I still can't get over protective trait

[Akbarthegreat]

Also, does anyone ever build castles for the +1 trade route? I almost never build walls and castles unless I am PRO or running heavy espionage. Walls and castles are pretty cheap though...is it worth the hammers for the trade route if you aren't paying PRO or running lots of spies?

In short, No. Because I like Economics and FM, and so they get obsolete quickly.

 

[ChanceDanger]

Castles are more highly regarded for their +25% espionage bonuses. If you're going to run an espionage economy, then they are a worthy build. In those case you'd probably want to avoid economics for a while anyway. It also isn't a bad idea for a ToA city, assuming you've built it.

Protective itself is situational, does not mean you can got stackless because of your uber archers, but a few leaders have some great synergy with it (Qin and SB). You also get above average gunpowder drafts. It's not a perfect trait, but hey, it is necessary for Deity AW games, so it has its uses.

 

[bhavv]

Wow, I just checked into this section to discuss an interesting Gilgamesh game I just started playing, and this thread was right at the top and very fitting for what I wanted to say.

As most people know, Gilgamesh is one of the top tier non Fin or Org leaders for several reasons:

- Creative for free border pops and fast libraries

- Best possible starting techs with agriculture and the wheel, can research Writing very fast and abuse fast libraries and early Great Scientists

- Vultures, easily the most powerful ancient era UU

- Ziggurats at priesthood, cheaper and quicker courthouses.

______

Now a lot of people consider his Protective to be a drawback - Why would you build Archers when you can have Vultures? One huge reason - starting with no copper, and having a nearby enemy capital you want to rush. This is exactly what happened in my current game, I started in rush range of Genghis Khan. I have a capital with an exceedingly rare plains hill Silver in its BFC (right on the tundra edge), a gold resource in between me and Genghis, and amazingly a Gems resource right next to Karakorum.

I opened my techs with Mining > BW and to my dismay, no copper. In fact the nearest copper was on the other side of Karakorum, so if I want gems to add to my silver and gold, plus copper, I need to rush Genghis! So I immediately teched Hunting > Archery next while building a barracks, and then chopped 8 Archers upgraded with cover, sent them over to Karakorum, and now I have Silver, Gold, Gems and Copper secure, PLUS Ivory nearby to the Mongolian capital too!

And thats not the only usefulness of Protective either, next I did what I always do with Gilgamesh - Build the Great Wall. Normally this isnt an important wonder, but I want to take advantage of all of the following:

- Early cheap Ziggurats = faster Espionage points
- Protective = cheap castles +25% espionage points
- Great Wall to try and secure a Great Spy to solidify my Espionage lead.

As strange as it seems, what most people consider to be Gilgamesh's weak point is actually a powerful safety blanket if he starts without Copper nearby for an Archer rush, plus he is the most capable leader for setting up an Espionage economy. Protective is simply fantastic for him along with all of his other amazing traits.

I'll make a recording of this game at some point because it is a very unique and rare situation to be doing an Archer rush with Gilgamesh, and an even rarer occurrence to have silver gold and gems all secured in the early game.

Heres the video, Gilgamesh without copper doing an Archer rush

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=n8YmWFyDryM - Watch in HD

 

[noto2]

Hey honestly, I used to think the protective trait was worthless, then I started playing multiplayer games and when I play single player I now use "aggressive AI", and I play on a higher difficulty level. Now I appreciate the protective trait. The ideal situation, facing an invasion stack, is to have your own stack, and hit it with siege first and then your units, getting an advantage with your being able to make the first move, but we all know in Civ you aren't always in an ideal position. When an enemy army invades it can spend time pillaging your land, which gives you time to position your forces to take it out - or it can try to quickly take your city. The protective trait allows you to hold off a large force with a much smaller force, forcing your opponent to suicide his stack on your city or spend centuries bombarding down defences, meanwhile you can easily defend your city with nothing but archery units, units that require no special resources. For those of you who say siege wrecks all - it simply does not. You think a large stack of catapults will take a longbow defended city? I say no. If your opponent rolls in with, say, 5 catapults and 15 swords and you have an equal hammer amount of longbows - that's what...15 longbows? His army will die a horrible death attacking that city. Even 10 longbows would win. Especially if they're protective. 5 catapults hitting 10 D2 longbows do very little collateral, so those swords would be facing near full health longbows.

