Shouldn't commercial allow for cheaper commerce-based improvements?

[alexman]

I think cheaper Marketplaces would be too powerful because of the happiness effect. Besides, Commercial already get a bonus: less corruption/waste and extra gold from the center tile.

The corruption reduction from being Commercial is worth way more than one Marketplace/Bank/Exchange per city in most cases, in the long run. Especially now with the 1.15 Forbidden Palace, where you need to boost your OCN as much as possible.

[CerberusIV]

Commercial is strong enough. I find the difference, particularly in research, to be noticeable between commercial and non-commercial civs by the middle of the Medieval era when Education and Banking become available.

[Shades]

Originally posted by skywalker
Cheaper settlers isn't possible.

Yes, it is. You just have to make a variant of the default settler in the game editor and only give the new variant to the expansionist nations. In other words, you would have to create two versions of "settlers." A new one for the expansionists, and the default one for everyone else. It would definately work.

[Plotinus]

I think it would be a bit boring if the effect of every trait were simply reduced cost for the relevant buildings. I'd say it's fine as it is.

As for cheaper settlers - possible in terms of implementability, certainly, would it be possible without making the game greatly imbalanced? Imagine the power. They'd have to be not much cheaper.

[ErikM]

It could range from a cheaper unit "Expansionist Settler" like Shades suggested to something like the city square of expansionists civs produces extra 1fpt, 1spt but only when building settlers. [Although the latter is obviously impossible to do with the editor.]

[Kuciwalker]

Originally posted by Shades
Yes, it is. You just have to make a variant of the default settler in the game editor and only give the new variant to the expansionist nations. In other words, you would have to create two versions of "settlers." A new one for the expansionists, and the default one for everyone else. It would definately work.

True. Now the question is, does Expansionist need another special unit? Is it really all that weak? IMO, no.

[Aggie]

I'd actually like to see expansionist have lower distance corruption. The would balance the scout going out of use pretty quickly(though not as quickly as the past, since map trading us delayed). It also seems reasonable since being expansionist they are by natured more adapt to ruling larger areas. Just my 2cents.

Aggie

[ErikM]

Originally posted by Aggie
I'd actually like to see expansionist have lower distance corruption.

Allegedly, that's what commercial is for

For what it's worth, commercial and expansionist are definitely two weakest traits.

Let's see, industrious gets an extra shield in size 6 cities. Say, 15 cities x 60 turns in medieval era alone = 900 bonus shields. That's without even mentioning faster workers.

Scientific gets 140 shields reduction per library+university combo. 6 cities, 840 shields. That's without even mentioning bonus techs that may be worth thousands gps.

Religious gets 110 shields discount per temple+cathedral, again, tons of shields saved without even mentioning shorter anarchy.

Militaristic gets discounts on a bunch of useless buildings but still, cheaper barracks are very nice early on, cheaper walls are occasionally useful and cheaper harbors are very nice. Not to mention faster promotions = more leaders = more infrastructure.

Commercial effects, while nice, only show up some time into medieval era (at the earliest) and the game is likely to be pretty much decided by then. Commercial trait is a bit like American F-15 UU: nice but totally irrelevant.

And finallly we get this little gem of expansionist civs. On higher difficulty levels you are lucky to get The Wheel and Mysticism from huts which, most likely, you can trade for anyway. Just lovely.

Little wonder that in vanilla Civ commercial + expansionist England was the least popular Civ to play.

So imo commercial and expansionist traits could definitely use some help.

Reducing corruption would be very nice for commercial. Why can't Firaxis do something simple and say, reduce normal corruption levels by 20% for commercial civs rather than tweaking OCN modifiers and such in a way that only a PhD in math can understand.

And for expansionists cheaper settlers is the most logical explanation of what this trait is all about... Real life America, Russia, and England had one thing in common: plentiful settlers and colonists. The easiest way to represent this in a game is to give expansionists cheaper settlers.

[joncnunn]

Well, if expansionist civs were given cheaper settlers, at the very least scouts would need to be removed. Both are modiable.

[Kuciwalker]

To make Commercial more powerful, they should reduce *effective* corruption by 10% or 20% ("effective" meaning the actual shields and commerce lost, not the background corruption %).

[PGM]

IMO, EXP, COM and MIL traits need a boost.

Cheaper courthouses should be implemented for COM.

Mayb EXP could start the game with 2 settlers instead on 1.

MIL could start the game with 1 warrior (or even 10% cheaper military units throughout the game. I don't think this would unbalance the game more than it already is).

[Arrian]

Com is a solid trait, IMO. Added gold per city tile, +25% to OCN, starting tech = alphabet. That's pretty strong. Obviously, the bigger you are, the stronger it is, at least until you cross the OCN.

Discount markets - too strong. Marketplaces are one of the single best city improvements in the game, if not THE best. 50 shields for a market? That would ROCK. Too much.

Discount banks - not necessarily too strong, but seems odd w/o discount markets, doesn't it?

Discount courthouses - hmm, not sure. I'd like it, since I already like Commercial and build courthouses early and often.

-Arrian

[Arrian]

Though I think MIL is ok as it is, the boost I'd give it (if possible) is a slight reduction in War Weariness... perhaps equivalent to having Universal Suffrage.

Starting with a combat unit strikes me as a bad idea.

-Arrian

[Rhothaerill]

Originally posted by Arrian
Com is a solid trait, IMO. Added gold per city tile, +25% to OCN, starting tech = alphabet. That's pretty strong. Obviously, the bigger you are, the stronger it is, at least until you cross the OCN.

Discount markets - too strong. Marketplaces are one of the single best city improvements in the game, if not THE best. 50 shields for a market? That would ROCK. Too much.

Discount banks - not necessarily too strong, but seems odd w/o discount markets, doesn't it?

Discount courthouses - hmm, not sure. I'd like it, since I already like Commercial and build courthouses early and often.

-Arrian

The courthouse idea is an intriguing one, but I agree with Arrian that it's already a powerful trait and doesn't need a boost. You already get lower corruption which means you have more productive cities. A cheap marketplace is almost too powerful unless they moved the luxury item bonuses back to banks or later.

[Rhothaerill]

Originally posted by Arrian
Though I think MIL is ok as it is, the boost I'd give it (if possible) is a slight reduction in War Weariness... perhaps equivalent to having Universal Suffrage.

Starting with a combat unit strikes me as a bad idea.

-Arrian

I'm not sure the militaristic trait receiving a war weariness reduction is a good idea. Right now you only receive war weariness in governments that give you other powerful bonuses. The idea behind war weariness is to counter the effects of those bonuses in other governments when you're at war. A war weariness reduction would just make a representative government more powerful than it already is, while doing nothing if you're in another government that has no war weariness. Basically IMHO, it would take even more "which government" strategy out of the equation.

Oh, and giving an extra settler to the expansionist trait would be overpowering as well. Starting with two settlers means you're automatically going to have a better starting empire (discounting the surrounding terrain) than the AI at all levels up to deity.