Quantitative Analysis of Civ Traits

[joncnunn]

I have similar rankings:

1. Industrious
2. Religious
3. Scientfic
4. Militaristic
5. Expansionistic
6. Commercial

Industrious is excelent for both wars and peace.
(In time of war, build roads out faster to your oppoenent. In peace build roads, irrigation, mines, clear jungle, and cut forests)

Religious is also excelent for both wars and peace. (Half as much to buy that Temple in conquered territroy and also half as long to build them normally in your own territory. And a quick transition out of Despotism in early game, switching to Republic when the economy is ready for it, instant switch to Democracy, and should you war werrious become a problem, a switch to Communism.)

Scientific is more advangous to builders but those half cost libarys built earlier also reduce the revolts during a war.

Militerstic is more advangous to war monglers, but it does have a peacetime use with half price harbors.

Expansionistic is a pure early game advantage that needs to be used very wisely before it goes away.

Commercial just boosts the optimum number of cities you can have by 12.5% (Original Civ III 1.21f and earlier) and 25% (Original Civ III 1.29f & all PTW versions.) Main use is if your empire expanded lop-sideidley, you can build the FP further out if your Commerical. The other thing about it is the more cities you have starting in the industrial age, the more advangeousness this traight is.

Originally posted by punkbass2000

1.Religious
2.Industrious
3.Militaristic/Scientific
5.Commercial/Expansionistic

[joncnunn]

Something is definately wrong with France showing up higher than Persia. (Especally pre 1.29f, which that post was.)

Egypt & Babylon are also way too low on this list.

Originally posted by Signa
Just for the sake of information I'm going to rank the civilizations via the orginal points given to the traits in the first post of this thread...

1. Greece (30,460)
2. France (28,200)
3. Persia (24,450)
4. India (24,175)
5. China (21,660)
6. Iroquois & Britian (19,006)
8. Germany (17,910)
9. Babylon (17,635)
10. Rome (15,650
11. Egypt (15,375)
12. Russia (12,466)
13. Japan & Aztec (11,625)
15. America (10,206)
16. Zululand (6,456)

[xxa9892]

Quanti what!?!

You dorks all have way to much time on your hands. have a party! get laid! get off the ****ing computer!!!!

nato is a virgin

=j6=

[Karl]

As u also say the industrous and commercial traits r very good with your mathematics. BUT! Much is decided early on in the game. If 1 scout finds 1 settler early on ..how much is that worth in money.. well it s beyond any math. Or seing the terrain that is free for building and where to build early on , to see where your enemies have build and stop their expansion!! that is of far greater importance. So in a perfect world if u could build where u wanted without any distraction I would say you r absolutely right. On the other hand ..thats not going to happen! But I still liked your post and Im sure your aware of its limited aplications.

[punkbass2000]

I think you must have miscalculated, because the Iroquois are Religious+Expansionist, and should be last, not tid with England.

Anyway, if I had to place them in order:

1.Religious
2.Industrious
3.Militaristic/Scientific
5.Commercial/Expansionistic

Religious for all the reasons already discussed. I think Religious is the closest to being considered the best in terms of a concensus.

I think industrious is great for early expansion. In fact, I find it to be more useful for expansion than Expansionist. Discovering the land and actually settling it are two different things.

Militaristic is better if I'm planning to go to war a lot, Scientific if I'm not. Incidentally, Militaristic does NOT increase your leader promotions. It only increases your likelihood for getting elite promotions, which is far from the same thing. BTW, I think the techs you get with Scientific are probably the best ones anyway. I would almost always research Monotheism first, for within it lies the road to Cathedrals, the Sistine Chapel and JS Bach's Cathedral. I would probably pick Nationalism, though not necessarily. I might pick Steam Engine if I want to go industrial, or the other one if I want to go for hospitals. Though I wouldn't be inclined to research the things that come after Nationalism in any particular hurry, I think rifleman can be very important in most situations.

