Leaders and Traits

[thecaesar]

@ lymond: Actually, protective does not suck, if you're in a defensive war. Then it's extremely helpful.

@ dr. turkleton: Neglecting military until rifles?!?! No way! I would start building a military in the longbow/mace/knight era, at LEAST.

And also, I would choose certain people to have good diplo relations with. It's easy if you have the same religion. Otherwise, just pick maybe two people to be friends with -- not too far away, so they can help you war, but not too close, or close borders and need for expansion will ruin your relationship. These people you should give almost whatever they demand; just think of it like, "If I give them this, they will be more likely to and more able to help me!" Of course, for me, massive world wars involving most civs in the game ensue, and my side usually wins

But as for "playing the map", as lymond put it, it's 90% practice and 10% help. So aside from the occasional tip, I think you just need to get familiar with the game and all the leaders (especially the latter for diplomacy reasons)

 

[Farm Boy]

Protective helps when you get caught with your pants down. Which is I suppose when you need the help most. If the enemy SOD has siege initiative or is pillaging your tile improvements, you are probably still in a tight spot.

The prejudice against PRO seems to be that other traits would help prevent you from getting into a bad situation in the first place, but sometimes it is unavoidable. TMIT believes the same can be said of Imperialistic helping settle additional city sites faster if the map gives you a screw job, but again it tends to offer a lower return in many games.

I guess by this logic Charlamange would be a real scrapper in poor situations, ie a good leader. It is too bad he is paired with wretched starting techs to dig the hole deeper. At least his UB is worth an honorable mention as mostly useful in many situations. I'd still rather have an Ikandha, Sac Altar, Ziggaraut, or Organized though.

 

[thecaesar]

his UU is pretty scary; it matches a maceman at a sigificantly lower cost, and is far better vs mounted than a maceman. When I play with him, I always make massive stacks of them and upgrade all to Cover, and then they are good vs everything but seige, which it has a higher base strength than anyway.

I like landsnechts.

 

[Farm Boy]

I like landsnechts.

Ewwww! I would rather have Navy Seals on an ancient start. Still better than a Panzer though!

To each his own though. Some folks get good returns from Cataraphacts. I have never had Guilds in time to use them. Still think Cataraphacts are better than Landsnects.

 

[thecaesar]

actually, I like the UU's that take no resources. Redcoats are a really good one (+25% vs any unit of any value in that age, not counting cannons), and I beleive the dog soldiers also take no resources. Others though, like holkans, jaguars, and gallic warriors, those suck completely. Camel Archers aren't bad, they get a massive withdrawl bonus and take no resources. But of course, the best UU's take resources: Samurai, Landsnechts, Praetorians, and Immortals are some of my favorites, though it's hard to get horses soon enough to be able to even use immortals well...

 

[lymond]

Protective is not a good trait. It is what it is though. If you have the trait, make the most of it. Best military traits are economic traits. I don't fight defensive wars. Saying it's good when your pants are down means that there are probably other issues with your game. Protective can be fun on certain types of games like high-level always war games, but I would not prefer the tech in SP otherwise. Many polls and discussion almost show an almost unanimous agreement with players on Protective being the worst trait. Again, it really doesn't matter as traits in general are secondary to playing civ well. (Anyway, I'm not going to argue over the Protective trait. It's already been proven a sucky trait. However, if you like the trait, that is your prerogative and it's all about enjoyment of the game)

@Dr.T - yeah, Blue Marble doesn't hurt anything. It goes in the custom assets of all your versions of Civ, so it is always there.

 

[thecaesar]

Well, I really wasn't saying it was better than some other traits; of course, charismatic and organized are my favorite, and I prefer them to protective. But protective is not a bad trait, nor is it the worst trait (that, IMO, goes to spiritual).

And yes, traits themselves are secondary to playing well, but playing well is usually complemented by knowing how to pick your leader. If it's going to be Archepaligo, choose someone like the Dutch, who are Economic, and have a corresponding UU and UB to the map.

If you aren't good at playing, you may choose someone completely ill-suited for the game, such as tokugowa, who has all fighting traits which would not even be useful until later in the game when people can actually transport reasonable amounts of their army, and has their UU too early in the game to be very useful as well.

So it all depends on whether you include everything in "Playing well", or just the actual ability to win the game.

 

[lymond]

ha...spiritual is a great trait

Toku is tough but he has the best "unofficial" UU - draft Rifleman.

Dutch are a very flexible civ and the UB is good on most maps...definitely a top tier civ. Their UU is neither here nor there but offers some interesting tactics like the Portuguese UU.

 

[Ataxerxes]

ha...spiritual is a great trait

Toku is tough but he has the best "unofficial" UU - draft Rifleman.

Dutch are a very flexible civ and the UB is good on most maps...definitely a top tier civ. Their UU is neither here nor there but offers some interesting tactics like the Portuguese UU.

I love Spiritual. You spend 2/3 of your time in Serfdom, 1/3 in Slavery, get all the rushing, faster improvements and (if running events) fewer revolts. If you only use Spiritual for your normal civics changes (which you might time your GA's for) it's a weak trait. It's strength comes from using it a lot - go back and forth between civics. It's even better in an OCC because you time military production exactly. Spritual is the about the only time I use Theocracy or Serfdom in normal games. It also makes you consider AP more closely, as well as ToS and Spiral Minaret.

 

[Dr Turkleton]

Put the thread up in Strategy & Tips @ http://forums.civfanatics.com/showthread.php?t=425357 -- If anyone here was interested in tagging along.