How would you change Prot. & Imperialistic?

[Jamuka]

Make surplus food count for the settler production bonus.

Protective? the espionage bonus sounds good.

 

[Antilogic]

I'm working with a mod right now that addresses the trait balance, to some extent. Much of my improvements are "indirect" in the sense that they do not directly affect the trait but rather what the trait already has.

For one thing, I gave great generals the ability to start Golden Ages. Obviously, this gives Imperialistic a slight up because they now have the option of having more Golden Ages. Also, I tacked double production of monuments onto Imperialistic, because it seemed like a really good fit for the trait and also helps the early land-grab strategy.

For Protective, I changed the castle building. The castle is a really unfocused building: it has culture, espionage, city defense, and trade routes. It seems like Firaxis just kept adding benefits to it because few players wanted to build the original. As a fix, I removed the trade route bonus, made it obsolete at Rifling instead of Economics, and gave it +1 with Hereditary Rule. Now, everyone has the ability to get additional happiness through building castles if you stay under a monarchy. And, Protective leaders spend less time constructing them.

With playtesting, I might increase that to +2 with Hereditary Rule, but at a glance, that makes a city with a single garrison and Castle equal to the Representation happiness bonus, so I've held off on that for now.

 

[Dirk1302]

Yes I actually saw that post a while ago. It was interesting but not what I was looking for, the changes were way too radical.

Ok so I played around with the XML and came up with this to start.

Prot: +1 Esp per city
Imp: 1/2 Stables

AND for everyone +1 Esp on walls.



Why: So the 1/2 stables is actually pretty good seeing how a lot of Imp. leaders have a mounted UU.
I couldn't figure out how to give Esp on walls for only a specific trait, nor could I decide between 1 or 2 Esp, so this is like a happy medium. Also makes walls more attractive in general which I think is a good thing.

Oddly enough the change worked on new games but when I loaded old ones they don't have any effect.

Because these trait values are only read at startup.

 

[Antilogic]

I used to hate Imperialistic but I think it's pretty powerful as it is. Early settling can make or break a game in most cases so faster settlers is a good things. Obviously though settlers eventually become useless.

Protective could benefit from say double production speed for Security Bureau. It isn't awesome but it is "Protection" from spies.

I think every trait should have at least one "double production" building. People say it'd be overpowered but I still think that Financial leaders should have double production Banks.

I didn't see this before, but I suggest Customs Houses as Financial's double production building. They arrive after Banks, if I recall correctly, and not every city is going to benefit from them. Thus, the effect is smaller but still appreciable.

 

[JammerUno]

PRO is killer after GP, and useful from feudalism/machinery so why change it?

IMP can be a powerhouse, mined plains hills give 6H toward settlers, so any site with a 6F tile and 3 plains hills will get your four 6 yield tiles, perfect for spamming settlers.

 

[Belisar]

Aggressive and Protective should be combined. Leaders would still keep agg or pass personalities.

I like this. Call it militaristic:
Cheap rax/stables/drydock + melee units get C1, archers get CG1 and gunpowder get both.

 

[futurehermit]

Make it so that the imperialistic settler bonus includes hammers converted from food. This is a huge issue imo that weakens the trait. Also, I like the idea of cheaper jails.

Protective is just weak imo, but shouldn't be beefed in ways that cater to the AI's strength with protective. The reason protective is weak in single player (at least at emperor and below) is that the AI sucks at warfare. I can't remember the last time I built a wall or castle. No need. Also, when was the last time the AI was assaulting my cities with such force that I really benefitted from the archer bonuses?

I would say that bonuses to espionage would be interesting. +1 espionage from walls and even an espionage boost to castles is a good idea. Along with cheap security bureau and/or agencies (the building at communism).

Combined, this would make HRE an interesting candidate for running an espionage economy.

 

[Earthling]

I like some of the suggestions on here; had a rather nice overhaul in mind for my mod though:

Changes to traits:
Expansive - lose 25% worker. (ie no bonus) Increase production of aqueduct or something - I know it seems lame this is all health trait but that's better IMO, I hate worker/settler bonuses and this one especially is lame.
Imperialistic - lose 50% settler. (ie no bonus) -50% maintenance from distance to palace.
Protective - No changes

Other factors that work into balance:
-State Property no longer gives maintenance bonus (also gives food from farms instead of workshops/watermills). Representation will give -50% from # cities.
-Military Upkeep. Units cost 2-3 times as much than before if you have extra. City Garrison promotion, + buildings like barracks, walls, castles, bunkers, etc... allow you to "garrison" more troops in a city and not pay upkeep. So your protective archers chill for free as a city militia while invading axes pay heavy costs.
-AI bonuses will almost certainly be less due to these and many other changes in the mod, so there isn't so much abuse of AI still spamming, say 8 settlers in 50 turns.

Suggestions here I like are discounting drydocks/customs houses - I could see putting these on imp, moving stables to aggressive.

Without a mod as a whole, I'd probably just:
-change walls/castles a little to help out pro.
-Maybe give/trade building bonus to imp; I like the idea of imp getting a bonus towards ships somehow.

 

[Gooblah]

I would just extend the benefits of Walls and Castles. I love Imperialistic (esp Catherine).

