Protective Trait-- Underrated?

[Unconquered Sun]

In which case, may I point out to you that as well as this trick there are a number of other ways to really use the strengths of PRO. For example, castles can be built early to get an espionage economy going (engineerring also gives pikes to help your stacks from mounted - the supposed biggest weakness of PRO). You can use forts in a much more effective way. You can use the globe theatre to draft units that start with two free promos, unlike any other leader. There are other points I could cover but I only wish to show you a few here.

I call it game design flop, nonetheless "this trick" is Protective's most powerful asset for the early game as it is. A single chop on normal speed is worth 300-500 gold.

There are 85 turns between 2000bc (when you start getting cities) and 500 AD (say, end of early game). Which means, Organized has to save you 5 gold per turn on average just to match a single chop...two chops, and it's 10 gold per turn, etc.

Mind you, this is gold, and gold modifiers are not as easy to come as library and academy in the early game. On a forest-y enough map "this trick" surpasses not only Organized, but Financial as well.

Most people struggle with Protective because they try to use it the way you do: building Castles for 25% espionage (25% on what??), wasting experience for Drill IV (not good enough v the AI). The Globe synergy is nice but Aggressive is better and Industrious is even better for setting up NE, HE, and Globe faster. I'd rather have my Rifles fight Longbows than my Drill I Rifles fight Rifles.

 

[CivCorpse]

RE: Drill4. I play a protective leader about 1/7 of the time. Which is about how often they pop up with random leaders. And I think Drill4 is the wrong way to go. Atleast before gunpowder units. A lot of people see the free drill1 for protective leaders and think Drill4 Longbows are the best thing since sliced bread. Longbows and x-bows are meant to be defensive units. Trying to force a defensive unit into an offensive role is using the wrong tool for the job. Even a lowly axeman with C1Cover has 35% odds vs a Drill4 Longbow. And an unpromoted mace has a 45% chance of winning. I don't remember the last time I saw an unpromoted maceman. A simple C1 maceman has a 66%chance of winning. After that, any applicable promotion bumps the odds up to 80% or better vs Drill4.
If you find yourself without metal and forced to use Longbows as stack defenders you are better off with a combination of Drill1C2Shock and Drill2C1Formation Longbows. Each gives the best chance of survival vs mounted or melee as the case may be.
If you are forced to use them on then offensive then it is all about the siege. If you bring enough siege weapons you can use unpromoted left handed blind kittens to kill the enemy.
Longbows are for hill and city defense. That is what they are designed to do. If you have access to iron then X-bows with Drill3shock will give the attacker less than 20% odds or survival even if they have C1Cover. If it is an aggresive civ then You may want to go Drill1C1Shock. this increases the odds for a C3mace to 22% but drops a C2Cover mace from 45% to 26%. Non aggressive civs will have a tough time fielding a significant number of C2Cover maces to be a concern. And spears are a better counter vs HA's than any sort of drill unit. Especially since the HA's will either be promoted along the Combat or flanking line. Combat makes them stronger and Flanking gives them retreat odds at equal strength.
Offensively, Drill4Longbows are a last resort. against a Cg1Longbow that hasn't had a single turn to fortify without any cultural or wall defenses a drill4 longbow has a 28% chance of winning. A CR2sword has a 62% chance and a CR2 mace a 72% chance. And an unfortified, no cultural/wall defense CG1 Longbow is being generous. VERY generous. It is simply a matter of using the right unit for the right job. Later when you are producing gunpowder units that can not get the CR promotions then drill becomes a little more attractive.
Pre-gunpowder I take the drill line AFTER CG3. Once my main assault troops have all attacked I will start using Longbows. I use the LB's to mop up the dregs until they reach 10xp. At this point I start on a new batch of LB's. The CG3Drill2 LB's will garrison the cities on my newly expanded borders. When i am ready to push forward again i replace them with CG3Drill1 LBs right from a barracks with one exp civic. The new LB,s will then defend the newest cities I take in the next war. Those are commonly the ones most at risk from enemy counter attack until i have taken enough cities to sufficiently cripple the enemies production to the point he/she can no longer mount a counter offensive.
I do respect your conviction, and at the end of the day when all is said and done, you paid for your computer, the game and expansion packs. So how you choose to play the game and how it is the most fun for you...is the perfect way to play.

