How would you change Prot. & Imperialistic?

[Antilogic]

Actually, I'll change my answer a bit lol. My opinions change all the time so -

Imperialistic doesn't need to be changed at all because it's already very strong depending on what other trait it is paired with.

Imo the most overpowering leader in the game is Imperialistic, w/out his UU.

He threw me off the scent. I liked Cre/Org Augustus so much more.

 

[Cashew]

On the contrary, tech leads don't last forever. A small window like rifles vs lbows or infantry vs rifles when siege is involved a little bit can allow drill to win more quickly with the same troops. The faster you get through, the faster you can use those cities or consolidate, and the less WW you endure. It's definitely a plus.

Right. I never said it wasn't beneficial, but relative to agg, exp, imp, and a few other traits I find it inferior.

 

[Frodius]

Im a short time reader and a first time poster, but I thought I would throw my 2 cents on the pile:


I think the protective trait should remain focused on the things that make it harder for other civs to do things to you. Ultimately, once walls and castles are obselete the trait only does that by improving your gun powder units. Of course the only thing you need to protect your civ at the point that walls and castles become obsolete is lots of (probably drafted) gun powder units, which protective helps with quite a bit. Of all the ideas posted in this thread, the ones I like the most are the double speed security bureau.


I think we all agree that castles could be made better by moving there point of obselescence further down the tech tree. Perhaps a more beneficial change could be gained if you moved castles from engineering to feudalism or construction?

This would make going for castles conflict a lot less with going for longbows, and would allow protective civs to dig in earlier, enjoy the economic benefits of castles for longer, and to build them at a point where the double production speed of them would make a bigger difference in terms of turns spent in each city.

Perhaps that would be too many benefits to one tech, but it would also be a bigger boost to protective civs than anyone else, since most games I play with protective civs involve going for longbows early. I guess the oracle slingshot to feudalism would be a no brainer for a protective civ.

Anyways, those are just my rambling thoughts.

 

[TheMeInTeam]

Right. I never said it wasn't beneficial, but relative to agg, exp, imp, and a few other traits I find it inferior.

Me too, unless one uses the wall exploit.

 

[Crusher1]

He threw me off the scent. I liked Cre/Org Augustus so much more.

I used to too until my FE game mechanics changed. With out stone available Augustus is the only leader I know of that can complete the SH (border pops), TGW (no resource has to be hooked up), Mids (best early economy) and found 5 additional cities before 1000 BC every game. Not to mention 2 out of my 3 highest scoring games are with him, w/out using his UU.

So ye, I vote leave imperialistic alone.

 

[Yeosol]

I think we may have stumbled on something here. Imp. & Prot. certainly are support traits. Our problem with them has been you can do very little with them on their own, and I think this is true.
My problem with Imp. was that it caused me to over expand and crash my economy. I thought that was how it was to be used, and it didn't seem to work very well. Because while I certainly grabbed a lot of land, my econ suffered. However maybe Imp. needs to be used very differently for differnt leaders. Pared with Org. or Cre you can expand non stop. However pared with IND. (and maybe most other traits) you don't want to over expand. Instead expand a normal amount and use the saved hammers for other pursuits. Look at the bonus less in relation to quick settlers and more to saved hammers.

Prot. has a similar support role. I always liked Prot for Qin because it gave two big bonuses it wouldn't give other leaders. First it allows you to focus on wonders early using only archers as defence giving a boost to IND. Second it gives a Huge boost to the UU.

Maybe these traits need to be figured out in a less general way and a more specific way.

 

[Crusher1]

However pared with IND. (and maybe most other traits) you don't want to over expand.

Imo this is severely flawed (in regards to Ind). Imperialistic paired with Industrial (w/out stone, i.e, you don't need to rely on a lucky start, you can always count on the trait) sets up one of the more favorable cases to Expand like a crazy person. I say w/out stone because if Julius with Imp/Org has stone around he is a beast, much more than normal. More reasoning why I favor Ind/Imp so highly:

The Mids offer a 100% increase from raw beakers provided by scientist - undoubtedly the strongest research available for a very long time. Imperialistic allows the user to still aggressively REX to 6 cities by 1000 BC. The Mids allow us to run at zero slider and accumulating a lot of gpt while heading up the aplha , currency, col beeline remarkably fast.

This allows you to continue aggressively expanding while building research, then wealth, then courthouses (the 3 of these happen quickly). Quite frequently I will time 6 settlers from my initial 6 cities to correspond with the completion of Alphabet which occurs well before 500 BC. The before and after picture would look something like 6 cities @ 700 BC at zero slider with a random amount of +gpt with at least 180 gold in the treasury. After settling the 6 new cities gpt will plummet to something like -12 to -20 gpt (sometimes more, yikes!).

