Protective Trait-- Underrated?

[Skallagrimson]

@noto2
This is why I choose a Pro leader than an Agg leader. It just dosen't fit my style, and I almost never can whip enough of an army to go on an offensive while maintaining a stable ecomony. For the same cost, I would've build a bunch of archers and sit and laugh at your stack of axemen die while you unnessarly and unpractically sacrifice your army. Not only will you will be outnumbered, but you will have the odds stacked against you with massive defensive bonuses against you.
While you recover from your shock of losing your army, I would've already started marching my 4 stack of strength axemen protected by 5 stacks of (at that time) D2/CG3 archers up your borders.

Now do you think such a trait is that bad?

You've yet to be owned by catapults, I take it.

 

[Wodan]

You've yet to be owned by catapults, I take it.

I don't see that his tactic prevents him from using Drill, which make cats nothing more than an expensive Axe.

 

[Wodan]

Responding to the Academy discussion...

May I point out that an Academy + 2 scientists (requires Library) will produce more beakers than a settled great scientist in ALL situations except when you have 0% on the slider?

Feel free to do the maths yourself, but I'm pretty sure the above is true.

(Note: 2 great people may change the above. i.e., Academy your first one, and it is probably better to settle your 2nd Great Scientist in the first city rather than create an Academy in a second city. However, you sacrifice long term beakers if you're running CE to get those short term gains. Long term, once you are able to move the slider back up, having two maxed Town cities each with Academy is better.)

 

[UncleJJ]

Responding to the Academy discussion...

May I point out that an Academy + 2 scientists (requires Library) will produce more beakers than a settled great scientist in ALL situations except when you have 0% on the slider?

Feel free to do the maths yourself, but I'm pretty sure the above is true.

This is not a fair comparison. The situation I've experienced is when I have 8 cities spread out too far apart and with the slider at zero the only beakers are coming from the 4 cities with libraries and running scientists. Each city gives 6 base beakers and with the library bonus that's 7.5 beakers and 30 in total. All your commerce is leeching away in maintenance and a few cottages are slowly maturing.

Now you get the first GS, what do you use him for? You can make an academy or settle him. An academy in the capital will add 3 beakers (+ 50% of 6 beakers). A settled GS will add 7.5 beakers and a hammer. Assuming the capital has a total of 20 commerce (which is a lot this early in the game) the academy will add +1 beaker for every 10% the slider is raised. So with the 2 scientists giving + 3 beakers and a slider at 50% the 10 commerce will mean the academy gives +8 beakers. Getting the slider from 0% to 50% is the hard work and normally requires cottages maturing, or cash from a failed wonder attempt or researching CoL for either Caste System merchants or whipped courthouses. Only at that stage will an academy beat the settled GS, when the hard work has already been done.

(Note: 2 great people may change the above. i.e., Academy your first one, and it is probably better to settle your 2nd Great Scientist in the first city rather than create an Academy in a second city. However, you sacrifice long term beakers if you're running CE to get those short term gains. Long term, once you are able to move the slider back up, having two maxed Town cities each with Academy is better.)

Since you'll probably be running 2 scientists in 4 cities you can expect the first GS in 17 turns and the second in 33 turns and the third in 50 turns (assuming they all started at the same time). Philosophical has huge advantages in this dire situation.

P.S. Does this discussion have much to do with Protective?

 

[Soirana]

I start suspect Protective main point is to make more threads in strategy department.

 

[FlyinJohnnyL]

Yeah I can't believe a thread about Protective has gone on for 16 pages. What is this, an ALC?

 

[noto2]

Guys - my point was that AGR is better than PRO for either defending or attacking. A shock axeman will do a better job defending a city than a protective archer. So would a combat 2 spearman against mounted units. I was saying that even if you prefer to turtle and tech, the AGR trait is actually more useful than PRO. In fact, even if we looked at it from the AI's perspective, the AGR AI's have better armies than the PRO ones, even on the defense. I don't always play aggresively. The problem with PRO is the way Civ combat has been set up. In small battles, or in the very early game before seige, PRO is actually somewhat helpful, as taking cities at that point in the game is tough. The enemy can still pillage your land, though. But once catapults come on the scene, which you must admit is less than a 1/4 into the game, you can no longer just defend your cities. A large stack of seige weapons will destroy any defenders. Thus once seige weapons are on the scene you need your own military stack to defeat the enemy stack, even for defence. To build such a stack, usually I find AGR more helpful than PRO. Another thing - seige beats everything, right? Given enough catapult support, even axemen can take down longbows, except that mounted units can destroy seige. So if you have mounted units you have a much better chance of surviving a defensive war. So why the heck doesn't the PRO trait boost mounted units??? If PRO gave all your mounted units flanking 1, for example, I would say it would be a worthy trait. The way combat works in Civ 4 with seige destroying everything, garrissoning units in your city is worthless. That is why PRO is such a difficult trait to use properly.