 

[obsolete]

I'd rather have my Rifles fight Longbows than my Drill I Rifles fight Rifles.

Don't forget 'The Rifleman's Paradox'. Churchill WANTS you to defend with Rifles & Muskets, because the defender's optimal defense unit in that spot is the LongBow.

 

[PieceOfMind]

True but... The same C3 mace, attacking a C3 longbow, has only a 29.4% chance to kill the longbow.

C3 is strong here because after defense modifiers, the relative strengths are very close. I have said before that Dill units have their biggest advantage when they are attacking when they have a relative strength advantage, whether it comes from defense modifiers, promotions or injuries. None of these are present here so I am not arguing Drill IV is the strongest promotion. But it does compare very well to C3 and perhaps better than you initially realised. In any case, so what if C3 is better for the longbow surviving the mace attack? What I said was that the longbow definitely beats the C3 mace, that was my point and that was all I corrected you on.

And, if he attacks an UNPROMOTED macemen in the jungle, he has only a 22.9% chance to win!

What is the point of this example. Do you really think a PRO leader, who might choose to build some xbows, is going to use a longbow to attack a mace in a jungle. Honestly why do you even mention such an absurd battle scenario?

So, with a whopping FOUR promotions, you've ALMOST managed to equal the performance of an unpromoted macemen. What this really shows is the power of defensive terrain.

It is true the power of defensive terrain should not be underestimated, and in these examples it's important. But I have never said longbows are good at attacking at a huge disadvantage. Your example is completely pointless.

Also, to be fair it should be described as 3 promotions. After all I am arguing that you should never use four drill promotions on a non-PRO leader. It's the fact you get it in 3 promotions which is powerful.

Of course, but some situations occur much more frequently than others. Rarely do you get the chance to attack unsupported melee with Xbows, and when you do, the battle is so one-sided that you don't really need extra promotions to win. Knights will also work here. Whereas, you frequently get attacked by LARGE stacks of knights, and extra promotions on pikemen can help a lot since it gets them the anti-mounted promotion faster.

I'll remind you crossbows come much before both maces and knights, and are also cheaper than maces and knights. Also, PRO leaders can build the horses and pikes you mention. PRO leaders need 3 promos for formation on their pikes, but then so do every leader who's not AGG. But even without formation pikemen are very effective against mounted even at C2. C2 pikes are not exactly weak.

Well, with enough siege you can win anything, sure, but when you're attacking a city, macemen or knights are just far more cost effective than longbows.

Longbows and crossbows are cheap, and with enough siege they do the mop up almost as easily as knights or maces, and they earn more xp for doing it.

I call it game design flop, nonetheless "this trick" is Protective's most powerful asset for the early game as it is. A single chop on normal speed is worth 300-500 gold.

There are 85 turns between 2000bc (when you start getting cities) and 500 AD (say, end of early game). Which means, Organized has to save you 5 gold per turn on average just to match a single chop...two chops, and it's 10 gold per turn, etc.

Mind you, this is gold, and gold modifiers are not as easy to come as library and academy in the early game. On a forest-y enough map "this trick" surpasses not only Organized, but Financial as well.

Ok I'm glad you weren't being sarcastic. It surprised me to find someone with the genuine opinion that this is the strongest feature of the trait, is all.

I'll have to think about the consequences of what you described further, and try it in a game.

Most people struggle with Protective because they try to use it the way you do: building Castles for 25% espionage (25% on what??), wasting experience for Drill IV (not good enough v the AI). The Globe synergy is nice but Aggressive is better and Industrious is even better for setting up NE, HE, and Globe faster. I'd rather have my Rifles fight Longbows than my Drill I Rifles fight Rifles.

I admit I am a fan of the EE, and will happily use that in every game if I have to. Short of having no competitors, EE can be done in pretty much every game.

