Suggestion to improve 'Imperialistic' trait

[Scaramanga]

I see an Imperialistic leader as one that is "guarding all the doors and holding all the keys". Meaning, like the British Empire, they didn't have direct control over every single person - but holding important points such as Gibraltar and Hong Kong or the Suez gave them virtual control. I don't have much experience with the trait, having just gotten Warlords, but allowing a civ to place or conquer cities in important locations before rivals do through faster settler production and great general emergence would seem to do just that. Pure speculation though.

 

[Antilogic]

But you can say that about a lot of things. I can turn off barbarians, there goes the great wall. I can play on a map with no water...bye vikings. I can play a "peace only" game...aggresive is completely wasted, so is imperialistic's GG bonus. Heck, I can play noble and lower and there are ALOT of traits that arent worth nearly as much...expansive's +health, organized discount on civic cost. And so on. I think Firaxis goes with the idea of someone playing with the "base" rules, and thats what we should go by as well.

I agreed and addressed that earlier. But the Great Wall is a wonder, not a Civ trait, and it still nets you Great Engineer points. And the Viking UU still has a 10% city raiding bonus that the macemen doesn't have, so it's still useful. And I mentioned the peace-only scenario before--I think people are less likely to play peace-only than no vassals. But that's just my analysis.

I do agree that we should look at the base rules, though. Considering that, how often are vassals likely to enter play? What would the bonus be? So far, I've just seen general pointers like "maybe something with vassals"...nothing specific to debate.

@Krikkitone: I was going to post something about Nationalistic (sp? Is that a word?) and Imperialistic...but you beat me to it.

 

[Watiggi]

You all make fair points to what imperialism is. I do however still have issues with reducing civil disorder and reducing motherland unhappiness for an imperialistic bonus though. They are very inappropriate as that is essentially saying that an imperialistic leader always makes for a happy, easy and quick city take over - which isn't the case. Likewise, Imperialism isn't about having a big empire or a well run empire. It is about aiming to exert control over other empires. As such I think the trait should be more about power than about being capable of managing the accumulated power. If you look at Vicky - she is Financial/Imperialistic. Imo, the Financial trait reflects the empires ability to manage a large empire. Likewise, Julius - being Organised/Imperialistic - reflects the large, well run empire of the Romans. I don't think Imperialistic should have any 'great at managing an empire' trait bonuses. Imperialistic should only have a 'this will make it easier for me to exert control over other nations' trait bonuses. Sadly though, in its current state, the GG bonus falls short of that.

Actually I think that is to some degree what it was, a Truly Imperialistic leader didn't conquer France, a Nationalistic Leader did... and that is where I see the distinction, Romans, Mongols, and Persians all essentially tried to exert political control much more than cultural control over their conquests.

I was only using the Germans as an (apparently bad) example. The Mongols weren't exactly loved when they conquered. Do you think giving Genghis a reduced motherland unhappiness bonus is appropriate? For Cyrus I would say it is, but I think that's what Charismatic represents. The same could be said for the British settling in America (with the American Indians) and Australia (with the Aborigines). Where I see it, having a reduced motherland unhappiness shouldn't be associated with Imperialistic. If anything, it should be associated with Charismatic. Likewise with reduced civil disorder.

Probably adding on 1/2 Price Jails and some tweaks to GG to make them a bit more common/useful would be best (I like the idea of moving Instructors to Education and dropping it for Academies (maybe even require Literature/another early tech for Mil.Academies, so that Early GGs Have to be Leaders) That way an Imperialist will have More Military cities rather than just better trained units.

Fantastic! Maybe making it so the Instructor is for Education and Military Academies are for maybe Military Tradition (hmm, maybe a bit far up the tree, but you get the idea - Literature is good). That way all conquests before then would have to use them as warlords. The 1/2 price Jails is also a good idea. Unfortunately I cannot get support for helping me with changing the SDK in order to give a true +100% increase

Watiggi, we must be looking at different definitions of imperialism .

Actually I wouldn't argue for excluding your definition, I just think it is a little narrow, focusing on one end of the spectrum of imperialism, whereas I was focusing on the other end of the spectrum. To be more specific I was focusing on the acquisition of remote colonies and territories (think British Empire) rather than conquering immediate neighbours.

