Tweaking traits! OR: how would you re-balance them?

[snipafist]

I think it's pretty well-understood that the current traits are not all made equal. So what would you do to make them better?

I'll begin:

Aggressive: expand the bonus to include mounted units. Now it's on-par with Charismatic, makes more sense, and makes mounted units (who have traditionally been military elites!) more useful to aggressive civs.

Charismatic: fine as it is. It's a darn good trait.

Creative: This trait used to be much worse, but with libraries being added to the list of improved-speed buildings, it's gotten much better. Why not include Broadcast towers on the list for some later-game help?

Expansive: This is one confused trait. Why does it grant a bonus to worker production? I'd remove the worker bonus and give this trait Imperialistic's 50% Settler production bonus. It is EXPANSIVE after all, not just "extra health" trait.

Financial: Anyone who thinks this trait is weak needs their head examined.

Imperialistic: Great generals are nice and all, but this trait isn't that great and doesn't really "feel" imperial. Successful empires include people of many different races and backgrounds successfully, maintain good armies, and are generally known for governing competently. I advocated removing the settler bonus above, so let's operate off the base bonus of +100% great general points. From there, why don't we add two abilities to approximate an "imperial" feel that jives with the "easy assimilation" angle: 1)Captured enemy cities reduce their rebellion period in half. 2) Imperially-captured cities retain their cultural buildings and improvements rather than have them automatically destroyed. This way leaves us with a good trait, but arguably not as good as others.

Industrious: Another good trait. Not really worth it if you don't do wonders, but who never tries to build ANY wonders? If you're not getting much use out of Industrious, then your difficulty setting isn't high enough, I'd say. For flavor, why not add +25% worker speed?

Organized: Potentially a real game-saver in the right circumstances. It grants some good bonuses to producing key buildings and keeps maintenance relatively low. No need for change.

Philosophical: Another good trait when used well. Keep it as it is.

Protective: Nobody likes this trait. It's not as all-around useful as Charismatic or Aggressive, instead relying on an enemy coming to you. I'd add one extra ability: Walls and castles each give +1 happiness, as a protective/defensively-oriented civ would take comfort in extra protection. This would give the trait a use outside of defensive warfare.

Spiritual: I'd add Cathedrals to the buildings that are produced twice as quickly as well as temples. Otherwise, spiritual is pretty good as it is. It allows for very flexible civics configurations, which is situationally amazing or unimpressive, depending on situation and playstyle.

 

[KrikkitTwo]

I'd only modify Imperial and Expansive through the bonus

Let Food used for Workers/Setlers get bonuses as well

That would definitely make Imperial REX worthy, and help expansive slightly

Great Generals also need a bit of a boost perhaps allow Mil.Academies at the start of the game, but have them give only +25%.. increased to +50% with Military Science.
(to make them significant, decrease Heroic Epic to +%50%, and with Military Science it can get 1 Great General Point per unit produced from that city)

 

[Vrenir]

How about adding an espionage bonus to Protective. It makes sense that a good defense includes knowing more about your enemies' forces, and it would help give something special to this unvalued trait.

 

[Lurking Liu]

Protective isn't good? Come again?

Tokugawa's a warmonger's dream--Riflemen/Infantry with Combat I and Drill I right off the bat, plus you can always leave behind one unit to defend a city instead of having to lug around (and pay foreign upkeep on...) garrison troops who won't be attacking.

 

[afa2000]

For protective, I would change the promotion bonus. Instead off "city garrison", I would put "25 % att/def bonus if inside your own cultural borders". It would make the civ really protective.

 

[LunaticSlave]

Protective is perfect as it is now, i personaly use leaders with that trait, and my current fav since bts is Gilgamesh, and agg/pro is awesome for war imo indeed, i use toku at times just for fun and when want to win the game by waring. As for industrous i would change the wonder construction speed to 33% and workers build improvemts +25% faster, and for imperialist i would just add like 25% cheaper unit upgrades or something like that to make it more apealing.

 

[TheAmerican]

You do know that some of these traits are given to gives with really good UUs to balance things out, right? That's why Julius' traits suck.

 

[Vietcong]

i would like a sea fearing trait added agin

1, allways starts near coast with atleast 1 sea food soace located adjacent to start.
2,all naval units start with combat
3, perhaps a cash or food bonus from sea tiles? or starts with worker boat?

 

[Infantry#14]

how about for Imperalistic, GG gets 30 exp instead of 20 when attaching to warlords?

 

[Munch]

"Industrious" doesn't make much sense to me: were Stalin and De Gaulle, for example, famous for their construction of large-scale unique building projects? I'd prefer to see Industrious make a leader better at general production, say:

Ind: +1 on 3 /Double speed of Forge, Factory, Drydock

Building unique, awe-inspiring wonders seems (to me) to be more of a "Creative" thing to do:

Cre: +2 per city/Double speed Theatre/+50% Wonder Production

Then you'll be a border popping-monster. These traits overpowered perhaps? Well, just beef-up the other traits too! Hmmm...

 

[Molon Labe]

Some interesting ideas, but honestly I feel that most of them are fine as is.

I disagree that Agressive needs any boost. It's powerful enough as it is.

I don't think that Industrious becomes more useful as you increase levels. I don't play above monarch, but I find in most games I pick the important wonders and skip the rest. If I am Industrious, I will probably be aiming for a Culture victory and I find it strong enough as it is.

I think that you might be overgeneralizing Protective based on how you feel about it. It's not my favourite trait by a long shot, but I have found some uses for it. Drill promoted gunpowder units can make a big difference in a later warmongering effort. It's not just defensive. I don't think this needs anything else.

Charismatic, Financial, Philosophical and Organized are pretty powerful and very useful as is, and I agree that they don't need any changes. I don't see the point in adding Broadcast Towers to Creative's cheap buildings. I supposed it couldn't hurt, but seems unnecessary.

I think Expansive, Imperialistic and Spiritual could all use a tweak. I like your Expansive idea with the workers. Your first Imperialistic suggestion might be worth something, the second one strikes me as being a bit much. But neither really feels "Imperialistic" to me. It's an odd trait.

Spiritual needs something else with the additions of no rebellion in GA and Cristo Redentor. Another cheap building might do it, but I would prefer a monastery to a cathedral. Maybe it's just because I only build Cathedrals when going for a cultural victory, or in a single city fighting borders.