Ranking the Traits- A Discussion on the Relative Strengths of the Civ Traits

[Solver]

Originally posted by patcon
Side note: Can/would a gifted tech ever be declined? This has never come up for me, but I see now it could become a sneaky tactic - give an opponent a tech which obsoletes something which they are using, such as gifting Calendar to a civ with many obelisks.

As said, Obelisks still stick around. Plus, you'd give the civ the ability to build Plantations, which certainly is a strong thing.

[Ijuin]

Originally posted by patcon

Do the free promotions apply only to archers, or also to any units which are in the upgrade path from archers?

Any bow-and-arrow-based unit is an archer. As far as the game is concerned, Archery units are any unit that the Cover promotion is effective against. This includes the Archer, Longbowman, and Crossbowman, as well as any UU's that replace them.

Side note: Can/would a gifted tech ever be declined? This has never come up for me, but I see now it could become a sneaky tactic - give an opponent a tech which obsoletes something which they are using, such as gifting Calendar to a civ with many obelisks.

The ineffectiveness of gifting Calendar is addressed above. However, gifting Scientific Method to a civ that is dependant on lots of Monasteries would result in a significant hit on science.

That said, I wish you could still build Monasteries after Scientific Method. They wouldn't get the science bonus, but it would allow you to build missionaries. It sucks big time that you can not build missionaries in a city for a religion that said city did not acquire until AFTER you got Scientific Method (and you can never build ANY missionaries for a religion that no city in your empire gained until after Scientific Method, such as when a foreign religion spreads to you).

[JackRudd]

Originally posted by Ijuin
It sucks big time that you can not build missionaries in a city for a religion that said city did not acquire until AFTER you got Scientific Method (and you can never build ANY missionaries for a religion that no city in your empire gained until after Scientific Method, such as when a foreign religion spreads to you).

Psst. Organized Religion.

[Yosho]

Originally posted by LordShiva
I play almost exclusively as a warmonger, and funnily enough, I don't find Aggressive that useful. The way I see it, I'm going to be building tons of units anyway, and getting them into alot of fights. So I'm going to pick up experience anyway. The few turns that I'd save with cheaper barracks also doesn't help all that much on Marathon.

The only two traits that let you use hammers more efficently are ind and aggressive, and aggresive is much more important.

Basically, it's always at least +10% bonus on the amount of hammers you use to build units. It's actually better then that, though, because once you have barracks, you get to jump right to better upgrades, like anti-archer, anti-meele, anti-gunpoweder, city raider, ect, which makes it more like a +20% to +25% production bonus. It also stacks very well with Theocracy and such, because it just gives you combat I instead of giving you the +2 exp; that means that no matter how much experence your unit has, an agressive civ will always have one more upgrade then a non-agressive civ. You say you don't need agressive because your units have a lot of experence anyway, but in that case agressive is actually an even BIGGER advantage, because the higher experence levels are progessivly harder to reach so the free upgrade is worth more and more experence.

Any time you're fighting a war against an opponent with somewhere close to your level of technology, agressive gives you a very large advantage, unless you're at one of the few points of the game where you're not making many meele or gunpoweder units.

[Badtz Maru]

Originally posted by Yosho


The only two traits that let you use hammers more efficently are ind and aggressive, and aggresive is much more important.

Basically, it's always at least +10% bonus on the amount of hammers you use to build units. It's actually better then that, though, because once you have barracks, you get to jump right to better upgrades, like anti-archer, anti-meele, anti-gunpoweder, city raider, ect, which makes it more like a +20% to +25% production bonus. It also stacks very well with Theocracy and such, because it just gives you combat I instead of giving you the +2 exp; that means that no matter how much experence your unit has, an agressive civ will always have one more upgrade then a non-agressive civ. You say you don't need agressive because your units have a lot of experence anyway, but in that case agressive is actually an even BIGGER advantage, because the higher experence levels are progessivly harder to reach so the free upgrade is worth more and more experence.

Any time you're fighting a war against an opponent with somewhere close to your level of technology, agressive gives you a very large advantage, unless you're at one of the few points of the game where you're not making many meele or gunpoweder units.

It's even better because with Aggressive and a Barracks, you can save your second promotion until the unit is about to be in combat, so not only are your units more effective, you can be sure their effectiveness is against the specific kind of opponents you are fighting with them. If I have a nice stack of unpromoted units, you can get a lot out of them by waiting until the attack to promote - my first attackers might have the Cover promotion if the strongest defenders are archer-type defenders, but the later ones will have different promotions.

You can get this benefit without Aggressive, but only with specific civics.

[JackRudd]

Originally posted by Badtz Maru
It's even better because with Aggressive and a Barracks, you can save your second promotion until the unit is about to be in combat, so not only are your units more effective, you can be sure their effectiveness is against the specific kind of opponents you are fighting with them. If I have a nice stack of unpromoted units, you can get a lot out of them by waiting until the attack to promote - my first attackers might have the Cover promotion if the strongest defenders are archer-type defenders, but the later ones will have different promotions.

