Protective Underestimated

[AfterShafter]

Re: Expansive's relative merit on higher difficulties: It's the same. Health and happy caps don't change with difficulty anymore. They did in Vanilla and Warlords, but BtS took that out.

Urm... I'm not sure what you're talking about exactly, but I just loaded up two BTS games, both with Alexander, one on Settler, one on Deity. On Deity, I got +2 health from difficulty. on Settler, I got +4. Are these the caps that aren't supposed to change with difficulty?

Anyways, if that's not what you're talking about.. You start with less base health on higher difficulties, and on said higher difficulties, lack of health often outpaces your ability to deal with it through buildings/trades. Expansive helps a *huge* amount in nullifying this, when for the early stretches of many games, it's simply impossible to do.

 

[mourndraken]

..some thoughts come to mind ..

Nationalism with theology will draft a decent army for a protective civ.

When using a protective civ remember to give many of your melee units the city attack promotion before upgrading them because that promotion is not available after gunpowder.

When the AI wants to war they hit the frontier fort. There they waste all of their seige weapons. Most of my fortified guys survive. They retreat to the city to heal. I am ready to take some territory and counter attack quickly.

The protective civ needs a smaller army for protection. Pacifism is easy to manage.

 

[Monkeyfinger]

Addendum to my post:

In BtS, health and happy caps don't change with difficulty level UNLESS you are playing on settler or chieftain, which give you +2 health/happy and +1 health/happy respectively. From warlord on up, the caps are the same on every difficulty level: 2 health, 4 happiness.

So unless you are arguing with people that play on the two easiest difficulty levels, my point stands.

Whereas in vanilla and WL, the caps gradually decreased as you went up in difficulty. The old Deity caps were 1 health, 2 happiness, or something crazy like that.

 

[Roxlimn]

I kinda like Expansive and Protective, actually. As support traits, they're pretty darned good. Expansive + Creative, for instance, as Suryavarman is a lot better than I expected. Very strong early to mid expansion power.

Protective + Industrious pays dividends in a Wonder-spam kind of way. Protective + Aggressive needs no argument - it's a powerful combo, especially in the mid to late game with those insanely powerful drafted troops.

I think they're not what you would call offensive traits - traits you can use to directly win you the game, but they are useful support traits for traits that are, sometimes better than two offensive traits combined.

Protective is a dog when your other trait is situational or nonoffensive - but then again, every trait is a dog when you can't leverage it to any great effect. Personally, I find the boosted defense troops and the slightly cheaper Castles somewhat useful - very useful in the right combo.

Expansive doesn't deserve a bottom-tier rating. It's a very powerful trait. Half-price Granaries and production bonuses on Workers is something every Civ can use just about.

 

[sylvanllewelyn]

Many people like expensive, not many think it's weak. Oh no, not at all.

Protective, on the other hand, is a trait that many people would like to find uses for. We're still looking. I still think best use is Chinese UU and half-priced castles when you have stone. Too situational, lacks punch.

 

[Still_Asleep]

Protective is both the most sucky to have yourself and the most annoying on your neighbours. It sucks in any possible way.

 

[Diamondeye]

Protective is both the most sucky to have yourself and the most annoying on your neighbours. It sucks in any possible way.

I find several traits worse than Pro, although I have to admit it is pretty annoying to face a Protective enemy.

Many people like expensive, not many think it's weak. Oh no, not at all.

Protective, on the other hand, is a trait that many people would like to find uses for. We're still looking. I still think best use is Chinese UU and half-priced castles when you have stone. Too situational, lacks punch.

Improves all archer and gunpowder units is too situational? I'd say Exp is at least as situational. When, earlygame, do you have less than 2 more food ressources than happy ressources? When living in the tundra, where there is fur+silver, maybe. But there will always be one food ressource in the start BFC for . Exp definately lacks punch compared to Pro. Compare:
"Haha! All my riflemen start with an extra drill promotion! I am going to wipe you clean off the map!"
"Woohoo! I have 3 (?) extra health and my workers are created 25% faster... Waouw..."

Sorry, don't mean to be insulting, I just can't see how Exp can be better than Pro in any way.

