The Spiritual trait

[couerdelion]

Originally posted by jbp26

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

Only because I don't put it in the same "top" category as SPI, CRE and CHA. Remember also that it has one singular bonus and can slowed down badly by terrain - no rivers or coast.

It's probably up there at the top of the "middle-tier" traits for me. Goes alongside ORG and ahead of PHI, AGG and IND.

[Blake]

CRE and CHA I tend to say are the best traits individually.

Spiritual certainly enhances a strong trait greatly, but it doesn't do that much for a weak trait. For example, Cre/Spi is a powerhouse, Cre/Pro is okay, but what's Pro/Spi? Nothing special.

PHI is an excellent trait, AGG is also beyond good, while it's not quite as good as Cha it is certainly highly leveragable, particularly in the "shock axemen" era. Org is okay, likely improved by courthouses now providing esp and slavery increasing in cost. Ind is actually quite good, a forge is a fair whack of hammers (while still being an early build), wonder refunds are always nice and national wonders are always uesful - and there are more of them now.

The bottom traits are Pro and Imp. The problem with Pro, is there isn't much it can do that Agg, Cha, Cre can't. How does Pro deal with Agg's shock axemen? It can't How does Pro deal with Cha's enhanced marauding Cavalry? It doesn't. How does Pro compete with Cre in cultural struggles? Both are equally inept at military offenses, but Cre doesn't need to offense - it wins by default.

The problem with Pro is it lacks tools to put you in a winning position, it only helps you to defend a losing position .

Even Imp is better, because Imp gets high leveled units nice and quickly - units which are relatively difficult to beat in the field. But I tend to say that Cha does a BETTER job of that.

[couerdelion]

Blake,

I’m not quite sure I understand how you work out that SPI complements some traits but not others. Since the SPI benefits are due to civic changes, I would have thought it would be much the same for any other trait.

Sure, I can see that SPI/CRE is better than SPI/PRO and probably even CRE/PRO being better than SPI/PRO. But I don’t quite understand the complementary nature of that you allude to in these particular traits – unlike AGG/CHA and IND/PHI which truly ARE complementary.

[frenzyfol]

Originally posted by couerdelion
Madness. You’ve all been infected with a madness. But I have here a cure.

Spiritual is very powerful and was due for a downgrade. It’s power is NOT in the saving of a few turns of anarchy but in the ability to change civics for FREE.
Financial is not as strong as most people think – a middling strength trait and certainly behind CHA, SPI and CRE.
Protective is not a strong trait – probably the weakest of the lot.

Some of these traits depend on the level you play.
I use to find charismatic utterly useless on my prince and lower level games. Now that Ive moved to monarch eek emperor I'm finding that +2 happy makes all the difference.

[Blake]

Blake,

I’m not quite sure I understand how you work out that SPI complements some traits but not others. Since the SPI benefits are due to civic changes, I would have thought it would be much the same for any other trait.

Sure, I can see that SPI/CRE is better than SPI/PRO and probably even CRE/PRO being better than SPI/PRO. But I don’t quite understand the complementary nature of that you allude to in these particular traits – unlike AGG/CHA and IND/PHI which truly ARE complementary.

I find that Spi can't really pull up a bad trait. While Cha/Cre certainly CAN pull up a bad trait.

The problem with "Synergy" combos like Cha/Agg or Fin/Org is "Too much of a good thing". It doesn't matter how much ass you kick if you get badly outteched, it doesn't matter how much money you can make if your aggressive neighbor decides you need to die. Ultimately, "The Middle Way" is strongest, leaders which are both strong and flexible.

A lot of it comes down to that Spi has a WEAK early game, so you need to combine it with a trait which has at least a moderately strong early game (a strong early game which is not at the expense of expansion). Additionally Spi is a poor economic trait, on sum it's really more of a MILITARY trait since the economic civics tend to be the default, while Spi enables you to drop into the military civics on a whim. This means it combines poorly with other traits with weak early games, and with military traits (double-military being basically "too much of a good thing").

I consider there are a lot of bad Spi combos, or at least inferior to others:
Spi/Aggressive - too poor economy (agg/org, or agg/phi).
Spi/Protective - as above, plus too poor offensive (cre/pro or cha/pro - nothing else can pull up pro)
Spi/Organized - why not just run high cost civics suitable for large empires and conquest all the time? (agg/org or exp/org)
Spi/Industrious - How exactly are you going to balance early wonder building with early expansion? (cre/ind or exp/ind)
Spi/Philosophical - Failing to kick ass in both expansion speed and military (agg/phi or exp/phi)

It's easy to find better pairings than Spi for all of those.

