Protective Trait-- Underrated?

[Munch]

I think he meant +100 base EP's to start. Otherwise it is way over-powered.

I apologize. it was supposed to be 100% , not +100. Techinally, it was supposed to double your EP, and make the Protective trait a vaulable spy monger trait in the late game.

Apologies if I am misinterpreting Pre's words here but I believe the change is +100% espionage.

My goal was not to make Protective overpowered, but to make it a top tier trait as Aggressive is, and to counter it with Agressive. I'm afraid, by fixing the Protective trait (or at least make it more interesting), my decision stands on the change.

BTW: I have been playing Pro since Civ4 vanilla. I've been beating the game the say way ever since. My "boost" as you put it has very little weight on the game itself.

Excluding that PRO wasn't in vanilla, I think anyone could beat the game 'the same way' everytime if you had double espionage, let alone all the other modded PRO bonuses. It's overpowered, and I think at least CivCorpse agrees.

I'm all for modding traits don't get me wrong, and a boost to PRO isn't a bad concept because it is certainly a lower-tier trait, but the way you've modded it really comes across as gamebreaking.

 

[SnowlyWhite]

I added some small additions to the Protective trait to add esionage enhancments to make it less usless:

Content in bold is changed or enhanced content.

-+100
-Free Promotions (City Garrison I, Drill I)
-Archery Units
-Gunpowder Units
-Clone Units
-Double Production Speed of Walls, Castle, Archery Range, Jail, Intelligence Agency, Security Bureau
-+1 to Walls
-+2 to Castle

frankly, while I think pro is poor atm, what you modded is op like hell. Especially with all the espionage discounts and the fact the ai is willing to divert up to 30% or so in ep only to match yours(and in such a setup, still inevitably fail).

Especially if you have REX'ed hard and are tight on the gold to pay for additional troops. Walls are FREE to maintain. Since you cannot afford the troops to keep your power numbers up, even the tiny(and I admit it is tiny) little boost to your power rating from all those walls might be enough to keep you from getting DOW.

that was before the ai dow mechanics were explained(though I never agreed with snaaty's philosophy about building a rack and 2 archers that made you safer). For someone like monty, in order to be safe from dow, you need something like... 150% his power. Even for more cautious ais you need over 100% their power - an unlikely hypothesis in such a scenario. I'm fully aware that a war fought at 1:1 power ratio is a very easy war, but that won't prevent the ai from declaring - so walls really do nil in preventing declaration in such a scenario.

on the other hand, the wall can be sometime a very good building on marathon in early game since the ai will love to suicide his 3-4 of his mini sods in your wall without siege, leading to huge war success, leading to be able to make peace without paying(or even netting something). That being said, usually the # of cities needing a wall are... 2-3; which frankly, I build with or without protective - protective would've saved me the hammers for 3 units in this process(significant early game, but far from game breaking, so I still don't like the trait).

And again: without stone, the cash overflow everyone talks about is exactly the same as expansive with granaries and agg with racks. Even more, expansive wins since you can chop more liberally the forests and still maintain decent health. Afterall, that's how you maintain a "mao economy"(the leader I particularly hate playing, but with forests is great, even if lacking stone).

 

[Boodler]

...
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)...

Not sure if I don't miss something here or if I translate it correctly.
Do you mean that because of the first strike(s) and FS chances an otherwise not so optimistic, let's say 72.8 % winning odds will turn into a 90%+ chance because you will damage the enemy unit from the first strikes and after 2-3 such hits, the odds will go to 90%+, but you get the xp for the 72.8 % chance ?
Just looking for clarification.

 

[noto2]

Hey I just realized something about PRO. I played a MP game last night and for most of the game (cton rules) I was fighting this other guy with archers and dog soldiers. See...guy picked Gengis and happened to spawn next to me, and I was Sitting Bull. I quickly teched AH, found the horses in his land, and promptly sent my super archers over to pillage and fortify on the resource. We fought an archer war and I won.
In MP games good players will often try to deny their opponents strategic resources. The advantage of the PRO trait is it boosts resourceless units (except Xbows). So if an AGR leader doesn't have metal, the trait is wasted, not so for a PRO leader. Just food for thought.

 

[PieceOfMind]

Not sure if I don't miss something here or if I translate it correctly.
Do you mean that because of the first strike(s) and FS chances an otherwise not so optimistic, let's say 72.8 % winning odds will turn into a 90%+ chance because you will damage the enemy unit from the first strikes and after 2-3 such hits, the odds will go to 90%+, but you get the xp for the 72.8 % chance ?
Just looking for clarification.

The xp earned from battle depends solely on the ratio (I call it R) of the modified strengths.

