Why not Protective?

[EweezE]

^ ok. But Drill IV can wipe out units without taking any damage sometimes, like capturing a piece in chess... So Drill promotions can be nice. Protective suits me cause I'd rather lose a unit on the offensive (i.e. Maceman with 1 less promotion than an Agg leader) than in my city where it counts the most. If your defensive units fail then your cities fall, and it's Game Over. I don't have this marauder problem though, because Pro civs tend to have great UU's. The Dog Soldier, Landskecht (spelling)... there are others too! No one can convince me Pro is weak. When you see who's in my city protecting it, yeah... you'd better go try and pillage my land. Or, you could just turn that stack around and head for an easier Civ to conquer. You will take heavy losses battling a Pro Civ, or if controlled properly, you'll spend all game at war... feeding me GG's. Agg is a great trait, and I'm not saying one's better than the other. They are only used to their fullest though when not battling each other imo.

 

[azzaman333]

Protective is weaker than the rest of the traits, and needs a slight boost IMO such as some sort of boost to espionage. Because at the moment, it's a 1 trick trait, and that trick requires you to be attacked at the city walls. So leveraging this trait to its fullest means you have to fight to defend your cities the entire game, which, unless youre playing always war, is quite unlikely.

 

[The Almighty dF]

^ ok. But Drill IV can wipe out units without taking any damage sometimes, like capturing a piece in chess... So Drill promotions can be nice. Protective suits me cause I'd rather lose a unit on the offensive (i.e. Maceman with 1 less promotion than an Agg leader) than in my city where it counts the most. If your defensive units fail then your cities fall, and it's Game Over. I don't have this marauder problem though, because Pro civs tend to have great UU's. The Dog Soldier, Landskecht (spelling)... there are others too! No one can convince me Pro is weak. When you see who's in my city protecting it, yeah... you'd better go try and pillage my land. Or, you could just turn that stack around and head for an easier Civ to conquer. You will take heavy losses battling a Pro Civ, or if controlled properly, you'll spend all game at war... feeding me GG's. Agg is a great trait, and I'm not saying one's better than the other. They are only used to their fullest though when not battling each other imo.

And this is where Prot civs have a problem.
I can just waltz in, destroy every improvement you have, disconnect your cities, etc. And then just wait for your already-made units to eventually walk outside of the city.

 

[EweezE]

And this is where Prot civs have a problem.
I can just waltz in, destroy every improvement you have, disconnect your cities, etc. And then just wait for your already-made units to eventually walk outside of the city.

Sure you could do that if all a Pro Civ built were archers. But that would be pretty dumb to only build archers now wouldn't it. You seem to think that's all Pro Civs have at their disposal is archers. Having one more combat promotion is not going to give your stack free reign on a Pro civ's land. You are in enemy land and he has more units than you collectively... You'd tear up a good deal of land around 1 city possibly 2 if they were close together, but all parties come to an end. I would blame the user for not building a balanced army if you went in and tore up all their land, not the Pro trait. That Pro trait is doing its job... you are too scared to attack the city! Had it been a regular Non-Pro Civ, the city would have already been conquered.

 

[The Almighty dF]

Sure you could do that if all a Pro Civ built were archers. But that would be pretty dumb to only build archers now wouldn't it. You seem to think that's all Pro Civs have at their disposal is archers. Having one more combat promotion is not going to give your stack free reign on a Pro civ's land. You are in enemy land and he has more units than you collectively... You'd tear up a good deal of land around 1 city possibly 2 if they were close together, but all parties come to an end. I would blame the user for not building a balanced army if you went in and tore up all their land, not the Pro trait. That Pro trait is doing its job... you are too scared to attack the city! Had it been a regular Non-Pro Civ, the city would have already been conquered.

No, that's living proof that Protective is a useless trait.

Archery units end up being pretty much worthless unless your city is attacked. Even with Prot, all they can do is stay in the city. So, the player has to build a lot of units that don't get the free boost the player could have gotten (unless you're playing as Tokugawa or... Who is Cha/Prot?)
In the end, your city isn't as well defended as someone who is Aggressive.

Aggressive covers:
-Marauder protection
-Medics
-Invasion forces

Protective covers:
-Archery units that will never leave the city.
-...
-...
-Oh wait, that's it.

So why not instead make a few cheap medic units and a couple of archery units? Sure, they won't start off with Drill and City Defense, but they'll still be pretty damn powerful because you've got medics with them.

