Expansive - a misnomer?

[Ray Patterson]

So far I haven't played many games (always epic, so it takes me a lot of time but that's the way I like it), so I haven't had the need to experiment with many leaders yet. But I've come to wonder about the expansive trait. What is it good for, and why is it called expansive?

It seems to me if you're expanding rapidly you might worry about two things: not getting culture in your new cities, and more importantly, going broke because of maintenance costs. So the real expansive traits are Creative, Organized and Financial. Worrying about health becomes an issue when your cities grow, not when you have more of them...

Therefore it seems to me that the leader who could use expansive to the maximum is Peter. With philosophical it becomes useful to build a lot of farms and cram your cities full of specialists. Or you could go the cottage way by floodplains with Victoria and not ever worry about health until late in the game. That might actually make more sense as then the harbor would interact nicely with financial's extra commerce on water tiles. But either way, it seems to me that expansive is most suitable for civilizations which are not at all expansive.

At least, that's my theory. I'd be glad to know anyone's actual experience with the trait.

 

[Dairuka]

Play Expansive in a Tropical World filled to the brim with Jungles and Floodplains.

Then specifically chose enemy civilizations who don't have the expansive trait.

Oh god, imagine how easy that game would be!

 

[Thalassicus]

I was confused by the Expansive trait when the game came out: I thought it ment you could expand further and have a larger empire. It makes sense; expansive, you can expand your empire. This is actually the Organized trait...which would more logically refer to cities that can grow larger due to good organization. Oh well...

 

[minger]

I see the main (only?) benefit of expansive being the cheap granaries. I always build granaries anyways, but I hate the amount of time it sucks in early game as well as its inability to add culture. I find the health bonus quite useless even in the early game because I feel like health is so easily manipulated even in early game.

Should they make expansive more useful or would that be overpowered?

 

[Silver Marmot]

I'm not really too fond of expansive. I would say that the increased production on graneries is probably more valuable than the health bonus. Then again, I haven't done prince or monarch yet, so the health might be a lot more important there then it is in noble.

 

[Draetor24]

The Romans (Expansive, Organized), which are 2 of the most underused traits by player opinion, are good at exactly that...expanding and dominating. Expansive is for expanding your population and growth rate, while organized is the one for expanding your borders financially.

I like Romans for domination victories.

 

[Shillen]

It means you can expand your cities, not your empire. Your cities can grow larger and faster.

 

[Luhh]

I don't build granaries at all early in the game, unless a city cannot get more than 2 food surplus.

This because the cities will hit their limit anyway because of unhappyness. Granaries are actually more useful imo later on when you want the large cities to quickly reach their potential when you've dealt with the unhappyness problems and don't have crucual units and workers to build, like in early game.

Traits like aggressive can actually be more useful because you can quicker get a strong army early game and protect your quick expansions.

From personal experience, expansive is a very weak trait, unless you badly need the granaries early and your starting location is starved for food.

 

[Shillen]

The granaries are so cheap you'd be crazy not to build them early in every city if you're expansive. Don't forget the health bonus you also get from granaries, letting your cities grow larger as well. If you have more health than happiness then trade some health resources for happy resources. Expansive always lets your cities grow larger and faster. That's a huge advantage.

 

[dh_epic]

Expansive isn't really that expansive at all. Technically, it favors high growth cities, not an expansionistic empire.

Worse yet, I find that happiness is the bigger barrier to growth, not health.

Expansive is just a touch weak, in my opinion.

 

[Dairuka]

Expansive Strengths. -

- Usually Starts with Hunting: Thus - The scout allows for fast exploration, allowing you to scout out new sites and get goodie huts faster than the other civ's.
- First to get a Size 9 city.
- Best Trait to abuse the Slavery Civic due to faster growth.
- Best Trait for late game Specialist Farming. For multiple cities.
- Second Best Trait for late game Great Leader Farming, due to having more Specialists. Add Philosophy and you got a GL farming king.
- Granaries are so cheap that you'd have to have an arrow lodged in your head to be stupid enough not to build them early in the game.