I lumped Commercial and Expansionist together because of alexman's thread on corruption. I used to think Commercial was better, because of how high corruption in Civ3 is, but after discovering that, essentially, it only increases your Optimal City number by one, I dropped it to a tie with Expansionistic. I was tempted to drop below Expansionistic, but given Expansionistic's uselessness, I just felt it would be wrong. As to whoever said they would get all the resources with Expansionist, I think you're sadly mistaken. Getting there first will not give you the ability to see strategic resources, and I find I explore nearly as quickly with or without an Expansionistic civ, as I always build 3 warriors first, unless I'm militaristic, in which case I build two archers. I would rather have three warriors because they can attack as well as explore, and I'm generally happy to have barbarians pop out of a goody hut, as my units seems to almost inevitably go elite after being attacked by three barbarians from a hut. I could only see Expansionistic as being useful if you're playing a Huge, Pangea map with less than the max number of civs.

I think multiplayer games will almost have to be played with random maps, to prevent people from picking civ based the map. But then again, I think multi games will need to be played without CSA's anyway, so I guess it doesn't matter. As a sidenote, despite my own list, I don't think the Egyptians are the best civ. I typically like to have Religious OR Industious, coupled with Militaristic OR Scientific, like the Aztecs or the Persians. I would say that overall, I like the Aztecs the best, awesome CSA's and an awesome UU.

[Signa]

Just for the sake of information I'm going to rank the civilizations via the orginal points given to the traits in the first post of this thread...

1. Greece (30,460)
2. France (28,200)
3. Persia (24,450)
4. India (24,175)
5. China (21,660)
6. Iroquois & Britian (19,006)
8. Germany (17,910)
9. Babylon (17,635)
10. Rome (15,650
11. Egypt (15,375)
12. Russia (12,466)
13. Japan & Aztec (11,625)
15. America (10,206)
16. Zululand (6,456)

[Pius Popprasch]

Originally posted by Whoha How much does commercial lower corruption? does it increase the Optimal city limit? does it help cities that are over the limit? does it lower waste with corruption? kinda hard to quantify something that isnt clearly stated exactly what it does.

It reduces Waste significantly.

Religious is stronger as depicted because of more strategic freedom. If I can switch my form of government according to the situation it can hardly be counted in gold.

Shields are more precious in my games than coins.

[Whoha]

it all depends on how you play, though some of the advantages are hard to quantify.

Militarist: one game i had as germany, I was getting tons of leaders, by the modern era I was getting a leader EVERY TURN, how do you quantify something like that(atleast 40 elite modern armor all attacking, every turn, and I changed it so that leaders were airliftable),and of course, I used them to rush nukes, spaceship parts,whatever i felt like building.

as for expansionist, I wont say that few people know how to use it, its just that not being expansionist can be over come in single player. when mulitplayer runs around, and you are playing against someone else who knows how to fight, what will you do when he grabs all the luxurys/river city spots/resources, and you didnt. hopefully he will trade you(or extort money out of you) for construction(damn him getting all those huts), or you are stuck with a bunch of size 6 cities.

and of course, industrious overpowers any 1/2 priced buildings because your workers get those mines and rails up faster and the bonus from mines and rails works for all buildings, not to mention that captured workers work 2x as hard. Leaving 1 turn anarchy with religious, 3 of the same advances game after game after game with scientific(this would be more useful if they were random or if you could choose), and military promotions.

How much does commercial lower corruption? does it increase the Optimal city limit? does it help cities that are over the limit? does it lower waste with corruption? kinda hard to quantify something that isnt clearly stated exactly what it does.

[Analyst Redux]

Originally posted by Arrian
Actually, especially with the 1.17 patch, one could argue that Expansionist/anything is best for a huge map. The Iroquois are rather appealing on a map like that.

-Arrian

Yes, a concept that has managed to go unmentioned throughout this thread is that the worldmap has value, and in the ancient era, the player with the most complete worldmap is often the player with the single item of greatest value (as calculated by the AI for trade purposes). Soren's comments about AIs leveraging the value of a more complete worldmap in the game, post-1.17 patch, are an important cue that this value-added feature of being an expansionist civ shouldn't be underestimated. It makes a world of difference in the flow of the whole game to cross over from the ancient to midieval eras with tech parity, rather than still struggling to close the gap.

Like other expansionist civ values, it is pretty much run its course by the end of the ancient era. But as other posters point out, value added in the ancient era pyramids, meaning that though the acts of expansion end, the effects are felt throughout the game.

[Dis]

I'm still pissed so many play the sorry french.

You guys are too peaceful.

I'm all for leaving in a Theocracy . Military and Religious all the way for me. I crush the non-believers .

