Chammadai said:
We have to take into consideration different things when valuing traits. What bonuses do they offer, how effective it is in your mod and what buildings are mad cheaper by them. Here goes:
Aggresive - A free promotion, which is simply great, although here units reach such high levels that it rarely makes any difference. Building twice stables and Training Yard is fine, but to make it really useful you have to have horses. There's an interesting way to use it - warriors get the promotion but you can upgrade them to Archers. I'd suggest making Archery Range cheaper insted of Stables and switching 'Combat I' into a new 'Trained' promotion which would work similarly but wouldn't be accessible otherwise (so only some of the units of aggresive civs would have it). You could add archery units to the list of the free promoted ones 'cause it's easy enough to build a warrior and then upgrade him.
So in general I have upped the power of all of the traits. Well, in truth I have upped the power of about everything, I love Civ4 but the differences between decisions aren't strong as I prefered.
I made the stables cheaper because I didn't want to lock aggresive civs into one tech line. They can go melee and get the promotion, or they can go mounted and get the cheaper buildings. If I moved both onto the same line players would be stuck with that path (or it would be useless to play an aggresive civ and consider any other option).
I like the idea to make a promotion available on if the civ has the appropriate trait. I just started playing with this in 0.90, giving a civ access to a building only if they have the right trait. Im going to note that idea and when I do the cov's for phase 2 I may use it then.
Creative - +2 culture in every city and cheaper obelisks. Woah, man! Since your mod relies on multiplying culture than adding it this is pure power. No one stands a chance when it comes to land grabbing and since the obelisks are made cheaper you can produce even more culture easier than others. Wonders and Great Artist (as citizens) seem to give far to much culture as well, but then, anyone can make them. +1 culture would be enough to give creative guys an edge. Maybe cathedrals can be made cheaper for them as well (they are of impressive architecure most of the time, after all).
I love creative, I always have, but I have a hard time seeing this as more powerful that the other traits. Its better than it is in vanilla civ, even though it is unchanged, because of the way the buildings are formed in FfH like you say, but I don't know that it is out of line with the other traits.
Expansive - +2 health in each city, half cost of granary and harbour. Useful (especially on higher levels of gameplay), not overpowered. Add smokehouse so people who start near domestic animals would get some bonus as well. If you think that three buildings are to much, remove harbour.
Expansive also give 0 upkeep on the Compassion (Health) civics. That can be a very powerful boost, especially late in the game. I want to keep the harbor in because I want the trait to appeal to different sorts of civs. More needs to be done around the water aspects of the game (as the last 3 pages of posts suggest) but I wanted it to be a viable option for "island" players as well.
Does knowing that the Expansive trait gives no upkeep on the compassion civics bring it into line with the others, or do you think it rates as less or more powerful?
Financial - +1 commerce on tiles which give at least 2 and cheaper monkey (
) changer and market. I'm always amused by the fact how powerful this can be when played by the right person. Fear of Orthus generally slowed down my early expansion in 0.8, but still, the money (and science) making potential is incredible. I'd made tax office cheaper instead of market, 'cause when you have Runes in your city you make so much money (with 100% science) that you have all your units upgraded and can pay for buildings every other turn.
This is another one I haven't changed from vanilla for exactly the reaosn you mentioned, in my mind its VERY powerful. The reason I opted to stay ont he market is that this trait is strong in the mid to late game but doesn't have much impact on the early game. By reducing the cost of the market (instead of the tax office) there is an early game advantage to having the trait as well.
Industrious - I have no idea what is so powerful about it. Sure, you build wonders a bit faster, but forge comes pretty late in the game. I would say it's balanced. If you chose this trait than you simply need to build wonders not to be handicapped. You won't get them all, most obviously, but these which you will get have to make up for your lack of other abilities. Leave it as it is, or make Machinists Shop cheaper for them.
I had a clock tower in for industrious but I pulled it becuse the trait is already so strong. This trait is also the reason Duin is a wonder costed unit, not a wonder (and I may switch Typhoid Mary to the same system). The truth is the more important the wonders are in the game, the more powerful this trait is. And they are pretty important in FfH. The nice thing is its an easy trait to adujust because I can just throttle it up and down on the production bonus. Once 0.90 comes out I will be really curious to hear what peoples opinions are of this vs the other traits.
FYI: Personally I don't play industrious much. It just doesn't match my play style. The beauty of the system Firaxis designed is that traits that don't match our play style seem weak, and those that do match seem strong, just because we tend to play the same way and some fo the traits help that method. So personally I didn't think this was a very good trait but the conversations I read for vanilla civ on the relative strength of the traits always rate this near the top.
Organized - -50% civic upkeep, double production of lighthouse and courthouse. This one doesn't do much at the begging of the game but later on you save over 100 gold per turn just because you have. Lighthouses are important to build one of the most important wonders on maps with water - The Great Lighthouse. These guys usually get it. Courthouses come a bit late when compered to vanilla civ though. The building you mentioned seems fine, but +20% military production is too much. +10% maybe, but +2 exp in this case is a lot in itself. And it should require 3 barracks in your cities to let you build one. Then it would be just fine, I think.
The reason the building is so high is ebcause there is another way to get it for non-Organized civs. You can create one with a Great Commander. So the building needs to be worth the sacrifice of a great person. But I can put other limitations on building it such as increasing the cost, or requiring a minimum level troop before it can be built or both. (which may be a good idea since it kind of makes since that you should have some decently experienced troops before you can have a great commander). What do you think?
Philosophical - +50% GP birth rate, cheaper elder councils and libraries. This one seems weak. I don't think I've played philosophical in your mod just because it gives so little. Increase GP rate to +66% (so they would produce 5 per specialist when others produce 3). It would be a worthwile then.
Philosophical also gives no civic upkeep for the education civics. A very nice boost. I tend to be a little cautious around the great people so I lowered this from 100 to a 50% boost. Also libraries tend to be a lot more useful in FfH than they are in Civ4 since they allow access to adepts, mages and conjurers. Given that do you still think its underpowered.
Spiritual - No anarchy, healers get free mobility promotion and double production of temples. To compare, I change civcs 7-10 times during a game when I'm not spiritual. About every five turns when I'm spiritual. It's ridiculously worth having and I have no idea why my disciples/priest/crusaders/monks/other stuff, should be faster just beacuse I'm spiritual. When playing as an order it's far to easy to have a strong, very mobile army consisting of healers only. You should take this free promotion away.
I would be curious to get other opinions on this. Maybe a pool to see what the most powerful trait in FfH is?
Among other things, I believe that wonders and great artists as citizens give too much culture. You could either make some building give steady amount of culture or make those things give it less. And OO are the only ones who can't build warriors later in the game 'cause they have access to all three upgrades and game renders them obsolete. That's why I'd suggest giving the free aggressive promotion to archery type units as well...
I'll probably take a closer look at some of the wonder soon.
Cheers
You just blew my mind. I just jumped through a TON of hoops to make it so you have access to units even if you have their upgrades and you are saying you keep access to units if you don't have ANY of their upgrades? So all I would need to do to keep these guys around was make their upgrade a unit you can never get?
I gotta go test that, you may have just made my day.
