The Spiritual trait

[Dominae]

Originally posted by Blake
Okay. You're merrily teching along, then get declared on by your neighbor who you thought you could trust. Your army is inadequate and your "friend" is the only one sharing your religion. You do the rounds looking for someone to bribe onto your "friend" but they all point and laugh because you're the wrong religion.

Unless by sheer co-incidence you happen to be in the middle of a GA, spiritual will help save your bacon. Switch into slavery, switch religions to make bribes available, and so on.

The GA thing is great for planned civic switches, but it falls far short of the strength of Spiritual : Which is flexibility and being able to respond to surprises.

That's certainly a good use for Spiritual. However being able to respond to surprises is a reactive ability, and in my opinion proactive abilities are much stronger.

Also, being unprepared for a DOW by a neighbor is simply a mistake when playing Blake's new Aggressive AI.

[couerdelion]

Originally posted by Dominae


That's certainly a good use for Spiritual. However being able to respond to surprises is a reactive ability, and in my opinion proactive abilities are much stronger.

Also, being unprepared for a DOW by a neighbor is simply a mistake when playing Blake's new Aggressive AI.

Whilst I tend to agree with your general view regarding active/reactive benefits of traits, there is no doubt that this benefit still holds value. It's a kind of insurance value which reduces the need for a garrisons because they can always be whipped -> Lower costs and more hammers invested in longer term improvements.

But SPI is more general that this reactive approach. While building units, I can run Theocracy then move into Organised Religion for buildings. If I want a few quick GPs, I can spend a short time with Pacifism and then move back out once I have what I need.

Need to rapidly build in a new/captured city – switch to Slavery/USuff
Emergency units – Nationhood/Police State

Whilst some civics might be one-way routes (ie you switch into State Property but you don’t switch out) others are much more likely to be two-way; there will be times when you might want to switch back to an older civic. A non-Spiritual civ is more likely to view the world as a one-way journey “through” the civics.

[Arrian]

Originally posted by Blake
Okay. You're merrily teching along, then get declared on by your neighbor who you thought you could trust. Your army is inadequate and your "friend" is the only one sharing your religion. You do the rounds looking for someone to bribe onto your "friend" but they all point and laugh because you're the wrong religion.

Unless by sheer co-incidence you happen to be in the middle of a GA, spiritual will help save your bacon. Switch into slavery, switch religions to make bribes available, and so on.

The GA thing is great for planned civic switches, but it falls far short of the strength of Spiritual : Which is flexibility and being able to respond to surprises.

Yes, insta-slavery (or nationalism for drafting, if it's later in the game) is certainly an advantage of SPI civs. SPI civs remain more flexible than others, and that has value.

I'm coming around to the idea that the trait is weaker, but still decent.

I'm with Dom, though (and this is the reason I still feel that AGG > PRO), that I'd rather have a proactive ability than a reactive one.

As for the assertion that FIN is a middling trait, couerdelion... I disagree. What I will grant you is that FIN *might* be overvalued by some because it's relatively easy to use, as opposed to some of the other traits that require some effort to maximize (such as SPI or PHI).

I *still* don't see CRE as this uberpowerful thing. I guess it's just me.

-Arrian

[OliverFA]

Re: Re: The Spiritual trait

Originally posted by VoiceOfUnreason

Spiritual isn't going to do you very much good if you just park in the "best" civics. Three changes before the modern era just doesn't cut it. (In another place, I've compared this to an aggressive leader who builds no melee units.)

That said, I agree Spi did get nerfed in BTS. Although the SP bookends really nicely with the Pyramids for a spiritual civ.

Exactly! the strength behind the spiritual trait is to be able to run the best civic at every specific moment. This is way more powerful than what you can get with "no anarchy during golden age" that at most allows you to make a more or less planned evolution across the civics.

[wodan11]

Originally posted by Dominae
Your second switch... is easily paid for by your first GA, which only requires one GP to trigger.

I'm sorry, but I still don't buy this kind of argument.

