A civ with 3 civ-specific traits? Can it be made balanced?

aaglo · December 20, 2002, 04:42

I was wondering (and currently I'm trying out) a civilization with 3 civ-specific traits. But I'm not sure if it is a bit unbalancing.

It had 3 traits (militaristic, religious, industrious), quite expensive UU (upgraded horseman 3,2,2, requires iron & horses, base cost 5 (?)), and zero starting techs.

Is this civ unbalancing or not? If it is unbalancing, should I give other civs some other advantages?

Any comments?

Dimension · December 20, 2002, 07:49

I would argue that Militaristic, Religious & Industrious are the three best traits in the game, so it would be very difficult to balance a civ with all three. An expensive UU isn't going to help. Egypt has a near-useless UU, and they're still great just because they're the only civ with both Religious & Industrious.

Carthage has a great UU, but that's basically making up for Commercial not being worth much. Same with the Zulus. There are several civs with bad UU's, though.

Not getting any starting techs would hurt, but the big problem is that you don't need Warrior Code to build a Barracks. The only limitation to the civ would be that you need to have a little warrior rush and extort Ceremonial Burial. In practice, that would make things even easier, because you're forced to get a good start. Once you've got Ceremonial Burial, you've got the Uber-Civ with fast roads, fast barracks and fast temples.

Then again, expensive horses might slow you down a little. You'd probably end up just using swordsmen.

aaglo · December 20, 2002, 08:44

Yep, I know those three are the best traits available. But when I was trying to make my own civ, I could not decide which traits I should have used, so I took three.

But could three spec civ be balanced at all? I guess it starts with "no free techs", but then it becomes complicated.

Anyone else tried to make this kind of civ?

Robber Baron · December 20, 2002, 09:25

It sounds unbalanced to me (though I've never tried it). A starting tech deficit sounds difficult, but by no means impossible, to overcome. And once you did, you would start trouncing the AI, holding advantages that would grow cumulatively over the course of the entire game.

Jawa Jocky · December 20, 2002, 10:17

Do AI civs have 3 traits too?

ducki · December 20, 2002, 12:32

I think if you want to add a 3rd trait to give yourself a slight advantage, give Expansionist or maybe Scientific.

Mil/Rel/Ind is far too powerful if you don't also give extra "good" traits to the AI civs.

Actually, I think Industrious should only ever be paired with 1 other trait. I think you could give any 3 of the others as long as you don't give Industrious.

BRC · December 20, 2002, 12:35

Quote:

Anyone else tried to make this kind of civ?

Ok. I confess. My first game ever, on Chieftain, was with the Americans, who were Religious, Industrious, and Militaristic.
After that game I felt bad for cheating like that, and since have not changed Civs attributes.

As for the game, it was on Chieftain. I didn't understand how this game worked very well. I don't think that I even finished the game. I really can't tell you whether it would be unbalancing, but think of it as giving China the power of Religious. Sorry I can't be of more help.

joncnunn · December 20, 2002, 13:06

A 3 civ-trait is inhertently imbalancing in a 2 civ trait world, even if two of the three traights are Commerical and Expansionist. I dought it can be fixed without giving all the civs a 3rd trait.

Quote:

Originally posted by aaglo
I was wondering (and currently I'm trying out) a civilization with 3 civ-specific traits. But I'm not sure if it is a bit unbalancing.

It had 3 traits (militaristic, religious, industrious), quite expensive UU (upgraded horseman 3,2,2, requires iron & horses, base cost 5 (?)), and zero starting techs.

Is this civ unbalancing or not? If it is unbalancing, should I give other civs some other advantages?

Any comments?

alva · December 20, 2002, 15:44

Why not give the AI 3 traits, and yourself only 2 (maybe make all AI civs industrious)

Could be something to try for the AU mod?

joncnunn · December 20, 2002, 15:59

Giving all the AI civs 3 traits that includes Industrious while yourself only 2 would increase the challenge.

I guess the American AI could get Commercial as the 3rd, Eyptian & French AI could get Military as the 3rd, and Persian & Chinese AI could get Religious as the 3rd.

Quote:

Originally posted by alva
Why not give the AI 3 traits, and yourself only 2 (maybe make all AI civs industrious)

Could be something to try for the AU mod?

