Traits Discussion Thread

[couerdelion]

Whilst I can agree the argument that granaries are cheap, I’m still not convinced that this makes Expansive all that valuable as a trait. Since I’ll usually whip in the granaries in the early game, I don’t get them that much quicker with Expansive so the turn-advantage is pretty low.

The +2/3 health bonus is pretty marginal and only important in those games where you’re stuck on an island with only bacon, fish and clams to eat. In almost any case, Expansive is really an early game trait to give a little extra turn advantage – not to be sniffed at but other traits have much longer life-span

Everyone’s pretty much hit the nail on the head re Creative. It’s good in the early game where city placement is more important and allows you great flexibility to choose the best sights and to use the tiles effectively. Having said that, even here the effect might only be marginal because you’ll still want to do this with other civs but will only be denied the extra tiles for as long as it takes to build/whip some culture be it a library or a monument/obelisk in your second/third city. Once you’ve got religion, then the value of Creative is practically gone.

Aggressive is another early game trait and really only supports one style of play.

For me the real killers are Fin/Org/Phi with an honourary mention to Spi. I don’t really know where to place Spi because the flexibility this gives in the middle game is huge. However, the benefits take a while to emerge with Spi while you see the benefits from Fin/Org from the word go while Phi’s ability to generate GPs early can be used to give you a huge tech lead.

p.s. Forget Industrious. This is for production/wonder junkies

[Arrian]

Forget Industrious. This is for production/wonder junkies

Ooh, ooh, me. ME!!



-Arrian

[ElConejo]

<_< I swear my post from last night disappeared...

Thanks for all the replies guys! I really appreciate it, it really does shine new light toward these traits, and I like the back and forth debates as I like knowing both sides of the story.

Aggressive is another early game trait and really only supports one style of play.

Do you all feel that Aggressive is less useful in the long run? I mean, the way I see it is that it only helps toward one thing, which can be gained by some of the civic options, so if you had Spiritual wouldnt it be better to have the flexible civics, rather than one bonus of Aggressive?

Like I said, I love hearing both sides and I like how this thread is maturing, hopefully it will continue.

[Mr Justice]

i dont agree with couerdelion on aggressive,

the 1/2 price barracks is usefull, as usefull as 1/2 price temples. not grainerys or courthouses tho.

the bonus promo is very handy, yes you can get same promo from civics, but an aggressive civ with same civics gets still extra promo as well so its still better off. a non aggressive civ may be choose a civic for the bonus experiance, but in doing so may forgo a more optimal civic choice (say theology vs organised religion), the aggressive Civ need not make that sacrifice

it only loses its effect in the modern age.

i like spiritual, but more as fun trait, which allows me to be more flexible with civics, combined with the fact that its mid game before the lack of anarchy really comes into affect, makes for me this one of the weaker traits.

put it like this, you can exploit the bonus from agg trait from the word go but you cant exploit spiritual till mid game. the game as a contest could effectively be over at that stage.

like expansion, aggressive improves with difficulty level, at high levels it can be the difference between surviving and not surviving.

/edit
i forgot to mention about the 1 good thing about anarchy. in times of extreme war weariness it can be usefull to go into multiturn anarcy IF your ALMOST at the end of the war. whats this good for?
in the 2/3 turns of anarchy you cant lose population, if you make peace after anarchy then it saves pop points.

[Smellycowsquid]

Re: <_< I swear my post from last night disappeared...

Originally posted by ElConejo


Do you all feel that Aggressive is less useful in the long run? I mean, the way I see it is that it only helps toward one thing, which can be gained by some of the civic options, so if you had Spiritual wouldnt it be better to have the flexible civics, rather than one bonus of Aggressive?

Like I said, I love hearing both sides and I like how this thread is maturing, hopefully it will continue.

One thing about aggresive, is you can upgrade to Medic(or any other of those promotions) right when you build the unit.

[couerdelion]

Originally posted by Mr Justice
i dont agree with couerdelion on aggressive,

Which bit don't you agree with, that it's an early game trait or that it only supports one style of play?

