Protective underrated??

[DrakeD]

Maybe not, but lately Ive had a thing for attacking with crossbows. I really like free CG promo when Im not nice to Monty or the other maniacs.

Sitting Bull seems really strong for early aggression. No need for copper or early archery, to protect against barbs. That doesnt seem like much, but its a big deal if going for pyramids or oracle on Immortal. (you want one of those to get to machinery)
Quin is also nice for early war. Industrios to get oracle or pyramids is nice, but the real deal is 2 pop forges. Chinese UU doesnt make much difference. Protective xbows owns before feudalism anyway, and both chinese UU and regular xbow suck against longbows.

Tokugawa seems nice on paper, but he does not give you anything to get a tech edge. But Toku does have some nice drafted riflemen. (Aggresive trait give combat 1 and protective gives CG and drill) That seems way stronger than his UU. (Mace with more first strikes, first strikes is nice if you have tech edge, but you wount have that with Toku on Immortal)

Saladin seems like one of the weakest leaders to me, even if Spiritual is my fav trait. Id rather be Justinian. (stronger UU and 2 pop whip settlers is very nice)
I guess Wang can be powerful. Havent played him for a full game. I think maybe I'll play him next.

Who have time for Liberalism anyway? I want blood now!!!!

Maybe Ive seen to much of Absolute Zero on YT. I used to be a builder.
(search for Civ 4 diety and watch the latest videos, the comments are waaay better than on the early ones)

 

[Robert FIN]

I've tried to play MP-Games a few times. I mentioned that they are REALLY much more aggressive than AIs! So I think that in multiplayer games and AW-Games protective is much better trait than in normal single player pangaea match. I'm not saying that I'm expert!! I'm still noob in civ but it was my opinion

 

[Apricottage]

Let's compare Protective to, say, Creative. Protective gives you a production bonus to two dead-end structures that take next to no time to build anyway (assuming you would ever WANT to build them). Creative gives you a production bonus to one mostly irrelevant building, one highly useful building that is also the prerequisite to a fantastic National Wonder, and one absolutely essential building. Protective gives you two free combat upgrades on all your units, one of which is only relevant for defense and the other of which is sadly just a 50% chance for a first strike. Creative gives you automatic border pops on all your cities and lets you hold your ground if not win in all border disputes, not to mention giving all your cities much more cultural defense. Can you with a straight face say that Protective is better than Creative?

Now, consider that Creative is only in the high middle tier of traits, and that there are another four or five traits that are much better than it. In particular, Financial is far better than Creative, because as it turns out, the most valuable thing in the game is getting the tech first.

 

[DrakeD]

Consider you wanna war early, (before Lib) then all creative can give you is cheap library's so you can run scientist early. Who is creative and protective? Gilgamesh? Im gonna try him before Wang. ;P

 

[Soirana]

Consider you wanna war early, (before Lib) then all creative can give you is cheap library's so you can run scientist early. Who is creative and protective? Gilgamesh? Im gonna try him before Wang. ;P

Best wars before lib are like - HA en mass, elepult, catapults+something, rushes with axes/charriots.

What protective gives to them? I would guess same as for all other games - nothing.

 

[DrakeD]

You forgot xbow rushes. Chariots and axes are not reliable (unless you are egypt or persia) on random Immortal maps. You have to commit to those rushes with limited info. Not so with xbow rushes. You will know ahead of time if its good play or not. (you need oracle or pyramids or avoiding fishing) Plenty of time to figure that out, while you can pull it off in the same time frame as HA rushing.

HA might be able to attack a litte sooner, but they cant deal with spearman like xbows. (and on immortal, you will face more spears and axes, than archers)

 

[Mylene]

Now, consider that Creative is only in the high middle tier of traits, and that there are another four or five traits that are much better than it. In particular, Financial is far better than Creative, because as it turns out, the most valuable thing in the game is getting the tech first.

I would take creative for almost every rush over FIN, thank you very much
Problem with prot. always same thingy, while you get slightly better x-bows (what does CG do for rushes? not much..) you get there slower compared with traits like Phi or Cre. Great peoples are often the fastest way towards rushes, so even for x-bows i would usually prefer traits that get me there quicker over prot..
SB only weak side for these rushes..he has fishing, and cannot bulb machinery and Engi.

 

[TheMeInTeam]

Man, before they nerfed the bejeesus out of it by bugging overflow, PRO really was an upper-tier trait. The ability to convert a couple forests into 100's and 100's (probably 1000+) that early is rather crazy ^_^. I still hate firaxis for prioritising THAT over finally making sure control/alt/shift click work, and that hate will last until they make a game with good controls/engine (so probably forever). Oh well.