Religious- you have to have temples to help thwart city flipping. So you are going to build them anyways.

Military. Well this is only useful if you like war. And I do. But to wage war without militaristic trait just isn't that fun.

[Arrian]

Actually, especially with the 1.17 patch, one could argue that Expansionist/anything is best for a huge map. The Iroquois are rather appealing on a map like that.

-Arrian

[godinex]

In a Huge map the best combination is Industrious and comercial, but in a small one ?

[RamboMilitia]

I'll add my 2 cents:
About religion. It might be argued that the cheaper temples and especially cathedrals has another advantage not yet accounted for: Less civil disorder and thus more optimal use of production/commerce.
Also I feel it might be interesting to quanify in terms of culture instead of gold. Although harder to qualify it is my feeling that whatever way one plays this is the only deciding factor.

[Dimension]

Lucky_Shot: Actually, while nobody has referred to it as "compound interest," the fact that early-game development is undervalued in nato's initial analysis has been discussed at length.

Originally posted by rah
While I've loved the discussion, I still have to go with Mil and rel.
Leaders are big ticket and anything that helps gets them is important.

I definitely agree that Religious is the best civ trait, but Industrious contributes so much to early development that it's very hard to beat. The problem I'm running into is that I'm adopting a more and more aggressive playstyle, and (like many others) have found that captured workers are the way to go. That's too bad, because in the midgame when you're using nothing but captured workers, you've nearly made the Industrious trait useless. That extra 1 shield for big cities isn't exactly a big deal.

This thinking has lead me to look for something better than Industrious when playing aggressively, which could only be Militaristic. The Japanese & Aztecs are both Militaristic/Religious, but you have to go with the Aztecs, because they've got a UU that makes Expansionist look like a joke. If there's anything that can compensate for not being Industrious, it's stealing workers with Jaguar Warriors.

Militaristic is also great in the early game, because you can also build fast barracks and make archers from turn 1, and the increased chance of leaders (no matter how small) can make a huge difference on Deity when wonders are hard to get.

I still think I would rate the Egyptians as the best overall civ, but the Greeks are probably the best for peaceful players on lower difficulties, and the Aztecs might be the best for aggressive players on higher difficulties.

[Lucky_Shot]

A concept overlooked in all this?

This string begun by NATO's excellent innovation of a quantitative analysis of Civ traits has been stimulating reading. One very important consideration, though, is that of "compound interest." Civ is a game of growth, much like a retirement account. Early advantages in commerce or industry, along with others, must be thought of in terms of adding to a civilization's "principle" which grows at some rate of "compound interest. These contributions add to principle both directly (as has been calculated) and through their effects on growth of total holdings (improvements, population growth, etc.) The effects are truly that of compounding because early investments, whatever one's playing style, have profound effects on not only on the end total but also the rate of growth. This notion seems to have been neglected throughout the discussion.

Because Civ can be boiled down to a race to grow, albeit with combat and other factors added in, the total contribution of any advantage must be thought of in terms of not only simple addition to principle, but also how much that advantage is both compounded by growth and, indeed, serves to accelerate the rate of growth itself. The way it is being calculated now, Commerce or Industry (or whatever trait advantage) are treated as though they merely added to principle over the course of the game. Were I to perform a similar calculation for my retirement fund, I could count on nothing more than the total of my personal contributions, a grim picture indeed. Instead I assume that contributions are increased by some rate of interest, and money I contribute earlier will dramatically increase the account value at retirement. Now if only I could find a mutual fund that grew like my citizens (and their works) in Civilization!

Consideration of this growth phenomenon is indeed implicit in giving much value at all to the Expansionist trait--two fast moving units on day one are like contributing a big chunk of change to one's retirement on the first day on the job. A cardinal principle of investment is that small contributions early are better than big contributions late.

NATO has made a groundbreaking suggestion with the idea of quantifying the effects of traits. Adding in consideration of the benefits under an investment model with compounding interest (based on some rational rate of observed growth), would seem to offer a much better sense of which traits offer the greatest game-long advantage. I imagine the totals could be quite remarkable.

I must add an admission that not only do I lack the mathematical skills to carry out my ambitious suggestion, I have yet to actually play Civ III. I have been an all too avid player of I and II and, honestly, am afraid to buy a copy of III. I have been satisfying my curiosity (for now) by reading about it. It sounds wonderful.