The good combos are thus:
Cha/Spi - for the UBERNESS which is combining +exp civics with charismatic, combined with general Cha dominance.
Cre/Spi - once you are in a strong position, spi rocks.

Imp/Spi - Imperialistic does have a pretty decent early game and military civics + other exp sources = lots of fun - noting this is inferior to Cha/Spi and Cha/Imp.
Exp/Spi - Expansionist is a good early trait.
Fin/Spi - Noting that Fin isn't that great - I still think that Spi is one of the best pairings for it.
(Of course Cha or Cre would be even better than Spi in most the above combos)


Ultimately, Cha and Cre are the uber traits. The reason I pick Spi as the best pairing for both of them - is that any other trait enters "Too much of a good thing" territory, spiritual as "The Middle Way" trait is an ideal complement - it lets you fully embrace your main trait without having to hold back (ie as Boudy, you have to avoid being TOO aggressive, while as Brennus you can use Charismatic to it's full, either aggression or building).

[couerdelion]

That makes sense given the importance of the early game. Spi's one big weakness is that all it gives you in the early game is a turn saved from the slavery switch.

Having said that, Spi does, more often than not come in tandem with Mysticism as a starting tech and, coupled with temples this almost provides a pseudo CHA happiness bonus (albeit one that needs a few more hammers invested)

[darrelljs]

Originally posted by Blake
Spi/Aggressive - too poor economy (agg/org, or agg/phi).

If you go one step further and take into account the Leader's UB/UU, then this combination becomes a lot better. Really Sacrificial Alter is a terrific UU for a specialist economy, and Spiritual is a must trait to take full advantage of it. Put it this way, if you could make Montezuma Organized or Philosophical instead of Spiritual, would you?

Originally posted by Blake
Spi/Philosophical - Failing to kick ass in both expansion speed and military (agg/phi or exp/phi)

Mmm...but again the traits work great together if you run an SE. Maybe not as good as Hatty, but I'd say better than Pericles. It still remains my favorite combo to play although I liked it better on Saladin than Gandhi.

Darrell

[darrelljs]

[SIZE=1]Spi's one big weakness is that all it gives you in the early game is a turn saved from the slavery switch.

Define early game. If you mean Ancient Era, then I guess I could see this. Even then it gives you half cost Temples which means more early happiness (especially if you get a Spiritual leader that starts with Mysticism). I would say most of my games Code of Laws is in the early part, and now you can swap between Caste System and Slavery to find the optimum sink for extra food. Spiritual of course becomes more valuable as you gain access to more civics, but the single best use is the Caste System/Slavery switching.

Darrell

[couerdelion]

Early game for me is when barbs are still a hazard.

And temples only give you happiness with a religion. In this timeframe that really only leaves three of them and this can be tricky for either Mali or Egypt.

[couerdelion]

Originally posted by couerdelion
That makes sense given the importance of the early game. Spi's one big weakness is that all it gives you in the early game is a turn saved from the slavery switch.

Having said that, Spi does, more often than not come in tandem with Mysticism as a starting tech and, coupled with temples this almost provides a pseudo CHA happiness bonus (albeit one that needs a few more hammers invested)

To add to this, the religious link for SPI civs mean that they can get a pseudo-CHA bonus as well as a pseudo-CRE bonus.

Religion plus temple = +2 happy (like CHA + Monument) and +2 culture (like CRE).

On the economy side, the obvious benefits are the gold generated by Prophets or Shrines. Probably more likely to associate this sort of benefit with an ORG civ than a FIN civ since the effect is a reduction in net costs.

Granted, you do have to work a little harder for all this and the downside is that there is unlikely to be a food-tech to start with so the worker start is often not an ideal option.

As for the question of combining wonder-building with expansion, I believe this is a problem for most civs and hardly something that SPI ones have any claim to exclusivity.

[LzPrst]

wow, lot of smart stuff here.

I'll just quote darwin.

“It is not the strongest of the species that survives, nor the most intelligent that survives. It is the one that is the most adaptable to change.”

[jbp26]

Originally posted by couerdelion


Only because I don't put it in the same "top" category as SPI, CRE and CHA. Remember also that it has one singular bonus and can slowed down badly by terrain - no rivers or coast.

