Quantitative Analysis of Civ Traits

[East Street Trader]

The size of the map, the configuration of the land masses, the level chosen to play, the neighbouring civs, events as the game unfolds and half a hundred other factors will affect the value of the various advantages.

On a huge map with just a couple of large landmasses that initial explorer has the chance to get your civ very firmly established. On a small, all island map or if he encounters an early barb he may be next door to useless.

Getting an advance when you enter the next age may turn a good game into a big win if you have achieved a tech lead, if you are lagging behind it will do very little for you indeed.

Cheaper barracks are nice - unless you are on a big continent and get Sun Tsu's.

The fundamental point has got to be that each trait offers opportunities to exploit the benefit conferred within the context of any particular game. Self evidently each is a good in itself. I doubt that any attempt to average out all the possible scenarios could hope to establish that any one comes out clearly ahead of any other.

[sabrewolf]

(bump)

a really old thread, but it would be interesting if someone would find the time to do a new quantitative analysis of all traits. most have changed in one or the other way and there are 2 new traits.

[punkbass2000]

Good point.

[Mazarin]

punkbass: no, wealth is not efficient at all: e.g. you need 400 shields to receive 100 gold by transforming producion to wealth...if you want to rush-buy a building , these 100 gold would only be worth 25 shields. So you loose 93,75% of your investment when producing wealth and rush-buying -compared to about 75% when disbanding units.

[punkbass2000]

I may be wrong, but don't you only get 1/4 of a units shields when you disband it? Wouldn't it, therefore, be more efficient to use wealth, at least if your shield count is a multiple of four or if there aren't any units that divide into 4 well? (like a warrior only gives 2 shields, but a spearman gives 5, even though the spearman only costs twice as much to build.)

[Zurai]

Originally posted by punkbass2000
"You can buy shields at a rate of 1 shield for 4 gold, or you can produce gold at a rate of 1 gold for 4 shields (after economics). Therefore, I am counting 1 gold as of equal worth to 1 shield. When added together I will call these gold/shields."

This is a flawed analysis. Why? Ask anyone who plays on Emperor/Diety - Wealth is *not worth it*. 1 gold per 4 shields is NOT an appropriate value. Any high-level player will micromanage producing cheap military units to disband into another city instead of using Wealth, even though it's inefficient. Why? Because it's more efficient than Wealth.

Plug 1 shield = 4 gold into the formulas and you'll see a much different (and more accurate, IMO) picture.

[Lord Merciless]

My ranking:
1. Industrious/Militaristic
3. Religious
4. Commercial
5. Scientific
6. Expansionist

The reason why I rank Militaristic so high is that I only play at Emperor+ levels where warmongering is the easy path to victory. Getting more elite units quickly and thus more GLs is a must. Also, Militaristic gives you 4 cheap buildings: Barracks, Harbors, Walls, and Airports.

I also think Commercial deserves a better look. For really big empires, Commercial can make a huge difference in your income and shield produced.

[punkbass2000]

"You can buy shields at a rate of 1 shield for 4 gold, or you can produce gold at a rate of 1 gold for 4 shields (after economics). Therefore, I am counting 1 gold as of equal worth to 1 shield. When added together I will call these gold/shields."

[Zurai]

One thing I'm curious about in the initial post. Nato, you stated that 1 shield in game was worth 4 gold, and yet you calculated all of your values as if 1 shield = 1 gold. Why? I think if you used the proper values there, you'd get a much different picture of the 'quantitative worth' of some of the traits.

[Pyrodrew]

I firmly disagree with this notion that Religious is "clearly" the best trait in terms of a concensus. Posts in this thread & other threads clearly show Industrious to be a great rival, if not the superior.

Industrious is great in war & peace.
Industrious is great in the early game (building settlers faster) & all ages (except maybe modern).

My ranking (may vary some due to map,etc) would be:

1.Industrious
2/3. Militaristic/Scientific
4.Religious
5/6.Commercial/Expansionist

[Arrian]

Ooh, someone willing to stick up for the commercial trait? Go for it, make a new thread. It's always interesting to discuss these things.

Vel did a thread extolling the virtues of being Industrious. I did a thread on the power of Religious. Commercial, despite its boost in the 1.29 patch, is still generally viewed as a weak trait (perhaps because it is so difficult to quantify, as metalhead pointed out). Prove us wrong.

-Arrian

[Nor Me]

If we're talking lists:
1. Industrious
2. Militaristic
3. Commercial
4. Scientific
5. Expansionist
6. Religious

I understand that the consus on Religious is somwhat different but I find its bonus comes when I least need it.
It would take at least a new thread to justify this so I won't

Nato underestimates the quantitative value of commercial now.

[Mazarin]

it always depends on how you play... being on a small map where an ancient rush will allow you conquest victory makes religious entirely useless while militaristic becomes even more important. IMHO, industrious is the only trait that really supports almost every strat you take. I'd even say that it is much more powerfull on smaller maps -just because the worker's lifes consist of two parts: moving and improving tiles -and there is no ind. benefit for moving.

One more thing: the intention of this thread is a "quantitative analysis" -something which can't be done whithout an interest rate! 10,000 gold or shields at the very beginning are much more valuable than in modern times.

[metalhead]

I have made excellent use of Scouts on tiny and small maps - I'm not sure why everyone thinks they are useless on small maps. Archipelago does hurt their usefullness some, but you still reap major benefits from scouts on a tiny continent map. I figure, on a tiny map, an early second city has a mammoth impact on the game, because so few cities will be built by any civ, and the cheap tech costs make an early 2nd city on a tiny map a game breaker. I would rank traits:

1. Industrious
2/3/4 Commercial, Expansionist, Religious
5. Scientific
6. Militaristic

Can't decide on #2, so I just lump em all together. I think commercial tends to get ignored as a powerful trait because it has no tangible benefit. No cheaper buildings, no extra units, no improved promotion. In fact, to even see the benefit, you would have to build up 2 seperate empires to comparable layout and size, and compare the corruption of the 2. Also, the other 5 traits will alter your gameplay to some extent - Commercial tends to be more "vanilla" in that there is really no real way to play a game that takes more advantage of its benefits. Any style will reap the benefits of this trait.

[Arrian]

My rankings have undergone a shift since first buying the game, but have been pretty stable for a while now:

1. Religious/Industrious tied. Both very powerful
3. Militaristic
4. Scientific
5. Commercial

Expansionist is left off the list due to the fact that it's such a wildcard depending on map settings. On my usual settings, it is near the bottom (we'll see how AU202 turns out).

-Arrian