I wasn't sure since you're arguments seemed to support my point rather than contradict it.

[Mr Justice]

i wasnt very clear there couerdelion tho i may have picked you up wrong as well, my impression was that you didnt really rate the trait, and thus my frame of mind was established

but anyway, i dont agree its early only trait,
tho it is at its most usefull early on.

all melee and infantry units get the bonus, tho i'l be the first to admit that a bonus promo on an infantry is not a huge difference, but at all levels below this its a bonus.

certainly i dont think it's a one style of play trait either. obviously it only has implications for warfare, but for conquest and domination victorys it do be helpfull.
for a space race victory it helps if your at war alot.
obviously for a culture it has no bearing (neither has any other trait other than spirtual (cheep temples) and creative). diplomatic vistory's id say less than important.

phil, imo that is a one style of play trait, unless you generate more than average GPs its a wasted trait.
i dont see agg as being as useless as that unless your never at war.


here's a question im not sure of myself. do promotions have an effect on the army size number from the demographics screen . if so that has fairly big implecations on diplomacy (for big armies), cause no one likes the weaklings

[couerdelion]

Well in that case you are right. I don’t rate aggressive.

I could always judge traits by what you have to do to make up for them without the trait itself

Expansive : Just chop or whip the granaries and go conquer cities with food resources (-> Trait now worthless)
Creative: Get a religion to expand to big cross. After this it’s just a cultural battle but you’ll want things like Libraries anyway to get some more beakers. The best battles in cultural wars are swords anyway.
Industrious: Get the resource which gives the bonus for wonders and perhaps do a little chopping. Also prioritise the ones you want to go for. The best way to win a race to a wonder is to get the tech about 100 turns ahead of anyone else
Aggressive: If you like a combat bonus then build or chop barracks. Then to make up the extra combat promotion, take part in victorious wars for both territories and promos. After the third promo, you don’t even gain much and, anyway, if you have better tech then you’ll win so don’t need to worry too much that you’re missing a Combat promotion. Free combat is a bonus but a hoard of Axemen will quite happily chop up a band of Combat I warriors.

For me, the bonus for Spi/Phi/Fin/Org are much harder to replace.

[Quillan]

Aggressive allows for tremendous flexibility in your military. Barracks gives you 4 or 3 xp for all land units (3 under warlords). You can get the additional 2 xp each for Vassalization, Theocracy, and the Pentagon, for a total of 10 xp per land unit civ wide under vanilla. Starting with Combat I means you don't have to buy it. You can do Medic I, Medic II, and March with three promotions. You can do Combat II and Amphibious on 2 promotions. You can jump instantly into Formation, Shock, Cover, or any other situational promotion you need. You don't have to spend your first promotion on Combat I. That can be huge.

Of course it's less valuable if you're playing a builder strategy using a shoestring military, or if you've reached the point where you can swamp the enemy with tons of higher-tech units. However, it's still valuable.

Personally, I don't generally play Aggressive leaders, but that's just a play style, not because I think the trait isn't valuable.

[Velociryx]

Thanks for the words of welcome guys!

I respectfully disagree with LionHeart on this one. For me, even if a trait is wholly replaceable by some other in-game mechanism, that does not mean the trait is now "totally worthless."

For example, let us suppose you're in a wonder race with another human player. He's industrious and you're not, but hey...you can gain much of the industrious advantage simply by chopping and hooking up some stone, right? (or marble, or whatever special resource you need for said wonder).

And that's all well and good until said Industrious player *also* hooks up some stone. He can enhance is natural ability with the same in-game mechanism, and you have no prayer of winning the contest.

Now granted, in SP, this is seldom a concern, cos the AI doesn't think like that, so the first proviso we need to establish is...are we talking primarily MP or SP, becuase the value of the trait is gonna vary depending on the answer to that question.