 

[pi-r8]

Because with expansive, you'll have more people, which leads to bigger and more advanced armies. One extra drill promotion is not going to do much.

 

[Scaramanga]

I find it to be a tremendous bonus when I can load up a newly captured city that is right on the frontlines with garrison III and drill III defensive units. I find myself wishing for them quite a bit when playing as non-protective leaders.

 

[DigitalBoy]

"Haha! All my riflemen start with an extra drill promotion! I am going to wipe you clean off the map!"
"Woohoo! I have 3 (?) extra health and my workers are created 25% faster... Waouw..."

Sorry, don't mean to be insulting, I just can't see how Exp can be better than Pro in any way.

Drill I is a rather weak promotion and is in no way going to single-handedly help you bowl over your opponents. It does help you promote down the drill line, which I think is super for defensive units, but I find drill units are pretty unremarkable on the offense. Really, one of the best applications of protective in an offensive war is setting up walls and supped up garrison units in newly conquered cities, so you don't have to worry about them getting captured as your armies move forward.

Health starts to become a chronic problem starting at around the medieval era. And for the early game, expansive gets production bonuses on workers (if you want to exploit the hammer bonus, consider whipping them) and granaries. Kind of meh, but still something.

 

[Diamondeye]

Drill I is a rather weak promotion and is in no way going to single-handedly help you bowl over your opponents. It does help you promote down the drill line, which I think is super for defensive units, but I find drill units are pretty unremarkable on the offense. Really, one of the best applications of protective in an offensive war is setting up walls and supped up garrison units in newly conquered cities, so you don't have to worry about them getting captured as your armies move forward.

Health starts to become a chronic problem starting at around the medieval era. And for the early game, expansive gets production bonuses on workers (if you want to exploit the hammer bonus, consider whipping them) and granaries. Kind of meh, but still something.

Ofcourse, Drill I is not much - 50% chance for a firststrike, but it opens up Drill as a solid choice - by making the first promotion you actually spend xp on a sure first strike. Also, Drill I opens up cover/shock as well.
I tend to use Drill alot with archery units (xbows) and gunpowder units when attacking, and they work fine if you have a decent siege with you. Wound enemies with siege, then steamroll them with Drill units without taking damage. Makes the breaks shorter and they make better City defenders than CRs, because they have atleast one CG.

And yes, that small bonus on workers is not bad, but if you start worker first, it is not going to get you enough % that you work with an extra hammer per turn. If it did that, I'd consider it markable better.

 

[futurehermit]

protective is good for the AI and if you are playing multiplayer. otherwise, it is not a trait that i care to have and frankly i faint at the prospect of rating it higher than philosophical (or industrious for that matter). philosophical is a top-tier trait, established by many experts on these forums.

 

[SnowlyWhite]

bar drafting(which starts becoming useful on immortal, though even then I don't draft too often) it's useless.

ok, it's better then imperialistic... and that'd be about it. x2 speed for forges and wonders vs. cg1/drill1... or x2 gp and x2 speed for univs.? Com'on...

Expansive has also fast granaries/harbours which definitellys helps more then walls/castles(and castles still obsolete in a couple of turns...)

And the ai will waste his troops on your fort anyway... just plant it on a forested hill and even without drill you'll still whack his siege weapons and a good chunk of his army with 4-5 units. Leaving aside your HE/probably settled general can still produce drill 2 units for that.

Protective is good for the ai and that's that...

 

[Diamondeye]

protective is good for the AI and if you are playing multiplayer. otherwise, it is not a trait that i care to have and frankly i faint at the prospect of rating it higher than philosophical (or industrious for that matter). philosophical is a top-tier trait, established by many experts on these forums.

All depends on playing style, and I, for one, am not relying on at all. I get one once in a while, fine. But I don't play them as my strategy. Therefore, I, personally, rate Phi (and Ind) Bottom tier traits.

 

[Diamondeye]

bar drafting(which starts becoming useful on immortal, though even then I don't draft too often) it's useless.

ok, it's better then imperialistic... and that'd be about it. x2 speed for forges and wonders vs. cg1/drill1... or x2 gp and x2 speed for univs.? Com'on...

