Protective Trait-- Underrated?

[Bandobras Took]

It's copper. And lacking copper is a situation in which I'd actually build an archer. Otherwise not so much. I normally have copper or iron nearby, except on archipelago.

There it is (excuse my terminology). You may normally have copper or iron nearby, but if you've got to wait for iron, then you haven't quickly gotten your shock axes out. I've had more than a few games where the copper simply wasn't there.

That doesn't make sense. If it's a "matter of life and death" you pop rush it and it's one turn either way.

You asked for a situation where walls can be leveraged in a game-changing way. I gave you one.

I don't see how consistently winning the liberalism race has anything to do with going for engineering early or not. I didn't say I bypassed engineering for liberalism - you just assumed that. I think I always have engineering before liberalism. And I know that engineering is essential once the enemy has longbows or knights. And it's not an extra trade route in each city unless you build a castle in every city. Econ + corporation, however, is two extra trade routes in all cities, granted the civic switch.

Permit me to quote you from the first page.

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.

Unless you define "not that far apart" as "after I research Engineering, I go and get techs leading up to Liberalism, then go get the Great Merchant," I don't see how one would interpret your first statement as anything but putting off Engineering in favor of Liberalism. You didn't say "they are often not that far apart," you said they "are not that far apart." When you use an absolute like that, you're saying that you use the same tech order every time, with the same benchmarks.

A typical order would be: Civil Service, Engineering, Paper traded or stolen, Education, Liberalism, Guilds, Banking, Economics, and Corporation if I don't have the GLH. Though every game is different, that would be the most common sequence.

And you call that "not that far apart?"

What are you doing? Putting off econ till democracy, further on? I think castles are the only building on the tech screen where I can see it enabled and crossed out on the same screen in the science advisor.

Maybe we should mod a more compact tech screen.

I'm sure there are situations in which any trait or aspect of the game, even protective, can outdo others. But in most situations, it is the weakest. Not worthless, just overall the weakest.

Yep. In most situations, most of the traits are the weakest. That's because they have nothing directly to do with the situation in question.

I'm sure I can improve, but unless you're a deity-level player you have no place being all condescending. And even if you were a deity-level player it'd still be rude.

Since your stated tech order has changed from the first page to this, I'll happily rescind my statements regarding it. As far as hammer efficiency vs barbarians, I'm still going to give an edge to Protective Archers because:

1) They're cheaper; and
2) They're guaranteed.

As soon as I have Archery, I can start building Archers, but the same cannot be said of Chariots and Animal Husbandry or Axemen and Bronze Working. I'm going to have more available units to work with at an earlier date, should I so choose.

 

[Zeiter]

The power of protective is not fully represented when the player is playing against the AI. Why? Because protective especially factors in to the equation of whether an attacker will be able to take the opponent's CITIES or not.

I don't know of a single human player who would put together a real SoD, mount a real war, but without expecting to take any cities, but rather just pillage, etc. In this circumstance, if I was thinking of going up against a protective human, I'd think to myself, "No thanks, I'll pick on someone who is bound to be much less of a hassle, and where I can actually get something for my investment, instead of just mitigate my losses through pillaging...." Even if I could count on barely winning against that protective leader, the war still wouldn't be worth it because it would set me back vs. the other players. It wouldn't be *profitable*.

That is, the biggest strength of protective SHOULD be that it is a *deterrent* factor against wars starting in the first place. There's just too little incentive for the attacker if the attacker can't take cities, or can only take them in a costly, timely manner (Just think, would you rather attack a civ with financial traits, or one with CG3/D1 longbows and castles getting whipped out quickly upon declaration?) There will always be more juicy targets out there, so in theory the smart protective player can count on having to not waste replenishing his/her military on a lot of wars in the first place. Lots of hammers saved.

This, however, is lost on the AI, who is somewhat irrationally suicidal at times. The AI doesn't care if its war against you will be *profitable* for it or not. All it knows is that, in theory, according to the power graph, the war might be barely winnable, and the RNG rolled a certain number, so it has to go to war against you. So you actually have to fight the war against the AI, and thereby the biggest potential advantage of protective is not represented at all when playing against the AI.