Yep. I think the term that defines imperialism is 'being able to acquire'. I think Imperialistic leaders seek to acquire that which allows them to acquire. I tend to focus it on military because of the game dynamics limit the leaders ability to 'acquire'. Maybe that is why the settler bonus exists - to facilitate the acquisitions of resources. Sadly, I just wish the AI knew this and acted accordingly. I do however believe that there is a distint difference between being able to acquire and being able to keep and I think the latter should be excluded from Imperialistic.

I focused on the forbidden palace as a way to facilitiate the colonial feel of outlying branches of an empire without crippling the economy of the central core.

Yeah I see where you're comming from. I just look at it from the Expansive vs Organised perspective: Expansive can allow the person to expand fast, but this doesn't mean that a) it will end up with a large empire and b) that the empire will be well looked after. Likewise with Organised, it doesn't mean that the empire will end up large. It means that the empire will end up well looked after (financially speaking). For Imperialistic, I think the line should be drawn in between the ability to acquire and the ability to keep. Financial and Organised reflect the ability to manage (to keep) and this is why I believe Vicky and Julius both have Financial and Organised.

I don't think Civ4 has a good model for colonies and territories, you have a stark choice...conquer all and suffer economically or accept capitulation and lose much control, neither of these represent well the actual situation in the age of imperialism when colonies and territories were under the direct rule of the imperial owner and were of enormous economic benefit to that owner.

Yeah, I agree. But again, I believe that this is where the Financial trait for Vicky comes into it. It reflects the ability to make profitable large empires. I guess the issue here is the distance maintanence system in it's own right. But I would prefer that not to be associated with imperialism because, in many ways, imperialism leads to management issues (through the constant process of acquisition) which doesn't necesserily result in a well run empire.

I see an Imperialistic leader as one that is "guarding all the doors and holding all the keys". Meaning, like the British Empire, they didn't have direct control over every single person - but holding important points such as Gibraltar and Hong Kong or the Suez gave them virtual control. I don't have much experience with the trait, having just gotten Warlords, but allowing a civ to place or conquer cities in important locations before rivals do through faster settler production and great general emergence would seem to do just that. Pure speculation though.

Yeah, I agree. The settler bonus does seem to point towards being able to either build a military earlier without compromising early game expansion or being able to capture choke points or good resources early. The thing that bothers me with it is that a) the human player can turn it into an Expansive trait and b) the AI doesn't make use of the bonus anyway (at least to what I have noticed anyway).

An to Antilogic: I like the March promotion idea. I also liked Krikkitone's suggestion for it being for Mounted and navy units (more appropriate and more balanced for Genghis - otherwise you'd have Genghis with Combat I, March units and cheap Barracks, to boot).

This is a nice thread

All in all, many a large empire has come crashing down simply because it expanded but didn't effectively manage what it acquired - it just simply used what it acquired to acquire more. To be Imperialistic isn't to be good at keeping what you have, it just means that you are good at getting it.

edit: having said all this (and to contradict what I have said), look at all the leaders who have been given the Imperialistic trait vs though who didn't: Genghis did, Napoleon and Alexander didn't. Julius did and Augustus didn't. Genghis did and Kublai didn't. Hmmm. Maybe they have given it to leaders who passed on their empire to others after their death. That would imply that Imperialistic - at least in the games sense - has something to do with managing an empire, otherwise why didn't Alex or Napoleon get Imp? Maybe it was given to leaders who a) aimed to build an empire and b) passed that empire on?

 

[Monkeyfinger]

Here's an idea, and one I originally thought was the case when I first gave Imperialistic a try: Make the Settler production bonus also affect the food that goes toward making Settlers, not just the hammers.

There. Now Imperialistic isn't outclassed by Creative at making early land and resource grabs anymore. I'd start playing as leaders with that trait again if that whole "hey look, the settler bonus is barely noticeable" problem got fixed.

If the XML doesn't allow that (something I've actually always suspected is the problem, but I'm no modder) then make the hammer bonus x2 or something.

 

[kniteowl]

An to Antilogic: I like the March promotion idea. I also liked Krikkitone's suggestion for it being for Mounted and navy units (more appropriate and more balanced for Genghis - otherwise you'd have Genghis with Combat I, March units and cheap Barracks, to boot).

Mounted UUs with March... Overpowered???

I can see Catherine's Cossacks, Cyrus's Immortals and Genghis's Keshiks Rampaging all over the Map without a Need for a Medic LOL

 

[Mr. Civtastic]

I agreed and addressed that earlier

My bad. I glanced over previous posts before I posted but didnt catch it until I looked a second time.

