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Post by knupp on Dec 10, 2006 11:11:22 GMT -5
Exactly. You are able to expand faster, improve your land quicker, get higher gnp, mfg, and get more cities than anybody else. Like previously mentioned this is a major snowball effect that can catapult you to the top of the charts from beginning of the game to end.
And I think I probably spend a lot more hammers on workers than settlers.
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Post by smatt834 on Dec 10, 2006 12:13:40 GMT -5
It kinda seems like Ironclad is right about the exp trait itself. Its quite powerful. And it comes close to being overpowered if it isn't. Although I think this will lead to an interesting shift in the game. For example, if I'm next to an expansive civ I can tell you that I would raise a choke & pillage force as fast as possible, probably at the cost of my own expansion, because slowing them down is an absolute must. In an Inland Sea cton being the expansive civ is probably gonna make you the main target of both your neighbors. In the FFA pangea games people have already figured out that they need to war with the expansive civs early. I'd say over 50% of the ffa crowd has figured this out. In one game I had the 5 other civs all declare war on me at the same time [around my 3rd or 4th city]. LOL. So I just think it'll be interesting seeing peeps try to exploit their trait while being the target of nearly everyone ^^ There is defenitely something new to learn about strategy for both sides of the conflict in that respect. That said I still think in the right hands Shaka is VERY difficult to defeat. The fast worker, granery, Ikhandia (barracks), followed up by double move, 10% and a promo of choice Impis is wildly powerful. Anywhere between your 3 and 4th city plant, road to your nearest neighbor, turn all cities to Impi's once the 2 buildings are in and in a short time you are producing 2-4 Impi's per turn. (I find this point to usually be around approx. 2000-1500BC) Even if they have axes, the giant impi army can just threaten multiple cities. My first assault stack is generally around 20 units and is continually reinforced with fresh units after that point. In an Inland sea map the best defense against the Impi is to only have 1 front city and never let them past it, but depending on sea level and it being ancient era, most times the Impi's can just skirt right past your one front city anyway And if all else fails or Shaka's NOOB neighbor built all axes just the same as he did Impis...then the army turns into a giant choke and pillage force, claiming every forest you haven't chopped with forest imps and destroying all remnants of an infrastructure. Hard to stop indeed.
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Post by thegreatsatan on Dec 10, 2006 20:37:24 GMT -5
zulu are over powered. What would u rather have? Crappy aztec swordsman or impis made with a fancy barraks. And why is there no a special axe man? I think they need to balance the special units.
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Post by tamijo on Dec 11, 2006 10:05:50 GMT -5
zulu are over powered. What would u rather have? Crappy aztec swordsman or impis made with a fancy barraks. And why is there no a special axe man? I think they need to balance the special units. Well the idear of UU is in it self unbalanced, as they will belong to diffrent eras, so in a random CIV choice, 70% of player get no UU. That said the Zulu should not be a horsekiller, as that makes them very unbeatable, they should be an 2 move strengt 4 axe Then they would be great, but not overpowered. Next upgrade i wonder if they make the 2 move cat (hehe)
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Post by thegreatsatan on Dec 11, 2006 13:05:35 GMT -5
The impi is by far the best unit in the era. the celtic swordsmen and aztec swordsmen are useless in comparison. swordsmen all together need a boost.
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Post by willburn on Dec 11, 2006 13:15:16 GMT -5
Cheap 2 movers are extremly potent in city elimination games. Just watch the powergraph and find out who is weak. gang up on him and voila instant victory.
So basically its a matchup between egypt and zulu, egypts uu is cheaper but they have worse traits. Thats why zulu wins the ancient battle.
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Post by Polydeukes on Dec 12, 2006 10:02:01 GMT -5
Exp overpowered Who needs worker anyway? Walls rock!!!! Cre still best trait or maybe Org. Yeah Augustus the mighty is da bomb even better without iron.
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Post by SweViking on Dec 12, 2006 10:30:18 GMT -5
As Speaker so eloquently put it: 1) Cheap Workers 2) Cheap Granaries 3) +2 Free Health in every city Slave out your first cheap Worker, use the overflow and chop/slave your second cheap Worker, use the overflow and regrow while building a cheap Granary. Your Workers are then free to improve your land while your city rebounds from your slaving. You can now expand faster and begin the process all over again in your new cities. This is a huge snowball effect that makes it very hard to compete with Expansive civs. *Something* has to give ... perhaps removing the cheap Granary a la Financial losing the cheap Bank would be appropriate. Or reducing the Worker production bonus. Or something else. Regardless, Expansive is now the hands down best trait in Ancient, Classical, and Medieval ... it finally starts seeing some balance in Renaissance and beyond because of free Granaries and population in new cities. Since when did you start with pottery in ancient? And... IMO exp is just a good trait now, like fin, agg, indu, spi and so on always been. Its just how you like to play your game. IMO, agg is still the best eirlie eras trait. cheap barracks and extra star beats cheap workers and granarys in long run. Since its not like the diffrence is huge, like 20 hammers for a worker and 30 for granary? Dont remember exactly, but to get melee upgraded axe or so its alot better for a 130 turn game. Oh well, its always the game situation that makes certain civs/traits overpowerful. Zulu is not that good without metal as spain isent that good without horse and so on
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Post by Speaker on Dec 12, 2006 13:37:28 GMT -5
Since its not like the diffrence is huge, like 20 hammers for a worker and 30 for granary? Dont remember exactly, but to get melee upgraded axe or so its alot better for a 130 turn game. Actually the difference is huge. With Expansionist, after Mathematics, 1 chop = a worker OR 1 chop = a granary. Slaving any unit or building results in enough overflow to build a worker in 1 or 2 turns. Big difference.