You said castles give 25% on what? That's the point, if you run an EE, you can start to significantly bump the slider at castles, and moreso at Nationalism. With a great spy already in your best commerce city as a Scotland Yard, and combined with the fact an EE is more efficient than any other economy, going all out EE is very strong. Alternatively, bumping the esp to even 20% would be entirely reasonable IMO. It's true you might be fighting rifles with rifles, but at high difficulties where we're likely to be challenged, there's no way we can realistically hope to be fighting longbows with rifles. It would be nice to have minimum tech parity with every AI, and more likely a slight advantage over every AI, because you can steal from the one AI that has the tech.

At castles, you could send your science slider to 0 and put esp up as high as you can. Alternatively, keep some science til you get to Nationalism and/or Constitution (for jails). After those things, you will have 100% esp in your commerce cities, and you will have 200% esp in your best commerce city (more if you got more great spies).

 

[CivCorpse]

Most people struggle with Protective because they try to use it the way you do: building Castles for 25% espionage (25% on what??), wasting experience for Drill IV (not good enough v the AI). The Globe synergy is nice but Aggressive is better and Industrious is even better for setting up NE, HE, and Globe faster. I'd rather have my Rifles fight Longbows than my Drill I Rifles fight Rifles.

Building castles for the Espionage boost is weak even in an EE based game. Most cities in that era are producing 6 per turn. The extra 1.5 is just not worth the mamer investment even with stone and Protective. The extra trade route is even more short lived as most AI jump to Merc as soon as they get banking. An extra domestic trade route is not all that great. If you have a settled Great spy then a castle is a must no matter how short lived the boost may be. A cheap castle however just might buy you the time needed to rush troops over to attack the enemy while they whack away at the defenses. Everyone knows how long that can take unless they brought a mountain of siege. That one turn saved may be the difference between defeating the enemy in the open field and having to retake the city. Retaking the city means at the very least you have losing your library, university, temples, colloseum and barracks.
Even without stone, walls are a one pop whip for protective. In the early stages before cats, a wall plus CG2Drill1 archers will survive a lot of abuse. If it is a newer city you may not have had time to clear away all the jungle/forests to give you a killing field to counter attack. The city may not be size 4 for a 2 popwhip to throw up walls for a non-protective civ. Though if you can get the walls up, axes and spears seem to defend much better than even CG2 archers. But archers are cheap. If you only have a few turns to whip defenders, whip archers until size 2 then the walls. At 1popwhips you can get more out than you could with axes at2pop. Especially since you do not have time to regrow. Archers first so that they get maximum time to fortify and you get a chance to assign the promotion. Then the walls just as the enemy reaches your city. Personally I only build walls in cities that have the enemy parked right next to them Otherwise it is a waste of hammers. Unless i have crashed my economy through rex or war and want to build something that does not cost maintanence. LOL, in that case protective hurts you because you finish them too fast and then have to build units which drain your feeble economy. well they do until they go poof from a strike.

 

[pi-r8]

In any case, so what if C3 is better for the longbow surviving the mace attack? What I said was that the longbow definitely beats the C3 mace, that was my point and that was all I corrected you on.

Because we're debating whether or not the trait is good. For it to be good, it has to offer some sort of advantage. What I've shown you is that, in almost every situation, C3 is better than drill 4. Therefore, if you want to play optimally, you will choose C3 over drill 4, which means that the free Drill 1 promotion is almost useless.

What is the point of this example. Do you really think a PRO leader, who might choose to build some xbows, is going to use a longbow to attack a mace in a jungle. Honestly why do you even mention such an absurd battle scenario?

Because I'm trying to simply a common situation, stack defense. Very often, you're moving a large stack through enemy territory, and you want to defend it. The question is, what's best for the job? You seemed to be implying that Drill 4 longbows are the way to go. What I've shown is that
Drill 4 LB < C3 LB < unpromoted macemen
whenever you're in a forest or jungle (they have the same defensive bonus).
And of course, even more so if you're on flatland (sometimes it's unavoidable). The only time longbows are worth it is on hills or in cities.

It is true the power of defensive terrain should not be underestimated, and in these examples it's important. But I have never said longbows are good at attacking at a huge disadvantage. Your example is completely pointless.