 

[UncleJJ]

Guys - my point was that AGR is better than PRO for either defending or attacking. A shock axeman will do a better job defending a city than a protective archer. So would a combat 2 spearman against mounted units. I was saying that even if you prefer to turtle and tech, the AGR trait is actually more useful than PRO. In fact, even if we looked at it from the AI's perspective, the AGR AI's have better armies than the PRO ones, even on the defense. I don't always play aggresively. The problem with PRO is the way Civ combat has been set up. In small battles, or in the very early game before seige, PRO is actually somewhat helpful, as taking cities at that point in the game is tough. The enemy can still pillage your land, though. But once catapults come on the scene, which you must admit is less than a 1/4 into the game, you can no longer just defend your cities. A large stack of seige weapons will destroy any defenders. Thus once seige weapons are on the scene you need your own military stack to defeat the enemy stack, even for defence. To build such a stack, usually I find AGR more helpful than PRO. Another thing - seige beats everything, right? Given enough catapult support, even axemen can take down longbows, except that mounted units can destroy seige. So if you have mounted units you have a much better chance of surviving a defensive war. So why the heck doesn't the PRO trait boost mounted units??? If PRO gave all your mounted units flanking 1, for example, I would say it would be a worthy trait. The way combat works in Civ 4 with seige destroying everything, garrissoning units in your city is worthless. That is why PRO is such a difficult trait to use properly.

I don't see that Aggressive gets any advantages from this situation except the cheaper barracks. A large enemy SoD can only be countered by a large defensive stack and you can't just cower behind your walls whatever your traits are. If an enemy sends 15 attackers you need 12 defenders, but some of those can be make weights like archers. The advantages of the walls and the Protective bonusses means the attackers have to try to lower the defences and this delay gives the defender 2 or 3 turns to strengthen the defenders and launch weakening counter attacks.

I find that rarely does the AI send a well organised SoD they always seem have too many seige or not enough, and you should deal with these two situations differently. You should try to destroy the weaker part of his SoD.

If they have a lot of siege and too few stack defenders then I use a few catapults to damage the stack defenders and CR attackers, then use a few HAs to put a little flanking damage on the seige. Then I attack the weakened defenders with my longbows and other defenders. This will often kill many of the stack defenders so they can't take the city. It might even get to the state where all they have left is seige and they can't kill anything on their own. It is a battle of attrition with only one winner. Eventually the defenders will heal enough to destroy the stack of seige.

If they have too few seige then I try to damage the seige with sacrificial attacks attacks from the HAs (use Flanking 2 to increase chances of withdraw). Without seige to lower defences or provide much collateral the AI will often just attack the defenders over the walls. That is suicide against Protective troops hiding behind walls that are only partly lowered and who have fortified in a city. A single Protective longbow will often kill 2 or 3 swords before another defender takes over.

In both cases it is important for the defender to have a large stack to absorb the collateral damage and to allow the counter attackers to heal. Cheap Protective troops such as archers and longbows are much better in that situation than any other. They provide the depth to absorb collateral damage which is spread randomly over the whole stack and this light damage be healed quicker by more troops.

I want to stress that a defence by a Protective leader is much easier because he has these superior defenders. But he does not rely on just these, he will need his own catapults, HAs and axes and spears, if they're available.

 

[noto2]

I don't see that Aggressive gets any advantages from this situation except the cheaper barracks.