One_Brow · December 20, 2002, 17:20

One thought on balancing this three-trait civ:

No unique unit (or at least, no UU that triggers a Golden Age). If you want a GA, you have to get it through Wonders.

Actually, you could also balance by a whole slew of "negative" UUs. They all have tghe same stats as normal units, but have an extra requirement or cost more.

Nor Me · December 20, 2002, 19:12

Is some of this getting familiar?
Maximizing Civilization Diversity (Addind a 3rd Trait)

Mad Bomber · December 21, 2002, 18:03

Quote:

Originally posted by alva
Why not give the AI 3 traits, and yourself only 2 (maybe make all AI civs industrious)

Could be something to try for the AU mod?

I am not really sure that you could acomplish this unless you played with an exclusive civ, even then I am not sure that you would want to.

I have played scenerios with all civ's having 3 specific traits and they were very balanced (note: No 3 trait combo's with industrious, religious, militaristic or Scientific though)

Zero · December 26, 2002, 03:45

TO start off, everyone having 3 traits actually DECREASES the variety. theres only 6 possible traits. i calculated possibilities long time ago, its considerably less than 2 combos.

also no starting tech is hardly a weakness. especially on pangeatic map. I have a civ called forces of darkness. It only builds tribal warrior(warrior), shadow warriors(swordmen) and death knights(knight) (modded unit graphics), aggression level 6 and three traits mil/rel/exp so it acts like an barbarian civ. even w/o starting tech and lack of variety in units. it kicks major ass.

Zero · December 26, 2002, 03:53

Check this civ out:

Aschens (name was ripped from race from stargate)

No traits!

4 UUs - Jags, Rider, Hwacha, panzer (jags dont trigger UU)

starting tech: literacy, sanitaition, military tradition, integrated defense (you dont get tech until you reach that age), its bit different from sci trait since no cheap library plus tech is predetermined AND isnt first tech from that age. (for example integrated defense is ususally last tech from modern age.)

One_Brow · December 26, 2002, 09:42

Quote:

Originally posted by Calc II
TO start off, everyone having 3 traits actually DECREASES the variety. theres only 6 possible traits. i calculated possibilities long time ago, its considerably less than 2 combos.

Then you need to revise your calcultions. There are fiften possible combinations of two traits, and twenty possible combinations of three traits.

ducki · December 26, 2002, 12:00

Quote:

Originally posted by One_Brow

Then you need to revise your calcultions. There are fiften possible combinations of two traits, and twenty possible combinations of three traits.

Only if order matters, like Mil/Rel/Ind would be "different" from Rel/Ind/Mil.

Which it is not.

Zero-Tau · December 26, 2002, 12:50

Quote:

Originally posted by ducki

Only if order matters, like Mil/Rel/Ind would be "different" from Rel/Ind/Mil.

Which it is not.

Wrong. We have 6 traits: Militaristic, Industrious, Religious, Scientific, Commercial, Expansionist.

With two traits, we have 15 combinations:
MI, MR, MS, MC, ME, IR, IS, IC, IE, RS, RC, RE, SC, SE, CE.

With three, we have 20 combinations:
MIR, MIS, MIC, MIE, MRS, MRC, MRE, MSC, MSE, MCE, IRS, IRC, IRE, ISC, ISE, ICE, RSC, RSE, RCE, SCE.

ducki · December 26, 2002, 13:56

I stand corrected.
I should have written it out instead of doing it in my head.

SuperSlinky · December 29, 2002, 06:02

I'm playing a mod where all the civs have three traits and all of the civs have the religious trait. I did this because:

a) It is generally conceded that religious is the most powerful trait

b) When playing a non-religious civ, I though that the period of anarchy when changing governments was too long and religious improvements were too expensive.

A few people on these forums have even said that the religious trait is so powerful in relation to the others, it is broken, and it is hard to deny it. IMO, if you want to handicap yourself against the AI, play a non-religious civ. Your culture is very likely to be second rate without a lot of extra effort on your part, and each 5 turn period of anarchy when changing governments is a crushing blow to your development. If you have a well devloped 20-25 city civ, then each period of anarchy means that you will lose out on most of one tech advance and enough production to build an invasion force powerful enough to destroy one of your weaker rivals. What is more, you absolutely have to to switch governments at least twice with a minimum of three times being optimal, and you will probably want to do it at least one or two more times depending on what your strategy is.