 

[Watiggi]

Mounted UUs with March... Overpowered???

I can see Catherine's Cossacks, Cyrus's Immortals and Genghis's Keshiks Rampaging all over the Map without a Need for a Medic LOL

Yeah, good point. Maybe melee and gunpowder is better then. edit: Hehe, March Praetorians ...

 

[kniteowl]

Yeah, good point. Maybe melee and gunpowder is better then.

No Genghis (Agg/Imp) and Cyrus (Cha/Imp) Would just blow everyone away.

How about giving all Imp Civs Free Flanking 1 Promotion to all Mounted and Naval Units instead of March? Still overpowered?

I don't think so +10% Withdrawal Rate isn't that big
It's 1 promotion from Flanking two and Sentry and Two Promotions from Sentry.
Well We Won't know how powerful it is untill testing lol.

If you still think it's overpowered you could make it Free Flanking 1 for Mounted Units (Naval units automatically gets Flanking 1) Requires you to build a Stables in that City First.

 

[Watiggi]

Well, this is Antilogics idea, so I'll leave it up to him to decide/comment on it. I like the idea of a free Flanking I but it steers away from capturing what Imp is a little (iow, Flanking has little to do with Imperialism). May aswell go for a free City Raider I promo for seige units in that case. Nice ideas though.

Curious: Why would Cyrus blow everyone away with it being March for melee/gunpowder units?

EDIT:
March MGP Imperialistic: Free March for Melee/Gunpowder units
March NM Imperialistic: Free March for Mounted/Navy units
Flanking NM Imperialistic: Free Flanking for Mounted/Navy units

 

[Thyrwyn]

While I think the Imperialistic trait is fine as it is (one of my favorite), why not give it an advantage in handling large empires - reduced distance penalties to maintenance?

<<<free Flanking I would diminish the Carthaginian UU>>>

 

[Antilogic]

Honestly, to balance it out, I like the idea I just saw above: make the 50% production bonus affect food as well. Typically, your first settler is boosted by your food supply more than anything else (unless you start on a worker immediately and then go around mining). Having the 50% production bonus on food and hammers would give Imperialistic nations a massive leg up, getting settlers out several turns before anyone else.

I'm against Thyrwyn's idea on the basis that State Property gives a much better version of that benefit. No trait is made completely useless by a civic choice (although some come close...).

 

[Watiggi]

Antilogic: Plant a city on a plains hill. This gives you 2 hammers instead of the normal 1 on the city square. +50% and it's 3 hammers. If you have a forested plains hill nearby (3 hammers), that becomes a total of 7 hammers when building a settler (the placement is also handy for building military units ). 100 hammers / 7 hammers (which includes the settler bonus) == 15 turns. When I play as an Imp leader, I pretty much allways try to settle on plains for this reason. The beauty about settling on plain hills (and other hammer rich resources) is that it puts you in a position whereby you have a high hammer output and can build a military force quickly. So, from an Imperialistic point of view, I like the hammer only +50% yeild as it guides city placement into areas that are hammer rich. Planting a city on stone or marble on a plains hill for example gives a city square output of 2 food, 3 hammers. It's a good foundation. Again, I just wish the AI knew this. Elephants is another: 2 hammers on flat ground... When you build a settler, look at the yeilds and if you find one with 2+ hammers and it has no forest, then it'll give you that number of hammers. If it has a forest, take one away and that should be the hammer yeild.

Lord Olleus: Imperialism isn't about ending up large though. It is about expanding fast - in rival territory. More importantly though, I think it is about acquiring those decisive points that give your empire a level of power and being able to assert control and influence over the other empires much more easily.

I do like the cheap Jails though (although I seldom ever get that far into the tech tree).

ARGHH! I want to get a true +100 GG emergence in order to see what difference it makes..

 

[Antilogic]

As for putting a starting city on plains hills (or other 2 shield squares)...I typically don't have that opportunity...although a grand one hammer bonus doesn't seem as great as getting an extra 3 or 4 from getting a food production bonus. However, I try to avoid settling on a resource simply because I like to get a greater bonus by building the special terrain improvement on top of it.

Here's another approach: you can't dispute that Imperialism was about the glorification of a country, right? How about we switch the settler and worker production bonuses? Give Expansive the truly "expansive" ability of a settler production bonus, and give Imperialistic the worker production bonus--I think overall that's a little stronger.

EDIT: I should clarify: imperialism is about empire-building. So how about a bonus that reflects the construction of infrastructure like producing workers faster?