Do you not understand what the AGR trait is? Let me explain it to you. It gives you a free combat 1 promotion. That means that the MINIMUM you can get with a barracks is 2 promotions. That means that you can build shock units or cover units. So if you have a stack of axes, swords, spears, and catapults, and I attack with an axeman, which unit will defend? An axeman. If your axeman is combat 1 and mine is combat 1 AND shock, I will have a good chance of victory. The aggressive trait allows my stack to fight yours on the field with much better than 50% odds, INSTEAD OF waiting to be attacked by your seige in my city.
What, did you think AGR gives a bonus to attacking cities??? The AGR trait allows you to get a second level promotion right away, which makes your units stronger, which means you can fight the enemy stack instead of waiting to get pummelled by seige.

 

[Wodan]

Do you not understand what the AGR trait is? Let me explain it to you. It gives you a free combat 1 promotion. That means that the MINIMUM you can get with a barracks is 2 promotions. That means that you can build shock units or cover units. So if you have a stack of axes, swords, spears, and catapults, and I attack with an axeman, which unit will defend? An axeman. If your axeman is combat 1 and mine is combat 1 AND shock, I will have a good chance of victory. The aggressive trait allows my stack to fight yours on the field with much better than 50% odds, INSTEAD OF waiting to be attacked by your seige in my city.

What, did you think AGR gives a bonus to attacking cities??? The AGR trait allows you to get a second level promotion right away, which makes your units stronger, which means you can fight the enemy stack instead of waiting to get pummelled by seige.

Just like to point out that most everything you said applies to Protective as well.

 

[UncleJJ]

Do you not understand what the AGR trait is?

I think I do , pretty well in fact

Let me explain it to you.

That's a kind thought

It gives you a free combat 1 promotion.

But only to melee troops (which need metal) or gunpowder. That leaves seige, archery and mounted with no bonus apart from the cheap barracks ... oh dear, not so good now is it?

That means that the MINIMUM you can get with a barracks is 2 promotions. That means that you can build shock units or cover units. So if you have a stack of axes, swords, spears, and catapults, and I attack with an axeman, which unit will defend? An axeman. If your axeman is combat 1 and mine is combat 1 AND shock, I will have a good chance of victory. The aggressive trait allows my stack to fight yours on the field with much better than 50% odds, INSTEAD OF waiting to be attacked by your seige in my city.
What, did you think AGR gives a bonus to attacking cities??? The AGR trait allows you to get a second level promotion right away, which makes your units stronger, which means you can fight the enemy stack instead of waiting to get pummelled by seige.

Protective achery and gunpowder units get two free promotions and can get a wide range of second promotions immediately as well with 2 exp. Aggressive is slightly better but not overwhelming I forget all the exceptions but shock, cover are available with drill 1, not that I would usually take them over CG or combat for an archery unit.

Please don't try to tell me that you would rather fight an enemy SoD in the field when you have an equal option of fighting from inside a city with walls. What is the disadvantage of fighting from inside a city? You get usually get a better defensive bonus (apart from a wooded hill or some very strong terrain), you heal faster, your catapults can't be flanked while the enemy's outside can be flanked. The enemy attackers can use CR promotions but your Protective defenders can have superior CG promotions (for the same exp). The only good reason I can see for engaging the enemy outside a city, rather than from inside a city, is if he has a lot of trebuchets and few catapults, then obviously trebuchets are seriously hampered when used against non-city, non-fort targets.

And please, don't make stuff up, I never expect to get pummeled by seige. I wait for the enemy to move next to the city, then immediately launch a counter attack, before they have a chance to lower the defences or use collateral. Then they have the problems of staying and healing at 5% per turn, or lowering defences or trying to attack over intact walls. The dumb AI seems to randomly select between each of these options which gives my defenders a huge advantage. Defending a city is much easier than fighting in the field at least until stacks get really big when it doesn't seem to make much difference anyway, the side that launches its seige (collateral damage) or mounted (flanking damage) attacks first usually wins.

 

[noto2]

Right, so protective is about as good at defending as aggressive. Yes, I realize archers can get shock and cover, but only crossbows are good at fighting outside of cities compared to the units in their era. So then how is protective a good trait when aggressive does just as good of a job fighting a defensive war? Aggressive is more useful on the offense. This is why I said I dislike the protective trait. My comment about you not knowing how aggressive worked was because it sounded like you thought it only appllied to attacking promotions, my bad.

 

[shyuhe]

See the current deity game thread. Most (if not all) the players are saying they're grateful that Gilgamesh is protective. Aggressive would NOT have helped in that situation. If you have no metal, aggressive is useless until gunpowder which is a long long ways.

