The Spiritual trait

[joncnunn]

There's no question it's weaker in BTS with the GAs now having the no anarchy but it's still decent.

Now if it's too weak realtive to others perhaps a spiritual civ should be able to get one more priest per city early on than non spiritual civs. Perhas by having a monstary matching their state religion allowed a priest.

[Yosho]

Spiritual is still strong. For example, running spi, whenever more then half of my cities are making buildings, I run org religion; whenever more then half are making units, I run theocracy. That alone probably gives you about a +5%/ +10% hammer advantage over civs that can't do that. The ability to switch back and fourth between slavery and serfdom, the ability to run free trade when you have good diplomatic realtions and mercintilism when you don't, to go in and out of police state at whim, are all incerdibly useful. Even just the ability to get an early religion, switch to it right away, then turn it off if it's going to piss off someone you don't want to piss off is nice.

[frenzyfol]

I use to think spiritual was weak, until my latest game. Playing as Hatty on Monarch, Aggressive AI, large map - Big and small with islands mixed in. Started on a continent surrounded by Genghis, Pacall, Tokugawa and Hannibal. Everyone hates me and takes turns in attacking me.

Without spiritual I'd be dead. Each time I see a stack move up I switch to police (I chopped out the pyramids) + theocracy and vassalage and turn every single city into a military pump. Once the war is over I switch back to the builder civics. I've had to repeat the above process about 5 times.

I've also used spiritual in combination with the Apostolic Palace, Sankore and Spiral (the AI's just don't like wonders when set to aggressive. Those wonders + cheap temples has given me extra production, gold and research state wide and has made everyone who hates me feel the pain of "the world thinks I'm a villain" unhappiness.

I think players who play at levels below their actual skill level find spiritual useless because you never have to use it's full power. When nobody is really threatening you civic changes tend to be linear and infrequent.

Spiritual may of been slightly weakened by the GA change but I think that may of been offset by its synergy with building the AP.

[Nyghtfyr]

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.

Exactly. This is by far the best advantage it offers. I once had India with the Pyramids (I had stone in my capital radius) and was developing mostly peacefully when my trusted neighbor sent a stack of death at me. Answer? Police State, Vassalage, Theocracy, Slavery. Crank out those zealots and repulse the attack. No waiting, no anarchy. And, obviously, it's easier to found a state religion, which is a good thing.

Now, you can say that I should have had more troops ready, or had I been Aggressive I could have hit him first, and you're right. Spiritual is a trait that spreads its benefits. You save time, first of all, as the above example explains, you save a varying amount of hammers/gold by avoiding anarchy, but not one that would compete with Financial in terms of gold or Industrious in terms of hammers, and you get cheap temples, which is nice since you'll likely found at least one religion.

So you need to pair Spiritual with a much more focused trait, like Aggressive or Protective, depending on how you want to play.

[Supr49er]

I still like SPI. What I don't ever play is IND. yeah faster forges would be nice since they take so long in the early stages, but biulding *most* Wonders is a waste of time. Let the Ai build 'em and conquer them.

[Blake]

Well, Ind does help out with National Wonders too.

[Steve Clark]

Ok, after reading the first page, I must have missed something obvious. What is the advantage GA gives you in switching civics?

[VoiceOfUnreason]

Originally posted by Steve Clark
Ok, after reading the first page, I must have missed something obvious. What is the advantage GA gives you in switching civics?

With the release of BTS, civic switches during a GA went from being a bad idea (anarchy wasting the golden age benefits) to a very good idea (the golden age eliminating the anarchy completely).

[frenzyfol]

Sorry to hijack the thread but do great artists also remove the anarchy in newly conquered cities?

[Steve Clark]

Originally posted by frenzyfol
Sorry to hijack the thread but do great artists also remove the anarchy in newly conquered cities?

They used to, then they didn't but don't know about the latest patch.

Voice: Thank you.

[Horace]

i think they will do in the new patch - when its out