What is the Best Trait?

[JackRudd]

Spiritual's worth a LOT more than 10 turns of anarchy saved. But it does require frequent changes of government to get the best out of it. (You know the sort of thing; Bureaucracy+Organized Religion to build a Wonder, then Free Speech + Pacifism to get maximum returns from the Wonder.)

[Shaka II]

Excellent analyses Aginor.

I don't know that financial needs to be nerfed either, we need more data from games played. Now I'm playing Elizabeth (financial/philosophical) on highlands map as a change from my typical warmonger civs like Romans, Persians, Mongols. Aside from traits, the starting Civ is important. English get mining and fishing, which is quite nice. Fishing allows water tiles to be worked and mining allows for the quick chop. Highlands has a lot of forest.

Romans lose some strength on highlands, since there are no lighthouses or harbors. Similarly, an aggressive civ gets no drydocks. But on pangea, they are about the strongest civ in my opinion, even after they made Praetorians cost more in V1.52.

A lot depends on the map. A barbarian heavy map like highlands on marathon doesn't lend itself to early war, it's more like medieval war by the time cultural borders grow together. Up until then, you're fighting with barbs. But again it depends on the number of civs, how soon the cultural borders grow together. Eleven civs on a standard highlands map leads to early closure of borders ... and early war.

[smbakeresq]

Expansive is a warmonger's trait. If you play it as a builder trait, you're going to be disappointed. The strength of it is the potent early game advantage. If you don't convert the early game advantage (turbocharged pop-n-cop) into a long-term advantage, an Expansive game isn't much fun.

See now I think Expansive is a pretty good builder trait. The cheap granarys allow you to pop you way to several improvements, while the cheap harbors allow your trade to expand rapidly. I also think that it is a trait that has advantages throughout the game, since it gives you something all the time, cheap granarys early to pop rush with and a health bonus to chop with, faster growth in mid game once the slavery pop ruch is over since every city will have a granary, more trade from harbors earlier, and then the health at the end.

However, you are right on the money in that it is a trait that is best used to build up an advantage early, then the long term effects of health bonus and better trade can take over.

[Aginor]

Originally posted by Dominae
Wow, nice set of posts there, Aginor!

If I'm making you and Vel happy, I'm happy

[xxFlukexx]

Originally posted by Aginor
...However, Organized seems to do a better overall job in my games between the decreased maintenance...

Be careful here, Orgaznied does not reduce city maintenance (dunno how many times I've said this) It reduces civic upkeep by 50%, now some of that upkeep is tied to population so that is what you are seeing. Make sure you say civic upkeep, or else you're just gonna confuse people.

And Creative being one of the worst traits? No way. Creative isn't meant for cultural victories, no one ever talks about that. Creative is used for that initial border push and for general border domination. It is really hard to overtake a creative civ's borders once they are rooted. Creative is also sweet for attacking due to the cheap theatres and free culture per turn. Cheaper colosseums make it the cheapest +happy building (only Spiritual temples are faster)

Spiritual is more of a late game trait imo. Once you get deep into the Renaissance Era and into the Indy Era, you don't really want to change civics much. 1 turn of anarchy could be over 500 commerce total and that's not chump change. The thing I don't like about Spiritual is that it makes temples build faster so if you don't found a religion or get lucky and one spreads to you, you are kinda left out to sea. Spiritual is the bomb for cultural wins though.

[Aginor]

Originally posted by smbakeresq

The cheap granarys allow you to pop you way to several improvements, while the cheap harbors allow your trade to expand rapidly. I also think that it is a trait that has advantages throughout the game, since it gives you something all the time, cheap granarys early to pop rush with and a health bonus to chop with, faster growth in mid game once the slavery pop ruch is over since every city will have a granary, more trade from harbors earlier, and then the health at the end.

It's not that it's a poor builder trait so much as that pure builder is much weaker than it was, say, in Civ 2 or SMAC. It was considerably easier to abuse the system by going pure builder early to snag key Wonders.

I'll give you a couple of examples from those games. In Civ 2, the Pyramids gave you a Granary everywhere for 200 Shields. In other words, by sacrificing a bit of growth for your civ early on (if you were like me, you Caravaned it after putting up a decent infrastructure) in the form of additional Settlers, you made it so that every time you founded a city...*boom* 60 Shield return on Settler investment. Plus time advantage from not having to build the Granary in the first place, thus growing faster. Given time advantage, pays for itself if you have three cities without Granaries, plus returning time advantage and 60 Shields every time a Settler becomes a city. Same goes for if you bash the AI over the head and take a city.

Michaelangelo's Chapel was even more obnoxious...you got a 160 Shield building in every city for the cost of 400. Having to build Cathedrals everywhere was brutal on time cost, which made this more vital than the Pyramids on Deity.

There's also the classic Colossus/River/Copernicus/Issac trick, as well, which we all knew and loved for its ability to bury everyone else's research.