 

[Tephros]

Since your stated tech order has changed from the first page to this, I'll happily rescind my statements regarding it. As far as hammer efficiency vs barbarians, I'm still going to give an edge to Protective Archers because:

Well I suppose I should have been more clear on what I meant by "not that far apart." To me, 6 techs, 1-3 of which are traded or stolen, doesn't seem that far from the point you can build something till it's obsolete. Not even a late collosus is that bad.

 

[vicawoo]

Once someone told me that if you played Kilik from soul calibur 2 really well, he became OK. Not a ringing endorsement. If you utilize wall whipping gold and archer expansion and drill and cg promotions really well, protective become ... OK.

And I hate teching archery. I'll do it, but I'm always thinking about the turns wasted on a dead end tech right before I start tanking my economy through expansion.

 

[TheMeInTeam]

We have a lot of traits being strong or weak discussion flying around now, but a lot of it is using leaders as examples...

Part of the reason for strong/weak traits is that they're somewhat balanced by the civs these leaders have. Sumeria is a very strong civ anyway, so saying it helps REX with gilga is a little iffy - the zig is early and cheap. Could you imagine them with ORG?! Especially someone like darius or napoleon...nasty.

In considering the trait by itself, however, PRO just loses. It's not a question of human handicap, it's that the optimal way to use units in the early goings ruins the benefits of PRO. It is literally IMPOSSIBLE to prevent war with pure power at higher difficulties, so diplo will often negate the need for defense. When you DO have to defend yourself, you don't want to get pillaged, which again steers you away from PRO.

While useful for gunpowder, it's rare the trait does anything at all for the human before then. That's a long time with dead weight. That said, it's a spectacular trait for the AI. It's incredibly annoying to rush protective leaders, and the ones that also REX well can actually get somewhat dangerous, or at very least be challenging to attack. With all of its defensive unit spam, the AI seems to have been built for PRO.

 

[Skallagrimson]

I usually trade for archery. It's a throw-in where a trade for some other tech would be too generous on its own.

 

[Calouste]

Once someone told me that if you played Kilik from soul calibur 2 really well, he became OK. Not a ringing endorsement. If you utilize wall whipping gold and archer expansion and drill and cg promotions really well, protective become ... OK.

And I hate teching archery. I'll do it, but I'm always thinking about the turns wasted on a dead end tech right before I start tanking my economy through expansion.

Depends which speed you play. On Marathon you can't really do without Archery. No Archery means no Horse Archers to flank Catapults and no better defensive unit than Axemen until you reach Civil Service. Which means you are almost defenseless if someone show up at your city with a decent sized stack and 5 or 6 Catapults.

 

[Calouste]

We have a lot of traits being strong or weak discussion flying around now, but a lot of it is using leaders as examples...

Part of the reason for strong/weak traits is that they're somewhat balanced by the civs these leaders have. Sumeria is a very strong civ anyway, so saying it helps REX with gilga is a little iffy - the zig is early and cheap. Could you imagine them with ORG?! Especially someone like darius or napoleon...nasty.

In considering the trait by itself, however, PRO just loses. It's not a question of human handicap, it's that the optimal way to use units in the early goings ruins the benefits of PRO. It is literally IMPOSSIBLE to prevent war with pure power at higher difficulties, so diplo will often negate the need for defense. When you DO have to defend yourself, you don't want to get pillaged, which again steers you away from PRO.

While useful for gunpowder, it's rare the trait does anything at all for the human before then. That's a long time with dead weight. That said, it's a spectacular trait for the AI. It's incredibly annoying to rush protective leaders, and the ones that also REX well can actually get somewhat dangerous, or at very least be challenging to attack. With all of its defensive unit spam, the AI seems to have been built for PRO.

As so many others on this thread, you again make the mistake that somehow being Protective prevents you from building units to counter pillagers. As has been pointed out by PieceOfMind, having cheap walls and being able to get an effective city defense with less defenders because they are stronger, actually allows a Protective leader to divert these hammer savings to build more counter attacking units, not less.

 

[TheMeInTeam]

As so many others on this thread, you again make the mistake that somehow being Protective prevents you from building units to counter pillagers. As has been pointed out by PieceOfMind, having cheap walls and being able to get an effective city defense with less defenders because they are stronger, actually allows a Protective leader to divert these hammer savings to build more counter attacking units, not less.