For example, if your longbow attacks a sword on flat ground, the ratio will be 6:6 (i.e. R=1). At this ratio, the longbow will earn 4XP if victorious. Now if you were to promote that longbow with something like Combat 1 or Shock, the 6:6 ratio would change and the earned XP would fall to 3, possibly down to 2 depending on how much you shift the ratio (if you send the ratio over R=1.33 then it would be 2XP eg. 8:6 or 6:4.5). So with these sorts of promotions you improve your odds of winning while at the same time reducing the XP earned.

Now if you were to add first strikes instead, this would not affect the ratio and so you would earn the ame 4XP for higher odds.

For Drill IV units, I will often call 3XP the "sweet spot". Drill IV units (even Drill III units) can often fight battles at very good odds (eg. 96%) and still earn 3XP unlike really any other promotion allows.

Unfortunately, if somone never uses drill troops to attack they will not likely ever see this nice XP-earning boost because attacking earns twice as much XP as defending. The attackers get all the fun!

 

[Antilogic]

I have definitely learned the value of Drill units on the defense. It is possible to weaken City Garrison III longbows with a suicide siege unit and then follow-up to finish them. But try doing that to a Drill IV longbow fortified on a hill. You'll be lucky if you even damage the guy.

I had a GG longbow with Combat II/Drill IV/Garrison I as a Protective civ...he got taken out by a lucky knight at ~9% odds, but managed to slaughter 8 units before that happened. I was awestruck.

 

[Unconquered Sun]

The xp earned from battle depends solely on the ratio (I call it R) of the modified strengths.

For example, if your longbow attacks a sword on flat ground, the ratio will be 6:6 (i.e. R=1). At this ratio, the longbow will earn 4XP if victorious. Now if you were to promote that longbow with something like Combat 1 or Shock, the 6:6 ratio would change and the earned XP would fall to 3, possibly down to 2 depending on how much you shift the ratio (if you send the ratio over R=1.33 then it would be 2XP eg. 8:6 or 6:4.5). So with these sorts of promotions you improve your odds of winning while at the same time reducing the XP earned.

Now if you were to add first strikes instead, this would not affect the ratio and so you would earn the ame 4XP for higher odds.

For Drill IV units, I will often call 3XP the "sweet spot". Drill IV units (even Drill III units) can often fight battles at very good odds (eg. 96%) and still earn 3XP unlike really any other promotion allows.

Very interesting. What about wounded units?

 

[Antilogic]

That's taken into account by the unit strength. A unit with 50/100 hit points has 50% of its base strength for all calculations.

 

[PieceOfMind]

Very interesting. What about wounded units?

Unit health directly affects the modified strengths. For example, a 50HP maceman attacking an explorer would result in 4:4.

Having said that, the way wounded units affect the damage dealt per blow is handled differently, and it can make it easier to earn XP off slightly damaged or heavily damaged units (and when they are drill attackers they really milk the XP).

With the mace vs. explorer example, the ratio R = 1, but the damage dealt per hit by the mace would be 24, and the damage dealt per hit by the explorer would be 16. The probability of each of them scoring a hit is equal - 50%.

Because the mace is wounded though, it will take 4 hits to kill him, but 5 hits for the explorer - this is all that matters really. This means the explorer has better odds (roughly 63.7%).

But generally speaking the way injured units affect combat results and XP earned is not always obvious. Having said that, I feel that when attacking you enjoy more benefits when attacking damaged units, and no I'm not just referring to the obvious fact damaged units are easier to kill . You could rephrase it as low str units are better off attacking damaged high str units than high str units attacking damaged high str units.

 

[Zeiter]

Hmmm...I was surprisingly impressed with PRO in this most recent game as Churchill (CHA/PRO...a mix of my favorite and least favorite trait). Granted, this particular combo has pretty good synergy. But even without the CHA, PRO would have helped me out immensely early on. Why?

No metals. Only horse. Was this the end of the world, though? Not at all. Normally, having chariots or horse archers still leaves you vulnerable to barb and enemy spears, but archers with instant shock out of the gate gave me an equitable counter to those. Chariots counter archers and axes. Shock archers counter spears. By the time swordsmen come around, I'll have horse archers...so I'm set until longbows...and when I get longbows, I'll be set until muskets/rifles.

Edit: And what if an enemy comes at me with a stack? I'll throw up some walls, and my CG2/D1 archers will be fine until the enemy gets catapults (unless I'm facing Rome...but if that was the case, I'd be screwed anyways)...and if I can just get to catapults around the same time, I can then weaken those stacks and finish them off with horse archers. And then feudalism isn't that far away after that.

I've concluded that, although PRO doesn't provide the most leverage, it's a lever that you can always count on, and it helps you out when you need it the most. Perhaps PRO isn't as bad as I thought....