Alternately, take the PTS trick in SMAC. This was really hideous if you got a city to size 5 with Yang early in a city with a Nutrient special, got some lab rats cranking out research in order to beeline to Formers and Industrial Automation, then Crawled up the PTS in the first 50 turns and started spamming Colony Pods. On a Huge map, game over...I remember founding something like 70 size 3 cities one time in a game like that, beelining and winning a Diplomatic game without firing a shot just by sheer population spam.

There's just nothing this unbalanced that you can build in Civ 4. The best return on your hammer investment is coming down on your nearest neighbor like the wrath of god. Horizontal expansion doesn't really help your research much due to maintenance, but it sure as heck helps your Hammer output.

Hammers translate to commerce at 3:1 without the Kremlin (if you have Pyramids, anyway). For most of the game you can't substitute for hammers, and throughout the game if you can get 1 hammer/turn it's as good as three *net* commerce points (post-building laundering). A captured city providing ten hammers per turn is then roughly equivalent to an additional 30 beakers or coins, in other words.

Also note that the potency of each unit you build is cumulative (though each essentially costs you 1/3 of a hammer) - the more units you have, the more valuable every single one of them is! Two reasons for this - number of units needed to actually take a city and surprise attack. One Praetorian alone is relatively worthless. Eight is a beating. Now, if you've got 24 Praetorians, you can hit the other guy in three places at once and (until Feudalism) figure that you're going to nail three cities without giving him a chance to respond.

If you go in there with 8 Praetorians rather than 24, the other guy has a much better chance of limiting the overall civ damage to the loss of a couple of cities rather than certain death. He's more likely to have the ability to produce enough units by whatever means necessary, as well as redirect and concentrate his existing units, to defend his new borders. You're taking a city every 5-7 turns or so depending on deaths/healing/resupply as opposed to 3 cities every 5-7 turns or so. He thus knows where to reinforce AND also has more cities to produce units with.

Another point on your units - every turn degrades their value unless you throw tech and gold into upgrading them (which only makes sense for highly upgraded units and emergencies). Which is why a lot of builder types dislike building units - why build something whose returns degrade over time? The answer is that there are increasing marginal returns for each unit. So long as you succesfully transform the hammers invested into the units into long-run production in the form of captured territory, it's an efficient investment both in experience points and overall production returns.

As for the end of the Slavery rush - when does that happen? I can't remember ever running a different labor civic than Slavery...even late I use it to poprush Theatres in captured cities on the turn after the disorder ends (particularly if they're starving or unhappy), and use it to build infrastructure in anything I found. If there's a food special in the city radius, it's a pretty safe bet that until it hits size 5 some poor citizen is getting worked to death every ten turns building infrastructure. Granaries everywhere, Libraries most places (particularly on borders), other commerce improvements as needed, Barracks if the city has decent hammer output, lots of Courthouses if running Organized. I've even been known to break out the whip in larger cities when the town is likely to immediately grow the turn after I crack the whip if the improvement is important enough (see: Banks, Unis, Courthouses).

The labor civs stink. The only reason I can even conceive of for Caste System is a game where Great Merchants are pursued to keep feeding the GPP factory (can you imagine how monstrous that thing could get with Philo? Maybe I'll try that out in my next Floodplains heavy start with a Philo...I'm having visions of Wall Street, a Wonder Shrine and 20 Great Merchants). I've never got enough Workers getting supported to make Serfdom worth it next to Slavery...I found maybe 7-8 cities I have to improve heavily, and the AI considerately does most of the rest of the improving I do for me (captured cities). Occasionally it's a real idiot and I have to fix its decisions, but that's not terribly common. Emancipation is a great, subtle commerce bonus...but by the time it comes online, if the game isn't already in hand a growth bonus to cottages in captured cities isn't going to save me.

The one nice thing about the Romans is that Praetorians are so good for so long that even if you get buried on an island or way apart from other civs, chances are good you still get some use out of them before Feudalism. You don't have to be on a Pangaea to get good mileage out of them (I usually run Continents maps).

Haven't played with the English much yet, but I should. Maybe I'll run them in that Great Merchant game I'm considering. Started out with China (Huang) on the lower levels, and have migrated to more aggressive civs as I've discovered that running primarily builder is not a sound strategy anymore.

[Aginor]

Originally posted by JackRudd
Spiritual's worth a LOT more than 10 turns of anarchy saved. But it does require frequent changes of government to get the best out of it. (You know the sort of thing; Bureaucracy+Organized Religion to build a Wonder, then Free Speech + Pacifism to get maximum returns from the Wonder.)

Definitely there are times when it's nice to make the switch straight away. (CS Slingshot comes to mind - Philo switch to Caste, Bureaucracy and Confucianism all at once, anyone?) And you're right that you have to be a government switcher. I'm not, really - I keep Slavery pretty much throughout, I generally tend to run either Organized or Theocracy until Free Religion (diplo benefits there often drive that switch), and obviously stick with Hereditary Rule for a loooong time unless I happen to capture the Pyramids for Representation (and Suffrage later). The only one I usually vacillate on is Legal, as they're all good - Vassalage can save me a pile on upkeep in the later game of a warmonger game, Bureaucracy is the no-brainer early, Nationhood for the draft, and Free Speech for the shot in the arm in commerce.

