Best civ advantages--POLL REVISED

[Commy]

Okay, I hope now you can vote for three. If not, well then I truly am Russian...

[Krill]

Agricultural, Expansionist, and Commercial (for the reasons pointed out in the other thread)

/Edit, Put the traits in order.

[punkbass2000]

Alright, Agr, Com and the first Sea vote

[Shogun Gunner]

Agriculture and Relgious. I choose religious over commercial because I'm currently very angry at the length of anarchy when switching governments. Why do I always get "You will get control back in 8 turns???"

[joncnunn]

Agr, Exp, Sea for reasons in the other thread.

Actually, 8 turns isn't the worst, I've seen 9 turns. I decided to postpone the revolution by 1 turn, which cut it down to 6 turns.

I was well over the OCN limit for Depotism when I was ready for Republic. (Had to wait for a wonder to complete)

In Conquests, the length of anarchy is partly based on # of cities in your empire. (When not Religious, and for the AI is preempted by max anarchy turns at high difficulty levels )

[Dominae]

Originally posted by Krill
Expansionist, Agricultural, and Commercial (for the reasons pointed out in the other thread)

I imagine that by putting Expansionist first, you have been getting your more-than-fair share of free Settlers. Either that or you are playing a lot of Huge and/or Pangea maps. While I am definitely a proponent of Expansionist, on average it is IMO not even remotely as powerful as, say, Agr. (I like Sea. better too, but I admit that's more debatable).

[Krill]

God, no, definatley in that order. Agr FIRST, THEN Exp, and thirdly Com.


Actually, I do think that Sea is a powerful trait, but it isn't (/Edit: IMHO) as powerful as Exp since you don't:
[list=1][*] Start with a curragh,
[*] You can't pop huts and not get barbs, and settlers are a bit rarer A turn two free settler, which can be used to become a worker/settler pump? Game breaking, they only two words that can be used to describe it... Agr is not as powerful as Exp in this case
[*] Every one can build curraghs as soon as they hae a coastal city, and that could be as early as a second city by turn 17, (OK, they would need alpha as wel). No one can build a two move land unit intil they have horses hooked up. Sometimes you won't ever get horses.
[*] Exp civs can now the layout of the entire continent (minus about 20 tules of FoW) by turn forty, and should have met all the other AI. Sea civs can only know the shape of the continent, and won't have met all the other civs. This means that you would be fueling the civs that you would have met, and the other, inland AI would be an untapped market.[/list=1]



The advatages of Sea over Exp are:[list=1][*] You start with Alpha instead of pottery (more useful when trading to the AI and it is easier to complete philo first, since it costs less to research pottery than alpha),
[*] That extra movement point will never be lost. OK, it might become negligable when you have destroyers and battleships, but it is always there.
[*] Cheap habours are helpful, since it costs less to rush them in the crappy production cities that coastal cities are...[/list=1]

(I'm starting to run out of reasons here)

[punkbass2000]

Originally posted by Krill
God, no, definatley in that order. Agr FIRST, THEN Exp, and thirdly Com.


Actually, I do think that Sea is a powerful trait, but it isn't (/Edit: IMHO) as powerful as Exp since you don't:
[list=1][*] Start with a curragh,

Fair enough, though you've neglected to mention that you do start with an extra gpt that last for the whole game.

[*] You can't pop huts and not get barbs, and settlers are a bit rarer A turn two free settler, which can be used to become a worker/settler pump? Game breaking, they only two words that can be used to describe it... Agr is not as powerful as Exp in this case

I'm not really into strategies that are based around luck. This is simply too narrow a scenario to have a significant bearing. Besides, it's still a possibility with any other civs, though not as likely. IF you're going to take unlikely circumstances as evidence for a traits superiority you need to give the same benefit to its opponents.

[*] Every one can build curraghs as soon as they hae a coastal city, and that could be as early as a second city by turn 17, (OK, they would need alpha as wel). No one can build a two move land unit intil they have horses hooked up. Sometimes you won't ever get horses.

No, they need Alphabet for Curraghs.

[*] Exp civs can now the layout of the entire continent (minus about 20 tules of FoW) by turn forty, and should have met all the other AI. Sea civs can only know the shape of the continent, and won't have met all the other civs. This means that you would be fueling the civs that you would have met, and the other, inland AI would be an untapped market.[/list=1]

This clause indicates to me that Dom is quite right. It sounds as though you primarily play Pangaea on maps that are at least Standard. This heavily weights things in Expansionist's favour.

