Protective Trait-- Underrated?

[PreLynMax]

To tell you the truth, I personally think the Protective trait is severely underrated on this site. I don't see what the problem is when when my hill 100% fortified stack of 15 longbowmen defended cities dismantle a stack of 30 macemen, knights, and trebuchets. I have known to complete own the opposition with my Protective trait leaderheads (Mao Zedong, Charlemenge). Am I wrong to hold my defensive mindset that lead me to win several other non-Civ games (and tourament titles) so strongly?

 

[oyzar]

Definatly not.. While your protective units definatly are better at holding the cities than others they don't stop pillaging and they don't help counterattacking which is what you want to do on the defensive in civ. What other non-civ games are there that you've won defensivly? On smallish maps military traits are not so bad, but on a lot of maps the military traits(agressive, protective and to a lesser degree charismatic) are just worse than having some trait that help economy or development(which helps economy indirectly).

 

[Shurdus]

Well, there is nothing wrong with the trait per se.

What I think makes it less good than other traits is that protective is only good when you get attacked. It is only good when others declare on you. I prefer to not let it come to that and declare myself, so the situation when it becomes a useful trait is kind of rare.

It is also a trait which strong points depends on the other players. On a continent with madmen I am sure it will be useful, but with pacifists it serves no purpose. I prefer any trait that will serve a purpose every single game over a situational one.

 

[oyzar]

Well, there is nothing wrong with the trait per se.

What I think makes it less good than other traits is that protective is only good when you get attacked. It is only good when others declare on you. I prefer to not let it come to that and declare myself, so the situation when it becomes a useful trait is kind of rare.

It is also a trait which strong points depends on the other players. On a continent with madmen I am sure it will be useful, but with pacifists it serves no purpose. I prefer any trait that will serve a purpose every single game over a situational one.

Lol, what you are saying is, it is not that bad, it is just that it is so much worse than all the other traits... Being much worse than all the other traits does actually make it bad...

 

[obsolete]

What I think makes it less good than other traits is that protective is only good when you get attacked. It is only good when others declare on you.

It seems you are missing the fundamental advantages of this trait totally...

 

[Belisar]

I don't see what the problem is when when my hill 100% fortified stack of 15 longbowmen defended cities dismantle a stack of 30 macemen, knights, and trebuchets.

Are you an AI?
As oyzar says, active defense is stronger and you can then actually use those promoted units after you killed the initial SoD on the offense.
Additional, it's rare that you need more than 1 or 2 whipped walls in an entire game and I have never built a castle with the exception of beeing Izzy.

 

[Levgre]

Protective should, at the least, have half price security bureaus also. Jail would make a decent amount of sense too. Protective could become an espionage trait, protecting against military and spy threats.

 

[PieceOfMind]

Protective is one of my favourite traits, and in my opinion one of the strongest traits. I admit I will be a bit biased but I have my reasons for being so.

The most commonly quoted lines attacking the PRO trait are things like "I would rather do the attacking.. keep the wars on my terms. Protective does nothing for my offensive units." and "If your cities need better defenses then you have big problems." People who make these comments usually back them up with little or no evidence.

Firstly, in any offensive war you will need stack defenders and you will need troops to garrison the cities you capture; cities which will typically experience many turns of resistance. I ask, during those turns of resistance, does a CG3/D1 longbow do a better job than a CG2 longbow? The first longbow is a PRO one with 2 extra promos, the latter an ordinary one with 2 extra promos.

Drill troops make excellent stack defenders as you move along forests/hills towards enemy cities. They benefit from the terrain more than other units, and they are a lot more likely to survive battles unscratched, meaning they're just as strong in the following battles.



Protective is often shrugged off as useless because its two cheap buildings are the wall and castle. Many players simply don't use the wall or castle which is fair enough, but the thing is, people want to milk each trait for all its worth. What I mean by that is, since a person knows they won't make use of the wall or castle, they figure that the remaining parts of the trait must be worth less than another trait. I would say that if the Finanical trait were the one that instead was given the cheap walls, along with the normal commerce tile bonus, some people would start to be critical of Financial. The primary strength of Protective lies in the promotions it gives.

Usually the most interesting comparison to be made is between AGG and PRO because they sort of mirror each other. People probably assume that there's some natural dichotomy there, where AGG is directly going to help players who attack, so PRO must be the trait that helps players defend. I would argue that apart from the very early wars like axe rushes, PRO is usually a better warmongering trait. If a city of yours is never touched by an enemy, you are probably playing below your difficulty unless you are a very peaceful player. Also, try playing the new versions of Better AI where AIs will mount convincing naval invasions against you.