Also, to be fair it should be described as 3 promotions. After all I am arguing that you should never use four drill promotions on a non-PRO leader. It's the fact you get it in 3 promotions which is powerful.

I wasn't saying anything about longbows attacking, since of course they're bad at that. I was saying they're also worse at DEFENDING in many sitations. And that, with those same 3 promos, you'd have a combat 3 LB which is better.

I'll remind you crossbows come much before both maces and knights, and are also cheaper than maces and knights. Also, PRO leaders can build the horses and pikes you mention. PRO leaders need 3 promos for formation on their pikes, but then so do every leader who's not AGG. But even without formation pikemen are very effective against mounted even at C2. C2 pikes are not exactly weak.

you ALWAYS do this and it drives me crazy! We're debating whether or not it's worth it to build a lot of longbows, because if it isn't, protective is obviously very weak (except maybe for that whip trick which is ridiculous). EVERY TIME you build a horse or a pike, you sacrifice a longbow. So if you're forced to admit that, to fight a war, you need large amounts of pikes, horses, and maces, then you have to to realize that that implies very few longbows. In other words, you're not using protective.

 

[TheMeInTeam]

It's true you might be fighting rifles with rifles, but at high difficulties where we're likely to be challenged, there's no way we can realistically hope to be fighting longbows with rifles. It would be nice to have minimum tech parity with every AI, and more likely a slight advantage over every AI, because you can steal from the one AI that has the tech.

To what difficulty are you referring? U sun will slap longbows with rifles or cuirassers...on deity.

Honestly, I'm not sure how he does it...things like consistently around 200 BPT from just the capitol around 1 AD. For me, I have trouble balancing growing my cities, expanding horizontally, and still managing great people to get the kind of tech rate that allows 100 AD liberalism and INFANTRY (!) pre 1000 AD on high levels.

However, just to put things in perspective, that's probably why he doesn't feel the need for EE. Check out BOTM 10 for example. I learned quite a bit just reading the information U sun put there...of course pre-1800 AD domination on deity still seems a ways off for me .

 

[Belisar]

So what is your point? Can't PRO leaders build high strength units?

We are talking about the possible advantages of the pro trait.
You keep telling people in this thread "can't the Pro leaders not do this and that?" Sure, but thats not the question here.
If you build a drill unit, thats less combat or cr.

You claim high base strength, combat promoted units are more versatile... why?

Exactly.
Some reasons that are important for me: higher winning chance, additional stack-protection against hordes of mounted, longer line (only important when agg or cha), some very good promos like amphibious and commando later in the game.

If your sole point here is that AGG leaders can get better combat promoted troops then you got me. I'm sure that 1 less combat promotion on my unit is going to turn my stack instatly into a far inferior one.

It is, indeed a good idea to compare pro with agg, simply because they boost similar game elements. (We already agreed that cha is stonger)
While agg itself is not the greatest trait, free C1 on early melee together with cheap rax can by itself decide a game.
On higher levels, the AI usually gets knights pretty fast and builds lots, so I would never run around with hordes of drill crossbows. Medival warfare when you neither have a production nor a tech advantage is highly situational.
Then later, assuming rax + 1 civic, agg drafts C2 while pro drafts drill2, the later is weaker and less versatile.
Overall, agg gets my vote vs. pro.

 

[CivCorpse]

you ALWAYS do this and it drives me crazy! We're debating whether or not it's worth it to build a lot of longbows, because if it isn't, protective is obviously very weak (except maybe for that whip trick which is ridiculous). EVERY TIME you build a horse or a pike, you sacrifice a longbow. So if you're forced to admit that, to fight a war, you need large amounts of pikes, horses, and maces, then you have to to realize that that implies very few longbows. In other words, you're not using protective.

