[SPOILERS] joey and scooter's thread: FUN THINGS ONLY

[Ceiliazul]

The missionary fail is an excellent punch line.

You're justified in complaining here about how the half conquered chips have fallen. I suppose some large levels of inequity were determined by the game setup, but from your perch on top of the short stick that's small comfort.

Yes, protective has some serious upside at this stage. Especially in rtr!

[GermanJoey]

An "upside" is certainly.... one way to put it. While what the trait does (ignoring the Granary part of the RtR trait, just talking about the parts it has in common with base bts' version), is certainly effective, I have to agree, I argue that what it does doesn't help you win games. It is the complete opposite of a so-called "win more" trait - it is a "lose worse" trait. Did Protective help Bacchus repel my invasion? No. It certainly bought him tons of time, but as I was out-producing him and fielded superior units, he could not effectively attack out, even with some RNG on his side. What the trait did do was force me wait longer to attack, take way more losses than I ordinarily would have (since his troops were waaaaaaaaaaay more hammer-effective on the defense than ordinary ones, which are already more hammer-effective compared to troops on the offense), and thus force me to conquer him slower. What player would possibly want this?

Have you ever heard any endorsements of Protective? I can only imagine such glowing statements as these:

• "I'm stuck here, unable to do anything because of a gigantic stack of enemy units next to my capital - but at least he can't do something either!"
  
• "I've ensured that my neighbor and I are locked in eternal blood-feud thanks to my aggressive pink-dot on his border - but at least I have an extra dry corn to work!"
  
• "Gee, if I wasn't Protective I'd only have to log into this clearly lost game for another month, but because I am I get to do it for four months instead, this is so great!"
  

IMHO, the best a protective player could hope for is that an attacker underestimates one's protective defenses, allowing one to decimate the attacker with far fewer losses, turning a defensive war into an offensive one. However, this is probably only possible in the Ren+ eras, when one has rifles or infantry (units that are roughly as effective on offense as defense), as the ancient/medieval era protective units (archers, longbows, and crossbows) are ill-suited for an offensive war in mass numbers. Pro doesn't offer anything special for late-game either, like how Agg has amphibious and commando promotions possible on its high XP units, as the City Garrison and Drill lines only lead to higher-numbered City Garrison and Drill promotions. Drill IV compared to Commando? What a bunch of junk!

I hate this trait, arrgh! Let it keep its cheap walls, let it keep its cheap castle, let it keep drill - just get rid of the free CG promotions, give it something else if you have to!

[Rowain]

IMO protective is a " don't attack me - It will take too long for you to be profitable" - trait. Working as a deterrent for an attacker even if he has better production/tech.

To make this work CG is of course needed.

[GermanJoey]

Does it truly work that way though? Like I demonstrated in this game, Protective doesn't actually help prevent a player from losing a war because it doesn't actual start "working" until you've already lost map control and are forced to turtle in your cities, whipping up longbows/muskets in every queue empire-wide every other turn until you're finally forced out of the game. Note that if I was less certain that I'd eventually overpower Bacchus, I could have just romped through his land, razing all his improvements, without a thing he could really do about it. Here, the Protective player is a spider that has succeeded in luring his attacker into the awful web of his trait, only to realize too late that he has also trapped himself in the hell he has created as well.

I dunno, I'm trying to rack my brain thinking of a way the idea of "defensive deterrent" can work as a trait without meaning "a lost war turns into a slog." It needs to be some kind of tactical advantage that you can use, ideally something that opens up possibilities not available to other traits, both on offense and defense. Free CG1 has to go, that's for certain. You know what, get rid of cheap walls and castles too. Let's brainstorm here.

Protective
"1.) +100% production of Granary. 2.) ..."

Where "..." is one of....

• "Cities gain +20% cultural defense on founding or capture."
  
• "Flanking effects are reduced by half."
  
• "All units are able to receive defensive bonuses."
  
• "Melee, gunpowder, and archery units gain +1 movement while within your cultural borders."
  

Throw out your ideas here, people! If Krill is willing to axe or redo perfectly fine traits like Spi or Ind for his ADM mod, then its time for the Worst Trait Ever to get a makeover too.

[Rowain]

Does it truly work that way though? Like I demonstrated in this game, Protective doesn't actually help prevent a player from losing a war

Not to prevent losing a war but to prevent war in the first place. In a world where you have 2 equally weak neighbours 8both same tech/military) you will prefer to attack the not-pro one for sure because attacking the pro would cost you far too much on units/time.

Best example your experience right now. In future you will think twice before attacking a pro-civ

and about romping through the land - me thinks that only works as long as your opponent lacks collateral.

[scooter]

Don't really have the time to contribute anything (plus I accidentally spoiled myself at one point), but just popping in to say looks like things are going fairly well . Nice to see Zoo be ridiculous as planned. Rooting for you of course.

[GermanJoey]

Don't really have the time to contribute anything (plus I accidentally spoiled myself at one point), but just popping in to say looks like things are going fairly well . Nice to see Zoo be ridiculous as planned. Rooting for you of course.