AGG gives cheaper barracks. At best, in the early game this might mean getting roughly half of an extra unit from the hammers saved. The cheap barracks is almost irrelevant. If your military cities will build a barracks then 50 military units, the barracks bonus is hugely insignificant. If however your barracks will each only build maybe 5 units (a very quick war to win the game in the BCs) then it is much stronger.

One of the great things about PRO is that you can get your units to Drill IV a lot faster (10xp typically, 8xp if Churchill). My rule of thumb is that any unit that starts with a drill promotion should not stop promoting down drill til it has Drill IV. Drill IV units only have a weakness against mounted units, because mounted typically ignore first strikes. So formation pikemen should always be kept in your stacks and near your important cities.

Seriously, if Protective were given even one more buff I would almost take the position it were overpowered.

Castles are often shunned because they obsolete at an important tech and they are defensive structures, and most people claim they never defend. In fact castles are very powerful in espionage economies, and more than make up for the fact you need to delay getting economics. Because of the cheaper castle, PRO has a syngery with espionage economies - arguably the most powerful economy type for the second half of games.

One more reason that Protective is often shunned, I think, is that people value combat 1 over drill 1 more. It's true that Drill I is a fairly weak promotion by itself - it's main utility is in allowing Drill II through to IV. Most people at some point will have taken units before battle and compared their battle odds with different promotions. Under most circumstances, C1 beats D1 in terms of odds and expected hitpoints after battle. But once you reach D4, odds are very high, expected hitpoints are very high, and expected xp if victorious are very high (granting access to higher level promotions even faster).

 

[oynaz]

The problem with protective is that it locks you to a particular strategy. All other traits allows you to vary your approach to a certain degree.

Your comparison with aggresive is way off. One of the great benefits of aggresive is that it allows you to tailor your troops to a certain role with only a (cheap) barracks.


"AGG gives cheaper barracks. At best, in the early game this might mean getting roughly half of an extra unit from the hammers saved. The cheap barracks is almost irrelevant. If your military cities will build a barracks then 50 military units, the barracks bonus is hugely insignificant. If however your barracks will each only build maybe 5 units (a very quick war to win the game in the BCs) then it is much stronger."

That has got to be one of the strangest paragraphs ever on these boards. So the more troops you build, the less important the free promotions are. Are you serious?

 

[PieceOfMind]

The problem with protective is that it locks you to a particular strategy. All other traits allows you to vary your approach to a certain degree.

I don't agree that it locks you into a particular strategy at all. What strategy are you referring to? Having to defend? Do you never have to build units or defend your civ? How does it limit your strategy more than AGG? If anything AGG narrows your strategy more because to make use of it you need to build more melee units - the units which are typically designed for attacking other civs.

Your comparison with aggresive is way off. One of the great benefits of aggresive is that it allows you to tailor your troops to a certain role with only a (cheap) barracks.


"AGG gives cheaper barracks. At best, in the early game this might mean getting roughly half of an extra unit from the hammers saved. The cheap barracks is almost irrelevant. If your military cities will build a barracks then 50 military units, the barracks bonus is hugely insignificant. If however your barracks will each only build maybe 5 units (a very quick war to win the game in the BCs) then it is much stronger."

That has got to be one of the strangest paragraphs ever on these boards. So the more troops you build, the less important the free promotions are. Are you serious?

Only strange because you read it the wrong way. I probably didn't make myself very clear though. I'm referring to the fact that the barracks is cheaper when I call it the barracks bonus. Obviously you would not go without building it. I'm saying that the more units your city builds, the less significant that small number of hammers saved were (from having a cheaper barracks). Does the paragraph make more sense now? I think I exaggerated though - rather than half a unit I should probably say one unit or at most one and a half units.

As I said in that post, the cheap barracks is probably the weakest part of the AGG trait, except for very early wars. If you were to rush a neighbour with say 5 units, then getting the barracks up quickly is very powerful. That is why I concede AGG is better for the warmonger who desires a very early war. But later in the game, when many units have been built in that city, the fact you saved a few hammers near the start of the game doesn't help you much now.

Moreover, the barracks is fairly cheap in the first place. But the cheap barracks gain more utility if you plan to build them almost everywhere because of Nationhood, something which I often do as non-AGG so I'll grant you that.

 

[Tephros]

Protective is one of my favourite traits, and in my opinion one of the strongest traits. I admit I will be a bit biased but I have my reasons for being so.

It's easily the weakest, and I find myself suggesting lots of ways to make it better: e.g. improving the drill line so that collateral immunity can be achieved with drill IV, giving walls +1 espionage, and just now suggesting that power ratings take number of promos into account.