It depends on map size really. On a standard map, an enemy may have 6-7 cities you wish to take and keep, plus your own 6-7 cities. That is about 24-28 Longbows. I like 2 per city in case the RNG decides to hose me. It could hose me twice in a row, but I will take that chance. I just don't want to lose a city to some mongrel lone axeman. In that case the bulk of your army is going to be stack defenders (pikes and x-bows, but not enough x-bows to make you drool over free drill1), lots of siege, some mounted and some city raiders. The proportion of LB to non LB's is so low that the extra CG1/Drill1 doesn't compensate for it.
I play on huge maps at marathon speed which adds to the value of Protective in a number of ways. First is the number of AI. With 5-6 AI on a continent you have a lot more difficult time keeping everyone happy. They are constantly demanding you switch religion, join their silly wars and stop trading with other civs. It isn't a matter of IF you get DOW but WHEN. The problem is that I run out of gold long before I run out of REX room. so keeping a strong army is just too expensive if i hope to have 2/3 the cities the AI does. At Emporer you just aren't going to be able to produce nearly as many troops as a techically superior AI that has 50% more cities and the production bonuses as well. It becomes a matter of turtling and praying.
Barabrians on huge/marathon are a freaking nightmare. Too much land to fog bust, 3 times the barb spawn checks and a lot more fog to check in. By 1800BC you have been DOW'ed by the barbarian state. Almost every turn 3-4 barbs wander into each cities BFC. They just keep coming and coming. you spend all your hammers building replacements for dead anti-barb units. They are so bad that i build TGW every single game with a single minded focus on beelining BW->Masonry that I need therapy.
By the time my economy has recovered enough to expand further and all the available land has been claimed, Longbows are available. So I build a nice giant stack of siege, some stack defenders and longbows for garrisoning my new lands. The Ai civs usually have 15+ cities by this point and I hope to have 10-12. That is about 50+ longbows that will benefit from Cg1Drill1. Now Protective helps. In my current game as tokogawa i am gearing up for war vs Izzy and then Roosevelt. They have a combined 34 cities. I have 14. I want all but 2-3 of theirs. So I need about 90-100 longbows. Two per city plus a few with Guerrila promos for stack protection and a couple with Cover to protect myself from x-bows. Between the 100 LB's and the x-bow stack defenders. I am going to get a lot of mileage out of Protective. There is no stone on the entire continent so I miss that bonus. But I can whip walls and then a castle in any city that is pop6 after I take it. That will buy me enough time while they deal with defense to get a counter attack force back to any threatened city.
LOL, you don't want to know how long it takes to fight a Medievil war on huge maps. Especially if you don't use stack attack. I am looking forward to it.
One thing I will NOT be doing is promoting any units along the drill line besides the stack defense x-bows. They get drill3 to start. Shock is stronger promotion but it goes obsolete later when melee units are gone and then I will be upgrading to MG's. Though I may choose the combat line if I see Cover promoted maces.

 

[Zeiter]

I thought the idea for the protective trait swap quest was clever and relevant.

If one valued protective as an above-average trait, one would never think about swapping it, even with 100% odds for a different one.

If one valued protective as a strictly average trait, one would consider swapping for a different random trait at 100% odds.

Myself, I'd swap at 50% odds of getting another trait. For aggressive, I'd swap at 75%.

And slightly off-topic, but after thinking long and hard about drill, here's how I would change it:

Drill I: +1 first strike
Drill II: +1 first strike, -20% collateral
Drill III: +1 first strike, -30% collateral
Drill IV: +3 first strike chances, -40% collateral, +20% vs. mounted

Same total number of first strikes overall, curve not as steep, more invulnerability vs. siege, and slightly better vs. mounted, the one weak spot.

I'd love to see a navy seal with woodsman III (upgraded from a melee unit) that also had Drill IV (from a general, perhaps). 6-10 first strikes. Although only for novelty purposes---with 7 promotions, there'd be a lot of other better things to give my navy seals.

 

[Belisar]

Between the 100 LB's and the x-bow stack defenders. I am going to get a lot of mileage out of Protective.

Please post a save, would be interesting to see 100 Lbs getting their mileage of pro as I honestly haven't had such a situation

 

[oyzar]

Correct.

Most people don't recognize the power of the protective wallchop. A single wallchop can match the contribution of, say, Organized in the early game. On maps with stone and lots of forests wallchop is simply overpowered.