The advatages of Sea over Exp are:[list=1][*] You start with Alpha instead of pottery (more useful when trading to the AI and it is easier to complete philo first, since it costs less to research pottery than alpha),
[*] That extra movement point will never be lost. OK, it might become negligable when you have destroyers and battleships, but it is always there.
[*] Cheap habours are helpful, since it costs less to rush them in the crappy production cities that coastal cities are...[/list=1]

(I'm starting to run out of reasons here)

It may also be that you're completely unaware of the mian benefit of Seafaring: all coastal cities produce one extra commerce per turn. This is huge in the early game. Unless you're playing a Huge Pangaea (in which case, Exp. clearly wins anyway), you should easily be able to get at least four good, early coastal cities. The extra gpt is tremendous. The extra movement is just a bonus, while the cheap harbours steal what I find to be Militaristic's only important advantage... You are aware that a city needs only two water squares in its radius in order to be coastal. Also, in the early game, a city rarely needs more than few tiles to work. In addition, your comment on coastal cities indicates to me that greatly undervalue commerce.

[Modo44]

Voted for Agricultural, Commercial, Scientific.

Only Agricultural is obvious, as the most powerful trait in Civ3. Even in dry terrain, cheap Aqueducts, food bonus once out of Despotism, and powerful Desert Irrigation, are hard to beat. And if you get fresh water, you won't know what to do with all the food.

Commercial and Scientific seem the best builder-support to me. Actually, after reading this and the previous thread, they are tied for 4th place with Seafaring. Still, very far behind Agricultural.

BUT, other traits are fun as well, depending on the circumstances. Expansionistic wins most huge maps, by a possible early tech lead. Industrious is very nice in bumpy terrain, or near Jungles/Marshes. Militaristic is obviously good for warmongers, and (less obvious?) so is Religious.

[Dominae]

I'm not going to repeat all the stuff pb2k just said.

Originally posted by Krill
Exp civs can now the layout of the entire continent (minus about 20 tules of FoW) by turn forty, and should have met all the other AI. Sea civs can only know the shape of the continent, and won't have met all the other civs. This means that you would be fueling the civs that you would have met, and the other, inland AI would be an untapped market.[/list=1]

A neat quirk about Pangea maps is that you can contact all the AI civs with just one Curragh; Seafaring just means you can do this 50% faster. It has been very rare for me to play a Pangea map where there were landlocked civs that I simply could not contact with my Curragh. Similarly, a Scout will eventually meet everyone, but it can sometimes take longer than a lone Curragh due to dead ends, unfavorable terrain, etc.

And then there's the ridiculous advantage gained by Seafaring civs in terms of suicide rushes to other continents on non-Pangea maps. Yes, an Expansionist civ can also build Curraghs eventually, but without that extra movement and reduced sinking chance, it may waste a lot of Shields on suicides. The relative advantage of getting all contacts early on on a Pangea map is mitigated by the fact that the AIs will most probably do so as well eventually; when there are multiple continents involved, you can exploit your suicide rushes as long as Astronomy or Navigation/Magnetism.

[punkbass2000]

Yes, I actually prefer my opponents be Expansionist so that they can find me ultra-early. Contact is contact.

[Arrian]

I voted Agr, Rel, Com.

I could certainly put in Sea instead of Com, though.

I typically play on standard continents maps. Sometimes Seafaring is great to have, sometimes it's no big deal. And I just plain LIKE commercial.

-Arrian

[Arrian]

Originally posted by punkbass2000
Yes, I actually prefer my opponents be Expansionist so that they can find me ultra-early. Contact is contact.

I hate expansionist AI civs. They gobble up my huts (playing on Monarch I can still hope for some good hut outcomes) and they jump out to tech leads because of it.

I've actually whacked AI scouts right off the bat because of that.

No hut for you!

-Arrian

[punkbass2000]

I don't pop many huts if I'm not Expansionist anyway. The odds are not in my favour and the AI has so many free units that it tends to grab most of them anyway.

[Mr Justice]

i went for Agr, Com and Sea.

im not a big fan of exp, infact i maily play with huts off.
i dont really rate rel either cause 1 gov change is all i do, cheap temples are nice.
used be big fan of ind, but then it got diminished and ive not looked back since.