Now? PRO is easily the worst trait. The only way you can say it's "underrated" is by stating that the importance of traits over other factors is overrated, and thus the disparity between protective and other traits is overblown. That is probably true, but that would be a pretty heavy technicality to use to hinge an "underrated" claim.

Still, the trait does benefit from having some good side compensations:

Gilgamesh: Decent-to-excellent (game speed dependent) UU and ok UB + creative...fast openings!

Mao and Qin: Excellent starting techs and a UU that benefits from the trait. The companion traits are decent.

Churchill: Not as good as the queens, but he still gets excellent draft redcoats.

Charlemagne: This combo sucks. Crummy starting techs and a mediocre UU (I've gone back on calling it bottom-tier since nonsense like the panzer exists, but it's still crappy) can not be mitigated by a mediocre 2nd trait and a good uB.

Tokugawa: I use him a lot because he has a reputation for being the worst. I don't think he is though. He is the single best candidate for parity-wars in the game and gets absolutely stupid in the gunpowder era (and he's quite strong in medieval!). The UB is bad but not as bad as people think, while the UU is actually pretty solid if you're willing to war then...you get INCREDIBLE odds when you stack the trait, the UU bonuses, and CR together. Rifles-good. I consider him mediocre, not worst.

Sitting Bull: Early game defensive overkill, but with PHI to give him an edge and respectable techs.

Wang Kon: Not great but you can do so much worse. FIN was overrated on this forum for a long time, but it's still a very good trait.

Saladin: Hmm. Pretty bad! SPI is good, but it stops after that. Madrassa gets a small amount of brownie points for culture-**** on people but that's it.

PRO winds up being useful too rarely. You can definitely get cost-effective trolling on AI stacks by abusing the units it boosts, and it has some offensive potential if your opponent lacks horse or iron and in gunpowder era...but these things just don't cover what other traits can do.

 

[Mylene]

Well, also depends on what you play.
Protective easily becomes very good in AW games (rare), or crowded warmonger maps on Imm/D where your start is not good enuf for breaking out easily/early.

So i would say Pro helps in really hard games, and becomes almost useless in easy ones.
I could not justify calling it worst trait because of that, easier maps can be won without good traits, but if Monty&Co. start plotting on you very early (like turn 50 or so on Deity) you might just be lost without Pro and shiny Fin cottages will not even come into play before you die

Archers are cheap and always available, after all.
I remember @Dirk always said Pro is good, and he usually liked average, bad or just tuff starts.

 

[DrakeD]

Ye, I admit that I was trolling with thread title, but I got some nice replies.
But on the other hand, my posts was about how to leverage the other trait, that is not protective.

I just had a lot of fun with SB and Quin lately. Too bad that performance and interface sucks, Id rather start over than finish those games. (getting 20 cities and recover economy is way more fun, than playing it out after game is in the box)

 

[vicawoo]

You can culture kill barbarian cities with madrassa. 25 turns is pretty reasonable, less if you get the 1000 year bonus.

50 turns is pretty hard to conquer barb cities before AI rush it with swords.

Madrassa extra slots have redundancy with spiritual.

 

[Mylene]

What hurts Sally are his starting techs.
While the Wheel would be nice in combo with Agri or at least hunting, having AH locked as first tech (and also no fishing for sea starts, or at least mining) can make many starts...complicated
Same problem Isa has (but she has fishing, so sea starts are fine), if you cannot get AH first that's bad and puts these combos below also crappy ones like Charly's or Celts.

Madrassa..not that bad imo, and Camel Archers are fine for Imm or lower.

 

[lymond]

^^^yeah, the more I've played the more I've valued starting techs over traits. TW is always nice, but you need Ag or something nice to complement. AG/Mining is always good so I like China a lot. Pacal has always been my favorite leader but man his starting tech blow.

Interesting, Toku gets a lot of flak, but his starting techs are interesting. Although situational, the nice thing is that POT is available from the start, so if the land is appropriate it really helps a leader like Toku with sucky traits.

 

[Zx Zero Zx]

PRO is very good on Deity when playing from behind. You will get attacked, and that extra promo usually means you will wipe the fields with their blood if they don't have siege which the AI is stupid mentally stunted to build en mass. It also makes you able to get a very strong stack defending Xbow with just Racks, and Theo/Vassalage.