 

[Watiggi]

Here's another approach: you can't dispute that Imperialism was about the glorification of a country, right? How about we switch the settler and worker production bonuses? Give Expansive the truly "expansive" ability of a settler production bonus, and give Imperialistic the worker production bonus--I think overall that's a little stronger.

EDIT: I should clarify: imperialism is about empire-building. So how about a bonus that reflects the construction of infrastructure like producing workers faster?

That's a different perspective! I have no real opinion about that though. I had the worker bonus pinned for the Industrious trait and the settler bonus for the Expansive trait. Imp having a worker bonus never really occured to me.

 

[Monkeyfinger]

Hunt for plains/hills to leverage the hammer bonus, LOL

You can't always do that. Sometimes you just don't start near a P/H.

If you DO, there's no guarantee there will be a forested P/H near that to work with your one citizen.

Even if all that does check out, you're still wasting turns with your search and risking ownage from an animal.

And the fat cross surrounding the starting point of your initial settler is guaranteed not to have any **** squares like desert, tundra or ice. Wander off in search of a P/H and you're going to lose that bonus. Not good for your captial, which is almost certainly going to get to 20 pop.

In short, I really, REALLY don't like having to rely on a risky strategy such as "hunt for a P/H to build your capital on" to leverage the more signifigant of Imperialistic's bonuses. It would really be nice of Firaxis to take my idea and make the quicker settler always work. And hey, if normal settlers get a bonus from starting near say Corn, why shouldn't boosted ones?

Or... just... do what other people have been saying and completely nix that settler bonus for something different. That'd also work. I just hate them leaving in the settler bonus as it is, it's such crap.

 

[Watiggi]

Hunt for plains/hills to leverage the hammer bonus, LOL

You can't always do that. Sometimes you just don't start near a P/H.

Do NOT quote me for something that I did not say. The quote you made with my name on it was - I dare say - something you were going to say.

If there is a plains hill nearby, it is better for Imperialistic to settle on it. I didn't imply that you go running around looking for it at the expense of everything else. An idiot would only think of such a thing. For the first city, an Imp settling on a plains hill will allow it to build settlers - at size one - in much less time because a) it is getting more hammers and b) it's adding the bonus to it. None of this means that the city looses out in any way, if anything it might leave something like a floodplain open and available whereas normally you might settle on it.

Floodplains with plains hill (only - no forested plain hills in sight):
Non Imp (doesn't settle on p/h): 4 hammers and food (3 from floodplain; 1 from city tile) = 100 / 4 = 25 turns
Imp (settles on p/h): 6 hammers and food (3 from floodplain; 2 from city tile * 50%) = 100 / 6 = 17 turns

There are quite a lot of plain hills around. It can also work with Elephant, Stone or Marble aswell, although, Stone and Marble produce (I think) 3 hammers instead of 2.

The point here for me is that you have cities that are of a higher production right from the begining of the game. Which means you can crank out a military force with little effort: Can build a warrior in half the time. Genghis can build a Barracks in a quarter of the time whilest still growing, etc. If imp was for both hammers and food, there would be no need to settler on hammer rich areas and thus miss out on early hammer output for military production as there would be no incentive to settle on hammer rich tiles.

 

[kniteowl]

Well, this is Antilogics idea, so I'll leave it up to him to decide/comment on it. I like the idea of a free Flanking I but it steers away from capturing what Imp is a little (iow, Flanking has little to do with Imperialism). May aswell go for a free City Raider I promo for seige units in that case. Nice ideas though.

Well it's a choice between being historically correct and keeping gameplay balanced, maybe we should invent a new promotion to to better represent an Imp Civ.

As to whether or not the Free March to Melee or Mounted Units are overpowered we'll have to test it out, try and get as many people to participate with the mod you have made available and get their opinions and comments.

Btw can you also add a Cheap Jails Mods for an Imp Civ.

While I think the Imperialistic trait is fine as it is (one of my favorite), why not give it an advantage in handling large empires - reduced distance penalties to maintenance?
<<<free Flanking I would diminish the Carthaginian UU>>>

If the makers ever decide to give Imp Civs Free Flanking One to their mounted units I think they'd increase the Carthaginian UU str to 6 to balance out it's dimished str, like giving the Quencha's free Combat When HC was no longer Agg. Besides there arn't many Imp Civs in the game, 5 I last counted, the Cath UU would only be diminished against other Imp Civs.