Even with the wallchop/whip i don't think pro matches up to any other trait. Sure you can generate a lot of gold from it, but it is also going to cost you in what other things you could have done with those trees/pop. With org rel/stone you can easily get 200+ gold just by whipping a forge then whipping a wall, any further trees give 100ish gold each. It might seem like a lot in raw numbers to get say 1000 gold 1000 BC, but the opporunity cost of those hammers are also rather large. If i do get pro, sure i'll use wallchop/whip but i still think it is the weakest trait.

I am not sure where you are getting your numbers from US(though it might just be you counted the initial whips as part of the chop), but getting more than 150 gold(5* multiplier) out of a single forest is damn hard. Nowhere near 300-500. For organized, saving 5 gold per turn really isn't hard. It starts saving you 1 gpt the moment you settle the second city and saves you up to 5 gpt when you would normaly have 5(since upkeep is divided into 5 categories 5 is rounded down to 0, 6 rounded down to 1, 7 to 2 etc). Organized is far from the best sure, but the upkeep bonus is a lot better than the wallchop trick from protective.

 

[CornPlanter]

Currently I play with Quin Shi Huang. Heading towards cultural victory. Dschinghis Khan constantly keeps attacking me from the west while Charlemagne does the same from the east. Friendly incans to the north. I love protective Especially when cho-ko-nu benefits from it. CG2, Drill4 + walls + castle and the city can hold forever. If AI goes for pillaging, well, the same Drill 3-4 cho-ko-nu's make short work of pretty much anything until Gunpoweder-Military Tradition units. The Great Wall guarantees me many Great Generals so currently I produce Drill 3 archery units right out of the box. I've never felt that invincible

And I must admit I too underestimated Protective before. This thread inspired me to really try it before bashing. Thank you everybody who argued in favor of Protective

 

[oyzar]

Currently I play with Quin Shi Huang. Heading towards cultural victory. Dschinghis Khan constantly keeps attacking me from the west while Charlemagne does the same from the east. Friendly incans to the north. I love protective Especially when cho-ko-nu benefits from it. CG2, Drill4 + walls + castle and the city can hold forever. If AI goes for pillaging, well, the same Drill 3-4 cho-ko-nu's make short work of pretty much anything until Gunpoweder-Military Tradition units. The Great Wall guarantees me many Great Generals so currently I produce Drill 3 archery units right out of the box. I've never felt that invincible

And I must admit I too underestimated Protective before. This thread inspired me to really try it before bashing. Thank you everybody who argued in favor of Protective

Better to just take out your neighbours first before actually going for culture vic... Unless you are laying at a ridiculus low level the AI will get units that totally destroy cho-no-ku's way before you win... With any other trait you could have teched faster and taken them out with a tech advantage(or gotten more land/production) or with agressive just taken them out with troops with superior promotions...

 

[CornPlanter]

Better to just take out your neighbours first before actually going for culture vic... Unless you are laying at a ridiculus low level the AI will get units that totally destroy cho-no-ku's way before you win... With any other trait you could have teched faster and taken them out with a tech advantage(or gotten more land/production) or with agressive just taken them out with troops with superior promotions...

Yes with agro I could have taken both of them out (wasting my time and building units instead of culture buildings, et cetera. Charlemagne is protective himself so it's not easy to rush him. At least it's not easy for me, I'm no pro-gamer). But I just didn't want to. Civ4 is a great game because it offers variety of ways to play it and to win it. I wanted to turtle and use sort of espionage economy, so my slider is constantly on culture and/or espionage. I pretty much steal all the tech's I need. So protective was really helpful like no other trait could have ever been (considering this style of play).

And yes, AI will get units that destroy cho-ko-nus. By that time I will not use them any longer. What I'm saying is that in their own era protective cho-ko-nus are unbelievably powerful.

