Protective Trait = Archer Rush Is Back.

[couerdelion]

Originally posted by Chemical Ollie
Protective rocks!

In my current game, I play China and have barracks + 4 great generals + West Point + Military Academy in my Heroic Epic city. Include Pentagon in the equation and I get 4 upgrades for every new unit. So every defensive infantry unit rolls out with City Garrison III and Drill III combined, fresh from boot camp.

Not in my book it doesn’t. One of my biggest disappointments with the expansion was the turning the Chinese leaders from having decent traits to poor traits with both of them getting the PRO trait.

If all a trait gives you is the possibility of an extra drill promotion then it can hardly be considered as “rocking”. Compare it with a couple of other supposedly “weak” traits and you’ll see them giving far more substantial benefits

1) IMP – Strong for hurrying out settlers if there is a rush for territory
2) IND – cheap forges and wonders can easily be leveraged into a strong/winning position
3) EXP – Good for settling large floodplain areas. Cheap granaries for rapid vertical expansion.

I suppose that PRO does offer something that continues well into the game and one could argue that its value increases as the game progresses because more units get the free promotions and a lot more units will have more than 3 XP thus giving them a starting Drill 3 promotion (Drill 4 > Drill 3 > Drill 2 > Drill 1). Drill is possibly the only promotion that increases with level. But this is a later game benefit and most of the game play takes place in the early eras where other traits are much stronger.

Of all the traits, PRO is almost certainly the weakest.

[wodan11]

Originally posted by frenzyfol
One problem not mentioned here is that there is a higher amount of war weariness when using archers/longbowmen offensively due to the higher unit loss when compared to using catapults/trebs.

Good point but I think that nobody (except perhaps AAHZ) is recommending using archers offensively once you have Construction, let alone Engineering. Even AAHZ admits that he was a bit slow off the mark.

The point of any rush, not just an Archer rush, is to get it done before Construction is even a wet dream.

After you have siege units available, I think the relevant Protective strategy would be to use Crossbows as your attacking force, supplemented by the siege units. We haven't really talked about that yet but I think it's a valid strategy and that Protective would make it stronger.

The main reason I think it would be valid is that everybody and their mother builds melee units, thus the Xbows would go through them like the proverbial beans through a gringo. The extra first strikes would help take out defending longbows and city defense would help hold the cities you take.

Wodan

[LzPrst]

crossbowmen (especially cho-ko-nu) and longbowmen with lots of drill upgrades can be quite effective, just make sure you have some pikemen with them cause they get wasted by anything mounted.

[jbp26]

Originally posted by couerdelion
If all a trait gives you is the possibility of an extra drill promotion then it can hardly be considered as “rocking”. Compare it with a couple of other supposedly “weak” traits and you’ll see them giving far more substantial benefits

1) IMP – Strong for hurrying out settlers if there is a rush for territory

i disagree here- IMP is the only trait worse than protective, in my opinion. if theres a rush for territory i'd rather just set down one extra city and crank out military, and then steal the territory i need. even though an extra drill promotion is very forgettable, the main benefit of IMP disappears comletely once the initial land grab is over. maybe it was just my bad experience with intermediate game #6 that soured me..

[snoopy369]

Similarly to AGG, PRO is powerful not because of DRILL 1 but because of DRILL 2 (and 3 and 4) and City Defender 2. Being able to up your city defender units one extra is very powerful in a MP game (where units attacking your cities doesn't mean you've already lost), and the second Drill makes units that win a surprisingly large amount of the time - especially in an MP game where your opp will think "ooh, easy prey" and you shockingly win at 20% and 10% odds more often than he expects.

PRO may not be a top-rank trait, but it's far from useless.

[Chemical Ollie]

Every trait rocks if you learn how to take the most advantage of it. That's one of the things that make Civ 4 a great game.

[Unimatrix11]

i agree

[couerdelion]

Originally posted by Chemical Ollie
Every trait rocks if you learn how to take the most advantage of it. That's one of the things that make Civ 4 a great game.

I've yet to see anything that tells me what advantage I can make of PRO.