 

[TheMeInTeam]

- Vultures, easily the most powerful ancient era UU

No. Neither of his uniques are remotely near tops of their "era". Vultures compete with war chariots, immortals, quechas, and skirmishers -----> not happening. They're behind all of them (possible exception is MP, where quechas are weaker but the others are all better). One could argue it's not even the best axe UU.

Zig is useful but not spectacular, worst of the courthouse uniques but still above average as a UB and spammable for EP if you go that way. CRE is a solid trait. PRO is bad but not really useless except in MP where people will ignore the archers in cities if they're in #'s until siege. The AI on the other hand can and will throw away dozens of units vs protective archers so it gets a marginal boost for SP.

Still, a very average UU and a bit above-average UB do not a great civ make. Sury is better despite a junk UU. I would take any of the 3 american leaders or 2 german leaders even though they're like playing without any uniques over gilgamesh. Guys like pericles are better in just about every way. Most other CRE leaders do also.

Gilgamesh isn't terrible by any stretch and his AI behavior keeps him as a factor in most games (expands a lot, likes HR, can stay alive and even kill people), but best non-cre? No way, and PRO is a contributing factor as to why along with lackluster (if still useful) uniques.

 

[bhavv]

I said Gilgamesh is 'one of' the top non Fin / Org leaders, I rate Sury and Pericles as the top two and Gilgamesh as 3rd. I dont Think Catherine is as good as she cant recover from a rex as well.

In terms of rush civs, he is also behind the ones you mentioned, Quechas, Chariots and Immortals. I dont hovever think that any of the other unique Axe units are better as they are all weaker against Archers, and Skirmishers beat anything for an early game rush, be it Quechas or Immortals as well.

Ziggurats save you a lot of turns - You get to build them sooner than courthouses, and they allow you to skip CoL to pick up Literature or Metal Casting first instead. If you combine them with them the Great Wall, use it to get a fast Great Spy or two - settle one, scotland yard with the second, you can do quite a lot with early espionage points. Add the faster wall + castle contruction bonus to this on top as well, which while not too significant is still going to net you the most powerful possible espionage economy.

Hatsy is good if you Civic Swap, or plan a culture win, but I never swap civics so for me Pro is actually better than Spi, and I never need either Cre or Spi for a culture game.

Pro's boost in single player isnt that marginal - As you say the AI will throw their units away at anyone, and those CG1 + D2 longbows / crossbows are going. to hold your cities a lot easier. Its simply not as good as most other traits (Agg is worse than Pro IMO).

 

[Mylene]

but I never swap civics so for me Pro is actually better than Spi, and I never need either Cre or Spi for a culture game.

You will have a hard time convincing peoples, with theories like this

 

[AJ11]

...but I never swap civics so for me Pro is actually better than Spi, and I never need either Cre or Spi for a culture game.

*spittake*

 

[bhavv]

You will have a hard time convincing peoples, with theories like this

Sorry, that was meant as a personal opinion. I've tried playing as Spiritual leaders and I never remember to civic swap. Hence it doesnt work well for me.

Please learn to tell the difference between theories and other peoples personal playstyles, it will do you some good to realize that other people dont play the game the way that you do.

 

[AJ11]

Sorry, that was meant as a personal opinion. I've tried playing as Spiritual leaders and I never remember to civic swap. Hence it doesnt work well for me.

Please learn to tell the difference between theories and other peoples personal playstyles, it will do you some good to realize that other people dont play the game the way that you do.

The supercillious Fawlty-esque sneering aside, what is your usual level of play?

 

[bhavv]

The supercillious Fawlty-esque sneering aside, what is your usual level of play?

Emperor - Immortal. I dont even know why that needs to ask.

I attached a current Immortal level save for Gilgamesh just after 1 AD, I didnt need any Pro acrchers in this game, but will be making use of the half cost Castles for an Espionage economy.