It's a broken trait. Protective is in the same group as the espionage nuke, the Qin/Kublai switch, etc.

 

[Hasuike]

I have rarely heard of defense paying off in any endeavor that isn't on the operational level. Protective is almost TOO situational to be useful to me. Not to mention sitting back and engaging in a defensive war doesn't seem to be worth it in this game. It only makes lowers my research (as well as the attacker's) to a point where both of us lose any tech advantage. Meanwhile, Hatshepsut, Mansa Musa, and Asoka type civs are not warring and enjoying peaceful wonder building/researching on the other side of the continent.

protective isn't bad, it just isn't great compared to other traits I think.

 

[Metal Alloy Man]

It sure is handy if you play with Raging Barbs.

 

[EweezE]

dF, I can see you are as content with the Agg trait as I am with Pro. The Agg leader's stack is not invincible, and might want to reconsider DoW on a Pro Civ. The best wars are quick ones. I'll leave it at that.

 

[Molybdeus]

May I ask what difficulty the OP plays on?

Sure you could do that if all a Pro Civ built were archers. But that would be pretty dumb to only build archers now wouldn't it. You seem to think that's all Pro Civs have at their disposal is archers. Having one more combat promotion is not going to give your stack free reign on a Pro civ's land. You are in enemy land and he has more units than you collectively...

If you are going to protect yourself by simply building a massive army, then you can win defensive wars without any military traits at all. The advantage of protective, I have always been told, is that you don't need to spend as much production on your military. And that means you won't be able to field a massive stack of axemen and spearmen to go along with the archers you build.

I am not hostile to Protective, it has just never worked for me. If I have to build a large army anyway, I might as well use it on the offensive rather than hiding behind my city walls. If I don't have copper or horses, protective hasn't saved me from having the AI pillage the living crap out of my empire. It only seems useful for people who have no interest in pursuing conquest.

 

[DrJambo]

I find expansive to be a poorer trait than protective. Protective is a good trait for conquering simply because your troops are much less susceptible to the inevitable counter attack after taking a city.

Also, I find industrious to be crap on the higher difficulty levels (emperor and above) where building Wonders is not guaranteed. All it takes is for an AI civ to have early access to stone or marble and it can completely nullify your industrious bonus.

 

[Krazy]

One downside to Protective is that double speed Walls is a bit meh (but still being able to whip a wall is helpful at times), and castles totally meh - which aren't that good.

Protective is great on offence too don't forget, those bonuses apply when you take a city making it harder for the AI to take it back. A longbow/crossbow/pike combination with a couple of promos off the bat is particularly nasty to beat, and nastier still if on a hill.

Oh and drill IV/CG 3 machine guns are a b*tch to dislodge, and it's not hard to get them racking up loads of XP as hordes of infantry fall by the wayside attacking them.

 

[zenspiderz]

I rather like protective. It is probably better in MP than in SP since human opponents are rather more dangerous when conducting war. Still tho it has its advantages even in SP especially after gunpowder.

cheap walls and castles are no worse than cheap barracks and drydocks. Barracks are pretty cheap anyway and you don't really need to build them in every city and drydocks hardly need be built at all except in one or two cities.

The idea that the only way to leverage the free promos is to only build archers and turtle is very shortsighted. The advantage of the free promos is you DON'T have to build dedicated city defenders AT ALL since any and all archery or gunpowder units can furfill that role better than average if need be.

 

[blitzkrieg1980]

He just gets very up in arms about it... He's in the camp of "best defence is an offence," "pillaging makes it useless," and a few other nasty (and only situationally accurate) things about the trait. I think his playstyle just doesn't match it, and he doesn't give credit to people who play in a manner that stresses the incredible defensive strength while leveraging the notable offensive power of Drill IV (oh, he has a lots of odds calculations for drill VS combat line - but he doesn't really factor in its health saving properties or its siege resistance).

I think that the Drill line is the hands down best promotion line in the game. When it comes to defending cities, stacks, newly captured territory, and resources, a few Drill IV machinegun (or crossbow in earlier eras) will defend your SOD, stop an invading mounted unit from pillaging vital resources, and guarding your newly acquired cities.

 

[blitzkrieg1980]

Protective is weaker than the rest of the traits, and needs a slight boost IMO such as some sort of boost to espionage. Because at the moment, it's a 1 trick trait, and that trick requires you to be attacked at the city walls. So leveraging this trait to its fullest means you have to fight to defend your cities the entire game, which, unless youre playing always war, is quite unlikely.

