Expansionist trait

[marceagleye]

This civ trait could use more punch. How about this... Every time an expansionist civ builds a settler its city population is reduced by one instead of two. That's much better than just a scout and the ability to build more scouts.

All the other civ traits dwarf expansionist in value. Perhaps the smaller pop reduction is a little too much punch. Maybe half-cost aqueducts and hospitals could be part of the trait. Although this helps growth rather than expansion, at least it would help to alleviate the overall negative opinion of this trait.

 

[marceagleye]

Or maybe the scout should have the ability to either retreat from barbarians or move an additional tile if its turn movement ends next to a barbarian. Every time I play as an expansionist civ I lose my scout to a barbarian before he can finish exploring the landscape. It irritates me tremendously. It's no fun if you have to set barbarian activity to sedentary or none every time you play an expansionist civ. The 25 gold you get every time you bust a barb camp is a big help early so I don't like disabling them.

 

[casual_moose]

but when an enemy unit is within range of attack, even if the unit is moving 60 squares somewhere, doesnt the unit come under your control and you can tell it to attack or move away? isnt that sorta like retreating? i think thats what happens, it happened to me before.

 

[Louis XXIV]

1 Pop Settlers is too unbalancing. I think I would rather it have cheap granaries, aqueducts, and hospitals (but commercial should get cheap Markets and Banks)

 

[Toast]

Maybe Expansionist Civs should get +4 to optimal # of cities, and/or reduce the level of corruption due to distance from capital by 25%.

 

[Louis XXIV]

Corruption reduction is for commercial civs, play as the English if you want expansionist with reduced corruption

 

[RX2000]

I think it wouldnt unbalance things too much if expansionist civs got 50% cheaper granaries, aqueducts, and hospitals. I like that idea a lot Louis. Can anyone come up with a good reason why this wouldnt work?

 

[Louis XXIV]

I heard someone at Poly give a reason, I'll post it when I find it again (I stole that idea from someone else at Poly, so I'd better give him credit )

The complaint was that starting with cheap Granaries would be too powerful.

BTW, this can be tested with the editor (accept for commercial civs, IIRC)

 

[Louis XXIV]

By any chance, does Poly delete posts after 2 pages?

I can't find it, so I can't give credit.

I still think it is a great idea, and expansionists won't become super civs (religious civs still get free statue of Liberty and cheap culture, so it might balance out)

 

[Bamspeedy]

Originally posted by casual_moose
but when an enemy unit is within range of attack, even if the unit is moving 60 squares somewhere, doesnt the unit come under your control and you can tell it to attack or move away? isnt that sorta like retreating? i think thats what happens, it happened to me before.

Well, yes, if the unit still has any movement points left, he will stop. The scout moves 2 tiles/turn. If he runs into a barb on that 2nd tile, he is a dead man.

1 Pop Settlers is too unbalancing. I think I would rather it have cheap granaries, aqueducts, and hospitals (but commercial should get cheap Markets and Banks)

Geez, who would ever build the Pyramids if you can get 30-shield granaries? I do like the idea of half-priced aqueducts and/or hospitals, though.

Expansionists isn't that bad, really. Even on smaller maps they can be useful. If you give the scout a defense value, so it can at least defend itself against barbs, that should be a big enough boost for expansionists. And/or give the scout a longer range of vision, so he can see those barbs from 2 tiles away.

 

[Michael York]

I like Bamspeedy's idea. Radar on a scout. However funny it sounds, it would make the unit much better. Afterall, a scout can, theoretically see farther than normal soldiers.

 

[Rob (R8XFT)]

As I mentioned in a similar thread, my "house rules" are that expansionist civs start with 2 settlers instead of a scout. This I use as the UU for the Iroquois.

 

[PurplePacifier]

I don't really disagree with improving the expansionist trait. However, I do see the great advantage that expansionists have over others.

With a scout, you get a better view of the land that you wish to populate. So you can better plan where you want to build your cities to maximize the use of the land and minimize overlapping of squares, and even find the best defensive positions to build cities.

Also if you're as open to sharing technology as the A.I. is, then you can easily have a head start on technology over your rival civs by acquiring the diversity of techs that your neighbors have and trading only the same few techs to them.

So I would say that expansionist civs would just about match up to scientific civs for having a techonologically good head start in the game. I know that A.I. takes good advantage of this civ trait.

I would agree that after this head start and as the years go by, expansionists don't experience any more benefits.

I would suggest that maybe expansionists would have better trade deals against the A.I. because you know the A.I. always rips you for a few percentages higher than you should be paying for.

 

[Speaker]

On anything but an archipelago map, expansionist is one of the best traits, perhaps only worse than industrious, and barely at that. Scouts mean more contacts earlier. More contacts earlier mean cheaper techs and easy brokerage opportunities. When mapmaking comes around, you have the best maps around, gaining a second windfall. The disadvantage that expansionist has is that after the first age there is no more benefit, but if you use the expansionist trait properly in the first age, it doesn't matter. My favorite Civ is by far America. Combine industrious with expansionist and it is easy to become the world power by the end of the first age.

Half-price granaries or 1 pop point per settler would be hugely unbalancing.

 

[alexman]

The expansionist trait is just fine as it is now. In fact, all existing traits are nicely balanced, except perhaps Industrious being too powerful.

 

[Ivan the Kulak]

I agree with you, alexman - even the Industrious civs lose an advantage once they hit the modern age and they've already got every tile improved - all they have to do then is clean up pollution. I'm curious to see what advantages the agricultural and seafaring traits will have, though.

 

[warpstorm]

I think it's a tossup which is better, Industrious or Expansionistic, for my play style.

 

[playshogi]

Here is my 2 cents for this trait
1) Allow the scout to move 2 squares regardless of terrain
2) Expand cultural borders at 9,90,900,9000 vs. 10,100,1000,10000 culture points.

 

[nini1972]

Originally posted by playshogi
Here is my 2 cents for this trait
1) Allow the scout to move 2 squares regardless of terrain
2) Expand cultural borders at 9,90,900,9000 vs. 10,100,1000,10000 culture points.

fully agree,
and pheraps an increased cultural assimilation rate [sorry I don't know how it works in numbers, someone can tell me?]

 

[BomberEscort]

Originally posted by nini1972


fully agree,
and pheraps an increased cultural assimilation rate [sorry I don't know how it works in numbers, someone can tell me?]

I believe it is determined by the government type in the editor