New Traits.

[Bast]

What about 'neutral'?

Your opponents can never declare war on you but can ask you to peacefully become a vassal only.

You can in return only declare war through holy wars from AP or as part of a vassal's duty.

 

[Thedrin]

KniteOwl:
How many leaders do you know were Seafaring, Agricultural and Scientific? Not many I guess

This semantic arguement comes up every time. Seafaring, agricultural, and scientific are just words. Someone could easily come up with appropriate person-specific terms to assign to new traits.

 

[xfactor99]

Hmm..person-specific terms, how about Patriotic and Reformist?

Though I admit I have no idea what the bonuses for the traits could be.

 

[Slaughter]

Nomadic -
You can relocate cities with a exclusive "Nomad Tribe*" unit. All buildings and the cultural borders are retained by the unit and come back with the new city, except wonders, who stay at the place they once were and can be claimed by any civilization near.
Settlers and wonders get 1+ and 3+ :strenght: for each age, and can atack.
Scouts can atack and got 3+ :strenght. Explorers and such other scout units have the same bonus +1 :strenght: for each age.
Mounted Units start with the Commando promotion and are 25% cheaper
Pillaging gives 200% more gold


Survivalist -
Deserts give one and one each. Deserts can be irrigated after Civil Service.
Needs only one to feed each specialist instead of for each specialist.
-15% less pop loss against nuclear weapons.
10+ for all cities for each enemy unit killed.

*The nomad tribe has diferente names and stats for each age.

 

[Thedrin]

Agricultural:

In CivIII this gave one food to the city tile. That's the only food bonus it gave. And it was far more powerful than any other trait. Such a trait won't be in CivIV - why? Introducing such a trait to CivIV would make the expansive trait obsolete. Both traits add food to a city's growth but Agricultural adds it to the beggining instead of the end making it much more powerful.

Seafaring;

Unlikely to happen. Unless you can put together a seafaring trait that is useful on map types such as Lakes, Highlands, Great Plains, and other predominantly land map types.

Scientific:

Science is generated via commerce or specialists. There is already one trait which provides a commerce bonus and another which provides a specialist bonus.

Espionage:

Similar to science but there are a lot of buildings that provide espionage points. A trait which provides production bonuses to these buildings could be feasible but many of the buildings in question are already assigned to other traits so that, again like scientific, the features of such a trait are already split up between other traits.

Diplomatic relation bonuses:

Useless on multiplayer.

Trade route bonuses:

Why should I open borders with a civ that'll generate more commerce from them than I would?

 

[Bast]

What about my suggestion, neutral?

It can be useful in MP because no one can declare war on you.

 

[wilcoxchar]

Here are my ideas.

Agricultural: +1 food on river tiles and +1 health in all cities. Double production of Market, Grocer.

Seafaring: +1 commerce on water tiles, free Navigation I promotion to all water units. Double production of Harbor, Customs House, Drydock.

Authoritarian: +25% EPs, -1 unhappiness in all cities, Double production of Jail, Intelligence Agency.

Scientific: +15% science, Double Production of Library, Laboratory.

 

[Neo Guderian]

I like nomadic as a trait, although strip away half of the bonsues you mentioned, Slaughter. Just the ability to relocate cities is wayyy powerful.

Mongol Leaders would definately get this trait, and perhaps Sitting Bull.

I would suggest setting a size limit on the cities as well as several of the buildings. (Relocating an aquaduct doesn't make sense and neither do relocating wonders)

 

[Moon Pine]

Zealous
-50% from Sacrifice, Draft and Emancipation.
-50% for next population growth after Sacrifice or Draft, -75% if Sacri or draft again before growth.
Drafted units get 60% Exp from Barracks and Civic instead of none.
-1 population cost if Draft costs 2 or more pops.

Commercial
+1 source on the resource that there`s 2 or more sources(For example, if you have 2 sources of Copper, you have 3 of

them if you are a commercial leader).
+1 for all cities.
+2 for all cities with 6 or larger population.
+3 for all cities with 12 or larger population.
Double production speed of Market, Grocer and Supermarket.

Seafaring
Free Navigation I Promotion for all Naval Units.
Free Amphibious Promotion for all Melee and Gunpowder Units.
Free Commando Promotion for Marine.
+50% production for Work Boat.
Fish Boat and Whale Boat +1 and .
Double production speed of Habor and Drydock(Barracks and Stable for Aggressive).

Judicious
+ 1 free specialist for all cities if capital have 7 or larger population.
+ 2 free specialist for all cities if capital have 15 or larger population.
All specialists expect free ones privide +1 .
+ 1 from Caste System.
+1 Specialist limit for all citys smaller than 8 population and +2 for 8 pop or higher citys.
Great People in city privide +2 and +2 .

Scientific
More likely to get free tech from Tribe Villages.
1 free previous-era techs when enter a new era(You can`t access new era tech by this).
+25% for technologies aquired by any 2 known civilizations.
+50% for technologies aquired by all other known civilizations.
Double production speed of Observatory and Laboratory.