In a similar vein, difficulty level has a tremendous bearing....how much value is +3 health on Diety? HUGE, while that same bonus would be nigh on invisible, and not even worth talking about on Settler. Even on Prince or Noble, the health bonus begins to be important. To find out just HOW telling it can be, start Civ, open up the Earth map as Egypt, and explore the possible city founding sites on turn one (start by moving south along the nile and try founding there). See what happens to your health, then add three and see what the impact would be.

Now, imagine the effect of all those floodplains, if you didn't have to worry about the negative effects of those tiles.

Think it's rare? It's only rare because people tend to shy away from founding cities in such locations because they know they can't really afford to.

Expansive tosses the old equation out, in preference for a stronger one.

The same story is repeated with Creative. Yes, you can build Stonehenge, and gain a poor-man's version of the creative trait (at least until Calendar), or, you can found a religion and make a temple your first build in each new city, but those things still take time, and IN that time, the Creative player is gaining mad kinds of turn advantage over you, while you struggle to play catch-up, and never quite succeed (and of course, if said Creative player ALSO founds a religion or builds Stonehenge, his borders will be growing like Kudzu compared to yours, no matter WHAT you do).

Then there's the matter of the cultural choke.

It only has to happen once for the trait to pay for itself.

One civ, completely marginalized, and you save yourself hundreds of hammers in troop investment that you now simply do not need, because the civ in question, relegated to one or two cities in some remote corner of the continent, is so marginalized that it can't even mount a credable defense, much less threaten to attack.

True, the traits we're talking about in the main require more finesse to use than, say, Financial (which, lets face it, is about as easy to use as falling off a log...build cottages and work them). And they're not as easy to make use of as Org or Spi (*completely* automated), but this in no way means that they are underpowered. In fact, one might say that the synergy you get from using the in-game mechanisms that "mimick" their main effects make them shine all the more brightly.

-=Vel=-

[UnOrthOdOx]

Originally posted by couerdelion
Well in that case you are right. I don’t rate aggressive.

I could always judge traits by what you have to do to make up for them without the trait itself

Expansive : Just chop or whip the granaries and go conquer cities with food resources (-> Trait now worthless)
Creative: Get a religion to expand to big cross. After this it’s just a cultural battle but you’ll want things like Libraries anyway to get some more beakers. The best battles in cultural wars are swords anyway.
Industrious: Get the resource which gives the bonus for wonders and perhaps do a little chopping. Also prioritise the ones you want to go for. The best way to win a race to a wonder is to get the tech about 100 turns ahead of anyone else
Aggressive: If you like a combat bonus then build or chop barracks. Then to make up the extra combat promotion, take part in victorious wars for both territories and promos. After the third promo, you don’t even gain much and, anyway, if you have better tech then you’ll win so don’t need to worry too much that you’re missing a Combat promotion. Free combat is a bonus but a hoard of Axemen will quite happily chop up a band of Combat I warriors.

For me, the bonus for Spi/Phi/Fin/Org are much harder to replace.

The problem with the logic is that you should be doing all that with the respective traits anyway.

Exp doesn't need as many forests or pop to get that granary, so they have a headstart using that towards something else, including troops to conquer resources.

Cre: Relying on the religion roulette wheel to spread where I need it isn't an answer to getting the fat cross IMO. And even if I did manage a religion in that border city, my creative neighbor will be pressing my religion based culture back anyway.

One thing I haven't heard folks mention, because I am most likely a severe minority to use it is the cheap theater. These should be popped in place EVERYWHERE quickly with a Creative leader, IMO. For culture, happiness, and enabling the global theater which should also be swiftly built to create a truly massive city ASAP. Again, this is just a personal style I haven't seen anyone else comment on.

I do agree swords make a great solution to culture wars, though, gotta give you that.

Industrious: Again, you're counting on a resource. Industrious doesn't need said resource to get a boost here. You should still prioritize which ones you want, especially on higher difficulties, and wonders can provide a great means of creating GP, helping finances, or even getting tech which help LEAD to getting that tech 100 of years before others.