The most commonly quoted lines attacking the PRO trait are things like "I would rather do the attacking.. keep the wars on my terms. Protective does nothing for my offensive units." and "If your cities need better defenses then you have big problems." People who make these comments usually back them up with little or no evidence.

First strikes are inferior to combat promos except when your unit is already several times stronger than the foe, in which case you may come out unscathed anyway. It is easy for many units to gain immunity to first strikes, via inherent ability or flanking II. Drill II with its -20% collateral is just pathetic. -20% collateral is not going to save you, -60% might make a difference, but then you gave up 3-4 promos to get there. The first strike chance from drill I is almost worthless in itself. It's worth half a strike and less than half a combat promo.

The first strike chance opens up the weak drill line and promos like cover and shock, but combat I also opens up those promos. And combat I is always useful, not only in cities.

Firstly, in any offensive war you will need stack defenders and you will need troops to garrison the cities you capture; cities which will typically experience many turns of resistance. I ask, during those turns of resistance, does a CG3/D1 longbow do a better job than a CG2 longbow? The first longbow is a PRO one with 2 extra promos, the latter an ordinary one with 2 extra promos.

It's not normally a problem. I put one defender in there and rarely have to recapture. One reason for this is I typically target their stack of doom in the initial assault with my SoD. I typically settle great generals till I can produce CG3 units in the heroic epic city, and I typically have only 2 or 3 cities build military units. This is really nice because I can also produce CRIII units right off the bat. Imperialistic will allow you to get level 4 units of all types by the early-mid game. Charismatic will make it so it requires one fewer settled GG, and also applies to all types.

For aggressive, you can get medics faster. I typically get my medics from my original warriors who go woodsman. The combat promo really does make a big difference in their survivability against lions and bears, and later I have several woodsman III/ medic I healers.

Drill troops make excellent stack defenders as you move along forests/hills towards enemy cities. They benefit from the terrain more than other units, and they are a lot more likely to survive battles unscratched, meaning they're just as strong in the following battles.

Those promos would be better used on woodsman/guerilla/shock/etc. Being stronger than your foe makes it so you are more likely to hit than them in each combat round, which is why all other promos dwarf first strikes.

Protective is often shrugged off as useless because its two cheap buildings are the wall and castle. Many players simply don't use the wall or castle which is fair enough, but the thing is, people want to milk each trait for all its worth.

Castles would be good if they didn't go obsolete so fast. Engineering and free market are not that far apart due to the liberalism race and the secondary race to get the great merchant, which I normally use for my first golden age to switch to free market. I do build a few castles, especially if I have an espionage city. Without stone or protective they won't break even in some cities.

What I mean by that is, since a person knows they won't make use of the wall or castle, they figure that the remaining parts of the trait must be worth less than another trait. I would say that if the Finanical trait were the one that instead was given the cheap walls, along with the normal commerce tile bonus, some people would start to be critical of Financial. The primary strength of Protective lies in the promotions it gives.

No it just wouldn't add much to financial and people would view financial the same way they do now. Like adding a bucket of water to the ocean, really.

Usually the most interesting comparison to be made is between AGG and PRO because they sort of mirror each other. People probably assume that there's some natural dichotomy there, where AGG is directly going to help players who attack, so PRO must be the trait that helps players defend. I would argue that apart from the very early wars like axe rushes, PRO is usually a better warmongering trait.

lol, if you attack with crossbows or longbows I guess. And if I'm attacking with gunpowder units, they're upgraded CR units.

If a city of yours is never touched by an enemy, you are probably playing below your difficulty unless you are a very peaceful player. Also, try playing the new versions of Better AI where AIs will mount convincing naval invasions against you.

It's not that it's not touched, it's just that the AI usually doesn't have a lot of veteran units so they're not going to come out ahead in hammers when they attack anyway. Then I just bring my stack of doom back to smite them, or move units from nearby cities if it's a medium stack. The settled great generals in the heroic epic city are pretty key for me, and the other warmongering traits are better for achieving that, charismatic and imperialistic especially, but aggressive has its own strengths. You're going to build more barracks than walls, the barracks don't go obsolete, and the combat I promo is always useful.

AGG gives cheaper barracks. At best, in the early game this might mean getting roughly half of an extra unit from the hammers saved. The cheap barracks is almost irrelevant. If your military cities will build a barracks then 50 military units, the barracks bonus is hugely insignificant. If however your barracks will each only build maybe 5 units (a very quick war to win the game in the BCs) then it is much stronger.

I like charismatic and imperialistic better than agg, but cheap barracks are still better than cheap walls and castles.