I gotta disagree here. The protective trait allows your gunpowder units to start with CGI and Drill I. If you get 3 promos straight outta the barracks, your units can have CGII and Drill III or CG I and Drill IV which makes for some insane SOD defenders. I like taking these units to lead my tanks/arty/infantry/sam-infantry in all out assaults. They defend the stack from any of the AI's stack busters, then after the city is taken, they hold onto it with no fears of having it retaken. You can use these guys as conquered city garrisons, resource guards, and they can travel around with gunships/mounted units to rape your opponents land with no fear of losing units.

 

[kniteowl]

Yes Protective had been talked to death since Warlords. It is very useful after gunpowder but compared to say Aggressive, which just happens to always be useful from beginning to end... well maybe not the end since tanks and mordern armour don't get the free promos.

Protective's weakness happens to occur during the early game before gunpowder where most offensive players tend to not build archery units and prefer to defend with other units.

I actually pretty much do that too, my defensive unit is the Catapult at that point in time, if the AI just happens to send a SOD then I just Collateral Damage it to death then pretty much any unit can clean up.

It's other weakeness is it's cheap buildings (some traits relies heavely on it's cheap buildings like Expansive and to a lesser extent Organized) which happen to also happen to be very situtational, hecks 99.99% of the time I never build them, probably because of the way I play military where all my defensive wars occur outside my city so why build walls or castles?

the secondary benefits of cheaps buildings are ok (wel walls dont' have a secondary benefit) but they obsolete too early, castles have a very short lifespan and even if I delay the obsoleting tech, it sometimes conflicts with my playstyle (eg - Economics eventually leads to coperations and Sid Sushi).

There's also the fact that the cheap buildings actually obsolete, do you know any other cheap building in the game that actually obsoletes??? I can't think of any, sure there are some cheap buildings you can't build because of map type but still being useful for only 1/4 or less of the game is very unappealing.

There have been many ideas on how to improve the trait though.

Eg

- Extend the lifespan of Castles
- Give Walls a Secondary benefit
- Great Wall should require 3 Walls before being available to be consturcted like SOZ.
- Cheaper EP Missions
- Increased EP Points Accumulated

and many more, not all of these should be included in the game

cheap walls and castles are no worse than cheap barracks and drydocks. Barracks are pretty cheap anyway and you don't really need to build them in every city and drydocks hardly need be built at all except in one or two cities.

Well your Playstyle maybe different but whenever I play Aggressive I make sure I build a Barrack in every city I know that can grow to size 6 because I'll eventually draft it later in the game becuase that extra 2XP from Barrack and Theology will be useful for 1 Promotion. Almost always, all of my cities will grow beyond Size 6.

 

[azzaman333]

I gotta disagree here. The protective trait allows your gunpowder units to start with CGI and Drill I. If you get 3 promos straight outta the barracks, your units can have CGII and Drill III or CG I and Drill IV which makes for some insane SOD defenders. I like taking these units to lead my tanks/arty/infantry/sam-infantry in all out assaults. They defend the stack from any of the AI's stack busters, then after the city is taken, they hold onto it with no fears of having it retaken. You can use these guys as conquered city garrisons, resource guards, and they can travel around with gunships/mounted units to rape your opponents land with no fear of losing units.

By the time I get to gunpowder units, the game has generally already been won or lost. Which is why every other trait is better. They all have a decisive early game bonus, while Protective requires you to turtle until Gunpowder.

 

[blitzkrieg1980]

^ ^ ^ In no way have any of my games begun to be decided when discovering Gunpowder. I was using gunpowder as an example of how you can use Protective in the later eras. Protective in the early game is amazing especially if combined with the likes of the Totem Pole. I had pre-Classical Era archers coming out with CGI,II, and III AND Drill I. No one was going to attack me. Then, when I hooked Machinery, I had Crossbows coming out CGI, and Drill I, II, III. These are early game mammoth units! I marched 6 cats, 5 Swordsmen, 2 horse arch, 4 dogmen, and 5 of those beefed crossbows all over enemy territory and they didn't have a chance. This is pre-macemen. So that's pretty early game goodness right there.

 

[zenspiderz]

Since this is becoming a comparison of protective vs aggressive (which is a fair comparison) I will like to point out some things. Post-gunpowder protective is better than aggresive because two useful free promos are better than 1 useful free promo for gunpowder units. So if aggresive is better than protective it had better be so before gunpowder.