Protective is a great synergy for China, Sumeria and Native Americam and with unrestricted leaders Churchill of either Mali or Native America.

Its not any good for any of the other leaders or civs.

At 500 AD with my Ziggurat Spam plus settled Great spy, plus a few Spy specialists having been worked, I had enough EPs to backfill most of my missing techs by stealing them from Willem. Half price PRO Castles will solidify my EP output, and I can leave Willem alone to research everything for me to steal.

Zig is useful but not spectacular, worst of the courthouse uniques but still above average as a UB and spammable for EP if you go that way.

That is exactly what makes it and Protective work well together - you spam cities, then Zigs, then tech to Engineering and spam castles, work spy specialists, steal all the techs you still need. PRO is superb along with the Ziggurat, and you have very powerful early defense if you dont have metal available for Vultures. Later on in the game you can use Gunpowder units with the free promos for both offense and defense.

You also cant call the Zig the worst of the courthouse uniques, its advantage is how much earlier you can get them up, and how much quicker you can recover from an early REX. They cost fewer hammers, became available quickly, and get your EP points filling up. Add Great Wall and Castles to that and use tech stealing.

 

[AJ11]

Emperor - Immortal. I dont even know why that needs to ask.

Interesting. You must be the best Civ player on the planet ever. I cannot imagine playing consistently at Emperor/Immortal level with just the 5 starting civics throughout the entire game.

Actually, let me go back a step: Do you always win those Emperor/Immortal games?

 

[bhavv]

I cant believe how dense that question is.

In any single game I'll spend just 5-10 turns in anarchy.

Spiritual only pays off if you actively civic swap, I.E. swap to caste for most of the time, swap to slavery to whip, and then back to caste. Just picking your favorite civics and sticking to them throughout the game does not disadvantage you at all in Civ IV. Castle espionage points will get you so many more free techs than Spiritual can ever hope to pay off for.

On higher difficulties both Spiritual and Imperialistic are weaker traits than Protective is.

Given enough space to put up enough cities with lots of commerce tiles, I always win yes.

 

[AJ11]

In any single game I'll spend just 5-10 turns in anarchy.

Assuming that those turns of anarchy is for civic changing, you lied when you stated "...but I never swap civics...".

The questions were just me making sure that this was the case before I pointed that out.

By the way, the real reason why Spiritual is devalued is because of the new way Golden Ages work. Your play style is irrelevant.

 

[JesusOnEez]

I have to admit, that if I see a Protective Civ nearby, I'll save him for later (Rifles and Trebs/Cannons) and target someone else for the early rush...especially if it's the Native Americans.

 

[bhavv]

Assuming that those turns of anarchy is for civic changing, you lied when you stated "...but I never swap civics...".

I didnt lie, you simply misunderstood what I meant by civic swapping.

'Civic swapping' in Civ IV strategy terms is not changing out of your starting civics once when better once become available.

It is a focused strategy which relies on continuously swapping civics during the game to take advantage of the Spiritual trait, as in the example I gave above, using Caste System, but occasionally swapping to Slavery to whip production, and then swapping back into Caste.

This 'Civic swapping' strategy is something that I never do, nor remember to do when playing Spiritual Civs. In most of my games I reduce Anarchy turns by only enacting a new policy when two or more are available, including delaying Slavery until I have Hereditary Rule as well and changing to them both at 1 turn of anarchy, and then waiting until Pacifism, Beurocracy and Caste System are all available before swapping to them. Once I have my favorite Civics set up, I never need to swap them again to any other hence why Spiritual is of no use to me.

By the way, the real reason why Spiritual is devalued is because of the new way Golden Ages work. Your play style is irrelevant.

Completely incorrect, regular Civic Swapping under Spiritual can in fact make it a top tier trait for people who play that way. Play Style is 100% relevant to your Civs traits, e.g. why would you play as Tokugawa if you never intend to attack a single AI?

Now if a person is specifically wanting to play a game to set up an Espionage economy, something which I strongly doubt you have ever tried, then that makes Protective a far more valuable trait, especially if you play Gilgamesh and combine that with Early Ziggurats.