Aggressive: Saying just chop a barracks is flat wrong here. The aggressive player (admitted addict to it here) would have also chopped a barracks AND an axe for the same cost. And you better believe I'll be participating in wars for land and promos.

I also couldn't disagree more with your point that you don't gain much after the 3rd promo. IMO each successive promo is all the more valuable than it would be on a less promoted unit.



That said, it is true I do not like being without Fin/Org/Phi as ONE of my traits due to the financial advantages they offer.

[Mr Justice]

the problem with a discussion like this is that it lead's to circular logic.

what i mean is that one traits strenghts can be countered by anothers strenght.

take cre vs agg,
the benifits of cre are we described below,
but as couerdelion pointed out , a stack of axemen can remedy cultural encrochement (applies wether its Cre culture or anyother).
thus agg has somewhat of a defence against this, well all traits do, but agg has it slightly better than the other traits.

take exp vs lets take financial, assuming happiness is not a problem (which it may well be and making this point moot) lets you work more squares, and say the extra citizen works a cottage then thats a bonus equivlent to fin. (on amount of commerce gained) (taking example of 5 towns worked vs 6 towns worked)

there will always be situations where one trait overcomes another. its only limited by our imaginations in comming up with those scenarios.

UnOrthOdOx-theaters are great, but come to late in the game to be vital, also they a cheap building anyway.

Velociryx-yes i too loaded up that earth map and tried to play Egypt on emperor difficulty. i was disgusted tbh and havent looked at the map since. that wasnt fully thought out at all.

here's a question im not sure of myself. do promotions have an effect on the army size number from the demographics screen

checked this out and as far as i can tell it makes no difference.

[zeace]

I want to speak up for my favourite trait, Spiritualism. Yeah, the no anarachy on switches is nice, but that's not it's real strength. That would just be worth a few dozen turns spread over the mid to late game. Who cares...

The real strength is changing civics and religions way more often than you would in a normal game.

First religions; If another civ has a tech you'd like to trade for, but they don't like you enough, change religion for a few turns. You can also use it to make people start a war with you. Or you can become their friend and make them attack someone else. You can even switch to no state religion for a few turns if you need to stay neutral. Once, I even switched to a religion that no one used as a state religion, and then convinced someone else to switch to it. Then I switched back, and they were immediately the least liked civ in the world.

Changing civics is even more powerful, as there's so many more choices. Theology and Vassalage for a few turns while you chop/rush out an army is great. Police state for the last few turns of a long drawn out war can keep the people happy. Switch to serfdom for a few turns after you get railroad so your workers can get your railway built faster. Nationhood when you get surprise attacked. Switch back to Slavery for a few turns to whip your conquered cities into cultural icons.

I also use it to switch my whole empire from specialist based (Rep, Caste, Merc) to trade based (US, Eman, FM). If no one is willing to trade with you, then the FM is not useful. If you aren't rushing anything, neither is US. I'll switch to specialists when I get Biology, because the new food lets me get more specialists working.


This flexibility is great, and I find myself chaning some civic or religion every 25 turns or so for the whole game.

[Tokyo Sexwale]

I like PHI as I'm experimenting with GP strategies at the moment. PHI + Parthenon + quick Pacifism and you're churning GPs like mad. I used to think coupling PHI with IND was great, but I find on Monarch and above, Wonders are difficult to get and don't help as much.

EXP is a real help even on Monarch for the health bonus. I've never been much of a whipper but Vel's notes make me want to try it out now.... crank out graneries and pop-rush like mad.

CRE is also one of my fav's.... always seems to pay off that your borders expand quickly.

I'm not convinced that the turn bonus from SPI is that great in SP mode. If I plan my strategy out, I only change civics maybe 5 - 7 times in a game, how much of a saving is that? I suppose if you're the warring type (not me) then the ability to quickly switch to Police St/Theocracy/Vass and back again is pretty useful tho'.

[Drake Tungsten]

Good god, why didn't I think of using Tokyo Sexwale as a login name? Best name ever...