 

[Slaughter]

I like nomadic as a trait, although strip away half of the bonsues you mentioned, Slaughter. Just the ability to relocate cities is wayyy powerful.

Mongol Leaders would definately get this trait, and perhaps Sitting Bull.

I would suggest setting a size limit on the cities as well as several of the buildings. (Relocating an aquaduct doesn't make sense and neither do relocating wonders)

City relocating is too powerful? How? Car to elaborate?

 

[winddbourne]

Actually I think the diplomatic trait is interesting, and fairly useful. If it was done well it would be useful even in multiplayer.

A bonus to trade routes? How does the human avoid you getting more money for his people liking to trade with you more? Go mercantilism? That cuts out a lot of his options.

A bonus to espionage so you can sneak in and play dirty? What do you counter it with? Spending a ton on espionage yourself and watching your rival go forward in science while you stagnate?

Even a bonus to diplomacy vs the AI would have a beneficial use providing you have some AI players within your game. If the AI gives you better trades and is more likely to become your vassal that can be a strategic advantage as well.

 

[Chiyochan]

i like adventurous the best

 

[ShunNakamura]

Agriculture and Seafaring would be rather easy to implement.

Agriculture could give bonuses to farms and pastures.
Agriculture:
Farms and Pastures are built by workers faster.
+50% more food from building a farm or pasture.


An example. On a square with no resources a farm nets you +1 food normally. This means that farm would for an agricultural leader would give +1.5 food. Ideally this would mean that for every two farms you built you would notice 1 extra food unit. However, if you built it on corn or another resource that gave +3 food you would get +4.5 instead. So one farm on corn and one on a grassland would net you 2 extra food.

Thus unless you had a lot of cows/pigs/corn/wheat/rice/etc this bonus is a bit weak. The real bonus is in the faster building of farms and pastures.


Seafaring:
Navigation 1 promotion to all ships
+1 capacity to ships capable of carrying units
+1 extra Food from sea based food resources
All land units gain Amphibious promotion upon creation.

Weak[though not completely useless] when landlocked but a pain in the butt when capable of getting a seahold.

 

[Coase]

Actually, I can think of plenty of good benefits from the "Diplomatic" trait. (I wouldn't include all of these, just some...) Although perhaps the word "cosmopolitan" would be more appropriate, and still get the same basic idea...

+100% Foreign Trade Yield (as mentioned by many above)
Captured cities resist 50% shorter (or not at all)
War Weariness against you is higher
+25% votes for Apostolic Palace/UN (or some such percentage)
+1 Happy for every Open Borders Agreement
Missionaries, Executives can enter any borders regardless of open borders status
Espionage against you costs 25% higher
Double production speed of Apostolic Palace, UN
Perhaps some sort of bonus for vassals, colonies, etc.

These are all single-player/multi-player independent.

I don't think Agricultural would be as broken as people think, since increasing population comes with its own set of issues...mostly it would allow players to reach their population cap (i.e., the limit before unhealth/unhappiness takes over) faster, but wouldn't necessarily allow them to exceed it any differently. So +1 for every square that already produces two would be fair, and double production speed of Aqueduct/Public Transportation/etc. would be OK, as mentioned above.

I *do* like the Survivalist attribute listed by Slaughter, though I'd add double production speed of Bunker, Bomb Shelter. I'd probably drop the specialist bonus (seems like it would be easily abused) and add something else a little more powerful; I'm just not sure what. Only problem I see is wondering who would get this trait--at least six leaders would have to be justified. Nomadic seems better as a scenario than a trait.

Seafaring would be easy to create (+1 movement, food or commerce bonus for ocean tiles, earlier cross-ocean/river trading, etc.) and easy to find leaders for. Just have some ability that can conceivably be used if you start in a non-coastal area.

I don't think Scientific would be good--I'm glad they dropped it. Tech is everything in the Civilization series, and even modest bonuses tend to give an advantage that's hard to crack. I always assume the Scientific trait is farmed out to Financial (commerce = science), Creative (library bonus) and Philosophical (University bonus).

Since Espionage is now such a large part of the game, it's almost a given that the Espionage trait be created, with the rather obvious bonuses already mentioned (increased Espionage point production, more expensive for others to commit espionage against you, double production of Security Bureau, Intelligence Agency). And I can see a lot of the older Leaders have this ability.

[Personally, I'd also realign some of the older traits...like making Financial "+1 Trade Route in all cities" and reinstate the double production of Bank. And come up with some new name for "Expansive" and make new traits that would actually *be* expansive ("Colonies and Vassal maintenance reduced, LOS increased, automatic religion spreads faster, movement of settlers +1 and get defense of 2 against barbs and animals, etc.). I'd perhaps give the production bonus of settlers to the new "Expansive" and give Imperialistic something different, like greater gold bonus when sacking cities, higher military unit threshold for maintenance, or City Raider bonus to certain units. All this, of course, may be unbalanced, so the numbers may need tweaks, and it's just a list, not a comprehensive one.]