Expansive has also fast granaries/harbours which definitellys helps more then walls/castles(and castles still obsolete in a couple of turns...)

And the ai will waste his troops on your fort anyway... just plant it on a forested hill and even without drill you'll still whack his siege weapons and a good chunk of his army with 4-5 units. Leaving aside your HE/probably settled general can still produce drill 2 units for that.

Protective is good for the ai and that's that...

I have to object against this opinion. Protectie can be huge in a war. This is like saying Aggressive is the worst trait in the game because it only compliments war. Some traits do that. And I'd rate Pro above Ind and Phi anygame, maybe even above Agg for some games.

 

[Wodan]

It's all how each person approaches ratings.

Some people view a rating as entirely subjective personal opinion. "I like bananas better than apples because I think they taste better."

Some people view a rating as an attempt to objectively compare things. "Bananas have more vitamins and potassium, a vital ingredient to health which many people lack in their diet; also it is more easily digested and results in less stress on the system, as indicated by study X from the Harvard Health Institute."

Also a factor is audience. Who are the ratings intended for? Beginning players? Experienced players?

Circumstance and environment matters. What play settings?

The question at hand is Protective. (It could be anything, though.) So, there's this thing out there, that some people may not be using to it's fullest extent. Why? Because they don't enjoy it, because they lack knowledge of how to use to its fullest extent, or because there is some inherent flaw in it?

Wodan

 

[Il Corvo Bianco]

I'll say: Protective it's a powerful trait BECAUSE not only improves you defense, BUT creates an army very versatile: you can send your muskets and attack a city, THEN make some of them defending it without have to create extra troops for defense. Moreover, as someone already said, if Drill I it's not a great promotion, the rest of the Drill chain is, and you can use it instead of combat for other promotions requirement. IMHO.

 

[jray]

I view the Protective trait as the "Come Pillage Me" trait. You tend to cultivate a smaller army with it, and that makes it more likely for an AI to attack you. Then if you use the CG promotions, once the enemy gets to your cities it'll say "screw this, let's just mess up the countryside" rather than giving you some free GG points by suiciding on your cities.

So IMHO, the only real benefit of Protective is the free Drill I, which is sorta "meh." That, and you're playing one protective Civ that can no longer be an AI opponent for you .

I'd even go so far as to value an "Anti-Protective" trait that disables the CG promotion, lol. I think Protective is most valuable for the AI, as previous posters have justified. I suppose it could be useful in multiplayer too.

 

[Bhruic]

I'll say

I'll counter.

Protective it's a powerful trait BECAUSE not only improves you defense,

Defenses are usually irrelevant, at least in single player play. Active defense is almost always preferable to passive defense, and the CG bonuses are useless for active defense.

BUT creates an army very versatile: you can send your muskets and attack a city, THEN make some of them defending it without have to create extra troops for defense.

How often do people build muskets anyway? But more importantly, would you rather have a Drill IV musket, or a CR III Macemen? I'd choose the latter every time, if I'm looking at offense.

Moreover, as someone already said, if Drill I it's not a great promotion, the rest of the Drill chain is, and you can use it instead of combat for other promotions requirement.

Every promotion you use on the Drill chain is a promotion you're not using in the other chains. The Drill promotions are situationally useful, granted, but that situation isn't one that comes up often.

Moreover, a CIII musket vs a Drill IV musket has a 51% chance of victory. Even better, a CII + Pinch musket has a 73.2% chance to beat a Drill IV musket (all standing in the open). Personally, unless I'm ahead in technology, I don't consider the Drill line valuable - and if I'm ahead, promotions are really an afterthought anyway.

Bh

 

[Common Sensei]

How often do people build muskets anyway? But more importantly, would you rather have a Drill IV musket, or a CR III Macemen? I'd choose the latter every time, if I'm looking at offense.

Depends. How much siege do I have?

Once you've pummelled a city's defending stack thoroughly, those Drill IV units make awesome mopup, and save on recovery time, since those First Strikes will succeed more often, and the Drill IV units will be much less wounded.

Would I exclusively have Drill promoted armies? No, but I tend to have around 25% of an army with it these days to clean up after sieges. More than that if I am playing someone like the Ethiopians or the Ottomans, or Churchill-led England.