Agriculture = Ultimate ICS trait = Too Powerful?

[WarpStorm]

Think Vikings with an extra move

[Master Zen]

Originally posted by Saint Marcus
Seafaring is still pretty pointless.

Can't wait to see the look on your face once you get to play with a seafaring civ and realize it's an awsome trait

Seriously, seafaring, religious and agricultural now really give industrious a run for its money as the most powerful trait.

[sabrewolf]

master zen,
to me, commercial is one of the best too. i even like playing the french, although their UU isn't that great.

mainly i think commercial is that powerful because it's great from the first turn on and holds on until the end. you get a lot more trade from your centre tile (which means 10% lux can sometimes apease 2 citizens). corruption is a much lesser problem. and best of all: you start with alphabet, which means you can have map making or literature (depending of your starting location) in 80 turns.

[Master Zen]

Actually now that you mention it, commercial also gets a huge boost in C3C thanks to the elimination of RCP. For the last months those of us who had used RCP for our city placements had pretty much overruled the benefits of Comercial civs. Now that RCP is no longer feasable, commercial will rank among the best too.

Overall my impression of C3C was that the traits are now more evenly balanced. Back then it was mostly a question of "Industrial and what else?". Now you really have to think about it and that is very good even though some players might be put off that mighty industrial is not so overwhelmingly great now.

Btw, I loved the Ind/Com of Carthage and France. France IMO was quite good in SP game because it's UU was triggered at a very good time in the Medieval era contrary to the Numidian.

[Saint Marcus]

On pangea maps where you have access to the coast, seafaring civs can stick explorers in a boat or boats and voila, speedened contact with neighbors.

EVERY civ can do that, not just Seafaring ones. The Seafaring civ just gets there a couple of turns faster, hardly a big improvement. And as I said, if you just build the Lighthouse, you get all the same bonusses.

Seafaring has a use on Pangea if you want to attack behind enemy lines (4 movement for Galley is faster than anything else).

Hardly important. One could easily do that with regular galleys. And if not: build the Lighthouse, for all the same benefits. Also, considering the AIs poor use of naval power, you won't even need the extra movement to kick their asses.

Can't wait to see the look on your face once you get to play with a seafaring civ and realize it's an awsome trait

I'll play a seafaring civ (Holland), for sure. Doesn't mean seafaring still rather sucks ass on most maps.

Seriously, seafaring, religious and agricultural now really give industrious a run for its money as the most powerful trait.

Seriously. Can someone give me any real reason for why Seafaring is so kick ass? Nearly all it's benefits you can just as easily get from wonders, and are therefor hardly unique. Furthermore, if you don't start near the coast, your trait is essentially useless.

[Master Zen]

Originally posted by Saint Marcus
Seriously. Can someone give me any real reason for why Seafaring is so kick ass? Nearly all it's benefits you can just as easily get from wonders, and are therefor hardly unique. Furthermore, if you don't start near the coast, your trait is essentially useless.

If I gave you all the reasons, I'd be breaking the NDA. I guess you'll have to trust me on this one. :shrug:

[Dominae]

Originally posted by Saint Marcus
Hardly important. One could easily do that with regular galleys. And if not: build the Lighthouse, for all the same benefits.

"Just build the Great Lighthouse" is a curious argument. How often do you build the Great Lighthouse, or how often do you have 300 Shields to spare? The fact that Seafaring civs get Great Lighthouse powers immediately, without cost and throughout the game is nothing to scoff at. Even if Seafaring did not have extra advantages (which they do), this would not be a poor ability just because "any civ can build the Great Lighthouse". Any civ can build Courthouses but that does not make the Commercial trait any less interesting, forgetting RCP for the moment (I understand that there is a difference in cost issue here because the Great Lighthouse costs a lot less than numerous Courthouses, but with the Great Lighthouse there's the intangible but very important factor of timing).


Dominae

[Saint Marcus]

I don't build the Lighthouse often, because I don't care for it's benifits.

But in the rare cases where I do want to build it, I usually get it. GL from early wars often do the trick, or just starting to build the Pyramids and switch the the Lighthouse when you get the tech.

And other than the Lighthouse bonusses, seafaring has little to offer. Some extra commerce in coastal cities, but this is just a Commercial-lite bonus (since Commercial civs get the bonus in all cities).

In other words, play as a commercial civ, build the lighthouse, and you're better off than the seafaring civ.

I didn't say the trait was completely worthless, since it does bring some benifits. I'm just saying that playing as a commercial civ (or whatever other civ) and building the Lighthouse just gives you that seafaring trait for free! So a commercial-agricultural civ with the Lighthouse now has the benefits of (in effect) 3 traits (com-agr-sea).

I'd rather build a wonder to give me that, than to give up my religious or industrious trait. I just want it all.

