Financial - too powerful?

[Strategist83]

If you ask me, the best trait hands down. Shouldn't it have been '+1 commerce on plots with THREE commerce'?

[Dauphin]

I agree, its powerful and probably the best if you don't have a specific gameplan that calls for a different trait. Without playing with your suggested tweak its hard to say whether it would be better. It strikes me as too weak, but then again, get a few towns going and that could all change...

[MattPilot]

yes

and thats exactly how i modded it.

[Urban Ranger]

Again it depends.

Your starting location is an important factor. If you start on a river or there are a bunch of rivers within easy reach financial is very strong. OTOH if you are stuck in the middle of nowhere and you need all the good tiles for farms it is almost worthless.

[Shaka II]

Financial is very strong, but not overpowered. It's not as strong as organized for a large empire. It depends on the game victory condition. I'd say it's in the top three, including organized and philosophical. Having two of these three traits is very strong. For the warmonger, aggressive looks very nice also, but mainly if used with organized (Tokugawa) or financial (Capac).

Washington is organized and financial, so if having a large, advanced empire is part of your quest, he's the man. Caesar (org/exp), Mao(org/phi), Elizabeth(fin/phi) are all strong leaders.

In the last two games, for a nice change of pace, I tried Cyrus(exp/cre) and Roosevelt(ind/org). It's fun to build the wonders. The only trait I never tried was spiritual. Some time Ill try Asoka(spi/org). I do find myself switching between civics, especially if I've built the Pyramids. Representation/Police State/Universal Suffrage, my people get used to switching civics.

[Yosho]

Financial is about even with orginized, depending on how you expand and develop your empire. It's hard to say if it's better then some other key traits, like Aggresive or Spiritual, but I don't think it's overpowered.

[trev]

All I know is that I find it much easier to win with Washington than any other civ, which may suggest the combination of Financial/Organised is too strong.

[Ijuin]

Originally posted by Urban Ranger
Your starting location is an important factor. If you start on a river or there are a bunch of rivers within easy reach financial is very strong.

Oh YES! A river square with a Cottage is an instant three gold.

[Saurus]

The problem I have with the Economic-trait when playing on higher difficulties is that this trait does not on its own, help any given strategy.
The key on higher difficulties is that you will get your research from tech-trading/whoring and not mainly from your economy witch in any case will be significally worse than the economy of the A.I due to handicap. Skillful planning, use of CS:s, wonders , use of great persons and diplomacy (mainly bribing others to war with each other) will be the key to success - The financial-trait do not directly work toward any of theese goals. If you lack tech to trade with then that's not because you lack the financial trait but due to other factors (perhaps over-expanding, bad starting position etc, etc)

I'm currently playing Emperor and a peaceful buildergame as Alexander (Agg, Phi) and I have found that the Agressive skill is really cool. It helps big time preventing those early (and even medieval) A.I invasions. That extra combat promotion combined with the cheap barracks is really a nice thing.
The Greek special unit the Phalanx is not typicaly the warmongers wet dream ... but it's an excellent defending unit.
A Phalanx with that free combat promotion + the melee promotion plus a combat 2 promotion will win VS
Chariot, Spearmen, Archer, Horsearcher, Swordmen, Pikemen, Warrior, Elephant, Catapult and Knight.

In addition when defending, it will in most cases be able to sucessfully stand up against Crossbowmen and Axemen so that it's only weakness is really the Maceman but even against macemen it has a fair change of success when defending in a city.

[fed1943]

Not overpowered(I think the game is very balanced).
Better think in My best traits,My weakest traits.
Best regards,

[Dis]

I can't win without it. . I simply cannot get the space ship built by 2050 with regular civs.

[Yosho]

Actually, I think the most powerful trait is spiritual. It allows for incredibly flexable responces; in my current game, I ended up in a war with Mao where I almost certanly would have lost my capital, and probably the game; instead, I switched to nationalism, theocracy, and police state; I drafted 15 riflemen in 5 turns, churned out 5 or 6 experenced grenaders, won the war in about 15 turns, and then switched back to economic civics.

It's great; you can save you almost as much money as ORG some games by letting doing things like using the more expensive hereditary rule only for a little while when you need it and then dropping it for a while to save money when you get some temples built. Civics I normally never use, like serfdom, become key economic tools for short periods of time.

[Urban Ranger]

Originally posted by Yosho
Actually, I think the most powerful trait is spiritual. It allows for incredibly flexable responces; in my current game, I ended up in a war with Mao where I almost certanly would have lost my capital, and probably the game; instead, I switched to nationalism, theocracy, and police state; I drafted 15 riflemen in 5 turns, churned out 5 or 6 experenced grenaders, won the war in about 15 turns, and then switched back to economic civics.

It seems that you saved about two turns there. While nothing to sneeze at, I am not sure if these two turns are that critical. Maybe if you had some other trait(s) instead you wouldn't need to fight Mao.

[One_more_turn]

Financial is the most powerful trait imho. I will just make a rough calculations to illustrate its power: assume a financial civ has 10 cities and each city has 10 squares generating 2+ gold. That means this civ generates 100 gold more per turn (before any adjustments!) than a non-financial one. The financial civ can either race ahead in the technology or build a monster army to crush its rivals.

[Qwertqwert]

Personally I rarely have every city (or even 10) generating 2+ gold (or 3+ with financial) on 10 spots.