Unless they add more features to the game, such as the rather obvious concepts of Immigration and civil war, I think the maximum trait pool would be 13 or 14. There's only so many concepts you can tweak before things are either repeated or broken.

 

[Donny]

I didn't think was going to be another expansion, but anyway...

Wouldn't it be better if there were ALOT more traits? Some maybe even overlapping effects.

Now we are trying to fit every historical figure into his unique combination of premade traits until all possibilities are taken. It goes for example: hmm Julius Caesar, would he be agressive, imperialistic, charismatic, creative, organized, expansive,... ? I think they all fit him.

Trying to find a leader who somehow fits the profile of protective-creative for example, is just a strange way of looking at it imo.

It seems better to me if the traits were made thinking about the leader, while keeping the occasional shared trait. I'm not a programmer, but it doesn't seem too hard to implement new traits, correct me if I'm wrong. Balancing it might even become easier because you dont have to check every possible combo for overpoweredness.


Anyway, I do like some of the traits mentioned here: diplomatic, survivalist (osama? ), authoritarian, adventurous, zealous, ..., pacifist, paranoid, ... just dont make them too powerfull.

 

[Slaughter]

My traits revamped:

Nomadic -
You can relocate cities with a exclusive "Nomad Tribe*" unit. All buildings and the cultural borders are retained by the unit and come back with the new city, except wonders, who stay at the place they once were and can be claimed by any civilization that builds a city nearby.
Scouts can atack and got 3+ :strenght. Explorers and such other scout units have the same bonus +1 :strenght: for each age.
Pillaging gives 200% more gold
Mounted Units start with the... the... the promotion that heals while moving. I forgot the name.


Survivalist -
Deserts give one and one each. Deserts can be irrigated after Civil Service.
Needs only one to feed each specialist instead of for each specialist.
-15% less pop loss against nuclear weapons.
Double production speed of Bunker, Bomb Shelter.
10+ for all cities for each enemy unit killed.

*The nomad tribe has diferente names and stats for each age.

 

[Qoo]

May be secretive trait have effect like
+ 2 espionage point per city
double speed of intelligence agency , security bureau

 

[Coase]

Hmmm. I wonder....

What would be the effects of permitting any leader to add a third trait partway through the game? Perhaps around the early-middle part of the game. For the most part, players could choose which trait they get to add, allowing them to customize the leader.

Since this is a MAJOR advantage, this would probably have to be reasonably accessible to all players around the same time. You don't want it too early in the game--it would be nice to allow players to assess their situation before choosing. But you don't want it too late when most of the benefits are gone.

Without making it too complicated, catalysts for this would be:

Technology: When you discover one of three different technologies, or discover two out of five specific technologies you may choose any one trait. (This is to prevent any specific beeline, and allow different players different styles of play.) For instance, it could be learn two out of the five following: Civil Service, Monarchy, Theology, Divine Right, Literature. (First ones to come to mind. I'm sure there's better, more balanced ones.) Once you learn two of the five, you're prompted to choose a new trait.

Or, perhaps, expand this tech list, but have the specific traits tied to the technology (i.e., you may become Spiritual if you know Theology and Divine Right; Protective if you know Metal Working and Construction; Creative if you know Music and Drama, etc.)

Wonder: Create a new Wonder that immediately allows you to choose any trait, earlier than normal. But not by much.

Great Person: Certain Great People allow you to add certain traits. For instance, a Great Engineer would allow you to become Industrious or Organized; a Great Artist would allow you to become Creative or Charismatic; Great Merchant would allow you to become Financial; Great General allow you to become Aggressive, Protective, or Imperialistic, etc. Since this may allow players to add this early, there may be a threshold technology (i.e., you cannot do this until you learn Alphabet or something).

Once chosen, of course, you can't change it, and can't add any new ones after that.

Just a musing...

 

[Pikkis]

Drafted units get 60% Exp from Barracks and Civic instead of none.

I've understood they normally get 50% of XPs normally produced unit would get (rounded down).

Many goods have been mentioned, here are new ones:
- Cruel (more espionage, lower unit upgrade costs, double-speed Jails, Security Bureaus and Intelligence Agencies)
- Ecological (trait for at least Native American leaders, provides health from certain buildings and resources, extra food from tiles producing 2+/3+/4+ food already, units heal faster, double-speed Aqueducts, Hospitals, Public Transportations and Recycling Centers)
- Revolutionist (trait for rebuilding after civil war destroying, +25% building production, +25% growth for Cottage, Hamlet and Village, workers build improvements 25% faster)

Scientific could also be named to Progressive.

 

[scooter]

I wasn't disappointed, 2 out of the 3 that they added were pretty terrible, and all we needed were more imbalanced and overly weak traits... I just wish something had been done to boost Protective definitely, and a light boost to Imperialist...