Let's look at it from the other side of the coin. The cost of the civic change is not that it "only requires one GP". It is, for example, an Academy. Would you rather spend 1 turn at Anarchy, or not get a free Academy for the rest of the game? Tough call. Either way, you're giving up quite a bit. The alternative, of course, is to have the civic change for free.

Not only that, but your 3rd, 4th, etc, changes are also free. Change as much as you like. Go into Slavery for a couple of turns, whip, and then go back into Serfdom or whatever. Switch to Nationalism instantly upon your enemy invading, DRAFT, DRAFT, DRAFT... that's huge.

Wodan

[jbp26]

Originally posted by Arrian
As for the assertion that FIN is a middling trait, couerdelion... I disagree. What I will grant you is that FIN *might* be overvalued by some because it's relatively easy to use, as opposed to some of the other traits that require some effort to maximize (such as SPI or PHI).

I *still* don't see CRE as this uberpowerful thing. I guess it's just me.

-Arrian

creative is great. you dont have to worry about expanding borders and thus can take the optimal city sites. also, you dont have to worry about another civ stealing tiles from you- in the early game, the creative civ will always win. it makes land grabbing, and all associated tactics, much easier, which is critical in the early game.

i dont see anyway to argue financial as a middling trait. its always good.

[Arrian]

Well I Dom's argument makes the assumption that you will trigger a GA with a great person. The primary purpose of a GA, of course, isn't free civic changes. That's a secondary benifit, and it HAS weakened SPI, relative to other traits. The question is how much.

-Arrian

[wodan11]

Originally posted by Arrian
Well I Dom's argument makes the assumption that you will trigger a GA with a great person. The primary purpose of a GA, of course, isn't free civic changes. That's a secondary benifit, and it HAS weakened SPI, relative to other traits. The question is how much.

-Arrian

So Spiritual no longer has a monopoly. It's not a zero-sum game.

Wodan

Edit: I know... you said "relative to other traits". I do agree with that. What could fix this is if Spiritual could change immediately and without turn delay to switch again, when during a GA. e.g., Spiritual during GA, can go from Emancipation to Slavery and back again, all in the same turn. That might be too strong, though.

[Kuciwalker]

wodan: actually, yes it is a zero-sum game.

[wodan11]

Originally posted by Kuciwalker
wodan: actually, yes it is a zero-sum game.

How so? Giving something to non-Spiritual Civs did not at the same time take anything away from Spiritual civs.

It gave the non-Spirituals a limited form of the Spiritual ability. Spiritual itself functions the same as it ever did.

Wodan

[Nor Me]

Originally posted by Arrian
The primary purpose of a GA, of course, isn't free civic changes.

I'd take 3 turns less anarchy over 8 turns of GA most days. Even though I voted no.

So it can be sometimes.

[Dominae]

Originally posted by wodan11
Let's look at it from the other side of the coin. The cost of the civic change is not that it "only requires one GP". It is, for example, an Academy. Would you rather spend 1 turn at Anarchy, or not get a free Academy for the rest of the game? Tough call. Either way, you're giving up quite a bit.

As Arrian already pointed out, you're not just spending 1 GP to offset 1 turn of Anarchy, you also get 8 turns of GA. In general GAs are a more viable option now.

Not only that, but your 3rd, 4th, etc, changes are also free. Change as much as you like. Go into Slavery for a couple of turns, whip, and then go back into Serfdom or whatever. Switch to Nationalism instantly upon your enemy invading, DRAFT, DRAFT, DRAFT... that's huge.

Notice that I explicity stated that Spiritual retains this ability. That does not change the fact that Spi is weaker now because other civs can avoid Anarchy through judicious use of their GAs. Perhaps I overstated the point.

Change as much as you like.

In my experience, and despite my best efforts, "changing as much as I like" never turns out to be as necessary as I would like.

Slavery - Serfdom: this is a nice option I must admit. However I tend to build a lot of Workers and by the time I reach Feudalism the Serfdom bonus is not exactly stellar.

Slavery - Caste System: either your empire is set up to run Caste System continuously, or you're switching to Caste System to rush a GP. In the first case you're not going to be switching in and out all that often because a SE wants doesn't want to whip its population after certain basic infrastructure is in place. As for the second case I've rarely been in such a desperate need for a GP that I couldn't plan ahead for it. The only exception that comes to mind is in MP where rushing Great Artists is critical - then I fully admit that Spi is fantastic.