You're killing yourself here. What does it matter if you have walls and better defenders, if you are STILL MAKING OTHER UNITS TO COUNTER PILLAGERS?

Once the AI (or anyone) has siege sitting in the city is the weaker move. You want to be ATTACKING the offending stack, because collateral is set to make that more effective in civ IV.

Cheap walls also require you to tech masonry. You might not always want/need to.

Basically, if you have counter-attack units, you don't need better city defenses, you need better counter-attack units. PRO only helps marginally, when you have no strategic resources at all and you get declared on. In this rare scenario, you're still quite far back, because your archers won't do anything to stop the AI assault.

Once you have catapults (which again PRO does nothing to aid), you have all the defense you need. The archers, longbows, or whatever that cleans up after them barely matters.

 

[Bandobras Took]

It is literally IMPOSSIBLE to prevent war with pure power at higher difficulties, so diplo will often negate the need for defense. When you DO have to defend yourself, you don't want to get pillaged, which again steers you away from PRO.

But when you DO have to defend yourself, losing cities has got to be the pits.

Protective has allowed me to win city battles that I would not have won with any other trait (including aggressive), by extension allowing me to win games I would otherwise have lost.

That alone makes it a good trait. The question of the thread is whether Protective is underestimated. That is undoubtedly the case, as several of the posters have shown.

A good deal of the time, it has allowed me to win city battles so efficiently that I've been able to pursue peacetime goals while under heavy attack.

Granted, if I've put all my cottages on the borders next to my AI neighbor, they'll probably get pillaged, but I'm not sure that's the fault of Protective, either.

 

[UncleJJ]

We have a lot of traits being strong or weak discussion flying around now, but a lot of it is using leaders as examples...

Part of the reason for strong/weak traits is that they're somewhat balanced by the civs these leaders have. Sumeria is a very strong civ anyway, so saying it helps REX with gilga is a little iffy - the zig is early and cheap. Could you imagine them with ORG?! Especially someone like darius or napoleon...nasty.

You and all the people discussing individual traits in isolation are missing my point, and that is, traits only ever occur in pairs and sometimes they reinforce one another and sometimes they conflict. The same is true for a leader's UU, UB and starting techs, sometimes they go well with one or both traits and sometimes they don't. Trying to separate out the effects of one component in that matrix is a forlorn task and frankly you and the others are wasting you time trying to convince other people of your opinions, when those other people play the game in a different way and appreciate the various situations where what you insist is correct is just not true.

My point about Gilgamesh was to illustrate this idea. Take two traits that many say are "weak" - whatever that means - and put them together and you have a very competant leader. For you to say that the Ziggurat alone is the reason Gilgamesh can REX so well, is absurd. A great part of his ability is the two traits that simultaneously push his borders and allow any city to be protected by a wall with a 1 pop whip. A couple of Protective archers behind a wall are going to stop a stack of axes or chariots from making much progress so you can REX aggressively, confident that defence of that position is viable. The Ziggurat does figure into the equation but only as a cost effective way to recover from a position that would normally be considered overexpansion that wrecks an early economy. REXing is about keeping what you've claimed just as much as making it economic and that's where Protective compliments Gilgamesh's other trait, UB and starting techs.

 

[Calouste]

You're killing yourself here. What does it matter if you have walls and better defenders, if you are STILL MAKING OTHER UNITS TO COUNTER PILLAGERS?

Once the AI (or anyone) has siege sitting in the city is the weaker move. You want to be ATTACKING the offending stack, because collateral is set to make that more effective in civ IV.

Cheap walls also require you to tech masonry. You might not always want/need to.

Basically, if you have counter-attack units, you don't need better city defenses, you need better counter-attack units. PRO only helps marginally, when you have no strategic resources at all and you get declared on. In this rare scenario, you're still quite far back, because your archers won't do anything to stop the AI assault.

Once you have catapults (which again PRO does nothing to aid), you have all the defense you need. The archers, longbows, or whatever that cleans up after them barely matters.

Do you never have cities that directly border or are close to enemy lands? Walls will significantly lower the effectiveness of siege, either because your untis have a higher defense, or because it will take siege a lot longer to take down a higher % of defense. And if the attacker needs few turns to bombard your defenses, you can gather your counter attacking units from around your empire instead of having to maintain large stacks in every risky spot. Protective allows you to have an effective defense at less cost of hammers and maintenance than non-Protective leaders.