I haven't seen a way to shorten the period of anarchy in the editor, or I probably would have just done that. I tried changing the transition government type to despotism to nerf the effect of switching governments, but like some other things I have tried in the editor, just because you can do it doesn't mean it works. In this case, I got weird behavior at the very start of the game saying I was having a revolution and I didn't know any other government types to switch to. This was probably due to having the default type and transition type flagged at the same time for despotism.

Mazarin · December 29, 2002, 07:03

Quote:

a) It is generally conceded that religious is the most powerful trait

Is it?..I thought that was industrious?

Pyrodrew · December 29, 2002, 08:13

Quote:

Is it?..I thought that was industrious?

It is industrious. He just didn't get the official memo yet.

joncnunn · December 30, 2002, 16:19

Religious vs Industrious is hotly debated.

Myself, I give the edge to Industrious, mostly based on how long it takes to clear out Jungle playing an Industrious vs Non-Industrious.

As Industrious, all jungles inside CR's are cleared about 2/3rds of the way thru the Middle Ages.
Playing a non-Industrious civ, I'm still clearing out jungle when I get Railroads and have to convert the jungle clearing stacks into railroad building stacks and later go back and finish clearing the jungle inside CRs.

In addition, playing a non-industrious civ you need to keep 2X as many workers to keep polution under control compared to the industrious civs.

DaveMcW · December 30, 2002, 16:44

On a purely economic basis, industrious beats religious.

But while fighting wars on deity level with a black reputation, I really appreciate the instant switching from Democracy to Monarchy and back.

SuperSlinky · December 30, 2002, 22:13

Actually, I have never played a game without the industrious trait. It just seems like a natural choice for the player, although it seems like the AI doesn't do as much with it. I am playing a game now with my two nearest neighbors both being industrious and they don't have anything near my level of development. Likewise, we are all religious, but my cultural development is far beyond any of my rivals. I seem to be running away with this one (regent level, heavily modded), but you should have seen my last game. I was sandwiched between the Germans and the Zulu with a huge border with both of them. Ouch. I could only get about 15 cities built (large map) before I had to stop expanding and concentrate on defense. Needless to say, that was a stressful game, although I never finished it.

Saint Marcus · December 31, 2002, 08:01

Quote:

Egypt has a near-useless UU

lots of people use horsemen rushes...

and the Egyptian UU is just a cheaper horsemen.

thus you can build more units for less money, which is perfect for an ancient age horsemen(warchariot) rush.

BTW, I prefer religious over industrious, though a combination of the two (Egypt) is still my favorite.

Sheik · December 31, 2002, 11:07

Quote:

I haven't seen a way to shorten the period of anarchy in the editor

Go under the difficulty levels tab and then adjust the value that states "Max. government transition time"

Stuie · December 31, 2002, 11:11

Quote:

Originally posted by Sheik

Go under the difficulty levels tab and then adjust the value that states "Max. government transition time"

I thought that only applied to the AI Civs.....

Sheik · December 31, 2002, 11:18

Quote:

I thought that only applied to the AI Civs.....

You might be right. I will test it and see.

joncnunn · December 31, 2002, 18:53

An even better use of the Egytian UU is to continue to build War Chariots, but upgrade them all to HorseMen before deploying them. Later on when you have Chivary, continue building WCs and upgrade them to Knights. You can even continue to build WCs and upgrade them to Calvary.

Note that you'll need to switch queue builds back to WCs everytime you discover a new tech after you have Chivary.

Just be sure to not to trigure your GA until after the Industrial era begins and the age of the defense begins.

(If you trigure your GA, you'll no longer be able to build WCs in cities that can also build Calvary.)

Also, if your using this tactic, you'll need Leo's.

Quote:

Originally posted by Saint Marcus

lots of people use horsemen rushes...

and the Egyptian UU is just a cheaper horsemen.

thus you can build more units for less money, which is perfect for an ancient age horsemen(warchariot) rush.

BTW, I prefer religious over industrious, though a combination of the two (Egypt) is still my favorite.