One of the great things about PRO is that you can get your units to Drill IV a lot faster (10xp typically, 8xp if Churchill). My rule of thumb is that any unit that starts with a drill promotion should not stop promoting down drill til it has Drill IV. Drill IV units only have a weakness against mounted units, because mounted typically ignore first strikes. So formation pikemen should always be kept in your stacks and near your important cities.

Seriously, if Protective were given even one more buff I would almost take the position it were overpowered.

The changes I suggested above would put it between agg and imperialistic.

Castles are often shunned because they obsolete at an important tech and they are defensive structures, and most people claim they never defend. In fact castles are very powerful in espionage economies, and more than make up for the fact you need to delay getting economics. Because of the cheaper castle, PRO has a syngery with espionage economies - arguably the most powerful economy type for the second half of games.

EE gets powerful once you start getting jails, which is around the time castles go obsolete. I do build a castle in a city I have a great spy, but a few techs later its obsolete.

One more reason that Protective is often shunned, I think, is that people value combat 1 over drill 1 more. It's true that Drill I is a fairly weak promotion by itself - it's main utility is in allowing Drill II through to IV. Most people at some point will have taken units before battle and compared their battle odds with different promotions. Under most circumstances, C1 beats D1 in terms of odds and expected hitpoints after battle. But once you reach D4, odds are very high, expected hitpoints are very high, and expected xp if victorious are very high (granting access to higher level promotions even faster).

Here's the paradox though. For drill to shine, you need to have units that have a 2:1 or better adjusted strength ratio. But to have that, you need a tech lead, or promo lead. You would have been more likely to have a tech lead if you had an economic or semi-economic trait. Protective will only help your economy for the brief lifespan of castles.

 

[Zeiter]

Oooh, half-price security bureaus would be really nice indeed! Very logical. Many traits give discounts on 3 buildings anyways, right?

Also, the wolfshanze mod makes the protective trait better for the simple reason that it makes castles a lot better by introducing them at feudalism, giving you some time to benefit from their trade routes and espionage bonuses.

The funny thing about protective is that, as it stands, it's probably one of the strongest traits in the hands of the AI (in terms of giving the AI the most help), and one of the weakest traits in the hands of humans. It's due to a general difference in playstyles. You couldn't buff protective too much more, or else those protective AI's would become even more of a pain. But you couldn't weaken it, or else humans would really find it useless.

P.S. The more that I think about it, Drill I should also give -20% collateral damage, giving 80% total when you reach Drill IV. That would make Drill I, as well as the rest of the drill line, really worth it, without making the line overpowering in all situations (such as on the attack...although if your opponents are using active defense (counter-siege), then you'll benefit from the collateral damage bonuses there too).

 

[fugazi]

Protective only buffs archery and gunpowder units while aggressive buffs a whole plethora of units, but most importantly the early cityraiders. Aggressive lets you get those barracks up faster and gives your troops 10% strength more. On top of that it also opens the door for new promotions that you can pick straight away! With some well placed settled great generals, the right civics and some wonders you can build units that will leave your opponents howling in terror.

Protective just make you a nuisance to attack and forces the opponent to bring more siege. Drill is too random a thing for me to rely on, I rather prefer the good old combat promotions.

And yes, why Agg is better in my book is because it helps me claim more land during the early through medieval game. Combat 1 <helps>.

 

[Munch]

I've had some of my best games with protective leaders (not that that directly proves anything). The benefit really is all in the promotions, and in war you can afford to try and keep a city which you might otherwise be incapable of holding (unless you are in an easy war). Also as I've mentioned before, protective is great for intercontinental conquest to soak up the counter-attack upon your beachhead city.

I certainly wouldn't say it was overpowered though, which is in part due to the problem with military-oriented traits. Military bonuses are only valuable in war, and it is unlikely you will be in war for the whole game. Economic traits on the other hand benefit you at all times, and as a special case of this can be better than military traits as they allow you to get more advanced units faster than a military-oriented civ. It's for this general reason that I think military traits should be made slightly stronger than economic ones. One might argue that this would cause people to pursue total war, but remember that in general you are punished for war by war weariness, distance maintainance etc which prevent you from permanently being on the offense (in the case of maintainance, this of course can be abated by economic traits, a further boost to their worth in contrast to military ones).

To those complaining about PRO being weak, or boring or whatever, I encourage you to mod the trait to be as you would prefer it. I personally have changed all the traits and for example PRO in my games gives you:

Spoiler :

+50% Great General emergence in your own territory (might not be 50%, can't remember as I'm at work)
City Garrison I for Archery/Gunpowder (no more free Drill I!)
+1 for Walls, Bunker (as the populace love being protected)
Double speed Castle, Bomb Shelter (these don't provide happiness both for gameplay reasons and because in the first case Castles only protect mainly the nobles, and in the second Bomb Shelters are rather depressing)

 

[madscientist]

I personally like the protective trait although I will say it's not the strongest by a longshot and could be the worst depending on maps.

