Unconquered Sun
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FIN is not overpowered.
Protective Trait-- Underrated?
- Thread starter PreLynMax
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FIN is not overpowered.
blitzkrieg1980
Octobrist
FIN for a CE is as overpowered as PHI for an SE. Neither is really OP, but when leveraged correctly, they are quite powerful.
If you ask yourself what makes a trait strong, there is one often overlooked anser - One of the way I see it its how easy is to play with your trait and use its benefits.
So everyone likes Financial, its easy and nice just build cottages, ORG - it helps if you don't do anything, it will save you gold. Spiritual not so good, you must switch civics to use its full potential. That said you can say for casual players SPI is weak trait, they don't use it really well, only 3-4-5 times in the game to do standard civics switches.
For example to use Aggresive properly, you should probably go attack, and thats kinda hard for some players. It forces you to change your playstyle or you are wasting your trait. What if you are isolated..?!
On the other hand, Pro is easy, you can build on your own and have uber defense without much trouble. Its easy and simple, and benefits are there, you may think you are not using them, but you feel far safer with 2 protective CG2-3 D1 LBs in your cities then with standard defenders. And its not false security because PRO units are stronger then its era counterparts.
Add walls, castles (defense & economic!! building actually) which are certainly better then Barracks and Drydock combo.. and now you can easily argue that PRO>AGG in most cases.
Some AGG warmonger will whine now perhaps.. but true warmongers should/will also like PRO, no doubt. So, yes PRO is underrated, its good trait and its often important, and will be used in games - contrary to popular beleif it seems.
So everyone likes Financial, its easy and nice just build cottages, ORG - it helps if you don't do anything, it will save you gold. Spiritual not so good, you must switch civics to use its full potential. That said you can say for casual players SPI is weak trait, they don't use it really well, only 3-4-5 times in the game to do standard civics switches.
For example to use Aggresive properly, you should probably go attack, and thats kinda hard for some players. It forces you to change your playstyle or you are wasting your trait. What if you are isolated..?!
On the other hand, Pro is easy, you can build on your own and have uber defense without much trouble. Its easy and simple, and benefits are there, you may think you are not using them, but you feel far safer with 2 protective CG2-3 D1 LBs in your cities then with standard defenders. And its not false security because PRO units are stronger then its era counterparts.
Add walls, castles (defense & economic!! building actually) which are certainly better then Barracks and Drydock combo.. and now you can easily argue that PRO>AGG in most cases.
Some AGG warmonger will whine now perhaps.. but true warmongers should/will also like PRO, no doubt. So, yes PRO is underrated, its good trait and its often important, and will be used in games - contrary to popular beleif it seems.
blitzkrieg1980
Octobrist
I completely agree. I'm typically a War Monger, but would generally rather see PRO than AGG when drawing a random leader. Early rush is the same as any non-AGG civ, but I can bottle up after than and really get my economy going so that I can gain a damn fine tech lead. Then I can go to war in the industrial era for conquests using CG1, Drill 3 or 4 (!!!) gunpowder units. Taking cities and defending them with the same units is great. Just bring more than you generally would and you can even fall back to defend your captured cities if you start running low on reinforcements.
Wodan
Deity
Assuming you always play with Free Market, then that seems a valid point.
Back to: Most people who think as you do, with a focus on commerce, play much the same way every game, with priority on Liberalism and Economics etc etc.
(And that's not a criticism, just an observation. Personally I like variety much more than playing and perfecting one strategy only.)
Unconquered Sun
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Believing is the first step to achieving. Here's a pic from my latest game, random leader (got Pericles) on deity...technically, you are right, I am not fighting longbows with rifles:
Back to the discussion at hand, I'd love to have Protective at this point, first strikes and better city defense = less time healing = faster conquest. But I am where I am technologically because of Philo, and I survived the early game because of Cre, when my closest neighbor Charlemagne bombed two Great Artists on the border.
Relying on just the military benefits of Protective or Aggressive is just too easily replicated by overall superiority achieved via Philo, Fin, Org, etc; and on top of that there's Charismatic (or even Imperialistic) with advantages in both fields. So, unless you're going for a very early UU rush Aggressive is a weak trait, and so is Protective unless you do some money chops on the way.
