ok, we all know that financial is the best...
please post the 2nd best trait.
if u have a startegy with it post your strategy

Spiritual.
Change civics often.

Creative.

5-turn border-pops without needing to build an Obelisk = LOTS of land sealed off for future backfill :D

ohh, if there is no best trait, how there is a second best trait???

I like both creative and organized for early fast expansion. Have you noticed which leaders let you play that way?! Oh... darn... there aren't any! Sigh. Well...I'll take Caesar with Praetorians and expand by building OR by taking!
So I voted for Organized, but only for the Roman UU.

I vote for financial! :) :crazyeye: :lol: :scan:

Creative. Feel free to chose a right spot for your new city, not just 1 tile away from the resource you badly need. :)

Organised. A good all-round trait as most people would benefit from cheap lighthouses and courthouses.

Creative. Feel free to chose a right spot for your new city, not just 1 tile away from the resource you badly need. :)good point.
and organied usually shines midgame (courthouse) and late (if u have high civics, this is where it does u good)

Aggresive great for warmongers :ar15: :ar15: :ar15:

Aggressive + Financial is not bad. Capture half of the world, harrass the other half with quechuas, then cottage spam. :)

wow...spiritual only has one...VERY surprising :confused:

I like both creative and organized for early fast expansion. Have you noticed which leaders let you play that way?! Oh... darn... there aren't any!

I wish there was one too; that would make for some serious land grabbing early on. Maybe the designers thought that the synergy would be too powerful, just like for industrious/philosophical. I think neither is personally.

Creative. I love to see those cultural borders creep ever forward and see enemy cities get caught and washed away in the flood of cultural influences. It makes me feel powerful.

Ok, so its only 48 votes so far...but is this implying that Catherine the Hottie is the best? Financial (as decided by the other poll) and Creative as decided by this poll so far. This combo makes things too easy...

Agree with Benjai - Financial 1st, Creative 2nd

Catherine is very hot !!!!

I wanted to vote financial, because i like spiritual the most... anyway, spiritual it is. I voted the same trait in both polls!
I don't think creative is so big, compared to a trait that can set you on "war mode" without anarchy. Extremely useful in emergency situations, which i encounter often, as i keep a thin army in the later stage of the game. Plus, the half-priced temples help both culture and happiness in the early game, provided you have a religion, which you can surely get early as spiritual.
Overall better than creative for me.

Creative is indeed great. Otherwise for a warmonger game, you want to get stonehenge to autoexpand conquered cities' borders. Now you can skip mysticism and use those shields for 3 extra swordsmen or almost 4 axemen.

Catherine is amazing. Her trait combo really does rock and if you want to expand somewhat late, the cossacks are one of the few UUs that dominate enough to be able to sweep away cities defended by slightly tech inferior units without even needing bombardment, allowing rapid conquests.

let it be spiritual!
I'm a rather weak player but I like to put cultural pressure all along the game, so my favorite combination is Hatshepsut's creative and spiritual.
That way you get 2 culture per turn (cpt) from creative, can quite easily found a religion (at least) and build temples, monasteries and cathedrals for more pressure.
spiritual gives you half price on temples, which you need a lot for the happy face and for cultural matters as well
with creative giving you half price on theater, it makes quite a lot low priced culture, isn't it?

and of course, no anarchy means no turn without research (quite useful from bronze working until the end)

In my opinion the 2nd best trait is either Philisophical or Aggressive, with Spiritual coming in at a close 3rd. Philisophical is pretty awsome, especialy if you leverage it, but of cource it only helps you if you have specialists or wonders, and only affects the cities you have those GPPs in. In the very early game, where you probably don't have any specialists or wonders, Philisophical has no effect.

Aggressive, on the other hand, is insane in the early game. It gives you a Barracks at half cost, which pretty much gives you the hammers to build one extra military unit (which is signifigant early on) and allows you to build Axemen with Combat I and an extra +25% vs melee. This means that your Axemen will beat your opponent's Axemen at a pretty high rate on even ground, wich is a big boost. Aggressive also makes it a lot easier to have that L4 unit with which to build Heroic Epic (which is tha bomb) when the time comes. Later, when gunpowder comes along, you'll again have a major advantage at points when conflicts are Grenadier and Infantry based, which will be signifigant lengths of time. Of cource, after you get Industrialism Aggressive is pretty much obsolete, as you're unit production will be about 90% tanks/modern armor from here on.

Spiritual is solid not so much because it saves you anarchy, but because it allows you to change civics freely and frequently when needed, and also means that you don't have to wait for "big revolutions" when changing civics, meaning you can take advantage of new civics right away. This benifit never really goes away, which is nice.

For me it would be Philisophical, mainly for the faster great person 'production' or Spiritual due to the civics change advantage. I voted Philisophical. Btw, only one person has voted for Expansive so far, is it really that bad?