It's probably up there at the top of the "middle-tier" traits for me. Goes alongside ORG and ahead of PHI, AGG and IND.

hm. i guess you have a point there. i rated it higher because on most of the standard maps i never have a problem founding multiple cities that can put up some great commerce.

the tectonics map is great for shaking this up- i find i often get large areas that are widely unbalanced- like all hills and 3 seafood specials, or all grassland rivers with virtually no production. makes for a very interesting challenge.

[Dominae]

Originally posted by VoiceOfUnreason
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.

Yes, but consider what you're switching to. If it's Serfdom you get faster Workers for a few turns, post-Feudalism. In some games that's going to be a great boon, in others you've (wisely) built enough Workers that it will make not a shred of difference. As for Caste System: as per your strategy, you're routinely whipping your cities into the ground, so why do you need Caste System? If your cities are small and unhappy you don't need more than the standard 2 Scientists and 1 Engineer per city, and if the whip unhappiness is fading you want the cities to grow, not support 5 Scientists.

Again, I'm not saying there aren't advantages to be had with your approach, but when you look at it closely you're really not gaining as much as it seems. It feels like you're abusing the trait because you're switching Civics and whipping so much, but you're definitely not blowing non-Spiritual civs out of the water.

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.

Unless you have Pyramids you have to wait a long time for Police State, at which point you're not whipping anymore. As for the Religion Civics, in a "normal" game you'll spend most of your time in Organized Religion, so whipping grants you the bonus you mention anyway. It's the ability to drop into and out of Theocracy that's more relevant, and that I concede is one of Spirituals better tricks.

[Dominae]

Originally posted by LzPrst
“It is not the strongest of the species that survives, nor the most intelligent that survives. It is the one that is the most adaptable to change.”

In Civ4 if you've got a big military and high research, you're more likely to win than if you're adaptable. If you excel in either domain you should be able to translate that into significant returns (with execeptions: don't mass Axemen when alone on your continent).

This is the reason, I suppose, why I like some of the other traits more than Spiritual. Financial and Aggressive let you be the "big dog". As Blake said recently, Spiritual supports (some) other traits brilliantly, but it's not going to put you over the top on its own.

[wodan11]

Originally posted by Dominae
Yes, but consider what you're switching to. If it's Serfdom you get faster Workers for a few turns, post-Feudalism. In some games that's going to be a great boon, in others you've (wisely) built enough Workers that it will make not a shred of difference.

Building a lot of workers early has its own cost. The assertion that you have only 2 choices (3rd choice = you are unwise) does not make sense.

For example, post-Feudalism, your "core" cities are running out of things to whip (unless you're whipping units) because the buildings you're getting to are expensive and as a general rule you can simply produce them more efficently by working tiles. However, you are also getting Currency, Markets, and Courthouses, and you are expanding by building and conquering more cities. These cities still get a huge benefit by whipping the early/cheap buildings.

Furthermore, the assertion also assumes that your need for workers pre-Feudalism is going to be equal to your need for workers post-Feudalism. That is not necessarily true. For example, perhaps you anticipate a war of conquest about that time. Or, perhaps you intend to do a SE->CE switch.

As for Caste System: as per your strategy, you're routinely whipping your cities into the ground, so why do you need Caste System?

As above, perhaps you are not whipping in your core cities (and Caste System allows you to, for example, run a half dozen scientists each), but all your other cities are whipping.

Again, I'm not saying there aren't advantages to be had with your approach, but when you look at it closely you're really not gaining as much as it seems.

I see what you're saying, but don't agree it's as far in the other direction as you are implying.

It really depends on the game situation. Some games, yes, it might seem like a good idea but it's not really. Some games it might seem like a good idea and it truly is.

It feels like you're abusing the trait because you're switching Civics and whipping so much, but you're definitely not blowing non-Spiritual civs out of the water.

In the past 4 months or so I've been experimenting and have convinced myself that Slavery isn't as huge of a benefit as many people would say it is. In many cases, it is more beneficial to let the city grow, to mature your cottages, and to have more commerce income and/or to work more tiles. In general I agree that Slavery, no matter how you use it, will not "blow other Civs out of the water".

What I do believe, however, is that these Slavery / Spiritual strategies, in some games and using some overall game approaches by the player, can be superior to other strategies. Will they blow them out of the water? No, but they can certainly result in more production, commerce, etc.

Wodan