Not to say Protective is useless as stated on these forums so often, I find it very powerful and usefull in it's own right.

Some of my views on it's benefits

1) Cheap, great early defenders. I have yet to lose an easrly city from a protective leader to barbs. Also with a barracks there are few leaders who will defeat you early on with a few CG III, drill I archers in your cities. They need at least cats to threaten you.

2) I have found at emperor level at marathon speed protective archers/longbows give you ALOT of time to devote hammers to economical buildings and you can live with lower power numbers.

3) Cheap walls and castles cannot be overlooked. Also these are the only "normal" buildings that also have a resource that speeds up production (stone) and thus you can whip them for quite a bit of gold in the early game. Some consider this an exploit, I consider it an advantage of the protective leaders.

4) Fast castles in all your cities gets you a burst of commerce with those extra trade routes and let's you delay economics. Also the faster espionage bonus of castles are not trivial.

5) The Draft! The biggest edge for protective leaders as you can draft any unit with 2 free promotions and get a third (usually pinch) with a barracks and theocracy. Only the agressive trait comes close here.

6) Protectice crossbows are pretty damned good at attack if properly promoted.

Also consider there are a few leaders who simply excel with the protective traits

Tokugawa: The strongest gunpowder units in the entire game

Churchill: His redcoats are the strongest UU in the game in my opinion. Yes even more than prats because they are resourceless and come with 2 free promotions (and usually more considering he is charismatic).

Chinese Chu-nuks: A strong UU that is overcompensated with the protective trait!

Charlemagne: With that UB and the Imperialistic trat he's an amazing REXer post CoL. And with theocracy CG III defenders are pretty damned tough for any AI to dislodge. All those extra GGs will also provide some dominating gunpowder units if the GGs are settled in several cities!

Wang: The protective trait and UU make him one of the more dangerous turtlers to play as in the game. Keep a small well defended empire with protected archers/longbows, hwachas, and HAs and he can really beeline liberalism for a BIG edge to leverage that UB of his.

Saladin: He swaps back and forth in civics (vassalage/theocracy/nationhood) to pop out insane defenders for 5 turns, then return to the powerful economical civics.

Also, while protective it a defensive trait in the early game as it applies to archery units, post gunpowder it's a promotion that helps all of your offensive units. As stated above numerous times, keeping a captured city with CG units makes you life much easier!

Finally, I do think Protective could use a boost. Not teh espionage componants as that can make things more difficult for us against protective AIs or overpowered against teh AI. But perhaps something like free Bunkers and Bomb Shelters in every city is a good idea (Half price will not help that much as those items are cheap enough after factories).

 

[PieceOfMind]

Tephros, you had a long post and I agree with much of it, but I will reply to the parts that are most important. In other words, this is another long post. I hope you don't mind. Heck I'll chuck it in a spoiler to keep the post "looking" small.

Spoiler :

First strikes are inferior to combat promos except when your unit is already several times stronger than the foe, in which case you may come out unscathed anyway. It is easy for many units to gain immunity to first strikes, via inherent ability or flanking II. Drill II with its -20% collateral is just pathetic. -20% collateral is not going to save you, -60% might make a difference, but then you gave up 3-4 promos to get there. The first strike chance from drill I is almost worthless in itself. It's worth half a strike and less than half a combat promo.

First strikes are not necessarily inferior to combat promos. I agree that Drill I in particular, and to a lesser extent Drill II and III are weak, but Drill IV just as strong, if not stronger than Combat 4. You don't have to use it only when you are much stronger than the defender. It's true the perfect time to use it is when you are stronger than the defender though. The best way to use them is after sufficient collateral damage has been dealt to city defenders (this means the technological edge is not necessary). A reminder that generally Drill promotions are earned at a faster rate than combat promotions. I don't mean this loosely. PRO drill units reach Drill IV very quickly if you use them for attacking (remember attacking is twice as xp profitable as defending). It might take 3 battles for a unit to reach Drill IV, but 6 battles for a unit to reach Combat 4, so in all fairness the two promotion lines should not be compared promotion for promotion anyway. The faster xp earning ability of drill units is usually ignored however, because people do not use drill troops to attack. It's very easy to regularly take 3xp from very safe battles with Drill IV units (I'm talking odds in the high 90s), whereas CR3 units or C4 or C5 units will earn typically 1 xp, sometimes 2xp for the same battle odds. Your drill IV unit can get that next specialist promo faster than the normal city attacker units.

