Quantitative Analysis of Civ Traits

[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. Rushing temples for cheap is helpful but ONE TURN ANARCHY is another big ticket. All the others are helpful (except for expansionists) but they're all nickle and dime. I want big ticket items. I changed government over a 12 times in my most recent game. (granted if I hadn't been rel, I would have not done it as often,) but it would be tough for any characteristic to make up for 60 turns of anarchy.

RAH

[Fitz]

Actually rah, I think you're doing that calculation the wrong way. The trait allowed you to switch 12 times instead of 2 times. That's the real value, not the 60 turns of anarchy.

Or maybe it's just too early in the morning for me.

[rah]

Yes there is some truth in that, but I would have had to change at least 6 times anyway. So that's at least 30 turns of anarchy saved. monarchy, rep/maybe, democ, and then switching for 2 or three major wars.

I have problems with prolonged wars in Democ and find it easier to drop into comm. for the blitz. Allowing to rush build those temples and cath to expand culture, harbors to connect to trade networks, and Airports for support troops. Using excessive pop from cities instead of just wasting it while you starve it down, makes too much sense. Then make peace and back to Democ.

RAH
Anyway, it's just a big ticket item that I love having.

[vmxa1]

Speaking of switching Govs, I would like to see a study on their relative values. If you want to war most of the time, why not stay in despot until communism? One switch. If you your prefered form of gov is say republic, how much is it worht to you over say Monarch or Despot or even communist in peace, in war. If you do not know what you give up or what you gain to be in a given form of government, how can you make a determination? What is the cost if you are in a form that your civ dispises? Curently I tend to get to the form that my Civ prefers and avoid the one they don't, but I am not sure if it matters, it should are else why have a preferred or dispised form? I will avoid Dem most of the time as war is problem for it. In civ2 you knew you gave up the boost to research

[Dimension]

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.
RAH

I think more and more people are starting to agree that Religious is by far the strongest trait, because it has two huge benefits:

1) cheap temples = happy cities and fast culture
2) no anarchy = dynamic govenment for war/peace/forced labor

The other traits depend on playstyle, but I think the major benefit for Industrious makes it better overall. That is, faster workers = less workers and faster roads/lumberjacking. Also very significant is the fact that Religious / Industrial is a huge help in the early game, whereas Expansionist is really the only other trait that helps out early on. A quicker early game gives you the edge for the entire rest of the game.

Commercial and Militaristic are good on paper. Corruption is brutal in the late game, and extra leaders directly translates into more wonders. The problem is that the benefits of Commercial and Militaristic are rather low. Corruption is not reduced much, and your chances of getting a leader isn't raised much. Compare this to Industrious, which gives you a full doubling effect on all workers.

I would have to say that, in a way, Religious does a better job of reducing corruption than Commercial does, because of the easy use of forced labor, the production of which totally ignores corruption. Likewise, Industrious helps you complete wonders faster because you can lumberjack palaces twice as fast.

Still, overall, Commercial is a good choice for the more peaceful, research-driven player looking for space victory in the late game, and Militaristic is no doubt a suitable choice for the ultra-aggressive conqueror. There are also some nice UU's which make weaker traits acceptable.

The real deciding factor for me is that most traits aren't things you miss a lot. I like the Greeks just fine, and the Hoplite is great, but when playing another civ, I don't often find myself saying, "Wow, corruption was a lot lower with the Greeks!" or, "Man, that really hurts having these universities take a couple more turns!" After playing with the Egyptians, though, I do personally find myself in a worse early-game position playing other civs, thinking, "Hey, I could've had another settler but I'm having to build more workers just to get roads done in time," or, "This completely sucks that I can't change governments, because the Romans won't even talk to me so I can end this war, and my Democracy is about to go into massive riots!" Those are things that really do hurt.

[art_vandelai]

biggest benefit of industrious

Don't forget the fact that all civ's get a worker right from the start. If that worker builds a road and a mine right away, you are that much closer to building that first settler.

E.g. your city has 1 tile of grassland with shield being worked at the start of the game. It will take 10 turns before you gain a pop point, and 5 turns to build a warrior.

An industrious civ will build a road and mine in 5 turns, a non-industrious will build them in 9.

That means 4 extra shields right in the beginning few turns of the game that can increase the speed with which you can build settlers. The roads will increase the speed that your settlers arrive at the places you want to found cities.

Multiply that by the number of turns until your road and mine/irrigation network is completed (usually mid-Industrial era) and you get one heck of a bonus that goes beyond just the shield savings from making fewer workers.

[Arrian]

That, in my opinion, is the major reason to play an industrious civ. The early boost to the land-grab phase. Quicker mines and roads around the capitol, and then roads out toward city sites. That can seriously speed up expansion.

-Arrian

[Molotov99]

I am very fond of expansionist civs. Having the scout so early in the game i find very useful in setting my early city sites, for contacting other civilizations and finding most of the goodie huts. How would you factor the extra gold/shield values obtained by being the first civ to find all the others thereby trading your way to more and more advances and making cash from trading communications. Also by finding prime city sites early you can rush your settlers into place. Pair it with any of the others, personally I like commerce so play England.

Thoughts from sunny England
Rich

[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.

[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.

[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.

[godinex]

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

[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

[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.

[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.