Hey man! Good to see that you're still alive, I hope things are less stressful and busy for you right now. Zoo has worked out beautifully, although it no longer shows up on the Top 5 cities list - you need to be in a GA to show up on that thing these days. I'll see if I can post some overview shots next turn. (if it ever rolls...)

Not to prevent losing a war but to prevent war in the first place. In a world where you have 2 equally weak neighbours 8both same tech/military) you will prefer to attack the not-pro one for sure because attacking the pro would cost you far too much on units/time.

Best example your experience right now. In future you will think twice before attacking a pro-civ

But, I did not have two equally weak neighbors. I had two very strong neighbors and one medium strength neighbor, and so I attacked the medium strength one because I felt that I needed more land to say competitive in the global theater. I knew it wouldn't be easy. It's not like I've never warred with a protective civ before; the CFC Noble's Club games seem to ALWAYS put you next to a protective civ, and if there's one thing a Deity AI does more effectively than a human player it is to stuff every city jam-packed with longbows.

Believe me, I knew as soon as I saw Bacchus's insane capital, when my first knights jumped off my galleys, that defeating him would be a horrible slog. I really had not expected that sort of absurd defensive position would be available to him; if I had, I would have dumped ALL of my troops in front of that thing on the first turn of the war and razed it the next.

[GermanJoey]

T179.

Chemistry is done; the goal there was Frigates and opening a path towards Military Science for Commando, although I'm waffling a bit on that path. I still need Music+MT to build West Point, and the Constitution->Corporation path is extremely lucretive, probably netting something like 200 bpt/gpt. I think I'll get Music this turn, save gold the next two, and then decide from there.

Speaking of Music, TBS landed the Sistine this turn, which means I'll probably lose my wheat/deer at HT sometime in the near future.

Here's our holdings in Bacchusland; I've settled one new one and have room for one more crappy filler (at the spot marked "c?"), in addition to one more to take in the south, for a total of +10 cities for this war.




Gawdzak, the sub who not only spite-whips but also rolls over full villages with farms.




There's a small possibility that I'll try for one additional city of Bacchus after the HAK gateway; I'm only 17 XP away from my 4th great general, which is an important one for Agg since it allows me, once I build WP and switch to Vassalage, to get a Commando gunpowder unit. That is to say, to get one Commando Gunpowder unit every turn.




Hopefully three of those XP will be on this guy; it's been a long road for him, but he's only 3 XP away from Amphibious! A CR3 Amphibious Rifle would be very very useful for me in the near future!!




You can also see the now-sad remnants of my once mighty army. I've got another 4 cats and 5 jans en-route, but that's all the troops I can realistically spare. I've got, iirc, 20 jans and 8 knights (plus various classical/medieval trash) on my TBS border, which really wouldn't be enough to wipe his nose if he happened to sneeze at me once he turns around from dazed. He's still conquering him at the ridiculous rate of ~1.5 cities per turn... I figure it'll take him another 5-6 turns to finish that up, plus another dozen consolidating+transporting over to my front. I've got to have some kind of reasonable deterrent up by that time or else I'm just expensive mincemeat. Three of my four best production cities (CP, HT, and Moonshine) are all right on my TBS border... if he manage's to pull out some kind of blitzkrieg witchcraft, I'm just a fat, juicy hunk of meat. A huge stack of Commandos would be just the ticket, I think, to prevent a war from breaking out. And you know what? I just got a REALLY evil idea hehehe... I have bunches of my excess workers over in TBS's territory acting as sentries. I could perhaps subtly, slowly use them to.... "improve" his road network a bit, heheh... I hope you're paying very close attention to your land, my friend.

Demos at their most GNP-beautiful. I actually 1-turn music at 20% slider, heh. I'm feeling very 6th place right now; I may have better GNP than TBS and Krill, but still sad as hell land area (and thus proportionally sad CY/MFG/pop, although I'm proud to say that I'm placed higher in those categories then my land position would otherwise indicate):

[GermanJoey]

T180.

Mmmmmm, Yuris is getting rocked by AT. Yuris had about a dozen troops (macemen and knights) defending that city, and the tracker shows that AT took two cities this turn, so both of them should be weak. I'm gonna swing a small handful of knights Yuri's way to see if I can snipe his westernmost city, as that would actually net me enough space to get two cities out of it.




I decided to go with the Constitution -> Corp route (getting KTB from TBS and Finharry), and will pick up MT after that. Constitution gets me jails, which will hopefully help deal with my massive WW problem, although unfortunately I don't have much production to spare atm. It'd be nice to finally get some EP generation going too, I'm still stuck at my base 4 EP a turn...

[Bacchus]

Logged in after a month to check up on this. Wow, Susa sure did last long. I always knew that most I can hope for is to bottleneck you there, the northern forces where only for a temporary slowdown to let me get to muskets in time, but who knew it would work _this_ well.

As to the trait, here its only value really would have been to dissuade the attack in the first place, reroute it elsewhere, suggested that the conquest will be slow and costly, perhaps not worth the maintenance and war weariness. But yeah, once dissuasion fails, Protective does nothing for the defender's prospects.