The first strike chance opens up the weak drill line and promos like cover and shock, but combat I also opens up those promos. And combat I is always useful, not only in cities.

See it seems you are going back to assumptions again. You say "combat I is always useful, not only in cities." It seems by that you are implying that Drill promotions are not useful outside cities? Perhaps you were referring to the CG promotion. Did you forget CG promotions work in forts? Try building a fort in an important strategic location in a MP game then chuck CG3/D1 (that's only two promos for a PRO leader) units in there and see what a human player tries to do to it. That little tactic will establish control of the immediate area. It can be argued that area control like this is much more important in MP than SP. The forts 25% defense cannot be bombarded like a city's.

It's not normally a problem. I put one defender in there and rarely have to recapture. One reason for this is I typically target their stack of doom in the initial assault with my SoD. I typically settle great generals till I can produce CG3 units in the heroic epic city, and I typically have only 2 or 3 cities build military units. This is really nice because I can also produce CRIII units right off the bat. Imperialistic will allow you to get level 4 units of all types by the early-mid game. Charismatic will make it so it requires one fewer settled GG, and also applies to all types.

IMHO, the point here is more that the AI is not very effective in war. If the AI had the smallest amount of extra intelligence to not have its SoD wiped out so easily, this probably wouldn't be a criticism of PRO.

I agree that IMP and especially CHA are nice traits. I don't believe IMP outdoes PRO though. You may have more settled generals but they only give 2xp each, and only in one city. PRO will give you the promotion without raising xp needed for each promo. Besides, as I keep saying, Drill IV units gain xp so fast they would catch up very quickly to the IMP leader's units that might come out of the factory with 2xp or 4xp more.

For aggressive, you can get medics faster. I typically get my medics from my original warriors who go woodsman. The combat promo really does make a big difference in their survivability against lions and bears, and later I have several woodsman III/ medic I healers.

How hard is it to get a medic? Seriously I think super medics are way over rated, even the simpler W3/M1 ones. I do agree though that the ability to get W3/M1 from a 17xp unit rather than a 26xp unit is a nice perk for the AGG trait.

Those promos would be better used on woodsman/guerilla/shock/etc. Being stronger than your foe makes it so you are more likely to hit than them in each combat round, which is why all other promos dwarf first strikes.

You seem to make a leap of faith here. I could have said, with just as much justification, having more rounds before battle to deal free damage to the other combatant means first strikes dwarf other promos. What I'm trying to say is that you should say why it is that being stronger in combat rounds is preferable to having a few more immune combat rounds, rather than just saying it is so.

It's true that Drill promos are not as good as the specialist promos on specific tiles. But Drill promos (I'm mainly talking about Drill IV when I talk about drill promos) give you the benefit on all these tiles, and against a range of units, meaning you need fewer stack defenders (possibly, it depends on your stack composition).

Castles would be good if they didn't go obsolete so fast. Engineering and free market are not that far apart due to the liberalism race and the secondary race to get the great merchant, which I normally use for my first golden age to switch to free market. I do build a few castles, especially if I have an espionage city. Without stone or protective they won't break even in some cities.

The castles can go obsolote fast but only if you make it so. If you're not prepared to change your strategy, ie. going for Engineering a bit earlier (most people leave it late) and waiting for economics a bit longer, then of course they will go obsolote fast. If you're going EE, you should be going for Nationalism before you even think about economics IMO.

No it just wouldn't add much to financial and people would view financial the same way they do now. Like adding a bucket of water to the ocean, really.

Yes, well it's not really my point. I don't wish to debate that. You are one of the more rational posters - not everyone is so.

lol, if you attack with crossbows or longbows I guess. And if I'm attacking with gunpowder units, they're upgraded CR units.

Are you forgetting siege? I and most people (I assume) usually use siege at the beginning of the round of atacks on a city. A few people round here (like TMIT) argue that often the strongest CR units should be used before the siege units. In any case assuming you use siege first or somewhere near first, you can ensure Drill IV units have a very easy time taking down cities. You said a couple times Drill units are only strong when there is a tech lead. They are in fact very strong when the units are slightly damaged. Having the defenders slightly damaged (from a few siege units) makes those drill units have an easy time taking down those defenders without taking a single hit. So in this way medics are pretty much unnecessary. I admit I use CR troops along with these drill units, sometimes using the CR ones directly after the siege, then using the drill troops. But only a fool would blindly choose drill over CR for attacking cities. Combat 1 doesn't make a CR3 unit much better so AGG doesn't really do much if this is your city attack strategy.