If someone specifically wants to play to carry out a Crossbow rush, then again Protective, and China / Native america become the most valuable trait and civs to pick.

I dont think you've even ever tried playing a game as Churchill of Mali or Native America, or as China and successfully executed a Crossbow / early game Archer rush. I've tried this several times, and it definitely makes Protective a very valid and top tier trait if you are aiming to play any of these specific strategies.

 

[AJ11]

I didnt lie, you simply misunderstood what I meant by civic swapping.

'Civic swapping' in Civ IV strategy terms is not changing out of your starting civics once when better once become available.

It is a focused strategy which relies on continuously swapping civics during the game to take advantage of the Spiritual trait, as in the example I gave above, using Caste System, but occasionally swapping to Slavery to whip production, and then swapping back into Caste.

This 'Civic swapping' strategy is something that I never do, nor remember to do when playing Spiritual Civs. In most of my games I reduce Anarchy turns by only enacting a new policy when two or more are available, including delaying Slavery until I have Hereditary Rule as well and changing to them both at 1 turn of anarchy, and then waiting until Pacifism, Beurocracy and Caste System are all available before swapping to them. Once I have my favorite Civics set up, I never need to swap them again to any other hence why Spiritual is of no use to me.



Completely incorrect, regular Civic Swapping under Spiritual can in fact make it a top tier trait for people who play that way. Play Style is 100% relevant to your Civs traits, e.g. why would you play as Tokugawa if you never intend to attack a single AI?

Now if a person is specifically wanting to play a game to set up an Espionage economy, something which I strongly doubt you have ever tried, then that makes Protective a far more valuable trait, especially if you play Gilgamesh and combine that with Early Ziggurats.

If someone specifically wants to play to carry out a Crossbow rush, then again Protective, and China / Native america become the most valuable trait and civs to pick.

I dont think you've even ever tried playing a game as Churchill of Mali or Native America, or as China and successfully executed a Crossbow / early game Archer rush. I've tried this several times, and it definitely makes Protective a very valid and top tier trait if you are aiming to play any of these specific strategies.

Incorrect. Archer rushes are best done with Skirmishers or Chuks. The PRO trait doesn't matter because you are attacking. The CHA trait, on the other hand is far more conducive to an archer style rush due to the decreased cost of promotions.

If you are "rushing" and end up in the grinding phase of warfare (where the PRO trait gives a slight advantage), you are doing it wrong.

As for the word "swapping", I was using the standard English definition. Which definition were you using? Swahili?

 

[bhavv]

The PRO trait does matter because Drill 1 immediately opens up Shock and Cover. You are also just 2 promos away from +25% vs mounted. Churchill of Mali is often recommended and played by many people for this reason alone, more promotions is always better when using units to attack.

The free promos also help in holding cities that you have conquered. Drill promoted archery units can be used very effectively on both offense and defence.

I wasnt using the dictionary definition for 'Civic swapping', I was referring to a common strategy used in Civ IV called 'Civic swapping' to take full advantage of spiritual, your continued hatred for anything to do with either Protective or anything that doesnt agree to whatever your small mind wants to think and believe is astonishing and annoying at the same time.

 

[AJ11]

The PRO trait does matter because Drill 1 immediately opens up Shock and Cover. You are also just 2 promos away from +25% vs mounted. Churchill of Mali is often recommended and played by many people for this reason alone, more promotions is always better when using units to attack.

The free promos also help in holding cities that you have conquered. Drill promoted archery units can be used very effectively on both offense and defence.

I wasnt using the dictionary definition for 'Civic swapping', I was referring to a common strategy used in Civ IV called 'Civic swapping' to take full advantage of spiritual, your continued hatred for anything to do with either Protective or anything that doesnt agree to whatever your small mind wants to think and believe is astonishing and annoying at the same time.

Bonus vs mounted when you are using Archers... You are doing it wrong.

That is all.

 

[bhavv]

You pick bonuses to whatever units the enemies have stacked in their cities when attacking with archery units.