Oh, and if you want Catapults, they come with Construction, which requires Masonry. So yes, I do always want to tech Masonry.

 

[_invy_]

Funny discussion so far, lots of pro and cons. While it has its flows I think I like PRO trait in the game and it has its uses, it just requires a bit different play style. So definatelly not weak, I played a lot of games with PRO leaders, and PRO trait saved me many times. I founded myself surrounded by few AIs, and if you attack one of them someone will often backstab you. Then you will be happy that one of your traits is PRO . All in all, its nice addition to the game, especially to AIs.
In always war game it would be my first choice for example.. its just easier to defend with it.

 

[Wodan]

The power of protective is not fully represented when the player is playing against the AI. Why? Because protective especially factors in to the equation of whether an attacker will be able to take the opponent's CITIES or not.

I don't know of a single human player who would put together a real SoD, mount a real war, but without expecting to take any cities, but rather just pillage, etc. In this circumstance, if I was thinking of going up against a protective human, I'd think to myself, "No thanks, I'll pick on someone who is bound to be much less of a hassle, and where I can actually get something for my investment, instead of just mitigate my losses through pillaging...." Even if I could count on barely winning against that protective leader, the war still wouldn't be worth it because it would set me back vs. the other players. It wouldn't be *profitable*.

That is, the biggest strength of protective SHOULD be that it is a *deterrent* factor against wars starting in the first place. There's just too little incentive for the attacker if the attacker can't take cities, or can only take them in a costly, timely manner (Just think, would you rather attack a civ with financial traits, or one with CG3/D1 longbows and castles getting whipped out quickly upon declaration?) There will always be more juicy targets out there, so in theory the smart protective player can count on having to not waste replenishing his/her military on a lot of wars in the first place. Lots of hammers saved.

This, however, is lost on the AI, who is somewhat irrationally suicidal at times. The AI doesn't care if its war against you will be *profitable* for it or not. All it knows is that, in theory, according to the power graph, the war might be barely winnable, and the RNG rolled a certain number, so it has to go to war against you. So you actually have to fight the war against the AI, and thereby the biggest potential advantage of protective is not represented at all when playing against the AI.

All excellent points.

BUT let me point out that it is a deterrent to the AIs too. Building cheap walls and castles DOES impact the Power graph, which is what the AI uses when deciding who is weak and who is strong, when picking someone to attack.

 

[TheMeInTeam]

You and all the people discussing individual traits in isolation are missing my point, and that is, traits only ever occur in pairs and sometimes they reinforce one another and sometimes they conflict. The same is true for a leader's UU, UB and starting techs, sometimes they go well with one or both traits and sometimes they don't. Trying to separate out the effects of one component in that matrix is a forlorn task and frankly you and the others are wasting you time trying to convince other people of your opinions, when those other people play the game in a different way and appreciate the various situations where what you insist is correct is just not true.

My point about Gilgamesh was to illustrate this idea. Take two traits that many say are "weak" - whatever that means - and put them together and you have a very competant leader. For you to say that the Ziggurat alone is the reason Gilgamesh can REX so well, is absurd. A great part of his ability is the two traits that simultaneously push his borders and allow any city to be protected by a wall with a 1 pop whip. A couple of Protective archers behind a wall are going to stop a stack of axes or chariots from making much progress so you can REX aggressively, confident that defence of that position is viable. The Ziggurat does figure into the equation but only as a cost effective way to recover from a position that would normally be considered overexpansion that wrecks an early economy. REXing is about keeping what you've claimed just as much as making it economic and that's where Protective compliments Gilgamesh's other trait, UB and starting techs.

I would say that CRE and his UU/UB dictate his strength (however, you'll not catch me calling CRE weak anyway...the faster first GS and the cities getting up to speed faster aren't benefits I can easily ignore). PRO might help him in a rare situation of early, no metal war, but otherwise he can just take over with city spam and culture control of the best tiles. Without a doubt, he is strong to use and incredibly obnoxious to oppose.

I think CRE is actually the best AI trait, and I'm not alone. This is more a hole in the AIs play than CRE being the BEST TRAIT EVER, but it still stands to reason that CRE is quite solid. Combining it with PRO (which is actually quite sound in AI hands) is one of the reasons Gilgamesh is among the more annoying and dangerous AIs in the game.

