Is Religious the Best Civ Trait ?

[Panag]

hi ,

no

industrious or expan


have a nice day

[notyoueither]

If you get that free settler within 10 or 20 turns (I get that more than half the time I have played Exp) then it cannot be a bad trait. Adding double or 50% to your REX rate is of incalculable value.

Even if you find yourself on an island or small continent, you have one of the thechs required to get off it.

Expantionist is second to industrious only, in my book.

Note, I used to play at Emperor exclusively as Romans, so anything that helps growth is a boon to me.

[alva]

Religious is good on higher levels (easier to maintain happiness).

My preferable combo is Ind-Sci (cheap culture + good science and a good/fast/cheap way to expand borders in new cities while at war)

[Panag]

Originally posted by alva
Religious is good on higher levels (easier to maintain happiness).

My preferable combo is Ind-Sci (cheap culture + good science and a good/fast/cheap way to expand borders in new cities while at war)

hi ,

if you can expand and build faster you get the same effect , .....

(industr & expan)

have a nice day

[vmxa1]

A free settler from a hut is not dependent upon the exp trait. I sometimes will hold off on making my first settler a bit to make warriors and then get a settler fom a hut. This is due to being behind the avg civs size, not anything to do with exp. Just do not have a settler in the queue.
Exp is a trait I just do not see much value in, even in a larger map. So no barbs, so what? Less techs maybe, does not matter as I will soon be behind either way.
Scout to get to them first? Really, then how come I will see huts near the AI and it just ignores them.
Now if you are talking MP, that is different.
So to me its
Ind
Commercial/Mil
who cares.

[Arrian]

I once argued (pretty well, I thought ) that Religious was the top trait.

It was in response to the general concensus that Industrious was tops, and Vel's thread about it (the Virtues of Being Industrious, if memory serves).

Now, after many hundreds (thousands? ) more hours of play, I concede the debate. Industrious is #1.

Religious is still really solid, though. It comes in at #2 for me (just in front of militaristic).

Expansionist, while it can be useful (even extremely powerful), can also be a dud. It is, as I'm sure NYE will agree, a gambler's trait. As such, I do like playing with it from time to time.

-Arrian

[Tiberius]

Is Religious the Best Civ Trait ?

No, industrious is.

Religious is a very good trait though. But then good traits are scientific, commercial, militaristic, or exp in MP, etc.

I'm curious whether the new traits (seafaring, agricultural) will change or not the old ones.

[Panag]

hi ,

allas , should we have a poll , .....

have a nice day

[Dominae]

Originally posted by Arrian
I once argued (pretty well, I thought ) that Religious was the top trait.

I argued against Arrian (pretty convincingly, I thought ).

The problem with Religious, I think, is that there are other options for keeping your populace content than Temples and Cathedrals. Effective use of the Lux slider and the potency of Luxury resources (especially when warmongering) means that you can often do without the happiness those improvements provide. Because Temples and Cathedrals are not really "must-builds" for the happiness effect, Religious suffers. Therefore, cheap Temples only become really useful defensively, in terms of Culture war. This is a nice ability, but nothing compared to some other traits.

As alva pointed out, Religious is great on Deity, where it's tougher to go out and grab those Luxs by force, and tougher to grab enough land without expanding borders. On Emperor and below, it is very possible to make do without Religious, because you can both out-expand and out-fight the AI.


Dominae

[TheArsenal]

I find industrious to be the best trait for me.

But I've been playing a bit of Arabia of late (tearing myself away from China). Expansionist/Religious is a pretty good trait combo. Building three scouts on the larger maps can pop quite a few techs and at least one settler. It's not hard to jump out to a quick tech lead and a quickly lead in the number of (well placed, due to scouts) cities.

Religious, beyond the obvious benefits of war-time government flips, allows me to move out of an unproductive government without losing turns in wonder race.

[vmxa1]

I hate to disagree with Arrian, but I am with Dom on this one. Only Deity (maybe OCC) would I elevate Rel to number 2.
I do not see any flips in most of my games. It is very rare. I just captured two major cities, each with two wonders and they did not flip the cities I had captured next to them, nor have they flipped. One was also the capitol.
I really do not see any need to switch government after getting out of Despot.
Cheap temples are not needed in late game captured cities as they are not very productive, so they can sit for as many turns as needed or you can rush the temple. As a commercial civ, I have lots of cash. I won't even build cath in those out lying cities.
Now if you are on an island in a map with lots of water, that may be the time to think about Rel.
This is because you will have a hard time getting 5 or 6 lux to pacify the people.
Again I had read all the talk about switching govs and I just do not see the need. Yes if you were Rel, you would do it to some advantage, but really you are talking about a game that is already in hand.

[vmxa1]

I should mention that one of the reason they do not flip is that I tend to have 3-5 armies sit on them (with many other units), until resisters are gone. I will then take down the next city. These are size 6-12, when they are taken the culture boarders often will drop way back. I will have all pop on specialist, until resisters are done.
This is the stage of the game where all land is claimed and I want to prevent any intrusion into the battle area.
IOW I do not want to slash and burn as the open land would soon be full of interlopers. I want that land. Not because I need it, but toallow access to the next target.

[Theseus]

Boy, we haven't had one of these in a while!!

The longer I've played and watched others report / discuss here, and as we've gone through much, much more thoughtful discussions about various topics (i.e., from the early days of civ traits and UUs through development of AU and the AU Mod through city placement, etc.)...

The more firmly I am convinced that IND is the mack-daddy, baddest mofo on the block trait in the game.

Why? Production power. Given just about any in-game situation, and show me the player who can produce the maximum shields and golds from a given set of tiles, and I'll show you a winner. And that is most easily supported by IND.

Cheap buildings? I just make more gold with IND.

Corruption? IND makes more gold, rush corruption buildings.

Free techs from EXP or SCI? Feh... a kick-ass IND production empire can outresearch anyone.

Actually, the only civ trait characteristic that IND doesn't help with is MIL promotions.

[TheArsenal]

Originally posted by Theseus
Boy, we haven't had one of these in a while!!

The longer I've played and watched others report / discuss here, and as we've gone through much, much more thoughtful discussions about various topics (i.e., from the early days of civ traits and UUs through development of AU and the AU Mod through city placement, etc.)...

The more firmly I am convinced that IND is the mack-daddy, baddest mofo on the block trait in the game.

From what I've read at this (and other) forums, and from my games, most people are. The debate should really be refined to the question: "Which Civ trait compliments Industrious the best?"

[Dominae]

The debate should really be refined to the question: "Which Civ trait compliments Industrious the best?"

Or, better: "Other than Industrious, which is the best trait?" I think you'll find that if you look at the list of Industrious civs, they're all good (the weakest being, ah, the French!?). So a better question is which civs are good despite not being Industrious.


Dominae