The case for Expansionist civs.

[War4ever]

depending on your civs strengths the hut results will vary....


i play religious militaristic civs now....well the japanese .... i get alot of barbs which upgrade my units..... a few sciences and some gold.... once in awhile i get a nomad and occasionally i get deserted or maps....

on a standard map there aren't enough tiles to justify an expansion civ other than the fact that they have a higher chance of getting a nomad..but any civ can get one and on a standard map, a nomad ruins my game as i am guarranteed victory

with scouts exploring , if you stumble upoin barbs your toast.... warrior aren't as fast but i still find techs right beside other civs all the time and i tend to find most of the huts i figure....

unless playing on a large map......a expansionistic civ is a waste IMO

[MarshalN]

I think the key is how big of a map do you play. I just played a game on huge with English (first try) and I got at least 10 techs from huts, plus a settler I got on the first hut I hit which really jump started my civ. I found the Germans early as well and nipped them in the bud so they're only surviving because I'm letting them

If you play on a standard or smaller map, I suspect the scout is quite useless because there's nowhere to go. On a huge map, however, you can go REALLY far before hitting a wall. It just depends on the circumstances.

[vmxa1]

It depends on more than map size. I played a huge and did not have scouts and got so many techs, I lost track. I only ran into one empty hut, by then I did not care. At a very high level (deity) it may slow you down some, but I did not see any big push from the AI to get huts. I had 5 hoplites and one warrior out so far that one I sent back took 30 turns. I had to abandon as I never got Horse/Iron/saltpetter so I could not build any worthwhile units. I could not trade as the civs.

[player1]

It is not important how much techs you get, it is improtant how quickly you get them (you get those much quickiler with Exp.)
If you get them quick enough, you can trade them for other techs & money. If not, then nothing.

There is one pattern I saw with Expansionistic
Every time I play game I get one free city (of settler) early.
Still, never got two of them (regardless of taking more then 15 huts).

Without Exp. trait, I never got a free settler.

[War4ever]

militaristic civs get settlers too...i used to think that only expansion civs got them but that is not the case...still havnt' had one past my first hut in any game......

[player1]

Maybe that's some kind of "design cheat":
-You can get settlers from huts only once (if at all) , but easier with Expansionist

Probably to prevent "lucky games"

[MarshalN]

I think the speed of when you get the techs make a difference. You can build better units/buildings earlier, you can do a lot of stuff with early tech advantage, like trading (although on a huge map you won't have as many chances to trade). Now that I see the whole map, I know that I got a lot of huts that were right around my neighbours. If I didn't use expansionist, I probably would never have gotten them.

[barefootbadass]

Originally posted by vmxa1
Huts that are near you settlements can be made to give value without EXPAND trait. I send someone to the hut and if it is bad, I just reload and leave it alone. Eventually I build or expand to include it in a city and it always seems to give up good stuff. So far it has happen in every game.

Huts near you also benefit expansionist civs, the point is that they tend to get more huts. Also, please don't use reloads for something bad happening to demonstrate that not getting bad stuff from huts as expansionist civs is not really an advantage. You can do it if you want but AFAIK your whole game is 'tainted' from that point on.

[Badtz Maru]

I take back what I said about Expansionist probably not being any good on smaller maps.

I recently played a Tiny map game, edited to allow 16 civilizations. I encountered all the other expansionist civs right away, and at the very beginning of the game, before I had researched my first tech, they all had 4 or 5 techs I didn't have. In this tiny little cutthroat world, the Zulus were a major player early on, and still an important factor later on in the game due to their tech lead.

[Beau]

Ok I always play XL maps. But it has been my experience that cpu's with the expansionist trait ALWAYS do the best. The one cpu that almost always seems to be in my games is Russia. Exp/Scient and they are always in first or second. There expansionist and science traits allows them to research faster and expand faster which seems to result in them growing almost twice as fast as the other civs for the entire ancient erra they are ahead of everyone and most of the middle as well. I'm in the industrial age now and there still in first and there empire is huge like the chinese the only difference is there cities aren't all 1.2.3.4.5 there 7,8,9,10,11,12. Thats the difference between an expansion and a regular civ. There is something about exp civs we are missing its value is deceptive IMO.

[vmxa1]

I think that when people suggest that expansion trait is the weaker one, they are only refering to their play, not AI. It may be that the players are not using it to it best advantage, but it does seem to be of lesser value.

[MarshalN]

I think expansionist give you a possible early lead -- in getting an extra settler, in getting a few more early techs, and in getting early contacts (that you can trade) and a bigger map (that you can trade too).

Down the road when you hit industrial age, expansionist is useless. So you have to utilize it as much as you can early on, or it's just a waste.

[HalfLotus]

I agree with Marshal. After I got to industrial, i missed the the benefits of commercial/industrious/etc. It was tough to keep up at that point.
I'm not saying expansionist is the most powerful, just that it can make for a fun early game. Though with early military rushes being very effective, this early lead can be quite powerful.