Honestly, to balance it out, I like the idea I just saw above: make the 50% production bonus affect food as well. Typically, your first settler is boosted by your food supply more than anything else (unless you start on a worker immediately and then go around mining). Having the 50% production bonus on food and hammers would give Imperialistic nations a massive leg up, getting settlers out several turns before anyone else.

That'd be insanely overpowered giving 50% bonus on both food and hammers to an Imp Civ building a settler, I bet you'd beeline to Codes of Law after spamming all those settlers just to keep a handle on your maintainance unless your Rome.

How about making it a Food only Bonus to Imp Civs and making it 25% bonus If it's too weak in testing just raise it to 50% or Make it both food and production bonus but at 25%.

Here's another approach: you can't dispute that Imperialism was about the glorification of a country, right? How about we switch the settler and worker production bonuses? Give Expansive the truly "expansive" ability of a settler production bonus, and give Imperialistic the worker production bonus--I think overall that's a little stronger.

EDIT: I should clarify: imperialism is about empire-building. So how about a bonus that reflects the construction of infrastructure like producing workers faster?

Yea that would work but now you'd have a weaker Expansive trait.... I think we should improve the settler bonus 1st before we switch the bonuses on settler and workers between the traits.

 

[Watiggi]

As to whether or not the Free March to Melee or Mounted Units are overpowered we'll have to test it out, try and get as many people to participate with the mod you have made available and get their opinions and comments.

Btw can you also add a Cheap Jails Mods for an Imp Civ.

Yeah I can, but I don't know where to put it. Just having that replacing the settler bonus makes the trait worse:

+100% GG emergence
+100% Jails
? (looks a little weak)

Lord Olleus: I may be getting access to a maintanence modifier tag (from Aussie Lurker) soon which will allow a reduction in maintanence for a trait. Then a +25% maintanence reduction can be made and tried.

HA! Unique Buildings for traits! That could be cool - and could be made using XML (apart from the graphics)!



I personally would like to try:

*Military Academy available with Literature (toned back down to +25% military production) and
*Instructor becomes available at Education.
(so, in the begining only warlords can be made until Literature).

Sadly this wont be too crash hot until a true +100% GG emergence can be made with Imp.

 

[kniteowl]

Lord Olleus: I may be getting access to a maintanence modifier tag (from Aussie Lurker) soon which will allow a reduction in maintanence for a trait. Then a +25% maintanence reduction can be made and tried.

Are you decreasing Maintanance in general or are you decreasing specific parts of maintainance? eg - City Number or Distance from Capital?

Would Reduced Maintainance overpower Julius Ceasar? being Org/Imp he'd could continue conquering untill he runs out of units and could delay codes of law.

I've been thinking about the cheap Jails, I'm not sure how useful they'll be because they come quite late in the game, Constitution is quite a long way, most traits have generally at least one early Cheap building available in the the early game except Phil and Fin (Vanilla Pre Patch) but those traits are already quite powerful. I say just give the Imp Civ -25% war-weariness unless you find another way to make it alot stronger.

Or how about giving it 3 cheap buildings like they did with the other traits Cre and Org in the new patch.

Change the Imp Trait and check out how it goes with

100% GG Emergance
+50% Production of Settlers
& Double production on Jails, Grocers and Markets

LOL Funny that Cyrus and Julius get Cheap UBs lol well +2 health and +25% great people birth rate ain't that powerful

 

[Nay]

I liked that Imperialistic was something different from all the other "produce building X at half cost" for once.

Keeping it that way would be nice.
I still suggest "no additional upkeep for troops outside your borders" since this reflects the Imperialistic way to expand.
Rather than "boo, our boys are dying overseas!" it should be "yeah, our boys are conquering overseas!"

Of course it shouldnt give a bonus for this, it could be easily exloited.
But lowering the mali that conquering armies produce poses a neat way to have something that

a) is something different
b) not game-breaking
c) stays in touch with the real events

In addition, how about +100% GG points when fighting outside your borders?

Imperialistic is about Expansion, and mostly not the peaceful way, so it should focus on events that do not take place at home.

Cheaper buildings is the wrong direction here.
+1 Trade route maybe?
The colonies werent taken for their nice view, but for resources, which translates as money.
+1% Commerce for each captured city (read: city yiou posses but did not found yourself) in each home city (read: cities you DID found yourself), thus representing the newly aquired markets.

just a few thoughts though, im still hoping for an industrious/philosophical leader