Augustus Caesar is incredible!

[Dominae]

Originally posted by couerdelion
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.

QFT.

Creative allows for greater flexibility in city placement, but I doubt this translates into an advantage that's worth an entire trait. If you want to grab 2-3 resources with one city, just found the city next to one of the bonus Food ones, then poprush a Culture enhancer at the first (or second, after the Granary) opportunity. Such cases are few and far between, and most of the time normal border expansion (from buildings, Religion) coupled with smart city placement is sufficient to do what you need to do with your land.

[Velociryx]

I got to go with the minority on this one, as in my experience, often the only way to get maximal resources inside one city's fat cross is not to found adjacent to any of them...sure, you can do it the other way (and in fact, if you're playing non-creative, you either must, or you must suffer tens and scores of turns of marginal productivity, until you can finally get something going, and even still...even if the site selected is not remarkably inferior to creative's more optimal placement, you're still talking an average of eleven turns to grow from 1-2, pop a granary. Eleven more turns to grow again. Pop a monument. Ten more turns to get the border bump....that's a whole lot of lost time, vs. the alternative.

I agree that IMP's big draw is that it can speed that second settler out quickly, but often, you don't want to....unless you start with mining or wheel, you can't research to husbandary or bronze before the settler completes, so IF you settle, you'll be doing it "blind" at least with regards to some of the early game key strategic resources--granted, there will be times when it won't matter...if you spy a gold mine over yonder, for example, or a place that's loaded to the gills with food that you'd want anyways, but in terms of snagging a vital "smack-down" resource (horses, bronze....often highly desired from that second city), you won't have the tech yet, in most cases.

If you do settle, then you've still got to spend the aforementioned 25-30 turns with a nine tile radius, working your one food resource to get pops as fast as possible so you can do something useful with the city (aside from working the one food tile you settled next to).

As always, however, in Civ, there are multiple ways to skin that cat, and there is much merit in what Dom and Lionheart say. I simply agree to disagree...

-=Vel=-

[fed1943]

Creative is the trait I feel more confortable with.

Easier city placement, city radius without need of buildings, territorial

coherence, good enough to me.

Best regards,

[rah]

I miss it when I don't have it, but then I miss other traits when I don't have them either.

And I agree that IMP getting that settler out a few turns early isn't enough to want it just for the above reason.

[MasterDave]

Originally posted by rah
I miss it when I don't have it, but then I miss other traits when I don't have them either.

And I agree that IMP getting that settler out a few turns early isn't enough to want it just for the above reason.

I, myself am a financial junkie. I miss that third commerce big time when playing the Romans or someone without fin.

In general I would prefer imperialistic over creative, but on an Emperor-level pangea you are gonna get squeezed, and are not likely to have the land available to build many of your own cities regardless of settlers costing 25% less.

On the other hand, creative works just as well on conquered cities as it does on settled ones. Also, with a super unit like the Praetorian, I would rather be building bonly arracks, praets, and catapults while in a rampant conquest mode than cultural buildings and missionaries.

[Will9]

Originally posted by rah
I miss it when I don't have it, but then I miss other traits when I don't have them either.

And I agree that IMP getting that settler out a few turns early isn't enough to want it just for the above reason.

I think your supposed to feel like that. It makes you want to play more.