I hereby vote this the second most worthless poll. Good job.

snipafist: Why? I think it's a good poll.

I have trouble answering these questions without talking about a specific civ and strat. Not to mention your map.

For example, Rome has Organized and Expansive. On a map like Earth or any map with a decent amount of coastline this combo is pretty good despite the fact that neither one by themself is excellent. You can have a large number of cities where you have built a harbor, a lighthouse, a courthouse, and a granary. Saving as much as 160 shields per city relatively early in the game.

With Rome you are likely pumping out armies as well so you won't want to stop for long periods of time to build city improvements. You can easily have a large empire where courthouses become critical.

The lower cost of civics allows you to run some of those high cost civics as well. Essentially you can take the combo of Organized + Expansive + Praetorians + Coastline and get a very powerful civ.

Now if you are just on a small map the Praetorians are extremely important and the traits less important.

If you are on a huge map then those city improvements are more important unless you think you can conquer the world.

I say Organized, no wait Industrious. On second thought Creative, or maybe Spiritual. But then sometimes I think it might be Aggressive, Philosophical or possibly Expansive. Of course it could be financial too.

What a silly thread.

Besides I never play as Catherine, how can I flirt with her if I'm playing as her. (of course there is still the possibility of Elizabeth...)

For me it's a toss up between agressive and spiritual. Depends on whether you want to conquer or build. I'll have to take aggressive because warmongering is just more fun!

I think Financial is the best, and behind that, all the rest (other than expansive) are equally good depending on your leader and UU.

no love for industrious?

I'm playing on prince, so maybe this wouldn't work for higher difficulties, but using industrious civs I've been able to build almost every wonder. Then the wonders help my production, research, finances, etc.

the extra wonder production helps *a lot*

Even though many people would say that aggressive only is good for warmongers, i have to disagree. I'm more of a builder, and yet i find aggressive is a very powerful trait. It lets you build less units, bcause your units are stronger, so it allows you to focus on other aspects of the game. Although it is more suited to militaristic style gameplay, it is very useful no matter what

I like Spiritual as well because I can manage the growth aspects well enough in the early game without the other bonuses. Once you've got the industrial base set up and it's time to have the massive wars with cavalry and above, spiritual really flexes its muscle.

You can swing from a peacetime civic combination to a war-time (all the civics that add XP's) and back in time to rebuild the army for the next wave. About 30 turns of building high XP units, then switch back to a peace-time config while your units fight. The lost production and research during the anarchy periods are HUGE over the long term.

Besides I never play as Catherine, how can I flirt with her if I'm playing as her. (of course there is still the possibility of Elizabeth...)

You just have to think of her as your second-in-command, always there beside you ;)

Industrious is certainly 2nd best, if not best. Actually in many scenarios, I prefer Industrious over financial.

For me, I'm voting Aggresive but it's so pie-in-the-sky since I voted for Financial in the first poll and there aren't any Financial/Aggresive Civs. In reality, the second best Civ if I'm assuming Financial would be creative since it's a major help in the beginning of the game and games are usually won or lost before 1AD regardless of whether a victory condition has been met. If you nail the first couple of thousand years - you're made. Still, I'm voting aggresive.

For me, I'm voting Aggresive but it's so pie-in-the-sky since I voted for Financial in the first poll and there aren't any Financial/Aggresive Civs.
What about Incas? HC is both Financial and Aggressive.

philisophical. you get a few Great Artists and Blammo! you can absorb Civs without going to war.

Always play Kate when you are moving up a level or trying new maps. She has the best traits by far and a great UU.

Then when confidence builds you can try other leaders traits to see if you can make them work, most often I can't.

Philosophical needs a city geared up to make GPs, I find that hard to do.
Spiritual suggests changing civic often, not what I normally do but something to experiment with.
Aggressive is quite potent and its a hard choice between financial/creative/aggressive and sometimes outcomes depend upon what map and what civ you find yourself next to.
Organised/Industrious/Expansive are traits which I have yet to find a strategy which plays to those strengths.

Philosophical needs a city geared up to make GPs, I find that hard to do.
I played Elizabeth on Emperor once, and I had certain success by chop-rushing Stonehenge with 2 workers even before the first settler.

With Stonehenge (which is very useful for border expansion anyway) I got 2 early Prophets. I settled them as Super Specialists in my capital. They gave +2 hammers +5 gold each, so I switched my capital completely on cottages, while still having some production for granary/library etc, and also founded two more early cities without having to lower the science bar below 80%.

Actually, with the Philosophical, you don't even need to have a GP farm city. It is enough to switch to Mercantilism for 1 free specialist per city, and you'll get them twice as fast as without Philosophical. Statue of Liberty becomes an attractive wonder for the same reason. Also, the universities are at half cost, which I really liked compared to Catherine.

snipafist: Why? I think it's a good poll.