 

[Snovvdog]

No, defending is useless, the enemy will just bring 10 catapults, first throw them all at the stack, then easily finish off the stack with any other soldiers.

Had a city last time, with a caste and a wall and the wonder that gived you 25% defence bonus for cities, and a mix of 12 good units: Maces, Crossbows, Muskets, Pikes and Longbows. Sitting bull came at me with a stack of 7 trebs, 10 catapults, 5 knights and 3 macemen. He threw the catapults and trebs at me and I lost all my units killing only 1 treb ( his trebs were city raiders 3 grr).

 

[Bandobras Took]

No, defending is useless, the enemy will just bring 10 catapults, first throw them all at the stack, then easily finish off the stack with any other soldiers.

Had a city last time, with a caste and a wall and the wonder that gived you 25% defence bonus for cities, and a mix of 12 good units: Maces, Crossbows, Muskets, Pikes and Longbows. Sitting bull came at me with a stack of 7 trebs, 10 catapults, 5 knights and 3 macemen. He threw the catapults and trebs at me and I lost all my units killing only 1 treb ( his trebs were city raiders 3 grr).

Sitting Bull came at you with 25 units vs your 12 and you lost? How long was he reducing your city defenses before he attacked? Was this the AI we're talking about? And what were the exact numbers of your 12 units?

 

[Artichoker]

One of my favorite plays when using an Aggressive leader is to take a 5-XP Warrior or Axeman and give it the Medic Promotion. At this point, it can already gain Medic II. By attaching a GG to this unit along with 3 other 5-XP units, I can produce a Medic III Axeman general, plus 3 Combat I+City Raider III units.

With Protective, you can do almost as well by having a 5-XP Archer. Since Drill I is an alternate prerequisite for Medic I, I can have a Medic III Archer general plus 3 City Raider III units. Alternatively, I can also mix in a combination of City Garrision III+Drill II and City Garrision I+Drill IV archery units for the 3 other units.

 

[PieceOfMind]

No, defending is useless, the enemy will just bring 10 catapults, first throw them all at the stack, then easily finish off the stack with any other soldiers.

Had a city last time, with a caste and a wall and the wonder that gived you 25% defence bonus for cities, and a mix of 12 good units: Maces, Crossbows, Muskets, Pikes and Longbows. Sitting bull came at me with a stack of 7 trebs, 10 catapults, 5 knights and 3 macemen. He threw the catapults and trebs at me and I lost all my units killing only 1 treb ( his trebs were city raiders 3 grr).

Funnily enough, you just gave an example where being Protective would have been the most help. With a Protective leader several of your defenders could have been Drill IV units, giving them much greater chances of surviving unhurt against siege units and taking less collateral damage when they do. Of course, if you had your own units to counter attack you would have been ok.

In my last game I had 3 lonely PRO archers repeatedly wipe out Toku's stacks of approx 8 units that he kept sending at my city. I didn't even have walls at that point.

Once I had catapults and longbows (I had no metals, sadly) I was able to go through taking all his cities. He had only just started building horse archers which were a slight problem against Drill IV longbows, but all I did was instead give lowXP longbows the formation promotion so my Drill IV units wouldn't defend against the horses.

 

[KaytieKat]

Hi

Whenever I see threads about how underpowered protective is I kind of have same feeling reading threads about how "overpowered" prats are. Sure maybe prats are strongest UU of their era but being the strongest doesnt equal overpowered and in need of a nerf. And by same reasoning-- ok lets concede for a sec that pro is the weakest of the traits. Being the "weakest" doesnt mean underpowered and in need of a boost.

Unless you want every single aspect of every sincle civ, trait, building or whatever to be exactl;y the same and play exactly the same way then what's the point? Might as well go back to civ 2 where ONLY difference in the civs you chose was their color scheme.

The whole point is to make em a lil different and to give choices. And since they ARE different it is gonna be inevitiable that some aspects may be weaker than others or require a diff playstyle than others to get the most out of em. If not where will it end?

Lets say next official patch or soemthing pro is boosted and is now "top tier". What happens to the "second" weakest trait which is now the "weakest"? Does it now need boosting to be top tier? I remember reading this article once where it talks about how in a FBI field office the person in charge their made a memo requiring ALL agents to log in enough overtime hours every month to be ABOVE the office average for that month and those that didnt would risk being demoted and even fired. And like the aritcle pointed out EVERYbody CANT be above average. Every trait CANT be above average either. If you want there to be enough differences where choosing between playing as or against Cathy or Ghandi or going all out war or trying to be peaceful or whatever choice you make to be meaningful then SOME aspects of the game are gonna be weaker and some stronger than others. One of fun aspects (to me anyways) about this game is that whether the apsects tend to be "strong" or "weak" can in most cases just be a matter of choices you make in how to play them. I mean if you work to get the most out of say philo it can be very strong--if you dont then it probably gonna be very weak. The same goes with protective. Now maybe even if you do get the most possible out of pro it wont be as strong as getting most out of some other trait (and even that can be point of argument since maybe its just that choices needed to get most out of pro isnt your cup of tea and you prefer style that gets most out of agg or fin or whatever) SOME trait has to be weakest-they cant ALL be above average or else it would be a pretty boring game I think.

