Traits Discussion Thread

[Tokyo Sexwale]

Hahaha... yeah, it's right up there with Canaan Banana. Gotta love those Southern African politicians.

BTW after I posted I read what zeace had written about the SPI trait and I think there's some good suggestions there on how the leverage the SPI trait... I think changing civics is more powerful than I thought.

[couerdelion]

Interesting comments but my point was really about how easy the trait benefits can be replicated or countered by tactics or game-play. For reference, I’m specifically talking about SP play around the Monarch-Immortal level.

I’m sure there is an element of personal preference too but I find that Financial and Organised provide a huge advantage which is difficult to replicate, the former benefit can sometimes start at time zero while Organised has to be used more “pro-actively”. An aggressive civ might be able to capture more cities that an organised civ but then has a much harder time to get costs under control.

I will certainly concede that the creative advantage is a big thing in the early game. Building culture diverts production from other useful things and the time to expand is so much longer that the creative civ has the full city tiles for many turns more. In some case, you might even prefer to settle a second-best site to get the early food, production, commerce boost. I do not deny that this “optimal” city location can be a big advantage. All I am saying is that I can acquire almost the same advantage with state religion and a missionary and this is something I can do quite early in the game. Even before this, if we also have lots of barbarians around then I may not even control adequately those tiles while, if I can afford a missionary, I can also afford units to defend my tiles.

As for expansive, the benefit here is really the ability to settle near floodplains (the ability to settle in jungle is much less of a benefit since those cities need a huge investment). But how many games are there where you find yourself near to a 8+floodplain city? Those are really circumstantial so I rather like to think of the +3 health as an expensive sort of insurance against that rare occasion.

And industrious – I really don’t see the circular argument. It might allow the early wonder to generate a GP who can then lightbulb a new tech. But the tech leverage that one GP can create is still somewhat behind that which a financial civ can get simply with a few cottages or coastal tiles over a longer term. While the industrious civ is waiting for their second GP, the other civ should be able to take the lead. As you say, this is different in the SP game where I tend to avoid any wonder race anyway. So industrious for me is one of those civs that sometimes saves me a little production – with the wonder bonus – or perhaps even tempts me to go for a wonder that I would not otherwise go for – say Great Lighthouse. Other than that, I don’t find it easy to get much out of the trait other than a half-price forge.

[Nugog]

Originally posted by DirtyMartini
Organized is OK. It's easy/automatic to use and fits well with a sprawling empire. Like expansive, I find the half price courthouses to be the aspect I value most.

Population is power. Exp/Org allows many, large cities.

This is why I really like Organised!

Julius' traits are IMO a powerful combination, coupled with Praetorians, they are hard to ignore!

[Martinus]

I love Philosophical, Industrious and Spiritual. I like running a specialist economy, so all leaders I play are either Philosophical or Industrious (for a better shot at Pyramids). For these reasons I rarely, if ever, play a Financial civilization.

[Martinus]

Originally posted by couerdelion
So industrious for me is one of those civs that sometimes saves me a little production – with the wonder bonus – or perhaps even tempts me to go for a wonder that I would not otherwise go for – say Great Lighthouse. Other than that, I don’t find it easy to get much out of the trait other than a half-price forge.

For me that's exactly the point of being Industrious - flexibility.

I play a lot of MP games, and in them (unlike SP game), there are some wonders that everybody goes for - Pyramids, Oracle, Great Library come to mind - since they feature prominently in a number of strategies and gambits (with losing the said wonder often meaning failure to implement the strategy - and unlike the AI, human players know how to guard their wonder cities well and will rarely agree to let you have such a city). Industrious gives me that extra edge, and sometimes even allows me to steal a non-essential wonder.

For the same reason I like Spiritual and Creative - both save you a handful of turns in those races to build a wonder or build a stronger army (Spiritual by saving you a turn or two of anarchy - which means you can change to slavery, whip a unit or two and change back to Caste System for example without using a turn of research/production; Creative by allowing you to settle cities in better spots, overall, and grabbing necessary resources faster).

[couerdelion]

Originally posted by nugog


This is why I really like Organised!

Julius' traits are IMO a powerful combination, coupled with Praetorians, they are hard to ignore!

In Warlords he's IMP/ORG which I think is a strong trait. +50% production on settlers and +100% GG emergence makes for early expansion and early war as the obvious strategy for any budding Caesars.

Coupled with the most effective UU in the game and an early-ish uniquie building (the forum) and Jules looks to be an even stronger civ in Warlords.

In response to the argument that the strategy of Oracle/Pyramids/Great Library can be disrupted if you lose the race I'll address these individually.

Oracle - This usually comes with a chopping but it is actually quite a cheap wonder anyway. But it is the easiest to lose the race on because the AI can get Priesthood early and then waste the free tech on something cheap and nasty. I'll basically leave the Oracle alone if I get to the Slingshot track too late

Pyramids - I might attempt this if I get a decent food city, and have stone. The industrious trait gets me this building in 80% of the time needed for non-industrious so gives a small advantage and not usually decisive. Once again, a chop with the resource bonus gets you there quickly also. More often than not, I'll get Pyramids with an Oracle sling to Metal Casting and then use the forge to generate a Great Engineer to rush the building. But this strategy works much better with PHI

Great Library – The AI goes for Alphabet quite late in the game so even a slow tech rate will get you to Literature in plenty of time to get the Great Library done in ample time.

[Martinus]

The Metal Casting Pyramids sling does not work too well if you are not Philosophical, and even then is unlikely to work in MP, if you have at least one other player dedicated to completing Pyramids as part of his strategy as soon as possible (or if they actually realise what you are doing and simply run you over with some cheap units - since the MC slingshot makes you really vulnerable, by taking up production of two cities). Anyway, the MC/Forge gambit is much inferior to the Great Wall gambit, as far as great engineer generation is concerned to build the Pyramids.

[Martinus]

Originally posted by couerdelion
The AI goes for Alphabet quite late in the game so even a slow tech rate will get you to Literature in plenty of time to get the Great Library done in ample time.

My comments were specifically addressing MP games, so I don't really see how what the AI does is relevant.

You have to realise that in MP you can be pretty certain that at least 1-2 other players are attempting the same strategy as you at any given time, be it a CS Slingshot or a MC/Forge gambit. This means that if you just go by the book, you are as likely as not to succeed - and if you lose, the other players will exploit this mercilessly. Sure if you are just Industrious and the enemy has Stone, he will complete Pyramids faster than you - but if both of you have Stone or neither of you have it, you get the extra edge. Same with Creative - anything that gives you an early game advantage is much more valuable than a general bonus from traits like Organized.

I will give you that both Industrious and Creative are much less important against AIs, since AI is predictable, stupid and will rarely exploit your weakness the way a human player will (e.g. by trying to steal your wonder races or choking you off with an early expansion coupled with Creative).