Main point to take away from this: Use drill troops when the defenders have taken at least a little bit of damage from siege or CR units. They won't have the problem of defenders popping up that ignore the counter promos, since nothing counters drill promos (yes I know most mounted units do but mounted don't receive defense bonuses either).

It's not that it's not touched, it's just that the AI usually doesn't have a lot of veteran units so they're not going to come out ahead in hammers when they attack anyway. Then I just bring my stack of doom back to smite them, or move units from nearby cities if it's a medium stack. The settled great generals in the heroic epic city are pretty key for me, and the other warmongering traits are better for achieving that, charismatic and imperialistic especially, but aggressive has its own strengths. You're going to build more barracks than walls, the barracks don't go obsolete, and the combat I promo is always useful.

So is the argument that PRO is weak or the AI is poor? Or both? I think these facts rely on the ineptitude of the AI. I don't judge the PRO trait from these facts, I judge the AI. I have to agree that some of the tactics (or lack of tactics) the AI employs makes using the PRO trait less interesting than other traits. But in MP this can very easily change.

EE gets powerful once you start getting jails, which is around the time castles go obsolete. I do build a castle in a city I have a great spy, but a few techs later its obsolete.

As I said before, if you choose to take Economics fairly quickly then that's your choice - no one is forcing you to. Personally if I'm going for EE or playing a PRO leader (I normally go EE these days regardless) I will have jails long before I have economics, and I will not head for economics too quickly.

Here's the paradox though. For drill to shine, you need to have units that have a 2:1 or better adjusted strength ratio. But to have that, you need a tech lead, or promo lead. You would have been more likely to have a tech lead if you had an economic or semi-economic trait. Protective will only help your economy for the brief lifespan of castles.

I don't know where you pulled the 2:1 from. Even as little as about 1:1 can be reasonable sometimes. Let's suppose the city has a fortified (25%) mace with 60HP. Your Drill IV longbow has 92% odds against that guy, and will take 4xp if it wins. 4xp is a lot for such a safe battle. This is a strength ratio of 1:1 by the way. Keep in mind PRO Drill IV longbows only need 10xp so they are almost disposable, so the odds are not too worrying. As soon as you have a city with enough xp (from MIs etc.) to build Drill IV things, any units that you plan to have promoted with drill promos should be built there. Drill IV is what makes the drill promotion worthwhile at all. Here I was talking about using a longbow for attacking, even though longbows are widely considered defender units. Using longbows for attacking is, again I admit, a bit quirky but using drill gunpowder units is a lot more sensible, and more effective than using longbows. This is mainly because longbows are around when strong city attackers that can take CR promotions are around (macemen).

 

[Bandobras Took]

Protective is underrated by the vast majority of people on this forum for the simple reason that most players feel the only way to play Civ IV is to attack people with axes, and if you for whatever reason don't do that, you're a suboptimal player.

Some of the more amusing comments so far on the trait follow:

While your protective units definitely are better at holding the cities than others they don't stop pillaging and they don't help counterattacking which is what you want to do on the defensive in civ.

Obviously, if you build only one type of unit, you can only do one type of thing. Are a protective player's mounted/siege units somehow worse than a non-protective player's? Do you have some sort of handicap on all your other units because your ranged/gunpowder units are strong?

Additional, it's rare that you need more than 1 or 2 whipped walls in an entire game and I have never built a castle with the exception of being Izzy.

That's nothing -- I rarely make lots of Civics changes and don't pursue religions, so Spiritual is even more worthless than Protective!

The problem with protective is that it locks you to a particular strategy.

And Aggressive doesn't? Philosophical doesn't? Financial doesn't? Industrious doesn't? There are at least as many options with Protective.

I typically settle great generals till I can produce CG3 units in the heroic epic city, and I typically have only 2 or 3 cities build military units.

And so Protective is weaker because it can produce CG3 Drill 1 units with only two promotions?

For aggressive, you can get medics faster.

Drill also opens up medic.

Castles would be good if they didn't go obsolete so fast. Engineering and free market are not that far apart due to the liberalism race and the secondary race to get the great merchant, which I normally use for my first golden age to switch to free market.

Yep, it's Protective that locks people into only one strategy.

lol, if you attack with crossbows or longbows I guess. And if I'm attacking with gunpowder units, they're upgraded CR units.

If I'm attacking with Gunpowder units, I'm bringing along siege to do all the real work anyway, which means my Gunpowder units will be facing seriously damaged troops. Which means:

Here's the paradox though. For drill to shine, you need to have units that have a 2:1 or better adjusted strength ratio. But to have that, you need a tech lead, or promo lead.

Or lots of Siege?

On top of that it also opens the door for new promotions that you can pick straight away!