Where Spiritual comes in handy is the later part of the game when you're trying to wring every last ounce of productivity out of your civ. I find that my games have either been won or lost by the time that I would want to start swapping governments heavily.

[Aginor]

Originally posted by xxFlukexx
Be careful here, Orgaznied does not reduce city maintenance (dunno how many times I've said this) It reduces civic upkeep by 50%, now some of that upkeep is tied to population so that is what you are seeing. Make sure you say civic upkeep, or else you're just gonna confuse people.

Point taken. I could argue that this is semantics since expansion ultimately = higher overall maintenance costs, but you're 100% accurate on the game mechanics and I appreciate your correction.

And Creative being one of the worst traits? No way. Creative isn't meant for cultural victories, no one ever talks about that. Creative is used for that initial border push and for general border domination. It is really hard to overtake a creative civ's borders once they are rooted. Creative is also sweet for attacking due to the cheap theatres and free culture per turn. Cheaper colosseums make it the cheapest +happy building (only Spiritual temples are faster)

I can make the argument that against the AI this is a significant *disadvantage* as it's likely to lead to armed aggression. The absolute last thing I want is to push one AI's borders back when I'm bashing another, thus provoking a stab in the back. Different situation against the living, of course.

IMO, the only reason to play Creative is to play builder and turtle up, focusing on vertical growth for a long time. Having run both turtle and pure warmonger, I prefer finding a way to be on offense rather than defense in war if I can possibly manage it.

Spiritual is more of a late game trait imo. Once you get deep into the Renaissance Era and into the Indy Era, you don't really want to change civics much. 1 turn of anarchy could be over 500 commerce total and that's not chump change. The thing I don't like about Spiritual is that it makes temples build faster so if you don't found a religion or get lucky and one spreads to you, you are kinda left out to sea. Spiritual is the bomb for cultural wins though.

Concur fully. Was writing the prior reply and did not see your post yet. Cheap Temples don't help *that* much for a culture wun until you get five or six religions going in the key cities, and then it gets quite powerful.

As for the religion vacuum - you have few choices on this with Spiritual IMO. You either have to get a start that permits you to get Buddhism/Hinduism, beeline for Code of Laws and actually get there or, as an absolute last resort, hook up a religion to your trade network or make plans for Theology. (If you miss both Buddhism and Hinduism, odds are someone's going to get to Judaism first on the higher levels.)

[Dis]

for my style of play- it's financial. I just kick ass with the Malinese.

[fed1943]

I don´t agree with Aginor about creative.The important (to this trait)is not the culture bost in 1000 turns,but in 5 turns(city radius)the next one and perhaps two borders expansion(available resources for health,happy and military)and territorial coherence for defense and attack.
Best regards,

[Indon]

I voted for Creative (love being able to get those extra squares early on), but I'm partial to Spiritual too, because I'm preferential to gathering as many religions as I can (through either founding or spreading) and having Free Religion... then I just end up building a lot of temples.

But I also like financial, even if, in my opinion, it's better in lusher maps with more grassland/flood plains where it's easier to balance population with heavy cottage use on flatlands.

[Crossfire]

I would agree that Creative might be the best. While the +2 culture in every city really helps grab land, the fact that I don't have to build Stonehenge (which is otherwise useless) or build obelisks in every early city means I can build more workers/settlers and warriors instead. Or I can get to work on the Pyramids that much earlier. Those 15-20 turns in every city give me a huge boost that I really miss if I am not playing a Creative civ. Now, add that with Financial and it is why I usually play as Catherine (although I do miss interacting with her in game as an opponent).

[Common Sensei]

Originally posted by Aginor
Of course, you *could* run a Philo Prophets game to address the hammer issue, but I think most of us that have tried it would that such a game is softer than the science-focused GPP game.

I've done some experimenting with a purely Great Prophet approach so I'm curious as to what you mean by a Prophet game being softer than a science-focused one.

[Aginor]

Common Sensei - what I mean here is that the Scientist is slightly more efficient in pure commerce output (if the relevant Wonder is not built for the extra hammer - then efficiency goes to the Prophet) and there's synergy with Academies early on, so you get a good bit more early benefit out of your Scientists than you do out of your Prophets. Which means you hit the upper-level improvements (Unis/Oxford in particular) a touch earlier than you otherwise would with Prophets chasing Banks/Grocers. Also, the Uni gives you a cultural benefit that the Bank does not.

OTOH Unis and Observatories *are* pricy hammer-wise.

[Common Sensei]

It seems like the pure scientist approach has better "acceleration", and the pure prophet approach has a higher "top speed." The dividends from scientists pay immediately, and it's Banking that starts giving prophets their real momentum.

I usually use something in between, myself. Scientists first, then prophets or merchants later.