However, if the Seafaring civs are the only ones to build a curragh (like exp civs are the only ones to build scouts), as they at first wanted, then seafaring would be immensely powerful. But alas, it's not the case. All civs now get the Curragh.


And again, if you don't start near the coast, seafaring is absolutely pointless.

[sabrewolf]

Originally posted by Master Zen
Actually now that you mention it, commercial also gets a huge boost in C3C thanks to the elimination of RCP. For the last months those of us who had used RCP for our city placements had pretty much overruled the benefits of Comercial civs. Now that RCP is no longer feasable, commercial will rank among the best too.

i always considered RCP as an exploit and therefor a sort of cheating. i'm really pleased it's corrected...

the 40-turn polytheism/mathematics gambit may be an expoit too, but it has been slightly improved thanks to the AU mod.

Overall my impression of C3C was that the traits are now more evenly balanced. Back then it was mostly a question of "Industrial and what else?". Now you really have to think about it and that is very good even though some players might be put off that mighty industrial is not so overwhelmingly great now.

that's what i like most too...
i'm just worried that chosing gets even harder. because until now i said "ok, i can live without A and B for this game so i'll take C"... now you've got to choose from 8 traits of which 2 are only really useful on certain maps (exp useless on smaller sizes, sea a lot weaker on medium and smaller sized pangea maps).

Btw, I loved the Ind/Com of Carthage and France. France IMO was quite good in SP game because it's UU was triggered at a very good time in the Medieval era contrary to the Numidian.

exactly. NM may be a great unit, but i hate despotism GAs.
if the price of the musketmen/musketeers get's reduced a bit (some thread in the strategy-forum recommends this), then even the french UU may be usful

[vmxa1]

Originally posted by Saint Marcus

But in the rare cases where I do want to build it, I usually get it. GL from early wars often do the trick, or just starting to build the Pyramids and switch the the Lighthouse when you get the tech.

Are you saying you would burn a leader to get the Lighthouse?

[Saint Marcus]

Are you saying you would burn a leader to get the Lighthouse?

as I said, I rarely build the Lighthouse at all, cause I don't care for it's benefits. But should I want it and see some clear use for it, I will use a GL to get it.

[Master Zen]

Saint Marcus, instead of complaining on why seafaring is so bad, what would you have done to make it ideal?

[OPD]

Originally posted by Master Zen
Saint Marcus, instead of complaining on why seafaring is so bad, what would you have done to make it ideal?

I would have given seafaring the ability to repair at sea.
And maybe something with amphibious assaults w/o it being too powerful.

[Arrian]

Let's judge it once the game actualy comes out.

We don't know what mysterious "other advantages" seafaring civs get, so we cannot judge properly.

Style of play matters as much as anything else, too. I still don't really like the Expansionist trait. Because of that, I don't play it much. Because of that, I'm not as good with it as I could be (though I have gotten better with it). Other players (Aeson springs to mind) who like it and have spent time perfecting their use of it, will get more out of it. Such things skew these debates.

-Arrian

[Saint Marcus]

Saint Marcus, instead of complaining on why seafaring is so bad, what would you have done to make it ideal?

possibly, give them the ability to build curraghs, but other civs can't.

possibly, give the amphibious assault bonus to seafaring civs, and not others.

possibly, ship repairs (like it works with ground units).

esp the curraghs seem perfect. just like exp civs can build scouts, they can build curraghs for early exploration. and since this benefit could be rather powerful, you could drop the extra commerce bonus.

Just a suggestion. It also might not work. but would make seafaring better than it's now. of course, I haven't played C3C yet, while you apparantly have, so you have insight information I do not have. However, all the benefits that have been listed (extra commerce in coastal cities, extra ship movement, reduced chance of sinking in seas and oceans) could be implemented in regular vanilla civ3 mods.

To test it, make a mod with all civs starting with one city. Each civ gets 2 traits, one civ gets one trait, but starts with a free new modded wonder (which grants: extra ship movement, reduced chance of sinking, no culture). that civ will essentially start out with the seafaring trait (minus the extra commerce, but you can make its second trait commercial to counter this). Then see how much better it is playing that civ instead of others (on a pangea map). It's not ENTIRELY the same as a seafaring trait, but it comes pretty close to it. And in this mod, other civs can still build the "real" Lighthouse to get those exact same bonusses.

I find it fairly useless the way it is. Seafaring-only Curraghs would make it a LOT more powerful. Maybe too powerful even, but that's something I shall have to test further.

So unless seafaring has some bonusses we do not yet know of, besides the extra movement, extra commerce, reduced chance of sinking and increased chance of coastal starts (plus cheaper harbors and ports), I find it a fairly weak trait on pangea maps, and to a lesser degree on continental maps. But granted, it's a killer trait for archipelago maps (just as the exp trait is great for pangea and crappy for archipelago).