What Civ ability will be most useful

[Gryphon]

I think scientific looks the most appealing considering my play style in Civ 2

[ColdWizard]

i'd say industrious, faster workers and more production

[Grunthex]

I've argued with myself repeatedly about this over the last few weeks now. I know I'm not impressed much with Religious. The discount is almost negligible, and while the government transition is useful, it doesn't suit my form of play at all. I'm not a big fan of Militaristic either. I don't need a cheap army, if I have a good army. I hope.

Scientific SEEMS good, but really, a discount on a few buildings, and a few free techs just doesn't cut it for me either. If I'm playing my way, I get all the techs fast enough, that's not gonna do it.

The other 3, well, I want them ALL. Commercial is probably the least valuable of the three, but man: Discounted monetary buildings, AND extra trade per city? That extra trade per city almost (it seems, having not PLAYED the game) should counteract the scientific free techs just by having more trade in all my cities.

Expansionistic is great. I love the free scout at the beginning so I can see where to place my perfect non-overlapping cities, and better goodies is just fine by me too.

My holy grail is Industrious. The hardest part of getting a new city up and running in a perfectionist world is the time to get those first few improvements, and the extra production, while it might be unnoticable by the time the city hits size 5 or 6, is indispensable in those first few years for EACH city. The benefits never really go away.

So I'll likely play my first game as either the Americans, the French or the English, since I can't have a freak mutant hybrid of the three... the Canadians!

[Blaupanzer]

Create the Canadians. Make them industrious AND scientific. I like commerciial and scientific myself. Voted for scientific, but the combination is the key. From the looks of it, the play balancers must have determined that a militaristic and scientific civ would be too powerful, since its the only combo not included. So I may try that one too -- maybe as the Hittites.

[Blake]

I'm going to have to vote for "All perfectely balanced" - what? it's not there?

Seriously, maybe looking at it from a Civ2 perspective some abilities look more usfull, but when you consider the new features like culture and trade... gah, an example:

Commercial improves your income, this may look better than religious, but religous will give bonuses to culture (the temples etc will be completed earlier...), this'll improve your border expansion and whatsnot and improve your control of the land, probably allowing slightly better trade...

Heres another thing: Militaristic will help you get more than your fair share of the Wonders, by spawning more great leaders (assuming you want to hurry wonders). This will help all aspects of your civilization.

That said I expect to play my first game as the Romans, the combination of Commerical and Militaristic seems really appealing to me.

[Blake]

Blaupanzer:
Germans are Militaristic and Scientific
Persians are Industrious and Scientific

*Every possible combination of two abilities is there already!*
*Militaristic&Religious is there twice!*

[Grunthex]

Well, I was planning on creating the Canadians. If possible, with Expansionist, Industrious, AND Commercial. Like I said, sort of a French-English-American hybrid. So what if we're superior to everyone else, I won't mind!

Blake, your post says every combination of abilities is there, AND one of the combinations is there twice. That's impossible. There are 16 distinct combinations, so if you double one up, with only 16 civs, you can't have them all. I'm not sure which list is the most up to date, so I'm not sure.

[dainbramaged13]

Grunthex, heard there are 15 distinct combos..

anyway,, already the results are showing the same as they did on this exact same poll at civfanatics :-D it was tied between industrious and scientific

[Blake]

Mwahahahah!
Then tell me which one ISN'T there
You'll be spending a longggg time working that one out....

Or check this thread I started on the topic:

http://apolyton.net/forums/showthread.php?s=&threadid=29437

[Gryphon]

I chose scientific because I used a style of play in civ 2 with a lot of success. it consisted of researching military techs rapidly and using only a few units to take out large numbers of cities. not sure if it will work in civ 3 but hopefully I can still use the same principle with a slight variation of more research in the cultural advances so when I take a city I can keep it. it doesn't seem it will be as simple to achieve world domination with militaristic power, early if at all in civ 3.

[Grunthex]

Um, Oops? I don't what I was thinking earlier, but when I write em out on paper you're quite right. There are only 15 combos. I will go back to school one day. My apologies.

[Sarxis]

I am not surprised about scientific and industrious getting high votes (at the time of this posting). Military isn't scoring very high yet, but you know, a powerful science and industry can really determine your military might. So again- not surprised by the poll votes so far.

[Sabre2th]

DP

[Sabre2th]

I think they'll all end up somewhat even in the end. I trust that Firaxis balanced them nicely. Since I rely on technology, science will probably be the most useful for me, but I imagine it'll be different for everyone. I should also mention that the game has changed significantly and the effects may not work exactly as we expect in civ3. Just my $.02