Which is the best leader trait?

[TheArsenal]

Spiritual is also a widely underappreciated trait - I don't use it myself, since I prefer Louis, Frederick, Peter and Catherine, however I have seen people doing wonderful things with it - it is also extremely useful in a Quick game, where every turn of Anarchy counts.

So far, I have only played with the Spiritual leaders. How is anarchy in this game? A little less crippling than in Civ III?

[sabrewolf]

when i first tried aggressive, i loved it because of the 2 free upgrades with barracks and 3 upgrades with the right traits (theocracy and something else). that however changed fast when i started off without copper and iron as you only get the bonus in the early stages for melee units. without axe- and macemen the AGG trait was completely useless.

creative was great for when i missed out on the first 4 religions and would have had to build stupid obelisks or slow libraries. but on lower difficulties and/or with early religions i find this pretty unimportant

industrial is something i hardly use because i somehow always miss out on the wonders even if i have a tech edge and the "half cost with *resource*" thingy.

philosophical is a great thing for great person whoring, but i somehow cannot get the motivation to "lose" growth on GPs. gotta get that part of my strategy improved. are there any good strategy articles on GP acquiring (and how can i increase the number of early engineers except with special wonders and the forge?)?

spiritual: needless to say, a very important trait until you really have the civics figured out. and the cheap religious buildings are good for culture too.

expansive: nice granaries and the +2 health is surely important on higher difficulties. but for news and until approx. prince level (my current level) pretty irrellevant.

financial: techwhore... woohoo... but on my prince-level-highlands-map completely useless. especially as i had ghengis, montezuma and tokugawa allying against me...

organised: never tried and on my difficulty levels until now the trait costs were not a big issue.



edit: i forgot to say my favourite:
- so far: spiritual, because i'm still learning.
- but financial, creative and philosophical are growing on me.
- aggressive for tight maps (starting scout, quick to archery thanks to hunting)
- expansive will become important soon (higher difficulty)
- organised, industrial: honestly, i couldn't care less ATM

[MattPilot]

when i first tried aggressive, i loved it because of the 2 free upgrades with barracks and 3 upgrades with the right traits (theocracy and something else). that however changed fast when i started off without copper and iron as you only get the bonus in the early stages for melee units. without axe- and macemen the AGG trait was completely useless.

Not entirely true - Aggresive trait stays around the entire game. It applies both to melee units AND gunpowder units.

So it actually gets better as the game progresses.

[Shaka II]

Originally posted by Dis
aggressive is great- if you plan on being aggressive.

I'll second that opinion.

Originally posted by Marid Audran
I think Caesar has very fine traits. Organized is great when waging a war with a fellow civ, particularly on the same continent. Then one can run high-cost civics like Police State, Vassalage, Organized Religion/Theocracy and wage a war far more cost-efficiently. And war is a fact of life in an average civ's lifespan, with the inevitable "philosophical differences" arising from divergent civics/faiths. And I've already said what I think of "Expansive."

In fact, I think I'll try out Caesar next game.

My last game and highest score (domination 1895/monarch) was with Romans. Praetorians are a great early unit to establish dominance in the early game. Catherine (creative/financial) and Frederick (creative/philosphical) built such beautiful cities for my Praetorians to capture and build Forbidden Palace.

[sabrewolf]

Originally posted by MattPilot
Not entirely true - Aggresive trait stays around the entire game. It applies both to melee units AND gunpowder units.

So it actually gets better as the game progresses.

i was just about to counter that melee stop with macemen but then realised that infantry and mechanised infantry also fall under the category of gunpowderers. i had thought that stops with grenadier and "sophisticad" guns and shells would be a different category.

my bad... by that time i lost track of all the civic bonuses and probably had switched away from those...

[Blake]

I'm still the only Organized vote .

[Marid Audran]

However, it's better to be a banana, than it is to be philosophical. Descarte, take note.

[Bill3000]

Originally posted by Blake
I'm still the only Organized vote .

Not anymore.

[nbarclay]

I'm not prepared to vote officially yet, but my initial impression after my first couple games is that Financial is very strong. I was especially impressed with what it could do when coupled with the Colossus and a whole bunch of coast.