It might seem kinda bad at that point lol, with 12 cities by 500 BC with massive negative gpt but with strong research from Mid scientist and every city building research, Currency will be finished within 4-6 turns. Then bam, +12 gpt right off the bat. Then, with only 1 or 2 other cities building wealth you end up with + gpt and are still researching full steam ahead - And this is before we even have courthouses. The situation only gets better. Additionally, with so much land being grabbed you will gain more health and happiness resources, many of which could be gold, silver, or gems, making your situation even better than it already is. You now have a Very large empire for around 300-500 BC and are still powering research full speed ahead. From there you simply specialize cities to Wonders, Units, scientist + wealth, etc.

Sure, finanical and organized leaders get a nice boost to pay for REXing but they will never power research as quickly as someone with the mids who will at a minimum have as many cities as they do (Augustus). The ability to power through alphabet and currency at a much quicker date enables the Mid based FE to maintain a larger empire, enjoy faster research, and continue expanding even though - even though they lack the financial or organized trait.

I'm surprised more people don't think Augustus is a monster. I suppose it has to do with the fact many people ignore building research and wealth, or perhaps they do but don't fully understand how to leverage them to their full potential.

Yea, Augustus is a REXing crazy person. So depending on the pairing of traits, as I had originally mentioned in my earlier post, is the resulting factor whether or not they can be used as effectively as some other leaders.

 

[CornPlanter]

I think both of these traits are fine and do not need any changes. Anything more and I'd consider them overpowered (the same stands for any other trait).

The castle is a really unfocused building: it has culture, espionage, city defense, and trade routes.

The castle in those ages was a huge advantage for a settlement. In every single of those aspects. It really makes sense and I'm glad Firaxis did it this way. Though I'd wish castle lasted longer.

The problem with Protective is that it sucks for the human, while in the AI's hands Protective is already plenty strong.

Are you saying that AI is somewhat more competent than human when it comes to Protective? Or are you just saying that protective doesn't fit your playing style (which isn't equal to "sucks" or "underpowered" by any means).

 

[TheMeInTeam]

Are you saying that AI is somewhat more competent than human when it comes to Protective? Or are you just saying that protective doesn't fit your playing style (which isn't equal to "sucks" or "underpowered" by any means).

What I think he was trying to point out is that PRO is not a trait the AI uses to WIN, but rather to PREVENT or DELAY the human from winning. We can spam archers, longbows, and CG gunpowder all game while somebody else actually secures a win condition, too. And, if we box out an AI before doing so, we probably prevent our neighbor from winning...go PRO .

W/o the wall whip PRO is pretty sad, decent (though IMO inferior to AGG due to no 5 xp amphibious and weaker base % odds chance defending siege) utility on offensive gunpowder but that's about it.

 

[The Almighty dF]

What I think he was trying to point out is that PRO is not a trait the AI uses to WIN, but rather to PREVENT or DELAY the human from winning. We can spam archers, longbows, and CG gunpowder all game while somebody else actually secures a win condition, too. And, if we box out an AI before doing so, we probably prevent our neighbor from winning...go PRO .

W/o the wall whip PRO is pretty sad, decent (though IMO inferior to AGG due to no 5 xp amphibious and weaker base % odds chance defending siege) utility on offensive gunpowder but that's about it.

Besides the fact that the wall whip is cheating.
You can claim "Oh it's part of the game so it's not cheating." Is opening up world builder cheating? Both are doing something that wasn't intended to be done while playing, but both -can- be done.
It's not like unrestricted leaders which was entirely intentional (just not well thought out, thanks to Firaxis's method for balancing the civs.)

 

[Iranon]

If it's considered a bug, I'm happy with a fix that removes the bonuses for overflow cash (although I don't think there will be an official world of the developers at this time). Until then, I think it's legitimate. If we start to play around supposed oversights, things become very very complicated since the game is full of holes.

I don't really think this is any different from other little tricks, like maximising failure cash (you can gain get +175% to wonder hammers before you get any gold modifier or sandbagging chop hammers (if you build gold/research, they'll only be applied when you start building something 'real'. Without any decay - great when used in combination with other overflow tricks).

 

[Unconquered Sun]

The wallchop is just as legit as wonderfail cash or Heroic Epic overflow chariots.