Organized Religion - Theology: your unit and building buildup phases should be long enough that you don't need Spi to switch in out and of on a regular basis.

Organized Religion - Pacifism: see my comments regarding Caste System.

Vassalage - Bureaucracy: there's certainly some benefit in switching in and out of Vassalage for the XP bonus. But ask yourself how many phases of military buildup do you have in a typical game? Around 5 is my best estimat

Monarchy - Representation (if you have Pyramids): I see no good reason to switch in and out of these Civics more than once...maybe in extreme circumstances but definitely not as part of a proactive strategy.

All the rest: most of the late-game Civics are either powerful enough that you don't want to switch out of them, especially if your empire is set up to use their particular benefits. An exception here is Nationalism: the option to draft at a moment's notice is on Spi main selling points. Another convenient option is going in and out of Police State and Universal Suffrage to instantly put Gold from conquests to good use. I consider this a "win more" ability though.

I won't deny that Spi grants a nice toolbox of options. But many of them are reactive in nature, and the rest of them you simply don't use on a consistent basis in a typical game.

All that said, this sounds like a great topic for an upcoming AU course!

[Dominae]

Originally posted by Arrian
I *still* don't see CRE as this uberpowerful thing. I guess it's just me.

I've warmed to Creative considerably now with the cost reduction on Libraries. Maybe I like Libraries a bit too much...

[VoiceOfUnreason]

Originally posted by Dominae

In my experience, and despite my best efforts, "changing as much as I like" never turns out to be as necessary as I would like.

Be greedier.

I will immediately concede that in a normal game, the non reactive tools aren't a big deal. SPI means that you don't have to play a normal game.


Consider Slavery. It's a medium upkeep civic that does nothing for you during the turns when you aren't pop rushing. So you arrange your production schedule such that you have whipping phases. Now, instead of whipping somewhere on every turn, you whip everywhere at once, and can then switch out.

Also note that you don't have to produce the thing you whipped on the turn you whipped it. So you can do things like switch to slavery, whip your cities to the ground, let them grow two pop, whip again, let them grow two pop, whip again, swap out and let the cities recover.

Wait a moment... the hammer bonus for Police State (High Upkeep) and Organized Religion (High Upkeep) are applied to whipping hammers. So you can swap into those civics at the same time, get 15 free hammers per two-pop, normal-speed whip, then drop back out again.

Unlike production bonuses, which are applied when you generate the hammers, XP bonuses are applied when the units are finished. So after you whip the units, you take them off of the build queue. Your next civic swap takes you to Vassalocracy (possibly with Hereditary Rule as well, so that you can lift some of the whip wearies) as the units start rolling off the line.

Your cities are going to be recovering population (ie, working food tiles), so now is also a good time to dump into Serfdom to pick up some free worker turns. (Side benefit - since you are planning more time in Serfdom, you don't need quite so many workers any more).

Of course, with all the whipping you did, it's not going to take the cities long to get back to their happy caps. So we gear into a specialist economy for a while - Caste System to stunt growth, Pacifism for the bonus GP points, Representation for the bonus beakers (maybe /maybe not - depends on how much happy you need from units, and whether you can take advantage of the culture slider).

the strength behind the spiritual trait is to be able to run the best civic at every specific moment.

This is only part of it. To really leverage the advantage of Spiritual, you also start managing your empire to maximize the benefit you get from your civics (rather than the other way around, as in a normal game).

[Blaupanzer]

Never use slavery, especially now with the revolt event. It is handy for newly conquered, overpopulated cities, but I usually let them starve if need be.

I think IMP is the weakest trait, although PRO is not a favorite. Like CRE and FIN the most, although CHA and AGG can be useful. ORG is a hidden power, I tend to notice it much more when the empire gets big, than in the early game. Have enjoyed playing Darrius recently (ORG/FIN).

Haven't learned how to use the PHI trait properly, and don't always take full advantage of IND. Just a question of playing styles I suppose.