 

[noto2]

Is it underrated? Well, it's often rated as the worst, so you are saying that it might not be the worst? Well let's compare it to aggressive. Even if you wanted to simply build your empire and not go on any offensive wars, wouldn't aggressive be more useful? Your axes could beat enemy axes in the field, for example, and save your tiles from pillaging. Or compare it to imperialistic or charismatic. With charismatic, your mounted units can get three promotions when running war civics. Personally I find that mounted units are the best possible units for defending an empire. You get flanking 2, combat 1 mounted units and attack the enemy stack. You'll kill a lot of the stack, destroy the siege weapons, and suffer very few casualties.
Yes crossbows are good units but they require iron, and if you have iron you could build macemen, and with horses you could build knights. You can only truly say that protective buffs you in the situation where you lack any metal, horses, or ivory. So it boosts archers and longbows, both of which are terrible units in the field. And that is why protective sucks - because in Civ, hiding behind your city walls is pointless. The enemy will simply fortify on that hill adjacent to your city and now you can't attack them but they will use siege to destroy your city. Siege weapons beat everything, it's like a game of rock-paper-scissors-nuke, with siege being the nuke. Not only that but the enemy will pillage all of your precious towns if you sit behind your walls, therefore you MUST destroy the enemy in the field. Yes protective is better than nothing but, in a vacuum, it certainly is the worst trait. That said, it is never in a vacuum. When playing as China I'm happy to have the PRO trait and would rather have it over the other warfare traits, as the Chinese UU is good enough to be game-changing. It's also fine on Toku and Wang, decent on Churchill. I really hate it on Charles and Sal, though, as well as Gilgamesh

 

[DrakeD]

You dont need Iron for Maces. Copper is enough. You only need machinery for xbows. So you can field them a lot earlier than Maces. (if bulbing) If selfteching, then ye, I would have Civil Service and most likely avoid machinery to bulb Lib.

 

[BurN]

Well, also depends on what you play.
Protective easily becomes very good in AW games (rare), or crowded warmonger maps on Imm/D where your start is not good enuf for breaking out easily/early.

So i would say Pro helps in really hard games, and becomes almost useless in easy ones.
I could not justify calling it worst trait because of that, easier maps can be won without good traits, but if Monty&Co. start plotting on you very early (like turn 50 or so on Deity) you might just be lost without Pro and shiny Fin cottages will not even come into play before you die

Imho if you want to win random maps consistently, protective shoots up in rank. On deity even more so. Most of the forum games are pretty soft and fun to play but I seem to roll the most annoying starts. I'm usually picking Gilg, Qin or SB in private games. It's like you say: Easy maps you can win without traits, hard maps you wish you were Protective.

Actually Gilg is probably one of the best all-rounders. Good starting techs, good UB, good UU for rushing, Pro for camping, Cre for blocking/rexing. I used to like SB more but if you have a lot of land or are food-poor he performs pretty bad imho. Now I just need to stop rolling forrested starts with pigs or cows.

 

[noto2]

You dont need Iron for Maces. Copper is enough. You only need machinery for xbows. So you can field them a lot earlier than Maces. (if bulbing) If selfteching, then ye, I would have Civil Service and most likely avoid machinery to bulb Lib.

I never said you need iron for maces, I said that if you can build xbows you can build macemen (with 1-2 more techs). Are you going to say that PRO is better than AGG because xbows can come a bit earlier than macemen? Am I missing your point?

 

[noto2]

Imho if you want to win random maps consistently, protective shoots up in rank. On deity even more so. Most of the forum games are pretty soft and fun to play but I seem to roll the most annoying starts. I'm usually picking Gilg, Qin or SB in private games. It's like you say: Easy maps you can win without traits, hard maps you wish you were Protective.

Actually Gilg is probably one of the best all-rounders. Good starting techs, good UB, good UU for rushing, Pro for camping, Cre for blocking/rexing. I used to like SB more but if you have a lot of land or are food-poor he performs pretty bad imho. Now I just need to stop rolling forrested starts with pigs or cows.

I play a lot of random maps too and, trust me, I roll god-awful starts all the time. Still, more often than not there will be horses somewhere to grab, maybe not early, but by the age of catapults yes. Even when protective, I find mounted units to be more important to empire defence than archery units. Archery units are good to fortify in forests and hills to deny those tiles to invading stacks, but when it comes to actually dealing with the enemy stack, mounted units and siege are best, followed by the era's foot soldier. Archers come last in that department.

 

[Funky]

IMO the value of the protective trait is greatly increased in multiplayer though, at least on pangea maps. Not only is war much more common, it also helps a lot early on in the race for the crucial city spots. Plop a protective archer in a hill city and the spot should remain yours uncontested throughout the early game. It's not only about the better odds, but also acts as a deterrent. Other players will usually try to avoid attacking a protective leader in the first place, which means you can focus more on economy.

In multiplayer I'd generally rate protective higher than organized, spiritual and imperialistic, and on a similar level as expansionist and philosophical.