The civs (leaders) aren't balanced? Which civs are overpowered? How to balance?

[Dis]

In a thread in other games it was discussed that the civs are not balanced (compared to starcraft- a perfectly balanced game).

How so?

Do most people play the same powerful civs? Are there a lot of civs not being played?

We all know how powerful financial civs are. It fits our gameplay. Everyone values research over other things. And economy fuels research. But I'm sure people can win with aggressive civs.

So educate me which civs are overpowered. And we can figure out ways for Firaxis to fix this in the next expansion. I think ideally, we want civs to be different, but balanced. And I'm sure there can be improvement in this regard.

I've always felt like aggressive was underpowered in this game. This trait needs to be beefed up. I think mounted units should get a bonus. Not just melee and gunpowder units.

anyways discuss which changed you would make to balance the civs more. And discuss which civs are overpowered. Yeah we all know about praetorians. I never cared for Julius myself, but Augustus I seem to do well with.

[Solver]

Bah, the whole "Starcraft is perfectly balanced" is largely nostalgia. It does have outstanding balance, but I don't think even StarCraft's is perfect.

I think Civ4 civs are balanced. The good thing is that they all playstyles will have a civ that's good for them. Yes, there definitely are some stronger civs, but I don't think any are truly overpowered or underpowered. Not in SP, although I hear that in ladder MP only some civs are played.

On the more powerful side, you definitely have Rome. In Warlords, Praetorian are absolutely the most powerful unit in the game, compared to other units in the same timeframe of course. Praetorians just own everything, and have greater than 1:1 chances vs. their direct counter. I also consider the Mali to be exceptionally strong, maybe that's because I always tend to do very well with them.

The trick with traits is that they vary greatly by difficulty level. Free health from Expansive can be a godsend on a high difficulty level, but is largely useless on a low level. The Organized trait's bonus is a money-saver on higher levels with lots of inflation, and hard to notice on lower levels, etc.

[Alexander I]

Well there was one trait that Warlords removed from Vanilla. I think it was Ind/Phi? That was supposedly unbalanced.

[Solver]

There's never been an Ind/Phi leader.

[Alexander I]

Originally posted by Solver
There's never been an Ind/Phi leader.

My mistake. I could've sworn that was one that they took out, but I was wrong. I should've checked my spreadsheet first.

They took out Fin/Org (Vanilla Wahington), Fin/Exp (Van. Victoria), Phi/Cre (Van. Frederick), Agg/Org (Van. Tokugawa), Exp./Cre. (Van. Cyrus), and Cre.Fin. (Van. Catherine). At least that's how it shows on the spreadsheet I made.

Was there any reason to do this besides adding the new Warlords traits?

[Solver]

Well, with the addition of 3 new traits in Warlords, many were shuffled, as you see. Some were shuffled for better historical representation, others to get new interesting trait combos.

At any rate, there are lot of possible trait combinations post-Warlords, so many combinations were bound to be unused.

[Alexander I]

Originally posted by Solver

At any rate, there are lot of possible trait combinations post-Warlords, so many combinations were bound to be unused.

And I'm sure we'll be seeing some of those in the future.

[Solver]

Quite so.

[MontyMustDie]

Tokugawa's trait combination was cack, so that's why he was changed. Most definately underpowered.

[Will9]

That was the same reason why Washington's was taken away.

[Adagio]

I always play on random* to avoid getting the same leader too often. There are a few civs I almost never play as though. The Celts I've never finished a game as yet, as their UU and UB are useless IMHO

* Or rather I randomly picks a leader myself as the random leader picker has some favorites it seems (I get Carthage and English all the time it seems)

[rah]

In all our MP games we're going random.
I now do the same in SP just to experience the ones I never played before.
THere are a few I'm not happy to see in MP, but not many. (Japan is my least favorite)

[Robert]

I dislike random, my strategy depends on the treats that I play. I try to work out a strategy from time to time, so a few months I play leader x, then after a few months I move on to the next leader. Random would only frustrate this.

I don't want to game to force a tactic on me by the leader choise already.

[rah]

But playing the same leader has a tendency to make you predictable. Being predictable can be the kiss of death in an MP game. Being nimble and flexible keeps others humans guessing. Playing random keeps you thinking.

[Robert]

Well, my MP games tend to take at least 5 months, and so far I've changed leaders between games all the time