Refresh my memory. What Promotion other Combat 2 does Combat 1 open that Drill 1 does not?

Protective only buffs archery and gunpowder units while aggressive buffs a whole plethora of units

Yeah . . . melee units. Whoopee!

 

[PieceOfMind]

P.S. The more that I think about it, Drill I should also give -20% collateral damage, giving 80% total when you reach Drill IV. That would make Drill I, as well as the rest of the drill line, really worth it, without making the line overpowering in all situations (such as on the attack...although if your opponents are using active defense (counter-siege), then you'll benefit from the collateral damage bonuses there too).

I think that is a fairly good suggestion. However I have a slight feeling that reaching -80% collateral by Drill IV makes Drill IV a bit too powerful. Perhaps Drill I to III should give the -20% each but not Drill IV. The fact Drill IV gives 2 free guaranteed first strikes still probably makes it better than Drill III anyway.

Protective only buffs archery and gunpowder units while aggressive buffs a whole plethora of units, but most importantly the early cityraiders. Aggressive lets you get those barracks up faster and gives your troops 10% strength more. On top of that it also opens the door for new promotions that you can pick straight away! With some well placed settled great generals, the right civics and some wonders you can build units that will leave your opponents howling in terror.

Protective just make you a nuisance to attack and forces the opponent to bring more siege. Drill is too random a thing for me to rely on, I rather prefer the good old combat promotions.

And yes, why Agg is better in my book is because it helps me claim more land during the early through medieval game. Combat 1 <helps>.

Emphasis added by me. IMO, the parts in bold only demonstrate lack of thought, and look more like the same old mantra. Agg assists 3 more units than Pro does. There are 6 melee units vs. 3 archery units. Even then, you don't necessarily build twice as many melee units as you do archery - it depends on the game situation. Both traits assist gunpowder of course.

I agree Drill is a sometimes fairly random promotion (meaning harder to predict the likely outcome). The results of battle are more varied than for other promos (drill units win more battles unscratched, and also more battles severely damaged and sometimes dead).

AGG I agree is strong for the very early game war, and it outpaces PRO easily in that situation.

3) Cheap walls and castles cannot be overlooked. Also these are the only "normal" buildings that also have a resource that speeds up production (stone) and thus you can whip them for quite a bit of gold in the early game. Some consider this an exploit, I consider it an advantage of the protective leaders.

5) The Draft! The biggest edge for protective leaders as you can draft any unit with 2 free promotions and get a third (usually pinch) with a barracks and theocracy. Only the agressive trait comes close here.

I keep forgetting these! Yet they are excellent points.

 

[r_rolo1]

Protective is underrated by the vast majority of people on this forum for the simple reason that most players feel the only way to play Civ IV is to attack people with axes, and if you for whatever reason don't do that, you're a suboptimal player.

Signed under.... I would love the day that Firaxis decided to make the AI much more prone to get axes ( or maybe even give some instead of the obscente ammount of archers they got in Emperor/Immortal ).

Protective is underated mainly because most players are in a level that is below their actual skills ( think on this: if the level you're playing is balanced to your skills, you should lose 6/7 of the games in a game with 7 civs and 17/18 if you have 18 . That is definitely not fun and I agree that most of the players simply don't have stomach for that and that they are not playing to surpass themselfes ) and because of that, unless they have Monty, Shaka or other very agressive leader nearby, they will not be attacked. That and the mechanics of civ IV that allow you to have a army bigger than the empire pop ( and because of that, the making of huge SoD ) and that the current AI is very passive in the defense makes that the player in such conditions can simply stockpile units, make a SoD, target the enemy SoD, and after wiping it conquer cities and leave a token defender ( most likely a injured unit ) without fear of reprisals. All of that makes pro to look bad, but that is the same that saying that stock exchange or Mint are bad buildings while you don't have cottages, shrines, corp HQs and didn't hired merchants: you're simply not using it well.

If you want to be convinced of what pro can do for you, just get this settings in a game:
-Pangea
-Agg AI
-Pick the worst backstabbers in game and a Pro leader to you
-play 1 level above of what you are used to

And then make your own conclusions.

 

[PieceOfMind]

If you want to be convinced of what pro can do for you, just get this settings in a game:
-Pangea
-Agg AI
-Pick the worst backstabbers in game and a Pro leader to you
-play 1 level above of what you are used to
-Better BtS AI

And then make your own conclusions.

I might just do that next game! Though with one addition (in bold)... gotta help out jdog with the that v0.6 testing eh!

By the way I apologise if I frustrate anyone with the size of input I've had in this thread. There's a reason I've labelled myself the Drill IV Defender you know! But still, I make a point of not being a total fanboy of the PRO trait.