 

[Wodan]

Right, so protective is about as good at defending as aggressive. Yes, I realize archers can get shock and cover, but only crossbows are good at fighting outside of cities compared to the units in their era. So then how is protective a good trait when aggressive does just as good of a job fighting a defensive war? Aggressive is more useful on the offense. This is why I said I dislike the protective trait. My comment about you not knowing how aggressive worked was because it sounded like you thought it only appllied to attacking promotions, my bad.

Personally I think Aggressive is worse than Protective at defending. I think UncleJJ did a pretty good job of explaining why.

Siege and Mounted would be used against the SOD. Once they're done, the Drill archers can mop up and get free XP. Drill IV is a wonderful thing.

Once cats are available, protective is also better on the attack in many instances. Anyone who has had their SOD hit by a few cats, and then had the same thing happen with a Drill army, knows why. When all your units are siege or have Drill, you laugh at collateral.

 

[CivCorpse]

In my current game i am playing Gilgamesh. I used vultures to rush Charlemagne(protective) and pretty much butchered him. It is a huge tectonics map and all but one of his cities was in a nice position. So I kept them. My economy CRASHED. then i did some wall whip/chops w/stone. I raked in mucho casho. Ran at a huge deficit while teching myst/poly/priesthood/IW. I went for IW rather than an economic tech because I have a large area sealed off to my NE that had gems and lots of jungles.

Besides the wall whip. Protective has the advantage of being able to build a cheap wall and stout archers. If you have REX'ed til bankruptcy sometimes you cannot afford to maintain a strong standing army to defeat enemy SODs in the open field. At that point the timer starts ticking. You have until the AI gets construction (cats) to get your finances in order. Until siege rolls along 2-3 protective archers behind walls will stand a lot of abuse. It is cheaper to maintain 2-3 archers per border city than to maintain multiple defensive anti-sod stacks. One for each end of your empire. When the DOW occurs you have maybe 2-3 turns to get your troops where they need to be. Unless you have a small circle shaped empire, stationing your anti SOD stack in the center is not good enough. So you need more than one. Especially if you get dogpiled. If you get dog piled you then need to decide which SOD to take out and which SOD is allowed to take a city.
Consider a 6 city empire with 4 of those cities on the border. You need 6 units regardless just to keep them from whining about no military protection. So that means 4 extra archers. Cheap to build and with 6 cities I think they don't cost anything to maintain. Assuming just 1 happiness modifier (a religion, gold, ivory, gems, silver or fur) you can have pop5 cities. OK, pop4 most of the time due to whipping. Keep a single hammer invested in an unbuilt archer and 1 hammer in an unbuilt spear/axe at all times. I usually do this when I am regrowing from a whip and am working 0 hammer food tiles.Even in a worst case scenario where the enemy crosses the border and is two turns from attacking the city, you can 1 pop whip the archer with 6:hammers overflow to 1 pop whip the spear/axe. In 2 turns you now have 4 defenders behind walls. Without siege it takes a pretty big SOD of axes/swords to take that city. Ask yourself how many units you would need to take a city with 50% defense and 3CG2D1 archers (2 of which are fortified for the full 25%) and one unpromoted axe? We are talking about an early war so the enemy probably doesn't have CR2 units. (no settled GG, no vassalage/ theocracy). The early war mongers like ragnar, alex, monty, shaka and Ghegis are also AGG leaders. So your shock axes are also facing shock axes. Plus the additional cost of building spears for stack defense. And for city defense. If you are defending your cities with just axes then you're asking to be taken out by chariots. Even with one axe one spearman you have inadequete defenses. against enemy axes/swords the spear is useless. Against enemy chariots the the axe is useless and you have less time to whip an extra spear.

Assuming axes and spears are your prefered method of defense. The 25 saved on walls is the nearly the cost of an extra axe or spear. Pre-construction walls are more under-rated than the Protective trait. 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. But if you have a loony neighbor you are probably getting DOW'ed anyway. Your economy is crushed 0-10% and building more troops is NOT an option. Walls can help you survive long enough to tech/bulb/steal your way out of financial ruin. No matter what your choice of city defender is, Walls make then much tougher to kill.
If you can afford the extra units to mount a counter attack then you haven't REX'ed hard enough. Build more units and go take more cities for the conquest gold. But if you have grabbed as much land as possible then you are broke and better off paying the unit costs on workers to get those cottages built, farms built or mines built. You just have to survive long enough for your superior land to vault you ahead. Walls can do that. Sometimes leveraging a trait just means not dying rather than getting ahead.