 

[UncleJJ]

It seems to me that there is too much emphasis on making drill4 longbows as a strategy for attacking in the middle game, obviously backed up by trebuchets and macemen. That makes the trait compare unfavourably with Aggressive that has better maces. But that's not how I leverage the Protective trait. I tend to skip that phase and adopt an alternative strategy that combines many people's least favourite unit (musket) with their least favourite trait (Protective). That makes a surprisingly effective troop type when combined with drafting. They are just what you need to back up the trebuchets that do the heavy lifting reducing defences and splattering defenders with collateral. The draft muskets with some supporting troops (maces and pikes, maybe HAs and longbows) are all that is needed to take cities and hold them. If the enemy has a strong SoD then you'll need a few cats to splatter it in the field, then muskets will be the basis of the killer troops. Better still declare war and hold back to let them waste their SoD in a decisive battle on your own territory without WW, then invade.

A good leader to use this strategy with would be Saladin. He can REX and then defend his gains with archers and walls in the early game followed by longbows and cats before making a beeline for Liberalism using Caste System and Pacifism to generate a few GSs for lightbulbs and academies. If he has metals or horses or jumbos then those troops can be added to the mix but are not essential. Take Nationalism as the free tech and research Gunpowder, then trade for Machinery and Engineering and you're ready to go. Draft muskets would be the core troops and several rounds of drafting while building + whipping trebuchets and other troops will soon raise a fearsome army.

Basically, I'm saying that it's not hard to use Protective muskets in a way that is better that trying to leverage Protective longbows. Longbows are cheaper to build or whip (50 hammers) than muskets (80 hammers) but if drafted the musket effectively costs 30 hammers and is thus cheaper and better. Apart from the 3 musket UUs I value the Protective musket as the best early drafted troop, obviously rifles are better laetr on but then Protective rifles are the best drafted troops in their age as well.

 

[Airefuego]

So, PRO-haters (and I include myself), let's quantify.

Suppose there were a random event which occurred early in the game, only for PRO leaders. And the text box says:

"Your leader has seen the error in his ways, and is willing to give up the Protective trait. However, there's no guarantee he'll gain another trait as recompense.
-- No thanks, I'm happy with Protective.
-- Absolutely! Lose Protective. 33% chance of gaining another trait at random."

Would you take it? More generally, at what percentage would you take it?

As always - 'it depends'

If I am playing a high level with Shaka on my door, you can keep your Spi/Phi/whatever.

Once again - the thread is NOT called "is PRO the best trait". The thread is called "Is PRO underrated".

The asnwer is yes: most people rate it zero, and it is better than that.

 

[Airefuego]

I just discovered another thing about forts. Did anyone know that units that get an inherent city defense bonus (eg. longbows and archers) enjoy that bonus in forts too?

For those units, forts are definitely starting to sound like they are easier to defend than cities. This could be very very powerful if worked into strategies.

I reckon it's almost necessary that another thread be started - "Are forts underrated?"

Forts rock. City defence benefits (including city garrison promotions, and no flank attacks against your defending siege units) plus canal functionality plus resource access.

 

[Snaaty]

IF you know how to use the overflow trick from walls correctly (whip + chop 2-5 forests), prot is really strong early-game, because its the only trait that can generate MONEY, thus allowing you to keep research up at 100% for quite a while.

IF you happen to have stone, prot is the most overpowered trait. Combine it with Imp (I think Charly from HRE), your invincible, even on deity because you just can pump out settlers like no tomorrow and never have to worry about going broke. Each city can generate between 200 and 400 gold when having between 2-5 forests in BFC PRE math and between 250 and 550 gold AFTER math...

 

[oyzar]

IF you know how to use the overflow trick from walls correctly (whip + chop 2-5 forests), prot is really strong early-game, because its the only trait that can generate MONEY, thus allowing you to keep research up at 100% for quite a while.

IF you happen to have stone, prot is the most overpowered trait. Combine it with Imp (I think Charly from HRE), your invincible, even on deity because you just can pump out settlers like no tomorrow and never have to worry about going broke. Each city can generate between 200 and 400 gold when having between 2-5 forests in BFC PRE math and between 250 and 550 gold AFTER math...

It is decent, but it is not as good as you say it is. You far from always have stone and even when you have it the opportunity cost is very large... Organized saves money which works the same way and financial gives commerce which through the slider can give you money as well. Protective is far from unique and certainly not overpowered...