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Post by willburn on Dec 12, 2006 13:56:11 GMT -5
I have to disagree with you swe, every intuition i got tells me expansive at the moment is the best trait out there.
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Post by knupp on Dec 12, 2006 15:20:59 GMT -5
Chariots crush axes.
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Post by churchill1 on Dec 12, 2006 15:33:59 GMT -5
In any start up to medieval, not to say expansive isn't useful beyond, any leader without the expansive trait feels sluggish. Expansive has a bonus on THE most important building and THE most important unit throughout these starts.
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Post by churchill1 on Dec 12, 2006 15:37:25 GMT -5
Since its not like the diffrence is huge, like 20 hammers for a worker and 30 for granary? Dont remember exactly, but to get melee upgraded axe or so its alot better for a 130 turn game. Actually the difference is huge. With Expansionist, after Mathematics, 1 chop = a worker OR 1 chop = a granary. Slaving any unit or building results in enough overflow to build a worker in 1 or 2 turns. Big difference. Not exactly. One chop leaves you with only 10 hammers required for a worker (however like Willburn mentions elsewhere, some units and buildings become cheaper on later starts). Also it's feasible to have zero overflow from slaving a unit or building. In any case it doesn't take long for a decent capital to be making one turn workers without rushing. Taking the game as a whole, is expansive significantly more powerful than other traits? For me that's what you yanks like to call a 'no-brainer'.
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Post by SweViking on Dec 13, 2006 3:18:44 GMT -5
And 2 star spears crush chariots... Exp is very good, BUT its not overpowerd IMO. In comparison, in a normal game of ancient, you maybe make 6-8 workers and you make about 50-70 units. Of course a good fast start is whats good about exp, but then again. Imp or chm is really nice too then.. Never been in a game where i can say that only the fact that a dude had exp was the "killing" factor.. And i think i will never be in such a game either. Maybe im wrong, but its too many other aspects of the game thats gets more crusial then exp. Like a fast aztec jaguar choke with 2x forrest? Whats good about exp if you cant find bronze or iron close then?
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Post by Tony on Dec 13, 2006 5:09:25 GMT -5
Aggressive is no where near as strong as it was once upon a time. No matter what you do to an axe a charriot just laughs at it, and no mater what you do to a spear an axe will kill it, so the double premotion doesnt really mean alot unless the other guy dont have horses or the distance is awfully small. And stacking them doesnt really do much, as if they are attacked by cata's or a stack of axes the defender will always take smaller loses.
Saying you only build 6-8 workers compared to 60 units doesnt really say alot, because the game works in an exponential way, the the steeper the start the more units/gold/etc you can have later. Also with salving being so vital, the extra hammers is just massive, and granary is without a doubt the best early improvment to get cheap, because its normally quite expensive, so it saves you a fair amount of time per granary, often like 5 turns which is huge.
Spain is definatly a good option even without horses as are zulus without metal(well as good as no resource can be - minus mali and tecs or course), infact i would rather have either of these 2 civs without resources over most of the others because there is a good chance you can get a resource in decent time.
But i agree with you, i dont think expan is over powered, just very powerful!
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Post by willburn on Dec 13, 2006 5:12:09 GMT -5
Tony I like the way you argue about aggresive trait. Good point.
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Post by knupp on Dec 13, 2006 15:42:03 GMT -5
Yeah, well said Tony.
Meh, you shouldn't let jaguars get into your forest anyways. But if the aztecs beeline for iron working and rush I'm pretty sure you can sacrifice one axe to weaken it and finish it off with a 2nd. Jaguars are more expensive than axes I believe.
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Post by mrgametheory on Dec 13, 2006 15:51:48 GMT -5
Expansive is not too powerful.
All you need to do is make it so Creative leaders get some kind of other bonus or cheaper cultural victory and you will have soem well balanced traits.
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Post by ironclad on Dec 21, 2006 20:14:02 GMT -5
As Necro said we dont want a vaniall civ game. Instead of pushing to make things equal, make everything strong in its own way. Id start off by making Aztecs having a 2 move warrior, its not overpowered just good, I was never scared of the tecs in civ3!!! but they were awesome. (of course aztecs have to start with a scout to be fair ) Will want to protect ur cities when those are out, they are only good for taking those open cities we all love to make.
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Post by icecube on Dec 23, 2006 11:25:40 GMT -5
hi nooooooooooooooooo this is not good this is stupid quesstion you want to nerf civs and make them your way as you did to cossacks and riflemans and many thing you didint like mister "expert". there is only few civs with expansive traits and they are still not the best civs. is ghandi too powerfull? lets nerf him first maybe 3 walk but not on hill or forest only open land. or why did we boost expansive at all maybe we should nerf financial to be even with expansive still on inland sea financial will own with gnp and technology and ifyou dont have 1 financial on team can cost you a victory cause most of the team games are even just working on points cause ppl dont die that easy on front and the teching is what make points go high. there is so many choice ofcivs and theyshould stayas are. mookie is in love with elisabeth and he got annoyed that isabella took her place on reni inland sea teamers thats why he want to nerf her. zululand is not that powerfull in ancient cause mali and azteck can choke any civ to death faster then zulu you war experts just need to find different options not to play by same template over and over again wich is boring. and just 1 more thing any civ that not start with metal or horses or hills or food resources is likely will die no matter wich traits that civ has! for me war chariot is ultimate weapon cheap and effective if lucky with horses.
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