Augustus Caesar is incredible!

[One_more_turn]

Game Settings:
Roman
Emperor Level
Standard Pangea Map
Epic Speed

This is what you can achieve with Augustus Caesar:

[One_more_turn]

Game Score is incredible.

[One_more_turn]

Here is the final save:

[Snotty]

wow good job! did you win by domination? Was cultural useful to you?

the inlet and lake on the left make your empire look like a face with its back turned to the rest of the world

[Arrian]

I'd rather have Julius.

-Arrian

[couerdelion]

Originally posted by Arrian
I'd rather have Julius.

-Arrian

I'd rather felt that Julius was stronger but I am yet to fully take a view on the Imperialist trait.

But I think we can all agree that the Romans are a power-civ!!

[One_more_turn]

The problem with Julius is that you have to spend lots of effort to build cultures in conquered cities.

With Augustus Caesar, you only need to build Courthouse and Barracks in newly conquered cities. I would say you save at least 10 turns on average per city with Creative.

On Pangea maps at least, you want to take cities rather than build your own. So Imperialistic trait loses half its power.

[Senethro]

When you get to Emperor level Creative gives a nice boost to how quickly you can get the Praets running and also to getting your cities down. At the rate high level CPUs spam out cities you're in danger of getting crowded.

[One_more_turn]

Yes, it's impossible to compete against AIs in a normal land rush at Emperor level. The ICS is hard coded into AI's behavior. But when AIs are pre-occupied with ICS, they are vulnerable to attacks. So the key is to build only 2 cities (with the second one placed next to an Iron mine), crank out a bunch of Praetorians by 1000BC, and start hammering the number 1 AI civ next to you. In my case, it was Vicky, who already had six cities and lots of infrastructures. I started the rush with 4 Praets, and it took me only 15 turns to reduce her to one size-2 city.

[Arrian]

Fair enough. As with most things in Civ, difficulty level, map settings and other variables are important.

-Arrian

[khumak]

Originally posted by One_more_turn
The problem with Julius is that you have to spend lots of effort to build cultures in conquered cities.

With Augustus Caesar, you only need to build Courthouse and Barracks in newly conquered cities. I would say you save at least 10 turns on average per city with Creative.

Another way around the Creative trait is to use the civ that has terraces instead of granaries (Inca? can't remember). Granaries are one of the first things you build anyway so you may as well get 2 culture/turn out of them... Plus it pretty much doubles the effectiveness of the whip since your population grows back twice as fast.

[Will9]

I won a large continents map by 1898 with Augustus awsome.

[couerdelion]

Originally posted by One_more_turn
The problem with Julius is that you have to spend lots of effort to build cultures in conquered cities.

With Augustus Caesar, you only need to build Courthouse and Barracks in newly conquered cities. I would say you save at least 10 turns on average per city with Creative.

On Pangea maps at least, you want to take cities rather than build your own. So Imperialistic trait loses half its power.

There is no compelling reason why you have to build culture quickly in newly conquered cities if you already have a religion. The +1/turn only slows expansion by 5 turns (7 on Epic) which is not likely to be a huge loss. In fact, newly captured cities will be able to whip some buildings so the turn-loss will not be so huge.

There is the other consideration that cities founded in the early game without the creative trait are likely to be sited differently from those with the trait – where the site would be optimal. Without creative you are going to settle next to the key resources so that you still get to use them immediately. In fact, the immediate use of the resource and the shorter connection route to the city will possible give the non-creative trait a hidden advantage over the creative trait that will take a longer term view.

I’m coming to the view that IMP is broadly equivalent to Early Warlord unit + mid-game PHI trait (treating the second GG as a free one for the trait and settling it to equate to a free Theocracy civic benefit -> run Pacifism for PHI benefit. The early warlord unit accelerates Heroic Epic so military output gets an earlier boost which is broadly equivalent to hammer savings

[One_more_turn]

What you are talking about is a middle age scenario. It's certainly correct for time periods after 0AD, but for earlier conquests, there is neither enough population to whip nor there is wide spread religion.

Speaking of religion, it takes again time and effort build missionaries and spread them, and it's more expensive to build missionaries than Obelisks.

What Creative does is saving you all the efforts and time that MUST be spent on accumulating cultures. Think about how much you can accomplish in 10 turns per cities. (hint: Catapults cost 50 hammers to build)

[couerdelion]

Originally posted by One_more_turn
What you are talking about is a middle age scenario. It's certainly correct for time periods after 0AD, but for earlier conquests, there is neither enough population to whip nor there is wide spread religion.

Speaking of religion, it takes again time and effort build missionaries and spread them, and it's more expensive to build missionaries than Obelisks.

What Creative does is saving you all the efforts and time that MUST be spent on accumulating cultures. Think about how much you can accomplish in 10 turns per cities. (hint: Catapults cost 50 hammers to build)

What you are doing is starting from a premise that you have a city that NEEDS to bump the borders and then express the Creative trait as a large hammer saving for that city (which will be converted to other uses).

To defend all the other traits, I would simply counter with the argument that you will, in those early game situations, settle cities in different places so that the border boost is not as critical. Of course, it’s better to have that extra land but if you can do without it for a little while then the emphasis is drawn away from the lost 30 hammers on a monument.

When it comes to religion, there are so many benefits from having a religion that the +1 culture can often be a subsidiary benefit. But the ability to build them does allow you to settle optimally since you know that the fat cross will be there in 10 turns. And while they may be more expensive the monuments, it will be a different city that builds the missionary, so you can allocate this sort of effort on a civ-wide scale rather than have your city-build being restricted – of course when it comes to comparing the value of a missionary to a catapult, I would not know where to begin. My gut feel is that the missionary gives you the better value for hammers but I wouldn’t bet my house on this.

Religion also has a nice habit of spreading without any cost and if you are either Jules or Gus you will often be able to borrow a religion from one of your neighbours

Either way, all the comments are, to some extent circumstantial.

I would also spring to the defence of the much-maligned +50% bonus for settlers. In a similar way that the Expansive traits value is in cheap granaries, I have considered that one of the important bonuses for IMP is the ability to throw out an “initial-build” settler in record time. It is not unusually to have a plains hill nearby to settle so let’s assume you can move to one within a single move of the settler. From scratch, the city can work a 1/2/0 tile and get a total of 1 surplus food and 4 hammers towards a settler. That’s 7 hammers or a settler in 15 turns compared to 20 turns for other civs. Normally, the time taken to build a settler from scratch in other civs can make this a risky strategy and so the second city often has to wait until more information and infrastructure is in place.

[Note: the most obscene example of an early settler build is settling on a 3h tile (ie stone) and being able to work another 3h tile. At epic speed, you’ll have your settler built by 3460 BC!!! – assuming a one-turn move to the city site which is faster than any AI at Immortal level]

Btw, don’t get me wrong, there Creative bonus can be used very effectively and I often feel a bit “naked” when I don’t have the trait. But it is more of a lazy trait for me since you don’t actually DO anything with it – except perhaps a choke.if the situation suits this. Other traits have to be used and I like to think that, when they are, they can give much higher dividends.