You do have a point about PRO in that it comes with other trait pairs. However, for almost every PRO leader i've used, I'd wished his other trait was paired with something other than PRO. However, I must admit something like Toku of mali would be kind of fun . 4 str, 2-3 first strike units with access to cover thanks to a cheap barracks . Talk about a normally bad leader suddenly turning ridiculous.

 

[CivCorpse]

You're killing yourself here. What does it matter if you have walls and better defenders, if you are STILL MAKING OTHER UNITS TO COUNTER PILLAGERS?

You're still missing the point. The cheap walls and better defenders mean that you save hammers on city defenses. Fewer archers/longbows means more hammers for counter attacking troops. Cheaper walls mean more hammers for counter attacking troops. Being able to keep 2 archers/longbows in a city with walls means I don't have to worry about a mini-stack popping over my borders to grab the city. The hammers saved on one longbow is the same as one catapult for collateralling the enemy SOD. The savings from a wall is 1/2 a cat or 5/7 of an axeman. In an empire of 7 border cities that is 7 cats and 5 axemen extra. Not too shabby.[/quote]

Once the AI (or anyone) has siege sitting in the city is the weaker move. You want to be ATTACKING the offending stack, because collateral is set to make that more effective in civ IV.

See above.

Cheap walls also require you to tech masonry. You might not always want/need to.

Masonry opens up construction for cats and jumbos. Though if I have jumbos you better not invade me. It also opens up Monotheism for OR. And Mono opens up theocracy. It also means you can hook up stone/marble.
Usually not a must have tech in the very beginning but definately a very useful tech. But you will most likely need it by the time you have longbows. People keep using archers as the example for Protective. I agree with a lot of the arguments against archers if you have early copper. Especially if you are Agg. But I really haven't seen anyone say longbows suck and they never build them.

Basically, if you have counter-attack units, you don't need better city defenses, you need better counter-attack units. PRO only helps marginally, when you have no strategic resources at all and you get declared on. In this rare scenario, you're still quite far back, because your archers won't do anything to stop the AI assault.

See above about saving hammers by building fewer city defenders. I am wondering how many garrison troops you typically keep in a border city. One longbow per city? You have to have something in there so isn't it better to spend 125 hammers on two CG2D1 longbows and some walls than to spend 150 hammers on three CG1 longbows without walls? I am not advocating building 10 longbows and hiding behind my walls like everyone seems to think that is what to do with a Protective leader. But because of the reduced costs to garrison a city I have more hammers available to invest in counter attack troops. Thus I am better equipped to venture out and attack the enemy stack.

Once you have catapults (which again PRO does nothing to aid), you have all the defense you need. The archers, longbows, or whatever that cleans up after them barely matters.

On a standard size map that may be the case. But on a large/huge map that extra turn or two the AI spends bombarding the walls you say are useless may be the extra turn or two you need to get a counterattacking force to the scene. Even with the extra movement from engineering it can take 5-6 turns to cross your empire if you get attacked from the other side. Castles buy even more time. Maybe time to get a second collateral round from cats that retreated the first time. Maybe it's just me, but I don't always have the superior SOD for counter attacking. Especially if I have a large force on the offensive somewhere when the DOW occurs.

 

[pi-r8]

You're still missing the point. The cheap walls and better defenders mean that you save hammers on city defenses. Fewer archers/longbows means more hammers for counter attacking troops. Cheaper walls mean more hammers for counter attacking troops. Being able to keep 2 archers/longbows in a city with walls means I don't have to worry about a mini-stack popping over my borders to grab the city. The hammers saved on one longbow is the same as one catapult for collateralling the enemy SOD. The savings from a wall is 1/2 a cat or 5/7 of an axeman. In an empire of 7 border cities that is 7 cats and 5 axemen extra. Not too shabby.

You know what's even cheaper than cheap walls? NO WALLS AT ALL! And you know how you do that? Axeman! Instead of building archers and walls, build axeman! (chariots also work). You don't need to defend a city if they can't even get to it. Then after you've slaughtered their invading forces, you march in and conquer them.

 

[Zeiter]

All excellent points.

BUT let me point out that it is a deterrent to the AIs too. Building cheap walls and castles DOES impact the Power graph, which is what the AI uses when deciding who is weak and who is strong, when picking someone to attack.

