IMP, I still think is pretty bad. I play IMM, not deity, but I don't see this big advantage in fast settlers. Go faster then you should and what you'll have is a broken economy. If you are so close to your neighbour that you can't get good settling spots at normal build speed, then you are better of rushing anyways. Again, I'm talking Immortal. Looks like you can't rush in Deity, from what I see people posting, so maybe IMP is better at that difficulty.

 

[mariogreymist]

Ehh, Naval strength is mostly a game of tech leads and numbers; if you get a tech lead it really doesn't matter if the ships are CHA or not, you will still crush the AI. Conversely, if you are down a tech (until around flight) there is little being CHA will do for you to come back.

Each 10% bonus is an effective 121% increase in combat strength in the long haul getting two promos up gets you a whopping 144% effective strength increase ... which is decidedly inferior to just getting an extra naval pump up and running (200% if your baseline is one, 150% if your baseline is 2). The ability to take an extra city or three, thanks to getting CRIII cannons vs rifles for instance, utterly dwarfs what promos give you at sea. Even if CHA lets you completely hose the AI at sea ... at the end of the day you can only blockade and sap up a limited amount of production. Useful, but rarely even war winning, let alone game winning. The backbone of beating the AI tactically is collateral damage; most often that's SIEGE, more rarely air, and finally missiles (nukes or otherwise). You can win efficiently without siege - which is two move warfare using spies ... this would be mounted, choppers, and armor. As siege or mounted are your mainstay damage mechanisms - where MOST of the you destroy are going to be taken down - until air/nukes this makes them the paramount strength.

And for the record I've maxed out promotions on a leadership CHA Privateer (I eventually had him hunting frigates in peace time); at the end of the game I ran out of promotions; but I still killed more enemy units on land by far than on the naval side.

I will concede the point with a caveat: at higher levels this is all very true. At levels where a long-term monopoly on Chem can be achieved (prince and below) Cha Privateers can flat-ass win the game by isolating your enemies (use them to ambush more than blockade). This both disallows intercontinental tech trading (except with the human player), and allows for major intercontinental wars to be fought (with massive tech disparities no less) with no diplomatic repercussions. I've found with non-cha leaders, developing privateers that can take frigates is simply too many promotions to achieve by the time people start getting chem. Of course, I probably played Prince level far longer than I should have, and if you can pull this off, you should probably go to a new level. Not to mention, maintaining that many naval patrols on a map large enough to make this tactic pay makes turns take an insufferably long time. I think the first and last time I used this approach I ended up taking something like 60 hours to complete a marathon/huge conquest.

 

[Brownsfan02]

i like aggresive, my strategy works well with it

 

[Cusanus]

I'd rather be Elizabeth and get earlier to rifles so that I'll attack longbowns with them, then be Churchill and face rifleman with "super" Redcoats.

Have you done the math on this?

 

[vicawoo]

Which would you guys rather have, a typical UU or aggressive (replacing the UU with a 3rd trait)?

 

[Absolute Zero]

Aggressive, as it would apply to many, many units throughout the game, while a UU would only be useful for one era. Unless that UU is something like the Praetorian or Quechua, which can be game-winning.

In the case of some UUs, a free Combat I would be better than their current special bonus.