You can get this benefit without Aggressive, but only with specific civics.

Or Wonders - the Pentagon will give you that benefit too.

Of course, best is to be Aggressive with the Pentagon, and then running Vassalage and Theocracy.

[Feyd]

Originally posted by JackRudd


Or Wonders - the Pentagon will give you that benefit too.

Of course, best is to be Aggressive with the Pentagon, and then running Vassalage and Theocracy.

For those of us who are picky about our late game force reserves (units we build that are just going to sit around) it is very nice to do this and pop out Level 4 units in cities other than the one with West Point.

This is one reason why I would rank Spiritual very high as well. "Oh... so you want to start something? One sec..."

What about combinations that aren't out there. I've been messing around with my games civilization leader info and changing some things.

Would Philo/Ind. raise the profile of Industrious y'think?

[Will9]

Expansive seems to be underrated by most people. It's very useful especialy with my strategy. My capital is commonly size 10-13 by the begining of the middle ages so the extra heath helps before Guilds. Also, cheap harbors help with a health problem , and when used on a mass scale and with The Great Lighthouse you can bring a lage amount of gold. Cheap granaries alow you cities to start growing sooner. Expansive is also good in the industrial age because it overcomes the unhealthiness of factories and coal plants. In Warlords Expansive and Charismatic would be a powerful combonation.

[DrSpike]

Nice idea Monk.

Like Blake I think you underrate Org. As for aggressive it goes from being quite weak for some victory conditions to being one of the top traits if you plan on lots of wars. So I think you are both right.

[zeace]

Originally posted by Feyd

What about combinations that aren't out there. I've been messing around with my games civilization leader info and changing some things.

Would Philo/Ind. raise the profile of Industrious y'think?

A phi/ind leader would be a amazing great person maker. Of course you'd have no army or economy to speak of, but imagine the great people...

[One_more_turn]

My rankings:

1. Organized. This got to be the best. Expansion, conquest, and domination are the best strategy to go in Civ IV. Without being Organized, conquests can get prohibitively expensive. In addition, Organized has bonus for 2 of the 5 essential buildings (Barracks, Granary, Courthouse, Forge, Lighthouse).

2. Financial. It's not surprising that Financial AI civs are always doing well. Not only do you get ahead in tech, but you can also get the largest army with Financial. The drawback to Financial is that you have to apply cottage spams everywhere, which in turn takes time and hampers growth. The 1.61 Patch takes away the cheap bank, too.

2. Philosophical. Very powerful at higher levels where pop limits are brutal. Philosophical allows super powerful cities and creates a solid base for rapid later stage expansions.

4. Expansive. The most underrated trait. But if you want to chop and pop, Expansive is a must. The 1.61 patch increased the health bonus from 2 to 3, and that's equivalent to 7 forest squares. Cheaper granaries are great for growing cities fast, which you need to pop rush regularly. Imagine how others would fare when facing a large Praetorian army in 1000BC.

5. Industrious. Most people don't like it, but I still think Wonders are nice. Wonders offer free GP points, generates lots of culture, and some of them actually provide decent benefits. As I already mentioned, Forge is another essential building in the game. Certainly, Industrious can't measure up to Organized or Financial, but the benefits it provides definitely outweigh the remaining traits.

6. Spiritual. Late game flexibility is nice, but the game is usually decided by then. Temples are nice if you want a peaceful Cultural victory, but who cares about temples if the goal is all about Domination.

7. Aggressive. Played a couple of times. Don't find it useful. Barracks is essential, but is one of the cheapest building in the game so the bonus is not all that great. Combat I promotion is decent, but applies only to melee and gunpower units. If it is expanded to ALL units, then things will indeed be different.

8. Creative. Useless, especially if you build the Stonehenge early on or have trees to chop. Theater is so cheap that I either built them in a few turns in my established cities or sacrifice 3 population in conquered cities. I never build colloseums.

[Badtz Maru]

Originally posted by Adagio


Obelisks 'stick around' after discovering Calendar, it just makes it impossible to build more...

The obelisks that Stonehenge gives you go away, though...so if your opponent has Stonehenge, giving them Calendar would take away that bonus.

[Adagio]

Correct... and that kinda makes stonehenge useless if you're anywhere near any resources needing calendar
If you're going for a cultural victory, stonehenge can hurt you, as it makes it impossible to build obelisks before they get obsolete

[Yosho]

They don't really go away, though. You still seem to get an extra "phantom" +1 culture from all the cities that had obolisks that vanished after stonehenge went obsolete. Next time, add up the number of culture points you're getting with how many you should be getting, and if the city used to have a stonehenge obelisk, itotal culture will be one more then you'd expect.

Unless they've changed that in a recent patch, anyway; I haven't actually built stonehenge in a while.

[One_more_turn]

Stonehenge is cheap, especially for an industrious leader. The 8 culture points, 2 GP points, and cultures in early cities make it very worthwhile.

Since I love CS-Slingshot, Stonehenge + Oracle make a great combo in generating prophets.