True, but I don't think the power graph captures the true deterrent factor of walls and castles insofar as they factor into the possibility of waging a timely, cost-effective, *profitable* war. In terms of *survivability*, I think they only boost your chances there a little bit (if the opponent has siege, castles can be bombarded down, after all, so they only buy you time and/or delay the inevitable), and I think the power graph captures that quite well.

But what the power graph effect of walls and castles doesn't represent well is the "pain in the %#%" index, or the profitability index. PRO does wonders for the "PITA" index, but AI attackers don't take this into account. This important deterrent is missing in single-player play with PRO.

That said, Civ4 is foremost a single-player game with multiplayer capabilities. The way the game plays vs. the AI should be considered the baseline of comparison. I just think it would be nice for the AI to have some factor in its calculations to take into account the "PITA" index--a crude cost-benefit estimation of a war, not just a question of whether the AI would be able to overpower the other.

 

[Zeiter]

One problem that I do have with the PRO trait is that the only thing that I really look forward to using when I'm playing a PRO leader is the free Drill I.

If you gave me a choice between the PRO trait and a different trait that gave free Drill I to all archery and gunpowder unit, plus it gave only ONE other small bonus (like, cheaper security bureaus), I'd choose the latter trait in a heartbeat. The cheap walls, castles, and CG promotions are basically irrelevant (the CG less so, but still....).

PRO just needs to add a discount to some buildings that are more than niche-useful and that don't obsolete, such as security bureaus and bunkers. And Drill I needs a slight boost. Problem solved! All of the sudden, PRO becomes a trait with something fun to offer throughout the whole game (instead of basically going obsolete after the medieval era), and something that doesn't only work with a very niche sort of playstyle. Because, after all, pretty much everyone's going to build security bureaus (just like courthouses) eventually, right?

 

[vicawoo]

All excellent points.

BUT let me point out that it is a deterrent to the AIs too. Building cheap walls and castles DOES impact the Power graph, which is what the AI uses when deciding who is weak and who is strong, when picking someone to attack.

FALSE!
Castles do not affect the power graph
http://forums.civfanatics.com/showthread.php?t=163098

(For BTS 3.17)
1000 soldiers- Trading Post, Shale Plant, Totem Pole
2000 soldiers- Walls, Dry Dock, Forge, Factory, Stable, Mint, Assembly Plant, Industrial Park, Levee, Dike
3000 soldiers- Dun, Barracks, Ikhanda, Citadel
4000 soldiers- Mt. Rushmore, Red Cross, Iron works, Ger, Statue of Zeus
6000 soldiers- Military Acadamy
8000 soldiers- Heroic Epic, Chichen Itza, Scotland Yard, West Point
10000 soldiers- Great Wall, Cristor Redentor, Moai Statues

So for side reference, a forge gives you as much power as a wall. A warrior gives as much. Barracks give twice as much. Archers give more. Chariots give twice as much. An axe gives 3 times as much.

(For BTS 3.17)
2000 soldiers – Warrior, Quechua, Galley
3000 soldiers – Archer, Trireme, Caravel, Carrack
4000 soldiers – Spearman, Impi, Holkan, Skirmisher, Bowman, Chariot, War Chariot, Immortal, Galleon, Airship
5000 soldiers – Catapult, Hwacha
6000 soldiers – Swordsman, Juguar Warrior, Gallic Warrior, Axeman, Dog Soldier, Phalanx, Vulture, Pikeman, Landsknecht, Longbowman, Horse Archer, Numidian Cavalry, Keslik, East Indiaman, Privateer, Guided Missle
7000 soldiers – Cho-Ko-Nu, Crossbow
8000 soldiers – Praetorian, War Elephant, Ballista Elephant, trebuchet, Frigate
9000 soldiers – Maceman, Samurai, Musketman, Musketeer, Janissary, Oromo Warrior
10000 soldiers – Berserker, knight, Camel Archer, Ship of the Line

The difference between teching masonry for walls vs for catapults is that you can often trade for masonry in time to tech catapults. Archery and masonry put a big delay on alphabet/aesthetics and may reduce their trade value.

If you have bronze, I'd rather have axemen than cg2/d1 archers. In that case, protective is mostly useful for one pop whipping walls.