Taking a second look at Expansionist

[monkspider]

Over the years I have come to be one of the most vocal defamers of the Expansionist trait. It always just seemed to be a rather silly trait to me, after all, where would you be if the huts didn't turn out your way?

However, after playing a game as Iroqouis and a game as Zulu, I have taken a new appreciation for Expansionist. In fact, I would actually go as far as putting it in the same tier as scientific/militaristic.

One thing that I have always failed to appreciate about expansionist, is just how much having a map of your entire continent so early on can help your city-placement strategies. This is something that just can't be quantified in the same way as a free tech every age or cheap temples. Having knowledge of your map just opens so many new strategic options to you in the early game. And it is hard to describe them here, because often times they are very subtle. But I wouldn't doubt if many of them are gamebreaking.

Another thing I have noticed is that the huts really *DO* help you *much* more than they do non-expansion civs. In two games on continents maps, I recieved about three or four really good techs (writing and literature even among them!) and even got a settler on the fourth or fifth turn of my last game (talk about a boost!). In my last two non-expansionist game, I got a whole lot of barbarians, a map or two, maybe a warrior and a little bit of gold. I didn't get a SINGLE tech, much less a settler.

Most of all though, I have finally found expansionist to be a lot of FUN! Moving three or four scouts around the continent, hoping for one last goodie hut to show itself, not having to beg the other civs out of their maps. I would even go as far as saying it is probably the most purely *fun* trait around

I am quite shocked that I have been such a vocal opponent of expansionist all these years, I have certainly come to take an appreciation of sorts for it these days. I ask anyone here who still doubts expansionist to try two games as an Exp. civ, and then try two games as a non-exp civ and see if your feelings change.

[Bambul]

I changed Expansionsist Civs around a bit to add the Colonist unit. It's basically a settler with 2 move. Someone else had it in one of their mods (forgot who, can't give them credit for it). That was mainly to replace Stealth Fighter which IMO is the most useless unit in the game. This does make expansionsits much more powerful though.

[Harovan]

Expansionist is the more powerful, the larger your initial landmass is and the less civs are on it. For instance, on a huge pangea with 8 civs it's incredibly powerful, on a standard archipelago with 8 civs (less archipelagos are usually just pangeas with landbridges) it's nearly worthless.

[WarpStorm]

Monk, I agree with your current thinking on expansionistic civs. They have gotten a bad rap, undeservedly. The big problem with them is still that their bonus is very map dependent. Yes, the scout can give you a map and maybe some techs, sometimes. I've had starts where I was stuck on an island before. In this case you get basically no benefit from the trait at all. To give it credit though, on most maps it will give you a head start over your competition in the ancient era.

[Artifex]

Unless you play on a huge pangea map it is the worst trait. What good is getting goodie huts with advances when everyone knows the AI civs tech whore like mad and ancient advances are easy to come by.

[Solver]

I have been thorugh an Iroquois game where I came to start on a pretty small island, since I usually play random settings. Damn the trait was wasted .

[WarpStorm]

Originally posted by Artifex
Unless you play on a huge pangea map it is the worst trait. What good is getting goodie huts with advances when everyone knows the AI civs tech whore like mad and ancient advances are easy to come by.

Think about it Artifex, if you didn't get those techs from the huts you'd be that much further behind and wouldn't have the techs to trade for those other "easy to come by" techs. How is this worse?

I think that monkspider's point was that the big bonus from expansionistic is the free scout. This gives you a five-ish turn headstart on exploring your surroundings over the non-expansionistics. The scouts are cheap and fast and you will know where to build before anyone else. With any luck, you can grab the good spots.

I won't argue against the fact that this trait is the most map dependant, it is.

[Lawrence of Arabia]

Expansionist is also good on archipelago because you can research map making right from the start.

[Incan_Warrior]

I have played an expansionist Civ before, and as has already been said, it's value is entirely dependent on the map size and landmass makeup. Nevertheless, I'm going to place a bet NOW that when MP finally rolls out, the Expansionist trait is going to move up in preference. It's one thing to know the location of your AI opponents, but quite another to know the location of your human opponents.

