I would be grateful if people would share with me their opinions on which are the best civillization characteristics to look for when picking a civillization at the start of the game.

I realise the answer to this question may depend on how you intend to play the game but I would be interested to hear what sort of strategies benefit from particular characteristics.

For instance, I rarely pick expansionist civs as it seems like something that only benefits you early on and also it's benefit depends on how many villages you happen to find...

Scientific also seems a little weak as well, afterall you're scientific research simply depends on having a good economy doesn't it? Therefore, picking a commercial civ is the better option?

Any advice would be greatly appreciated. :)

I play as random civ so I've played as all types. Here are my thoughts.

Agricultural - A really powerful trait, but one you rarely see the bonuses from. The ability to irrigate deserts for extra food I find a bit overrated since usually the only place you will build a city on a desert is if there is a floodplain right next to it, so you want to mine the desert. However if you get an arid young world and need to build cities in deserts than the trait is quite powerful. PAying half price of aquaducts is a huge relief. Not my favorite trait but never one I'm sad to get.

Commercial - One of my favorite traits. I ALWAYS have more cities than the OCN, so the corruption reduction is awesome. The bonus commerce really ads up as well. A very straightforward trait, the only weakness is that it dosen't help you out that much early in the game.

Expansionist - Probably the weakest trait, although the one that makes early game the most fun. Pangea maps are the strongest for expansion civs, because if you luck out and you're the only one say hello to a dozen free technologies, a couple free settlers, warriors, etc. Expansion civs are good for grabbing an early lead, but they give you nothing to help keep that lead.

Industrious - Playing with a non-industrious civ after using an industrious one will infuriate you. What's taking so long? Will be what you ask over and over again. Industrious is another of my favorite traits, it is great all game long and gets even better after replaceable parts. From building roads to connect your network, to mining mountains to clearing jungles to building railroads to cleaning up pollution, Industrious is strong all game long. The bonus production tile is almost too much.

Militaristic - The big draw of the military civs is the greater chance for leaders. However, you can farm a huge number of leaders with any civ if you fight wars often enough. The half price barracks are a good deal, but that can be countered with Sun Tzus if you are patient with your pre-builds or get lucky with an SGL. Overall I don't find the Military trait that impressive.

Religious - The trait that self procalimed "veterans" like to deride "newbies" for liking so you'll find many follow-the-leader types claiming it to be weaker than it really is. The one turn anarchy is enormous. Without the religous trait you pretty much are stuck in Republic the whole game. With it, you can safely switch to democracy for peace and communism for war if war weariness becomes a factor. The half price cultural buildings are essential for expanding your territory and grabbing all the resources you can before the darn AI settles every single square your territory doesn't cover. Combined with Sistine Chapel, religous civs pay a very cheap price for an improvement that makes eight people content.

Scientific - Another triat like Seafaring or Agriculture that I don't ever want to pick, but I'm happy to get. Libraries and Universities give more culture per shield than Temples or Cathederals, and the free tech each age is nothing to laugh at. In fact, with good traiding it is not unusual for a science civ to pick up several techs in a single turn at the end of an age.

Seafaring - The seafaring bonus comes into play in a few different ways. The biggest is the early game 3 movement curragh, which is the best scout in the game even on some pangea maps. The second is the fact that coastal cities get the extra commerce, which has a small effect. The final is the chance that ships sink less often, which in my experience isn't quite as pronounced as the description seemd to make it. Pretty much every time I've played as a seafaring civ it seems like my boats sink MORE often than normal, maybe that's just bad luck. However, paying half price for harbors can literally get you an extra thirty turns of growth in coastal cities built in non-optimal areas, later the cheap commercial docks are also a big help. You want to build as many sea cities as possible with this trait.

So my favorites are : Commerce, Industry, Religion
Average : Agricultural, Seafaring, Science
Poor : Military, Expansion

Just my opinion :)

Welcome to CFC Fried Egg!

There are lots of "Civ reviews" in this forum (http://forums.civfanatics.com/forumdisplay.php?f=55), written by Ision, Zardnaar and others.

Thanks for the helpful advice guys.

Invisible Rhino
Militaristic - The big draw of the military civs is the greater chance for leaders. However, you can farm a huge number of leaders with any civ if you fight wars often enough. The half price barracks are a good deal, but that can be countered with Sun Tzus if you are patient with your pre-builds or get lucky with an SGL. Overall I don't find the Military trait that impressive.
I thought that having this characteristic meant that you had greater odds for unit promotion after combat...which is pretty useful. Espcially if you intend from the outset to play very agressively, surely this trait is a must?

I agree that Industrius and Economc are great all round characteristics. I have also started going for Religious more often these days (when I tended to avoid it at first) as it's advantages have become more apparent.

