Sullla Wrote:But if you take Drill III and Drill IV with an archer, you AREN'T taking City Garrison I and City Garrison II. Someone can crunch the math if they like, but I think I'd much rather have a +45% to city defense than a couple of extra first strikes. I'm pretty sure than when push comes to shove, I'd rather have more combat strength than more first strikes.
You distort the argument when you assume that an archer will somehow be able to have both Drill IV and several City Garrison promotions. Unless this is from a West Point city, that's pretty unlikely. More to the point, even IF that were the case, would it really be the end of the world to have civs that are good at defending themselves? (Defending themselves with archers, that is, so something that wouldn't last forever.) Aggressive, which makes it much easier to attack and take out other civs, would seem to be more of a balancing issue, and I don't hear anyone worrying about that one. 
Well, like I said, I have a lot of respect for Firaxis and their programming. I am just curious to see how it turns out. And I did say it was borderline. Just not sure which side of the border yet.
Also, all of the archers that I used as examples were 10 xp. Not hard to get that, with a RAX, they start w/ 4. Add in raging barbs, all you need to do is put an archer in a border city and watch his xp creep up. Or on a Hill as fog busters. I admit that I am no expert like you, Sulla (I haven't even won a game on Noble yet
), but I have had a number of units which reach 10 xp before going to war with and other civ. Give them 2 free promotions and they will get there all the faster.
All in all, I would say that this is a powerful trait. Possibly it will end up being one of the strongest, especially for buiders.
BTW, the original response was written in response to someone who thought that Protective was underpowered.
Edit: typo