Because it's a fruitless discussion. The second-best trait really depends a lot on what your first-best trait is, and that's also subjective. Even then, second-best traits change depending on what other traits you link them up with and what kind of synergy they have. Organized may not be the absolute best trait in the game, but it has great synergy with agressive and samurai (Japan) for a conquering style of game. Even then, some traits are only good in certain situations - spiritual is horrible if you're not constantly swapping civics, and agressive isn't good unless you're going on the offensive, and you're doing it with melee or gunpowder units. I just find the constant (and I mean constant, these polls go up about twice a week it seems) polls about best traits an exercise in mental masturbation - it's not really insightful, it's just a bunch of people screaming trait names at one another, and in the end it all comes down to what most of the experienced players of this game say - traits are situationally good, and it all depends on how well you can maximize their benefits.

industrious/philosophical is to powerful, ive tried it with a mod, however, I think creative/organized is fine, ive tried that with a mod too.

Because it's a fruitless discussion. The second-best trait really depends a lot on what your first-best trait is, and that's also subjective. Even then, second-best traits change depending on what other traits you link them up with and what kind of synergy they have. Organized may not be the absolute best trait in the game, but it has great synergy with agressive and samurai (Japan) for a conquering style of game. Even then, some traits are only good in certain situations - spiritual is horrible if you're not constantly swapping civics, and agressive isn't good unless you're going on the offensive, and you're doing it with melee or gunpowder units. I just find the constant (and I mean constant, these polls go up about twice a week it seems) polls about best traits an exercise in mental masturbation - it's not really insightful, it's just a bunch of people screaming trait names at one another, and in the end it all comes down to what most of the experienced players of this game say - traits are situationally good, and it all depends on how well you can maximize their benefits.


Isn't the purpose of forums such as these to allow people to come together and discuss aspects of their gaming experience? Are we being thought policed by you? If folks wanna discuss 2nd best trait, even if it is futile 'mental mastubation', then what is the problem?

Anyway, why don't you write an interesting and absorbing article concerning the synergy of trait pairs and the situations where they work best? I'm sure it would be a very interesting and educating read . It would also allow a better understanding of the above criticisms.

Aggressive will always be a favorite since early wars are so much easier and taking cities will give me lots of money.

I have become a huge fan of GW with the financial (assumed best trait) and the organized (voted for trait). With the combo, I never have to raze a city that I capture and I generally capture a lot.

I a prince level player, preferring large maps.

From a conquest perspective:

Organized - easy light houses solve immediate food issues for coastal cities and the easy courthouses are the single most powerful building to get a newly captured city integrated into the economics of your empire. Combined with financial's banks and the money is never an issue. Running the higher end civics longer than competitors is also an advantage (longer vassalage for war if needed and actually making environmentalism practical when at peace)

Aggressive - While the free promotion is great and barracks cheap early, you can conquer a lot of civs early. Can you keep as many conquered cities as other traits? Finanacial will help, and the incans can be tough competitors, but the rebuilding takes longer.

Creative - Again this is an early game help. When in domination mode, capturing cities and just being at war, I find that a simple 20% on the cultural slider will alleviate the war weariness in my highly populated cities for a good while. This slider position will pop newly captured citiy borders faster than the meager two points that creative gives. As for the cheap theatres, theatres are already super cheap, even without the kremlin, most often I can buy them without waiting for a single hammer towards build. I will concede that the colliseums are a must have and them being cheaper can be nice.

Spritual - Once you reach the top five civics why do you ever need to change them? Whether at war or peace, why hamper science, money, production and politics just for military boosts? Maybe I think the pentagon solves all problems when it comes to the military needs.

Industrious - chop/buy the few that are a must in your strategy and conquer the rest. I am finally starting to break the wonder habit from civ III. Not there yet, but now only need 1 or so from each era as part of my strategic needs.

Expansive - This trait is why Isabella is often in the top tier of enemy civs. She already has the happiness from her religions and now gets the health bonus. Bigger cities can really get a avalance working, however the lack of money boosting means razing captured cities more often and rebuilding from scratch. Victoria on the other hand is solid.

Philosohical - This is probably my third favorite trait. The right wonder or specialist set-up can really excell this into out-teching your opponents. Frederick and victoria are very good ai

The above is just my opinion (of course) from a conquest perspective.

I like philosophical, flexible trait, simply adjust for your needs, and use great person accordingly... build all early wonders w/ great engineers, accumulate artists, scientists etc..

Industrious is my favorite followed by financial. Qin Shi Huang is a beast for me. I just built and bought nearly every decent wonder and swallowed up 5 of Catherine's cities, Creative be damned. She was on an island with me on continents on Prince level. I then waltzed into her financially crippled capital and two other tundra cities and smashed her longbowmen and horse archers with my cavalry and infantry. My extra cash from financial let me rush buy my axemen and spearmen up to riflemen and infantry for a quick rush and win.