Rank the Traits: Religious

[joncnunn]

Even with the doubling of minimum anarchy from 1 turns to 2 turns, it still remains a very solid 4 traight, because of those half price Temples & Catherdrials on Emperor level and above.

[Aqualung71]

Originally posted by Arnelos
The utility of this trait is a strict function of difficulty level. The higher the difficulty level, the more necessary the trait. 1/2 price temples and cathedrals become more and more valuable as the number of pop points born content reduce and the opportunities to claim many luxuries in short order diminish. Turns of anarchy become more and more painful to bear as difficulty increases and thus the efficiency and production of your AI enemies increase.

Arnelos, these are all good points and Religious is a great trait if for nothing else than the reduced turns of anarchy. And of course it follows that as difficulty increases, the increased anarchy hurts more. But I'm not so sure that being Religious becomes even more necessary with higher difficulty...simply because to get to those levels you've increased your skill level enormously, learned to live with anarchy and found other ways to deal with unhappiness. You can't scoff at half price temples and cathedrals of course, but often these builds are delayed through necessity anyway.

In that respect, I think you can almost view the thinking of Religious as a "must have" trait in a similar way as wonder addiction - a no brainer when you're starting out, but as you improve your skills you start to learn the subtleties of other traits and how to get by without being Religious.

I'd be interested to know the views of some of our gurus who regularly beat Demigod and Deity.

[Aeson]

I think Religious is a bit more important in C3C than it was in Civ/PtW. Communism has gotten a huge boost, so there is a reason for going through 2 revolutions in games that last that long. Religious can save up to 14 turns of Anarchy, which is an awful lot of production and commerce. The main drawback being that it's a late bonus that comes after the bulk of the Ancient Era. Makes it a somewhat map dependant trait, as some games are won/lost in the Ancient Era while others aren't decided till later in the game.

Temple and Cathedral costs have never been a big deal to me. I rely on luxuries and the luxury slider for happiness, and only build happiness improvements once everything else is taken care of. Exception for games played towards Cultural victory of course.

I'd give it a 3 or 4.

[Arnelos]

Originally posted by Aqualung71


Arnelos, these are all good points and Religious is a great trait if for nothing else than the reduced turns of anarchy. And of course it follows that as difficulty increases, the increased anarchy hurts more. But I'm not so sure that being Religious becomes even more necessary with higher difficulty...simply because to get to those levels you've increased your skill level enormously, learned to live with anarchy and found other ways to deal with unhappiness. You can't scoff at half price temples and cathedrals of course, but often these builds are delayed through necessity anyway.

In that respect, I think you can almost view the thinking of Religious as a "must have" trait in a similar way as wonder addiction - a no brainer when you're starting out, but as you improve your skills you start to learn the subtleties of other traits and how to get by without being Religious.

I'd be interested to know the views of some of our gurus who regularly beat Demigod and Deity.

The irony of that post of mine is, I suppose, that I generally DO NOT play as religious civs and I normally play on Emperor level. That said, I do find the advantages of the religious trait to be quite remarkable at that difficulty level... nothing to scoff at.

[pedrojedi]

For all reasons anteriorly typed (cheaper temples, less anarchy), I vote 4.