[The Priest]

I wonder if part of the problem is that PRO is particularly helpful when things are bad.

But many CIV players tend to play games that they can win (two-thirds of us expect to win 70% of the time according to the poll last year), presumably by setting the 'right' difficulty level and restarting if necessary.

Thus most of us (me included) think PRO aint that good because we tend to play games where we are winning. I bet if I played more games in which i was desparately holding, I would value it more.

[wodan11]

Originally posted by couerdelion I've yet to see anything that tells me what advantage I can make of PRO.

First Strike helps best when you have stronger units, thus it's good on a beeline strategy.

I am a proponent of attacking incoming stacks, thus I hardly ever choose City Defense. Regardless, even for me, getting it free certainly does help for border cities and coastal cities. With the latest version the AI is back to doing the occasional surprise amphibious invasion, which CD helps prevent.

Cheap Walls lets you build them even in low production cities, which inflates the power graph and makes you less likely to be attacked by the AI.

Ditto for Castles.

Cheap castles also works well with an Engineering beeline. The earlier you get them the more you benefit from the extra trade routes.

I'm not saying Protective is the best trait, but it's easy to see what advantage you can make of it.

Wodan

[couerdelion]

Originally posted by The Priest
I wonder if part of the problem is that PRO is particularly helpful when things are bad.

But many CIV players tend to play games that they can win (two-thirds of us expect to win 70% of the time according to the poll last year), presumably by setting the 'right' difficulty level and restarting if necessary.

Thus most of us (me included) think PRO aint that good because we tend to play games where we are winning. I bet if I played more games in which i was desparately holding, I would value it more.

Perhaps, although I think that tougher levels tend to encourage a more direct strategy of aggression - where offensive traits are more useful. Given that the first expansion phase at tougher levels is likely to be before the mediaeval period, the PRO trait will still only be of minor strategic use such as the ability to hold newly captured cities when forces are locally balanced.

But, if you plan things well enough, you'll have all the right units available to the defensive bonuses are of marginal benefit - even with the archer bonus, you'd still war spears and axes to defend cities (depending on enemy resources)

Walls, I've never really liked. Even the Celtic UU is only built by me in cities that will be producing a decent number of defensive units. Add to this that walls are cheap anyway if you get stone and the PRO bonus there is really small.

Having said that, playing at levels where you expect to lose might be one in which PRO becomes useful. But the lack of any real ability to defend land or take enemy cities will ultimately defeat the human player in this scenario even if they never lose a city.

[wodan11]

First Strike is an offensive trait.

And, walls adding to the power graph is not to be underestimated. Among other things, even during an offensive game, it will "scare off" some of the AIs and prevent them from gangbanging you.

Wodan

[The Priest]

(A slight highjack I know)

Can anyone give details of whether building walls just for the deterant value really works? I very rarely build walls, wanting to stop enemies long before they are pillaging around my cities, but am I making a mistake? I know that walls do contribute to calcuations of power and hence deter, but by how much?

[wodan11]

Easy enough to test. Just pick a game before walls are obsolete, go to WB, remove all walls and/or castles, look at the power graph, go back to WB and add walls to all your cities, and look at the graph again.

Wodan

[Modo44]

Originally posted by couerdelion
But, if you plan things well enough, you'll have all the right units available to the defensive bonuses are of marginal benefit - even with the archer bonus, you'd still war spears and axes to defend cities (depending on enemy resources)

I'm not so sure about that anymore. Archers seem more universal, especially if not upgraded with drill, but with city defense instead. You don't need to have a separate unit for every possible attacker type, which saves a lot of production for a) more universal defenders or b) a better economy through more buildings (which can sustain a bigger army in the long run - be it defensive or offensive). I tend to be better off using multiple archers in defensive positions early on rather than trying to achieve the same with combined arms. Of course, I still have a reactive force, but that is there mostly to kill off catapults, and to mop up after the defenders take the pain. What this requires is a rather early feudalism trade/beeline, lest you get caught with archers against macemen. On monarch, I usually only go to war when declared upun - at least until civil service or gunpowder, sometimes longer.