Believing is the first step to achieving. Here's a pic from my latest game, random leader (got Pericles) on deity...technically, you are right, I am not fighting longbows with rifles:
Back to the discussion at hand, I'd love to have Protective at this point, first strikes and better city defense = less time healing = faster conquest. But I am where I am technologically because of Philo, and I survived the early game because of Cre, when my closest neighbor Charlemagne bombed two Great Artists on the border.
Relying on just the military benefits of Protective or Aggressive is just too easily replicated by overall superiority achieved via Philo, Fin, Org, etc; and on top of that there's Charismatic (or even Imperialistic) with advantages in both fields. So, unless you're going for a very early UU rush Aggressive is a weak trait, and so is Protective unless you do some money chops on the way.
All I can say is WOW. LOL, why do you even bother playing? More and more WOW. Are the rest of the AI as backward as Peter in that game? I would expect him to have something better than muskets by the mid 1300's on Diety.
Ok what I said was not really accurate. What I should have said is normally you can't really hope to fight longbows with rifles. And still, what I meant by that is you wouldn't be fighting longbows as the most advanced unit when you have rifles. Assuming the AI is always going to have some old units lying around, there might be a few longbows here and there but I wouldn't describe it as rifles fighting longbows (even in your examples there are muskets about). Heck there could be a warrior about still... Would you say that was infantry fighting warriors? 
If you can do that in every one of your deity games (not just archipelago I hope!) then you are indeed a skilled player. I'd be interested to see what the circumstances were in the earlier part of the game, that allowed you to cruise to such an easy lead. I can't see the score box in your picture either.
PHI is very strong on water heavy maps (as is FIN).
If you can do that in every one of your deity games (not just archipelago I hope!) then you are indeed a skilled player. I'd be interested to see what the circumstances were in the earlier part of the game, that allowed you to cruise to such an easy lead. I can't see the score box in your picture either.
PHI is very strong on water heavy maps (as is FIN).
Unconquered Sun
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Unfortunately, two of them do have nice techs (Mansa and Gandhi, big surprise eh
). Luckily, Toku and Pacal are just as backward as Peter, so it's a race between my military expansion and Gandhi's culture. This game in particular is extra-hard because Charlemagne is a terrible neighbor, can't outexpand him, can't rush him, and also his large if backward empire shielded Gandhi and Mansa from me. On top of that, Charlie is a religious freak and won't attack them either (they share religion). So the jury is still out on that one.
Unconquered Sun
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Ok what I said was not really accurate. What I should have said is normally you can't really hope to fight longbows with rifles. And still, what I meant by that is you wouldn't be fighting longbows as the most advanced unit when you have rifles. Assuming the AI is always going to have some old units lying around, there might be a few longbows here and there but I wouldn't describe it as rifles fighting longbows (even in your examples there are muskets about). Heck there could be a warrior about still... Would you say that was infantry fighting warriors?
If you can do that in every one of your deity games (not just archipelago I hope!) then you are indeed a skilled player. I'd be interested to see what the circumstances were in the earlier part of the game, that allowed you to cruise to such an easy lead. I can't see the score box in your picture either.
PHI is very strong on water heavy maps (as is FIN).
Um...this is not an archipelago, it's a two continent tectonics map. Muskets are just as useless as longbows when fighting Infantry.
I assumed by your humour you were saying you were fighting longbows with infantry. I was only saying the tech edge, while large, as not as large as infantry vs. longbows.
Could I please see the game? I'm always keen to see how such leads are made in deity games. Or don't you have it anymore?
Unconquered Sun
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I intend to write a report about when it's finished. Unfortunately, I don't have the 4000bc save anymore, it turned out to be a rather exciting game.
obsolete
Deity
Wow this thread is growing, so Ill add in my 2 cents only because U-Sun also bothered.
A good example was todays succession thread team-game Gods of War. Here are the leader traits:
Snaaty: Imp/Pro
Auron: Imp/Org
Obsolete: Phi/Pro
It should also be noted, that Auron (who is one of the worlds top players right now) had a very close decision between that and Imp/Ind, but I helped talk him into the other (if you can believe it!).
Now this should make everyone stop and think of what I just said
You have some high-level players, using the low-rated Pro as the majority trait. Also note, not even one of them took financial, and would have even taken industrious over Fin. That should tell you something.
