If you can change the Civ 3 triats, what would you do?

[Eukaryote]

Okay, I guess you can change them, at least with conquerers. But what if you could do beyond what the editor lets you? What would you do then?

Heres what I would do:

Expantionist: Keeps the scout and the ability to make more scouts, but the useless goody hut thing is replaced with settlers that cost 1 pop and 15 shields. I consider this verson of the triat is more useful

Agercultral: Both aspects of the triat are replaced with these: Cheap Granery, Hospital, and Aqueduct. +1 food in capital. I consider this verson of the triat neither more or less useful.

Militaryistic: Only difference is your capital starts with a barracks, making this trait slightly more useful.

Industrious: Keeps the extra shields in metros, but the worker bonus is replaces with cheap factorys, power plants, and manufactoring centre. I consider this verson of the triat slightly less useful in vanilla, and neither more or less useful in conquerers. This also makes the triait useless for the first 2 eras.

 

[Turner]

I think they're pretty balanced as it is. I wouldn't change anything.

 

[pol1]

well, i just got used to current traits. i would have to think about it, longer.

but for You suggestions : imagine agri+exp combo (incas now) - overkill !!

it was disputed elsewhere that cheaper granaries would be to much
mil - nice - but AFAIK AI starts with normal set of units for diff lvl (just workers and settlers + scouts if exp) and combat units are spawned after founding capital - so will they be vets or regs (capital would have already rax there)?

 

[Tomoyo]

Expantionist: Keeps the scout and the ability to make more scouts, but the useless goody hut thing is replaced with settlers that cost 1 pop and 15 shields. I consider this verson of the triat is more useful

This would insanely overpower Expansionist civs, even more so than agricultural civs are right now. You're pretty much doubling the land claim that they get, which means you'd double their power, research, etc.

Industrious: Keeps the extra shields in metros, but the worker bonus is replaces with cheap factorys, power plants, and manufactoring centre. I consider this verson of the triat slightly less useful in vanilla, and neither more or less useful in conquerers.

This would make the entire trait useless. Cheap factories? Come on, that's 80 shields saved very late in the game. Completely useless.

 

[SuperBeaverInc.]

I would keep them the way they are. They are fairly well balanced already.

 

[AutomatedTeller]

I kind of like the agri change - the extra food is incredibly overpowered.

The other thing you could do is make *all* cities subject to the despotism penalties, so agri civs don't have an immediate advantage.

What I might do instead of giving expansionists 1/2 price settlers is double the normal cost for all settlers, thus making free ones from a hut even more valuable. It would also radically change the game, of course - if you make creating a new that much more expensive, you will get a much slower expansion. And it will make those levels where the AI gets an extra settler even harder.

But, overall, I don't see any huge imbalances.

 

[Swiss_Mercenari]

I think I would add some new traits, like isolationist and Pro-Western, and Creative and Authoritarian.

I would add a few.

Yes, it is a bit easy too notice this. Traits are cool, too.

 

[TheLoneMan]

I think I would add some new traits, like isolationist and Pro-Western, and Creative and Authoritarian.

I would add a few.

Yes, it is a bit easy too notice this. Traits are cool, too.

Notice what?

 

[Swiss_Mercenari]

Notice that there are flawas in the trait system in Civ3.

 

[Runes]

I would add Isolationist, like, maybe you get the democracy/republic trade bonus but you get a trade penalty or something.

They'd start with like Masonry or something.

Nationalist: This would give huge military bonuses, but affect the bonuses you get from Democracy and Republic.

They'd start with Alphabet. Then you'd have to decrease the value of it, since the AI refuses to trade it for anything less than like two techs.

 

[LawOfFives]

The value of Alphabet is based on its cost; Alphabet costs a lot of beakers for a starting tech. You need two other starting techs, a starting tech and some amount of cash, or a non-starting tech to match its value. So the AI is actually behaving rationally here (for once).

Lo5

 

[LawOfFives]

If I could change the traits, what would I do? I guess I'd reduce the relation between Expansionist and luck. It's nice to have a couple of heavily luck-based and map-based civs. A *couple.* The number of Expansionist civs, meanwhile, is, according to my highly scientific measurement, three metric buttloads. That's more than a couple.

I think a mild settler and/or granary discount -- its exact degree depending on the demands of play balance -- would work just fine.

Agricultural is also highly map-dependent, so having the despotism penalty apply even if on fresh water might be nice, in return for, say, a mild increase in worker speed for the Irrigation task only.

MGL's and SGL's are also luck-based, but at least not map-luck-based, and the more useful SGL's are so rare anyway, that "whatever."

Okay, enough fantasyland.

Lo5

 

[Fried Egg]

I wouldn't say the traits are currently well balanced...For instance:

Expansionist - Easilly the poorest trait and if there is one trait that needs re-balancing, this is it. I'm not sure that getting half price settlers is the best way though. Perhaps halving the levels of culture required for culture expansion would be a good idea? Or else they get free culture in each town?

Religous - Would be ok if the religous buildings (temples and cathedrals) were a little more useful.

 

[LawOfFives]

Fried Egg, surely you don't think a much-increased shot at e.g. an early free settler is without value? Expansionist can be more powerful than any other trait... it's just that it can also be absolutely valueless. And you don't know which until it happens. That's what sucks about it IMO, not that it's strictly speaking a low-value trait.

Lo5

 

[gunkulator]

The real problem with Expansionist is that it is less uselful on higher levels. The AI gets so many free units at upper levels that you hardly ever get any goody huts anyway.

 

[drakdan]

Expansionist needs a definite remodel, but how about Militaristic? Make barracks unavaliable until later in the game, say feudalism, and make the militaristic civs start with the ability to build barracks from the start. Also, make the Palace double as a barracks for unit promotion. Makes it a real strong trait, but Agri is almost as bad.

 

[azzaman333]

On a Huge map, as the Mongols, I popped 2 towns from goody huts. This SIGNIFICANTLY increase my rate of expansion, and since I am aiming for domination in this game, I had over 2 times the land of my largest rivals, almost 3. I am certain that had i not popped 1 of the goody huts in particular, I wouldve had 30% less land (before warring). That is a signifcantly higer amount of land to have to take.

 

[Turner]

Getting an early city is a huge game maker. Getting all the extra research, commerce, and production so many turns earlier really gives you a boost.

I've never had two cities popped, but I've had one city popped several times. One time was fortunate enough to be close to my capital (usually they're way out in the sticks) and the game was so much easier.

Expansionist can be weak, but under the right circumstances it can be right up there with Agri or Industrious.

 

[Stazro]

Several Cities popped... hm, that makes me think of the good old civ1-times, when i got 4 (!) cities from huts in one game - none could stand the might of the chinese

 

[Padma]

I wouldn't change a thing.

I remember all the discussions we had about balancing traits during the Conquests beta. I think they're just about right where they are, now.