I am a confessed cowardly, turtling little builder type. I rex hard then hide in my little cities hoping noone notices me while I recover. When they do notice, I rarely (as in just about never) lose a city. Protective archers and walls are cheap. Pre-construction they will kill hordes of attackers. And the ones that die are easily replaced. A CG2D1 archer in a city behind walls usually kills 2-3 attackers before he dies. IF he dies. And then I have traded 25 hammers for 105 hammers the enemy. If one kills 2 attakers and lives then he is CG3D1....in a city...behind walls....fortified for 5 turns.....better bring a LOT more troops. Actually please bring more. I like the GG points (especially since i love the Great wall). First GG gets settled and now I am spamming CG3D1 archers....in a city....behind walls....fortified for 5 turns.
When I finally get peace and my economy turns around I am going to be coming after you....with CR2 units right from the barracks without an XP civic....courtesy of the GG that YOU gave me.

 

[CivCorpse]

Personally I think Aggressive is worse than Protective at defending. I think UncleJJ did a pretty good job of explaining why.

Siege and Mounted would be used against the SOD. Once they're done, the Drill archers can mop up and get free XP. Drill IV is a wonderful thing.

Once cats are available, protective is also better on the attack in many instances. Anyone who has had their SOD hit by a few cats, and then had the same thing happen with a Drill army, knows why. When all your units are siege or have Drill, you laugh at collateral.

Once siege is available (especially Trebs) it really doesn't matter what else you build. Below is a thread for a game I posted online where not a single CR units was built other than siege. Not a single Axe/Sword/Mace was used to attack a single unit the entire game. Actually no swords or maces were ever built for any reason. No mounted units were ever built either. Just siege, pikes, longbows and x-bows. Until gunpowder. Then it was siege and whatever gunpowder unit I felt like using/had available. I have found the answer to most military problems is the same. "Build more siege and whatever else is cheap."
http://forums.civfanatics.com/showthread.php?t=298806

 

[Wodan]

Once siege is available (especially Trebs) it really doesn't matter what else you build. Below is a thread for a game I posted online where not a single CR units was built other than siege. Not a single Axe/Sword/Mace was used to attack a single unit the entire game. Actually no swords or maces were ever built for any reason. No mounted units were ever built either. Just siege, pikes, longbows and x-bows. Until gunpowder. Then it was siege and whatever gunpowder unit I felt like using/had available. I have found the answer to most military problems is the same. "Build more siege and whatever else is cheap."
http://forums.civfanatics.com/showthread.php?t=298806

Just because you can doesn't mean it's a good idea, let alone whether it's cheaper, among other considerations.

IMO combined arms are best.

 

[noto2]

okay. You get invaded by spears, swords, axes, and catapults. With protective, what you can do is hit them back with catapults and let them attack your protective archers. Not bad. With aggressive you can hit them with catapults and attack them with some of your own axes, or you could let them attack your defending shock axes. Also not bad. I fail to see how the archers are a better choice here. Yes, without metal you can't build axes...but come on, if you really want metal you can get it.

 

[Wodan]

okay. You get invaded by spears, swords, axes, and catapults. With protective, what you can do is hit them back with catapults and let them attack your protective archers. Not bad. With aggressive you can hit them with catapults and attack them with some of your own axes, or you could let them attack your defending shock axes. Also not bad. I fail to see how the archers are a better choice here. Yes, without metal you can't build axes...but come on, if you really want metal you can get it.

Given the example you posit (attacking first with cats), it clearly doesn't matter. You could attack with just about anything and do fine. Therefore, the benefit of archers and pro comes from being cheaper and from being able to hold off the attackers with fewer units while you assemble those cats from across your empire.

 

[Bandobras Took]

okay. You get invaded by spears, swords, axes, and catapults. With protective, what you can do is hit them back with catapults and let them attack your protective archers. Not bad. With aggressive you can hit them with catapults and attack them with some of your own axes, or you could let them attack your defending shock axes. Also not bad. I fail to see how the archers are a better choice here. Yes, without metal you can't build axes...but come on, if you really want metal you can get it.

1) Hammer cost.

2) How are you doing it without metal? Horses?