Imperialistic trait

[Ricci]

Frankly, I like a little imbalance in the game. And besides, what of the other leaders? Victoria, say, with the Imp/Fin combo. Or Catherine with Cre/Imp.

Personally, I'd rather see the UU, UB, and starting techs balance. Then, assign the traits as best as possible, trying to keep a little with the historical personalities that we are representing. Then, let the cards fall as they may. Persia and Rome may be a little bit stronger, but that's not a major issue--sometimes, I want a challenging civ, and if I'm going up a difficulty level, I may want a strong civ. Or, at least I'm sure there are people out there who may appreciate this.

Needless to say. Ever played with the balanced resources option?.. guess not. It will be too dull of a game if there wasn't the variety and shuffleness there is in the best game ever. Besides, there are so many facts going on on a gameset (terrain, strategic/general resources, neighbours), all to cope with the leader traits and your personal strategy.

Indulge me:

This same night i went to a friend's place to continue with one "challenging' MP game. This Kublai guy had more tech than us, more land, and of course a much larger army. All of a suden we (playing as Ramses) managed to exchange chemistry for paper, astronomy, education and the printing press, plus some 2000 in gold. Immediately upgrading that fleet of caravels to frigates and vanishing one long kept GG into an admiral warlord, thus giving one aditional promotion to our now brand new ten large frigates fleet, was the only way of regaining the edge in a naval warfare we were about to dramatically loose and sufer. Conclusion, our two and three times promoted vessels beat down some five mongol frigates in their's rapidly reached shore and anchored about another 10 cargo galleons within a city's port ready to launch a full scale invasion over Egypt the turn before.

Of course, i won't argue this imperialistic trait to be as easy to use as financial or agressive (that's to be honest why so many players find them the goodest), but it is for sure as exploitable as any other. I believe though that in lower speed mods like marathon (were all tech/civics/GP's advance is slower relatively to units movement and cultural expansion amongst other issues) this trait is particularly better. Financial is a more balanced trait here (tile yield is more balanced with other systems), but that would be a completely new issue for discussion.. right.
Keep in mind that the benefit of having settlers and workers earlier is exponential. Nevertheless it is both game appealing and relevant for imp to have espionage bonnuses in BtS. As well as protective should have some bonnus in counterespionage. Surely we are going to find either of these, if not both.

 

[Tarkeel]

Just throwing out an idea here.. How about altering Military Academy slightly?
Allows 1 military specialist; which will give +1 experience for units built in that city. This will also give a way to generate great general points in a peaceful way.

Also, consider that there are only 3 traits that don't give bonuses to buildings; the others being Financial (which had it's building removed) and Charismatic (which doesn't need it). Customs house comes to mind as a great candidate; as has been pointed out before: Imperialism is as much about economic might as military might.

 

[Watiggi]

It appears Imperialistic does get some sort of bonus afterall (at least indirectly):

The seige units cannot generate anymore than 1 xp. If it survives, it withdrawls. This means that the only way to get it to 10xp (CR III) is by either having it win 10 battles, by building up on Barracks, Pentagon, Stables, etc, or by using a Warlord. AFAIK, the Warlord is still the same (I've yet to generate one), which gives a whole new level of importance to the +2xp and - imo, more importantly - the Warlords +20xp, and thus, the ability to generate even one or two more.

How much of a bonus remains to be seen. It's interesting though.

 

[Ricci]

It appears Imperialistic does get some sort of bonus afterall (at least indirectly):

The seige units cannot generate anymore than 1 xp. If it survives, it

Right. So, settlers now cost 300 h/f.

So much for this trait.