Walls should give +1 espionage per city, and (as everyone says) the lifetime of Castles should move from Engineering -> Economics to Engineering -> Artillery or something.

 

[pi-r8]

Make it so that the imperialistic settler bonus includes hammers converted from food. This is a huge issue imo that weakens the trait. Also, I like the idea of cheaper jails.

Yeah, I'd do this. I was going to suggest giving free walls to protective, but ironically that would actually weaken since the wall chop exploit is so powerful.

 

[Unconquered Sun]

I'd remove Protective's bonus for Walls and Castles, eliminating the overflow exploit, and add some decent bonus instead.

 

[Antilogic]

Make it so that the imperialistic settler bonus includes hammers converted from food. This is a huge issue imo that weakens the trait. Also, I like the idea of cheaper jails.

Protective is just weak imo, but shouldn't be beefed in ways that cater to the AI's strength with protective. The reason protective is weak in single player (at least at emperor and below) is that the AI sucks at warfare. I can't remember the last time I built a wall or castle. No need. Also, when was the last time the AI was assaulting my cities with such force that I really benefitted from the archer bonuses?

I agree with you on Imperialistic, esepcially because that first settler is more often than not fueled by a floodplains farm or some other food resource (okay, and chopping). However, I don't have any idea how to mod that.

If I might pry, what do you think of boosting Protective indirectly using the method I outlined above? Nobody gave any feedback on the happiness through civics idea, which I thought was clever.

 

[pi-r8]

If you're running hereditary rule, happiness usually isn't a problem. Even with protective, I think a garrison unit would be cheaper than a castle, so you're never going to want to build a castle just to get +1 happy with hereditary rule.

 

[Cashew]

IMP is pretty powerful, don't touch it.

For serious. People must not be chopping trees much if they don't understand this. And extra generals are always fun.

 

[Belisar]

If I might pry, what do you think of boosting Protective indirectly using the method I outlined above? Nobody gave any feedback on the happiness through civics idea, which I thought was clever.

Usually, by the time you get castles, happiness problems are not as severe as earlier.
That's why Cha is such a strong trait, the possible +2 early on means a lot when you are at 4/5 otherwise, while after HR, Calendar and several other sources, 1-2 is pretty minor, just a successfull ressource trade.

 

[futurehermit]

Yeah, adding +1 but removing the trade route bonus doesn't exactly make me want to build castles.

I like the idea of beefing up the espionage bonuses for protective. Remove the cheap walls/castles to remove the exploit as mentioned above, keep the unit promotions, and add espionage bonuses. Cheap bureaus/agencies and +1 espionage somewhere early, but probably not a pure +1 espionage per city. Walls would be ok.

Fixing castles is a separate issue, but I agree that (1) the shelflife has to be extended. Another part of the issue with castles is that (2) they are on the low road and the high road to liberalism is just flatout stronger, period. The AI almost always takes the low road meaning you can go the high road through liberalism and trade for the low road techs later. This means you get the castle tech...hmm i forget atm what that even is, because i never build them...engineering?...later than you might otherwise. (3) they are a defensive improvement mainly and the AI sucks at war. (4) they do not give good enough bonuses. The trade route and espionage bonuses are pretty good, but do not seem to justify the investment (walls + castle hammers + tech requirements).

I would say (1) extend the shelf life of castles as many have suggested. (2) remove the free tech at liberalism and change GS bulbing preferences to make the high road less desirable. (3) code more of the aggressive AIs like Shaka. (4) increase bonuses to espionage a bit.

 

[Yeosol]

Yea I liked the idea of a HR happiness bonus for Castles. However I do agree Happy isn't as important then. I thought about moving castles to feudalism, but this would make it much stronger for AI's (and annoying to fight that many castles).
So far the consensus I'm seeing is people like the +1 Esp for walls, and moving castles obsolescence back maybe to rifling.

I agree the castle is a little unfocused. Maybe rethinking it's function is the key to this. Happiness is an option. Any other thoughts guys? I wonder if it's possible to have it give a +1 or 2 free unit maintenance. Experience bonus? OR what about +50% trade route yield? That could be something. Through these changes the protective trait its self could be left alone.

For IMP I see a lot of people saying it's great as is. A little background, I usually play on large/Huge maps (and always Epic). As a result expansion is often restricted by economy more then production. I can see how cheep settlers would be amazing on standard maps, especially at high difficultys. For me however it's less usefull. I really like the idea of 1/2 monuments. This would really help. GA for GG seems like too much. I still like 1/2 stables although it's not amazing.

The navy aspect I still like. Any thoughts on Combat 1 for naval units?

 

[Antilogic]

For serious. People must not be chopping trees much if they don't understand this. And extra generals are always fun.

2 chops = 1 turn settler. Usually.

 

[Crusher1]

Grow to your happy cap and achieve 4-5 turn Settler or 1 chop settler with overflow - better use of resources and quicker overall REX.

 

[The Almighty dF]

1. Protective gives a defense boost to all units in your cultural border.

2. Imperialistic gives a maintenance due to distance from palace discount in exchange for lowering the GG boost the trait gives.