Expansive Weaknesses -

- Usually starts with Hunting: Thus - Doesn't start with a warrior; meaning they have to build a warrior to do the Monarch -> Deity, Worker theft strategy.
- Happiness is still a problem late in the game.
- Granaries are naturally cheap anyways.

 

[Shillen]

Worse yet, I find that happiness is the bigger barrier to growth, not health.

This is why you trade something like deer for gems. Deer is only +1 health until supermarkets whereas gems are +2 happiness with a forge. Then you can trade your only source of pigs for gold. You just gained +4 happiness at the loss of 2 health, but since you're expansive it's as though you got 4 free happiness in your cities from your civ trait.

- Granaries are naturally cheap anyways.

Not if you're building them when your city is size 2-3. You could be getting it built 10 turns sooner, not only letting you build something else but getting the bonus to growth rate faster.

 

[Dairuka]

You could do what Shillen does.

Or you could just... use slavery to rush a building for the low low cost of 3 unhappy civilians.

 

[Luhh]

Shillen... because you can't? Of course I always aim for happyness resources when trading, but still this doesn't seem enough on monarch and higher. The computer are stingy about early resource trading, I don't nkow if this is because they are bad at acquiring them or something, even though they are in their lands.

 

[Dairuka]

Shillen... because you can't? Of course I always aim for happyness resources when trading, but still this doesn't seem enough on monarch and higher. The computer are stingy about early resource trading, I don't nkow if this is because they are bad at acquiring them or something, even though they are in their lands.

That is why my strategy is better!

heh heh heh!

 

[Ray Patterson]

- The scout allows for fast exploration, allowing you to scout out new sites and get goodie huts faster than the other civ's.
- Doesn't start with a warrior; meaning they have to build a warrior to do the Monarch -> Deity, Worker theft strategy.

it's not civ III... techs are not tied to traits. 4 of the 9 leaders with hunting have the expansive trait, 4 out of 7 leaders with expansive have the hunting tech. The 4 are Bismarck, Cyrus, Genghis and Peter, the 5 non-expansive hunters are Alexander, Catherine, Frederick, Kublai and Montezuma (notice how most of them are from the same civ as an expansive leader though). The three non-hunting expansive leaders are Isabella, Caesar and Victoria, who all have Fishing (no coincidence I think, their expansionism is just thought to be more water-based (uhm, Caesar?)). Like people constantly saying that one of the benefits of being spiritual is starting with mysticism... (though only Mansa Musa and Huayna Capac break that rule).

 

[Dairuka]

it's not civ III... techs are not tied to traits. 4 of the 9 leaders with hunting have the expansive trait, 4 out of 7 leaders with expansive have the hunting tech. Like people constantly saying that one of the benefits of being spiritual is starting with mysticism... (though only Mansa Musa and Huayna Capac break that rule).

My post is fixed now. Thank you for pointing that mistake out.

 

[alexti2]

Expansive trait is getting stronger as the difficulty increases. On Deity health problems are severe and there is no early game cure for that. Unlike unhappiness which is easily cured by military units with hereditary rule (and you need military anyway) and religion. So +2 healthy citizen is a large boost. Name 'expansive' sounds a bit strange though,

 

[Astax]

You guys dont play Monarch, try it and you'll know why its called expensive once you cant expand your city beyond size 5

 

[Ray Patterson]

You guys dont play Monarch, try it and you'll know why its called expensive once you cant expand your city beyond size 5

expensive, that's rich

seriously though, that's not the answer. Genghis Khan didn't build cities, he razed them! And Caesar, Victoria, Bismarck and Isabella were empire-builders, not city-boomers. Cyrus I don't know (though I read a quote where he was specifically mentioned by a designer as someone who got his traits because they needed someone with them), and Peter admittedly did pop a big city out of the ground in no time. Still, he was quite expansionistic as well, and I think that is why he got the trait, not because of St. Petersburg.

I'm not saying Expansive can't have it's uses (though other people are), but don't call it expansive!