My take:

Agricultural - I'm not sure why Invisible Rhino thinks you rarely see its bonuses. Having 3 food in every city square gives a huge boost, especially at the beginning of the game. You can even get it in Despotism if you build next to a river or lake. You can pump out settlers and workers faster with Agr than with any other trait. More settlers and workers means more land claimed, more tiles improved leading to more resources, commerce, shields, etc. Best of all, you can settle right in the middle of the desert in anticipation of getting saltpeter and oil and still not be stuck with a useless city. IMHO, Agr is by far the best trait in the whole game.

Commercial - Another biggie, although less so at the start. Basically a free courthouse in every city. Once you have a few cities up and running, commericial really takes off as a trait.

Seafaring - Somewhat world dependent. Great on archipelagos, good on continents, so-so on pangaea. In any case the +1 commerce for coastal cities is like having a 15-25% commerce boost at the start of the game. The best use of this trait is risking curraghs and galleys to cross the ocean to find all the civs asap. You can often have a monopoly on tech brokering between landmasses. Also, recall that the cost of tech research decreases when another civ already knows the tech AND you have made contact with that civ.

Industrious - Another trait that yields bonuses all throughout the game, however with C3C, the bonus is only half as powerful. If you war-monger a lot and raze cities, you'll end up with a lot of slaves which unfortunately do not benefit from Ind. As such, for me, this trait lessens in importance as the game goes on and I find myself with progressively more slaves and fewer native workers. The extra shield comes too late to make much of a difference IMO.

Scientific - Highly dependent on what level you play at. At upper levels, you typically do little self-research so the half price libs and unis aren't really all that helpful. The free tech is a nice benefit though at any level. You can't really base any strategy on the slightly improved change of getting SGLs either.

Religious - 2 turn anarchy? Nah, Republic works just fine for me, thanks. Temples are a poor investment for happiness control. You can trade 1 gpt for 1 happy/turn using the lux slider without spending any shields. Cathedrals are even less necessary. Cheap culture is useful in border cities only. Even then, at higher levels the AI will likely out-culture you and grab back the ring-2 tiles. If you use CxxC spacing, you won't leave any culture gaps.

Miltaristic - Makes already cheap buildings even cheaper. Not much help there. Sure you get more promotions to elite, but not so many as to make leader generation that much better. Most turns in the game, this trait yields no benefit.

Expansionist - A real crap shoot trait. Kinda the opposite of seafaring in that Pangaea is you best bet, Archipelago the weakest. Unlike seafaring, though, there's no benefit to this trait whatsoever beyond the beginning of the game. Yea, the scout is nice to start with, but at higher levels, the AI will have so many units out scouting that you won't be able to pick up all that many huts anyway. Yes, sometimes you'll get lucky and learn a few techs, but there's no guarantee with this one.

So in summary:

Agricultural: The best. In a class by itself.
Commercial, Seafaring: Helpful traits that give a good boost throughout the game.
Industrious: A solid benefit at the start, fades down the stretch.
Religious, Scientific: so-so traits granting only occasionally useful benefits.
Militaristic: Not so good, but not horrible.
Expansionist: Also not so good but really useless on some maps and at upper levels.

I thought that having this characteristic meant that you had greater odds for unit promotion after combat...which is pretty useful. Espcially if you intend from the outset to play very agressively, surely this trait is a must?

You have a better chance at promotion but its not really all that big, especially if you build a large army. With any civ enough units will get promoted enough times that you will have an elite army soon enough. The bonus isn't really pronounced enough to make it powerful in my opinion.

My chioce is Scientific. If you're planning to win by UN, SS or 100k it's almost a must, and it's very useful for 20k too.

ATM I'm playing a game with Maya, and I must say I really miss the free tech and cheaper Unis. My next game will be Sumeria again. :)

I'm not going to write big review about those but I will describe most useful to me:
- Agricultural: stimulates high growth in the beggining, if city is near fresh water it will grant extra food in some squares
- Scientific: will give you scientific boost in techs. In my opinion, more useful than religious, because you get more culture from science, and religious building cost less, than scientific
- Industrious/Commercial: will give long term benifit in extra shields/commerce. Ussually it is very nice to have

Above written characterictics have another benifits, but those are less inmpotrant. Other characteristics will mean less to builder (like me) and I agree with discriptions written in above posts about them.

gunkulator
Agricultural - I'm not sure why Invisible Rhino thinks you rarely see its bonuses. Having 3 food in every city square gives a huge boost, especially at the beginning of the game. You can even get it in Despotism if you build next to a river or lake.
It seems to me that the early game benefits of this trait are somewhat nullified by the fact that under despotism one only benefits in cities near fresh water.

True, however it is wise to build at least some core cities by fresh water, Agr or not. At least one of your first 4 cities should have fresh water.

It is simply a whole lot easier to build setter/worker pumps with Agr civs. In addition, Agr civs next to fresh water can afford to work the occasional forest tile without sacreficing growth. There is a huge difference between a 1 food surplus and a 2 food surplus.