Of course, in a game made up entirely of human players, you can bet that scouts will never be allowed to freely roam in and out of territories - they will be toast!

[WarpStorm]

As far as I'm concerned, in MP sending one of your units (even just a scout) over my border is an act of war.

[monkspider]

The thing is though, regardless of map-type, being able to control the maps is like controlling the middle of the board in chess. It gives you a lot of power to work with. If you can strategically deny the other civs on your continent from meeting each other as long as you can, you alone will have the run on their techs and access to their markets. In a recent game on regent level as an expansionist civ I strategically expanded in a way that made contact between two other civs very difficult, and I never sold the communications. It took the better part of antiquity for them to finally meet each other, and when they did, I was a flourishing Republic and had gained a tech lead that would last the remainder of the game. Expansionist just gives you so many options to work with.
In regards to it being map-based, perhaps it is more effective on panagea, perhaps it's not (in my experience things were always more or less balanced out by the fact that there were almost always other expansionist civs on the continent making a rush for the goodies as well). I will say this though, I think the notion that Expansionist is completely pangea-reliant is a myth, perhaps one that was founded in solid reasoning in the early 1.16f days when they were still tweaking Expansionist and so forth, but now is no longer valid.

[Dimension]

I think the real question on everybody's mind is... What happened to the cute spider avatar?

[monkspider]

Oh don't worry, the spider still has a place here. Actually, when me and my brother were kids he would always draw these comics with spider named monkspider as the main character, the cute spider was actually a scanned image of one of his old drawings.

I wouldn't be surprised if the spider resurfaces again sometime soon.

[Catt]

As others have said, I really find expansionist to be the most "game dependent" of the five possible traits. If you play all-random games, expansionist can be helpful or can be largely wasted (try playing on an archipelago, max water, no barbarians - which means no goody huts). If you play huge maps with less than 16 civs, if becomes very powerful. If you use scout denial (I think an exploit) it becomes unbalancing.

I've been very busy lately and not had a lot of time for Civ 3, but I've been slowly playing and all-random game, standard size map, 8 civs. I got Iroquois, and the map looks to be a pangea, maximum water. The land mass almost looks like an archipelago that actually connects in one or two tile chokepoints. I had terrible luck with goody huts - only found 4 - 1 warrior, 1 map, 2 gold - I think the random barb setting must have been sedentary.

But Monkspider's point about scout-enabled map knowledge making subtle but potentially huge differences certainly rang true -- I was able to secure several chokepoints and (to some degree) control AI civ communications with each other. The game isn't won, but nearly so -- without my fast exploring, I would have had to be much more aggressive in the early game, as I would have had to fight for several chokepoints (as it was, I hardly fought at all with my MWs - through chokepoint holding, I secured a large enough landmass that virtually the entire ancient age was spent settling available land).

Catt

[Dimension]

Knowing the map is certainly important, as optimal city placement makes a big difference. Don't you hate having to raze a city and found it one tile over because the AI put it in a dumb spot? The problem with expansionist is that scouts just aren't much better at revealing the map than warriors are. They don't see an extra square. They don't go through jungle any faster. If you send out three warriors to scout, you'll still find the perfect place to put your initial cities, and you'll still reveal every square on your continent long before you can get a settler there.

As Lawrence likes to point out when people are giving scouts a hard time, though, it is nice to be able to get Map Making fast. I would say that this is just as useful as the scouts themselves.

Obviously the big benefit of expansionist is getting to more huts and getting better things from the huts. Sure, you could say that expansionist sucks on certain maps, but what does that prove? The game environment you choose (or the random environment that is chosen for you) will always play a big part in all aspects of the game, just like the playstyle you choose will affect what traits are useful. If you're playing without huts, expansionist sucks. If you're playing OCC, religious sucks. If you've got a builder strategy, militaristic sucks.

That's why any comparison of traits and/or civs themselves must take this into consideration. If you're and aggressive player using random settings and you end up with a wide open pangea, chances are whatever civ you picked would be inferior to the Zulus in that setting. Does that mean the Zulu's are the best? Certainly not. Does that mean expansionist is good? Well, it depends. It's all relative.