Taking a second look at Expansionist

[Dimension]

BTW, when I said that getting to Map Making fast was just as useful as the scouts themselves, I meant scouting with the scouts without regard for whether there are huts or not. Obviously, the main reason for expansionist would be the ideal situation of finding a few techs and a settler in huts.

[Cort Haus]

Cheap Harbours for expansionists?

I think cheap harbours would help balance the exp civs on island maps - and FWIW - cheap markets for commercial civs to bring them up too. Then finally people might want to play the English.

[punkbass2000]

Why does Religious suck for OCC? I think of it as one of the few useful OCC traits.

[Zachriel]

Originally posted by 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?

Talk about a perfectionist!

"Ok everyone. We're going to tear down all your homes and businesses and move it over one square.

"No it doesn't matter that the temple is hundreds of years old, we'll build you a shiney, new one.

"We don't care that you like the old one better.

"Ok that's it. No more discussion."

*Click*

[WarpStorm]

Originally posted by Dimension
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 move two spaces and you get the first one for free at the beginning. How is this not better than using your first 10 shields to build a warrior that moves one space a turn and can unleash barbarians on your city?

[Nakar Gabab]

Originally posted by Zachriel


Talk about a perfectionist!

"Ok everyone. We're going to tear down all your homes and businesses and move it over one square.

"No it doesn't matter that the temple is hundreds of years old, we'll build you a shiney, new one.

"We don't care that you like the old one better.

"Ok that's it. No more discussion."

*Click*

Didn't you see the Simpsons episode where Homer became the head garbage collector?

[Catt]

Originally posted by Dimension
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.

I fully agree that the "perfect civ" is almost entirely dependent upon game variables - the map, the opponents, etc. But I also believe that expansionist is the most volatile of all traits -- it can be a blessing or a near total waste. None of the remaining five civ traits is subject to such volatile "value" depending on map and game parameters. In fact, as one who sets my "strategy" according to the cards I've been dealt by the random generation of variables, only expansionist presents a situation where it may be difficult to exploit its unique benefits - in all other instances, game play can almost always be tailored to a civ's unique traits to exploit their inherent advantages.

Catt

EDIT: changed "remaining four civ traits" to "remaining five civ traits." Thanks, Dimension

[Dimension]

Originally posted by WarpStorm
They move two spaces and you get the first one for free at the beginning. How is this not better than using your first 10 shields to build a warrior that moves one space a turn and can unleash barbarians on your city?

I said they "aren't much better at revealing the map". Just 2 warriors running around will probably find ideal city sites. If you're expansionist, you want 3 or 4 scouts to get to huts near enemy territory. So yes, getting 2 moves and the free scout is vital for getting huts. I just meant that it doesn't change much as far as exploration is concerned. If you only used scouts to explore (and not for huts), you would only need one or two. That would save time, and you could make temples/garrisons/workers/settlers faster, so the free scout and extra movement would speed up your early game. If you were playing with huts, though, it would be ridiculous not to build a couple more scouts.

Originally posted by Catt
But I also believe that expansionist is the most volatile of all traits -- it can be a blessing or a near total waste. None of the remaining four civ traits is subject to such volatile "value" depending on map and game parameters.

Four other civ traits? Ouch! Are we not even considering Commercial to be a trait anymore?

[chiefpaco]

I like the fact that Expansionist civs start the game with 2 things:
- A scout.
- Tech to make Granaries.

Starting with a scout on turn 0 means you will get a jump on your non-expansionist neighbours in terms of map-discovery and goody hut stealing.

The early bonus of higher population growth can pay exponential dividends over the course of the game.

And I just posted elsewhere on this, but I also think any benefit you get at the beginning of the game is far more valuable than ones you get near the end. This is because you reap any advantage you get from the time you get it onwards.

[The Puny Celt]

Some good arguments but I'm still not convinced that expansionism is as good as the other traits. I think it's inferior because:

- its effects run out, eg it's very rare to use the scout or find goodie huts beyond Middle Ages. The other 4 traits continue to give benefits right to the end.

- unlike Civ2, I don't think there's so much of an advantage in quickly finding the optimal sites for your new cities, because you can't ignore an expanse of desert/jungle/tundra it might later provide strategic resources

- I've been looking at my notes from the games I've played, and the gains in goodie hut bonuses while playing an Expansionist civ have been surprisingly modest. However I've played most of my games on a standard-sized map where goodie huts aren't so abundant. But why should this trait be so map-dependent? None of the other traits are.

- I think it's arguable that a full-on expansionist strategy, which this trait encourages, is even the most efficient way to victory - what with corruption and culture flips. Sure you usually need a decent-sized empire, but a huge sprawling one is often more trouble than it's worth.

I'd like to see a couple of changes made in the next version that will make the Expansionist civs more balanced:

1) the expansionist trait is next to useless on an archipelago/large water mass map. I'd like to see EITHER: a new sea unit available only to Expansionist civs once they discover Map-Making, it would have an extra movement point over a galley but either 0 or 1 carrying capacity (so that like the scout it is used mainly for exploring); OR for Expansionist Civs the odds of losing your galley/caravel in sea or ocean tiles are reduced by half.

2) the scout, like a worker, has the ability to create a colony. (I think making the scout a settle with 2 movement points is too powerful)

Just my thoughts. (Bear with me if all these points were argued/counter-argued when the game first came out, but I didn't have time to trawl through all the archives to find out!)

[kring]

I will add a plug for Expansionist.

I tend to get better things from goody huts (as an Expansionist civ) when I use non military units (either Scouts or Workers or Settlers; anything with 0/0 A/D values) than if I use Warriors.

I play Expansionist civs a lot, not exclusively. They work just as well on continents as pangaea.

Each trait has +/- for it.

[JohnM2433]

Originally posted by Lawrence of Arabia
Expansionist is also good on archipelago because you can research map making right from the start.

"Right from the start"? Sorry, you need Alphabet and then Writing first. In fact, Commercial civs are better poised to get to Map Making ASAP, because Alphabet is more expensive than Pottery.

Incedentally, this means that the English should be able to research Map Making the earliest, since they are Commercial as well as Expansionist and start with both Alphabet and Pottery. So in a scenario in which they have to start off on their island home, they aren't quite as unfortunate as one might think. Hm.

By comparison, the Japanese would be screwed.

[Inverse Icarus]

on marlas world map, marla put a new naval unit in (i forget the name). it was 1-1-2 and could carry one unit, availible with pottery. same GFX as a galley.

Very useful for an island civ (japan / england) on the world map.

Perhaps they could allow expansionists to build them?

[JohnM2433]

Yes, I remember that unit. The problem was that the game crashed whenever I tried to build it. I wound up changing the mod rules back to standard and just using the map. I haven't played many senarios, but they seem to have a tendancy to crash. This is something FireAxis will need to work on.

I like the principle though, and the unit ("pirogue" or something like that) would definitely make it suck less to start out on a small island. It was obvoiusly indicated for that map, since otherwise the "English" and "Japanese" starting positions were clearly quite disadvantageous.

[NeOmega]

The best thing about expansionist is you get to use the abilities right away. Many people love scientific... but scientific you have to discover literacy before you can even begin to use its ability. And I think any good civer knows.... how you start is the most critical part of the game. In fact, scientific takes the longest time to exploit.
If you play emporer, scientific is almost worthless, you are way behind by the time you get literacy, and spend the next two eras catching up, if you survive, you may pull ahead by modern times... but that is a big if.