Ways to make protective better

[AutomatedTeller]

You could just make them not obsolete, actually.

I think it's kind of funny that sitting bull is such a bad AI, since he's basically has nearly perfect synergy with the trait.

I mean, his UU is basically defensive and it's available without resources. His UB further enhances his trait. And his secondary trait is perfect for an SE, which is a fine defensive tech strategy, too.

 

[karadoc]

I like protective; at least more than I like aggressive.

This thread has a lot of "it only helps when you're losing and blah blah blah"... that is completely untrue. Protective means that you can use fewer units to defend your land, which means you can either save productivity by building fewer units, or you can send more of your units to attack. Also, offensive gunpower units can hold newly captured cities more easily due to the protective trait. This saves you from having to build some special city defender to hold the cities afterwards — any of your units can be a city defender.
Also, defensive traits are very powerful in offensive wars against the AI. The AI will happily throw its stacks against your drill-promoted juggernaut, even when you are standing on high defense terrain. For this reason it is often useful to station a bunch of troops on a forest/hill outside an enemy city, or better still in a friendly fort on the front-line, so that the AI wastes its energy by helplessly suiciding its army while you are free to attack at your leisure.

So I don't think protective is as bad as most people seem to think. You just have to learn to leverage the advantage it gives, like you do for any other trait. Despite all this I still think it is one of the weaker traits, but not so weak that it is worth complaining about. In my own mod I've given faster security bureaus to protective, which in my opinion is a pretty minor buff.

 

[revengeofmakno]

You just have to learn to leverage the advantage it gives, like you do for any other trait. Despite all this I still think it is one of the weaker traits, but not so weak that it is worth complaining about.

You are correct but it difficult to think of a situation in which I wouldn't trade it in a second for financial or most of the others for that matter.

Beyond all that, this discussion leads me to think that the concept of traits could be rethought. As it stands now, it is a label that gives some very specific, often era specific advantages that don't reflect the concept in a complete way. I think it would be worthwhile to instead look at a more encompassing interpretation of each trait.

For example, protective could be interpreted as a persistent policy of civil defence throughout all time periods. So instead of double speed on walls and castles, make it something less but extend it to things like bunkers, security bureaus and bomb shelters. Alternatively, make those buildings more effective once they are built. The unit advantage could be changed to a 10% defence (and maybe 5% attack) bonus for all units within one's own cultural boundaries.

Likewise, Industrious gives a large kick on Wonders and double speed on forges. Only forges? Again, make it less of a speed bonus but extend it to factories, Industrial Parks and the various power plants. Again alternatively, make those buildings more effective once they are built.

There is a lot of creative potential that could be explored in this area and it could spill out past the leader traits to the civilizations themselves which tend to be limited to a unique building and a unique unit. Those things are interesting but fail to capture the essence of national cultures in a holistic way.

The trick, of course, is to keep things balanced. Financial is narrowly defined now because it previously was seen as too powerful (fast banks in addition to the tile bonus).

Maybe Civ5 moves in that direction to some extent, I don't know. Unfortunately, I seriously do not like;
1) removing all unit stacking
2) automatically giving cities a substantial defence and bombardment strength
3) getting rid of named religions that create diplomatic factions
so Civ5 is not on my to-do list anytime soon.

 

[Spectrite]

Protective means that you can use fewer units to defend your land, which means you can either save productivity by building fewer units, or you can send more of your units to attack.

In the early game, benefiting from this means you'd have to be using archery units.

 

[Earthling]

I think it's kind of funny that sitting bull is such a bad AI, since he's basically has nearly perfect synergy with the trait.

I mean, his UU is basically defensive and it's available without resources. His UB further enhances his trait. And his secondary trait is perfect for an SE, which is a fine defensive tech strategy, too.

Part of the problem is his diplo cutoffs, he won't techwhore which automatically puts him at a disadvantage to other AI.

But he'd still do rather poorly economically even if that was fixed. An AI can't run an SE well at all, it's only effective when abusing mids, and Philo isn't the greatest for them because they waste golden ages, get worthless GP like too many priests, and so on. Though it would be fun I guess to hardcode some AI to go after mids/a couple other wonders to make it almost impossible to get those on higher difficulties.

 

[ParadigmShifter]

Great Prophets are awesome when you settle them. (Especially in future Wall Street city).