So for aggresive spears, axes, swords, pikes and macemen get C1 for free.

For protective archers, longbows and crossbows get CG1 and DR1 for free.

Immediately I see an advantage protective has over aggressive. xbows demolish EVERY single one of agressives melee units offensively as well as defensively.

Consider the protective + barracks + vassalage/theocracy xbow. CG1 DR2 with formation. Kills EVERY single medival pre-gunpowder unit defensively or offensively except knights. And in most cases does so with little damage to itself.

Here is a typical medieval protective city taking stack.

8-12 no of siege (catapults/trebuchet) promoted with CR mainly - With enough siege no melee city raiders are necessary at all.

4-8 no of xbows (CG1, DR2, formation) (versatile stack defenders as well as strong attackers when siege have finished collateralling the defenders.)

2-4 no of longbows (CG1, DR2, G1 Or CG1, DR1, G2 AND CG2, DR2 Or CG3, DR1) for defending stacks on hills as well has defenders for city taken.

2-4 no of pikes (C1, .. whatever) for defending stack against knights (unnecessary if enemy doesn't have knights yet).

+ of course some kind of medic.

Note this fearsome beast can be fielded with just fuedalsim, machinery and engineering (civil service not necessary)

Actually fuelalism is optional especially if the target cities do not have many hills on route. And construction will do for catapults if you want to rumble earlier than engineering.

What is more once this stack has taken a city it is nigh impossible to shift from it because of all the CG and DR promos.

 

[blitzkrieg1980]

I used to be an AGG fanatic and mock protective, now I rarely use AGG leaders.

 

[The Snug]

Speaking objectively from experience, protective is far more powerful than aggressive. I've been playing a round-robin session using all of the leaders, and aggressive just doesn't compete. The protective promo's nullify the aggro's promo's, but then add in the defensive bonuses and an attacker can't bust a grape.

As a protective civ, no one can touch you early or late. If you're a builder it frees you to actually build and tech without worries. If you're a warmonger you still promote the same as most other civs but you get drill for free, and the ability to easily defend newly acquired cities.

With your defensive units you can simply seal off all of the borders, park archers on hills and forests, while your attack units sally forth from the fortresses to crush any would be pillagers.

When I play as protective civs I fear nothing. When I play as aggresive civs and there are protective neighbors, I sigh, and give up any dreams of conquest until siege weapons and gunpowder.

I'm entirely objective in my assessment. My preferred traits are Philosophical and Financial, I simply tried the others for variety. My experience has shown protective to be unstoppable, whereas aggressive is simply an adjunct that might give a very slight advantage over under-promoted units (10% is by no means a huge disparity in battles, especially in comparison to any 20 or 25% defensive bonus).

As an aggressive civ I can realistically attack only 1 civ at a time (multiple fronts reduces concentrated power), and still require a larger force than the opposition. As a protective civ, I can and have fought the entire world at the same time, and lost very few units while I watch them suicide on my defenses. I can imagine that this disparity grows wider the higher you go up on levels too, since the AI is simply able to out-produce the human, can maintain larger armies and probably maintains a nearly constant tech lead. The aggressive trait would be nearly useless on immortal (especially next to a protective civ).

I played as Shaka the other day. I thought to myself, ok, let's go out and conquer the world from the starting gate. Unfortunately, my neighbor was Gilgamesh with these interesting units called Vulture's. That made my melee units (and therefore the aggressive promo) useless. I also possessed the unfortunate circumstance of not possessing horse. I was also an a peninsula and became boxed in and confined to dusty patch of tundra, desert and plains. What a useless trait aggressive was in that game. I had no choice but to turtle up and say "yes sir, whatever you say sir...you want a calendar resource?...well here you go...you want a tech?...but of course, here it is...you want me to declare war?...certainly, just name the villain, sir...what religion do you want me to follow?...of course, your god will be my god." I became Shaka the btch. Shaka the cultured one. I wrote symphonies and plays for Gilgamesh's religion. I horded religions and built monasteries. I sailed the sea and colonized a desert isle off the coast of the pangea map. I built many wonders. I became sweet and civilized Shaka.

It wasn't until I had gained a significant tech lead that Shaka shook off his smile and became the arse he was destined to be. By then, however, my conquest came as a result of my tech advantage, the little c1 promo was just an interesting sidenote for my infantry/marines/paratroopers as they waded through the blood of knights and curassiers.

What's so special about a little 10% bonus? I can't see it.