Ill also go on to say, that even WITHOUT any stone, Snaaty continued on with running a protective economy. I could have done the same, except I had burned off all my trees by about turn 50 Ohh, and the fact I hate turning precious hammers into gold, unless Im doing it through industrious filtering.
But whatever I say probably isnt going to change the mind of some monarch-marathon struggler and Im sure they will continue to point out all the things Im doing wrong and what I should be doing instead.
A good example was todays succession thread team-game Gods of War. Here are the leader traits:
Snaaty: Imp/Pro
Auron: Imp/Org
Obsolete: Phi/Pro
It should also be noted, that Auron (who is one of the worlds top players right now) had a very close decision between that and Imp/Ind, but I helped talk him into the other (if you can believe it!).
Now this should make everyone stop and think of what I just said
You have some high-level players, using the low-rated Pro as the majority trait. Also note, not even one of them took financial, and would have even taken industrious over Fin. That should tell you something.
Ill also go on to say, that even WITHOUT any stone, Snaaty continued on with running a protective economy. I could have done the same, except I had burned off all my trees by about turn 50
Ohh, and the fact I hate turning precious hammers into gold, unless Im doing it through industrious filtering.But whatever I say probably isnt going to change the mind of some monarch-marathon struggler and Im sure they will continue to point out all the things Im doing wrong and what I should be doing instead.
Those which are not defensive and also not military in any way are only supplied by the castle, which I like as a building (but I would hesitate to get them without stone or Pro). Still, the majority of the trait is military-oriented (even Agg is not entirely military as you could argue the cheap barracks are an infrastructural bonus).
Don't assume I prioritise Liberalism and Economics, I rarely win the Liberalism race or the Economics one (I often find myself lagging in tech at this point even if I traded well earlier on, but expansion etc brings me back into a high tech position soon after), and don't play with the same strategy all the time (e.g. always focusing on commerce). I don't discount the castle, and as I happened to just mention if the conditions are right I like to spam castles, going for them as early as possible and avoiding economics.
Perhaps, but I still think traits that provide economic bonuses are inherently superior to traits that provide only military bonuses, particularly if you assume 'optimal play'. In a close run game I would appreciate being Pro, say, as it could help me out of sticky situations, but overall being able to get to the next big military tech faster is more important.
Actually, I find the slower the game speed, the more likely a war is going to be conquest an capitulation, just because my units have so much time to get from one place to another. On quick, your opponent might get through two troop upgrade techs by the time you've conquered half the cities.
Disclaimer: recently I've been playing without vassal states.
Good points, particularly about troop upgrades. My original train of thought was that if you take 3 enemy cities early on on a standard/normal map, then your opponent is practically out of the game, whereas on huge/marathon it isn't such a setback for them, but it still takes you just as long to perform. But maybe I was wrong in claiming that wars on slower speeds and larger maps aren't so likely to be conquests or capitulations, I am interested in what others think about this. Don't you find though, that with more turns there must be more wars, and that you get asked more often to join in, leading to there being more phony wars on slower/larger?
blitzkrieg1980
Octobrist
Well... larger maps? Yes. More likely for capitulation based conquest/domination wins because it can take a LONG time to get 56% of a large map (unless you're just whipping through techs and kicking ass, which means you're not playing your level AFAIC).
But longer games on standard and smaller maps are just as easily won without capitulizing your enemy. In fact, it's probably better that you take all their land to avoid border disputes and get cities maximizing their individual outputs.
But when it comes to larger maps, I usually don't win a domination without at least 3 capitulates, if not more.
But longer games on standard and smaller maps are just as easily won without capitulizing your enemy. In fact, it's probably better that you take all their land to avoid border disputes and get cities maximizing their individual outputs.
But when it comes to larger maps, I usually don't win a domination without at least 3 capitulates, if not more.
blitzkrieg1980
Octobrist
I don't understand this post. Do you mean that the AI being willing to capitulate after x turns and not x years? I'm not sure I get it.
Maybe i misunderstood you, but very few things in the game is based on years. Any of the AI diplo modifiers are based on turns which doesn't scale with game speed. For example the time until they will speak to you or the turns of peace treaty is the same number on marathon or quick...
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