 

[PieceOfMind]

or HE+IW+drydock+etc. workboats

 

[Unconquered Sun]

or HE+IW+drydock+etc. workboats

Sure

It really isn't a bug, it's how CIV is intended atm. Do I think it's a good idea to limit gold overflow to whatever bonus Wealth would enjoy? Yes, I do.

For the time being though, Protective, and to a lesser extend Industrious, and to a minor extend Aggressive, are boosted.

 

[The Rook]

Yes. In virtually every game I play with him I spit out 3 quick settlers, 1 of which is aggressively settled towards the nearest AI and that city chops out SH.

You build SH in your second city? What date do you get it? In my games the AI frequently gets SH pre-2800 BC at Deity (I notice in your sig you play Deity). I wouldn't feel 100% confident getting it in the capital with an Industrious leader if the map generator wasn't kind, and Ramesses was about.

 

[TheMeInTeam]

Besides the fact that the wall whip is cheating.
You can claim "Oh it's part of the game so it's not cheating." Is opening up world builder cheating? Both are doing something that wasn't intended to be done while playing, but both -can- be done.
It's not like unrestricted leaders which was entirely intentional (just not well thought out, thanks to Firaxis's method for balancing the civs.)

Others have already addressed why this isn't cheating (especially since it was deliberately introduced...overflow used to be wasted). This is allowed in all game modes I'm aware of (including HoF). If you want to tag THIS as cheating, might as well tag the walls obsoleting at gunpowder and the fact that the AI map-hacks you on worst enemy trades as cheating as well (the AI knowledge of trades is completely ridiculous, at least walls boost an otherwise WEAK trait, rather than worst enemy penalties nerfing an already disadvantaged start).

Fireaxis refuses to patch these things out though, so we use them.

 

[Crusher1]

(I notice in your sig you play Deity).

Deity is a whole different game.

 

[CornPlanter]

What I think he was trying to point out is that PRO is not a trait the AI uses to WIN, but rather to PREVENT or DELAY the human from winning.

Oh but that's another point entirely and it has nothing to do with PRO in my opinion. AI spawns archers anyway, regardless of it's traits. The precise problem here is, that AI doesn't use anything to WIN. Nothing. Apart from Spaceship, and it does it in halfassed way too.

When have you last seen AI trying for domination? A purposefull going dor domination? Or culture? When did you last see AI leveraging something (changing civics every few turns with Spiritual, going full SE with philosophical, etc.?) And I don't even start about diplomation (When the last time AI adapted different religion so that it could get better relations and in turn more votes?). AI does not try to win.

And yes, human can also spawn enough Archers/Longbowmen/Crossbowmen to delay his defeat. Delay it so much that it could win e.g. cultural victory before

 

[TheMeInTeam]

When have you last seen AI trying for domination? A purposefull going dor domination? Or culture? When did you last see AI leveraging something (changing civics every few turns with Spiritual, going full SE with philosophical, etc.?) And I don't even start about diplomation (When the last time AI adapted different religion so that it could get better relations and in turn more votes?). AI does not try to win.

I guess you've never tried to bribe an AI out of war and seen the "we'd rather win the game, thank you very much" message then. It happens, at least on high levels.

The AI is only a threat for space/culture(bts) mostly, however, and to a lesser extent backdoor UN through mass capitulation. However, all of these things are magnified if you lock yourself into a war. As PRO, you get very little to leverage your position into a winning one. However, others being PRO serves to prevent you from doing that quite effectively, by making their primary defenders (which are spammed regardless, yes) far more effective.

You can't successfully flip the argument though! There's one human and typically six AI on a standard map. Fighting one PRO civ as a human can slow you down and cause you to not win, however all you do if YOU are the one who's PRO is slow ONE of your opponents down, such that it won't win and you're a little worse off. Defense isn't optimal in Civ IV unless you can't win an offensive. PRO has its uses, but its far more effective as an AI trait hindering the human than a trait the human uses to exert power.

 

[PieceOfMind]

Which is why PRO is a better trait when you are playing at a difficulty where it is conceivable you could lose. I'd wager that at least 90% of players who find PRO completely useless play at difficulties where they win at least 50% of the time, even on maps with 11 AIs where if they were on a level field it'd be 9% of the time. I'm not trying to argue the high level players don't know what they're talking about, just that people who roll over AIs consistently will not find it as useful.

Also, the "We'd rather win the game thank you" message has nothing to do with any motivation to win the game, other than space race. It's not evidence that the AI tries to win.

Having said that, BtS AIs also try for culture victories. So it is culture and space the BtS AIs try for. Better than nothing, yes. Note, in Better BtS AI the hope is that AIs will try for domination wins as well. Some of the improved decision making is about heading towards domination.