THAT said-- for what its worth here are a cpl things that I do when I play a pro leader--barracks--in early game (as in point of game where you still just have your cap) even for agg leaders building one can take up a big chunk of turns. But when I am pro I dont bother building it quite as soon--I mean a cg1,drill1 archer is actually better than even an ag leader coult get WITH a barracks so I skip the barracks until a lil later and save the turns to try and rex out a lil quicker. And even when warring early I use it just from fact that in pre gunpowder wars I sually dont build much garrison troops. I rather whip them out of newly captured cities. Now in bigger cities I will normally whip barracks first to get better archers. But when I am doing that with protective I skip the barracks part and still get tuffer garrison than I otherwise would and instead either whip xtra archers or whip walls to make it even tuffer for newly captured cities to be retaken. Who knows maybe that not a HUGE differnce and I dont make claims to be a good player--but for me I'll take every lil boost I can get and it does make it easier to keep what I take and can and does save a few turns here and there by not needing a barracks as much or as often and for me anyways every lil bit helps

And that doesnt even consider castles--buildings which I kinda like and will even put off eco for awhile if I have a lot of castles going which is very easy to have when youre protective.

Kaytie

 

[Wodan]

Funnily enough, you just gave an example where being Protective would have been the most help. With a Protective leader several of your defenders could have been Drill IV units, giving them much greater chances of surviving unhurt against siege units and taking less collateral damage when they do. Of course, if you had your own units to counter attack you would have been ok.

I think people have an aversion to suiciding a mounted unit or two for some reason.

After all, we have no problem suiciding a half dozen cats/trebs (or more) when we're on the attack. Why is the loss of a horseman/knight or two when we're on the defense a big deal?

barracks--in early game (as in point of game where you still just have your cap) even for agg leaders building one can take up a big chunk of turns. But when I am pro I dont bother building it quite as soon--I mean a cg1,drill1 archer is actually better than even an ag leader coult get WITH a barracks so I skip the barracks until a lil later and save the turns to try and rex out a lil quicker.

Excellent point. Instead of whipping or focusing on production of tons of surplus units for offense, PRO allows you to work more cottages or REX faster. Play to the strength of your traits.

Would I rather have a dozen axes in 500BC or a dozen extra villages?

Probably each person would give a different answer to that question. There's no right and no wrong answer, though. Both are good, and are different game strategies. The lesson there is that a strategy suited for AGG or CHA or whatever is not necessarily a "one size fits all." Just because there's one strategy that works doesn't mean there aren't others.

 

[noto2]

I think with the change in mounted units having the anti-seige flanking ability, the PRO should give all mounted units flanking 1, perhaps even instead of the existing bonuses. Before catapults, sure, CG and D are good...but after catapults the only wait to deal with enemy stacks is to have your own stack or to use mounted units to destroy their seige. It's a lot better than just having the seige tear your stack apart. The only other option I could see is if they boosted the drill line to make it even more seige resistant, maybe D4 should be immune to seige.

 

[Calouste]

I think with the change in mounted units having the anti-seige flanking ability, the PRO should give all mounted units flanking 1, perhaps even instead of the existing bonuses. Before catapults, sure, CG and D are good...but after catapults the only wait to deal with enemy stacks is to have your own stack or to use mounted units to destroy their seige. It's a lot better than just having the seige tear your stack apart. The only other option I could see is if they boosted the drill line to make it even more seige resistant, maybe D4 should be immune to seige.

The same issue has already been addressed a few times on this thread. With Protective you still build Horse Archers and Knights to take out the siege. But because your Walls and Castles are cheaper, and you need less defending Archers and Longbowmen and Crossbowmen because they are more effective, you can invest those hammers saved in a few more Horse Archers and Knights instead.

 

[CornPlanter]

Suicide Mounted Units do nothing to siege. Flank attack works only if a unit survives (wins or retreats).

 

[Wodan]

Suicide Mounted Units do nothing to siege. Flank attack works only if a unit survives (wins or retreats).

If you send in 4 or 5, you almost certainly will lose 1 or 2 of them. The alternative (as I mentioned) is to suicide cats.