creative and expansive have been voted the two worst traits recently and hunting gets a bad rap on these forums, so last night i thought i'd play a game with cyrus who happens to have all three.

it was my vision that i would combine these three 'bad' things into a strategy that i would talk about on these forums to show how 'good' they can be. i decided that i would go for as hardcore of a rex strategy as i could, and here was my reasoning:

1) starting with hunting means you start with a scout. build a second scout and you can explore a ton of terrain early meaning you can plan where you're gonna put all your cities very early on. it also helps you locate the other civs early so you know where they're coming from. plus hunting means you're only one tech from archery which means you can use cheap archers to guard your early cities. (recently i realized that when archers are in a city on a hill they get both hill and city bonuses and when fortified they're incredibly difficult to dislodge.)

2) expansive means you can settle in any territory, including high floodplains or jungle and not worry about the health problems. this means you don't have to alter your plans of where you'd like to put a city, just put it there. it also means cheap granaries which helps for efficient growth and whipping.

3) creative means you don't have to worry about border expansion, so again feel free to put the city where you'd like it. furthermore, don't worry about researching mysticism and you don't have to wait til writing.

the combination of these three things made me feel like chop/pop rushing settlers and archers asap to settle as many cities as i could would make for a good strategy.

from there i felt that the combination of expansive and creative would diminish later in the game and that i should therefore go for a cultural victory instead. thus drama becomes a priority: 1) for the cheap theatres; and 2) for the culture slider. pump up the culture slider for happiness (once cheap coliseums are built) and with the increased health bonus, those cities could grow nice and large.

now of course, there are problems with this and i started to realize it...

first of all for a cultural victory, you want some religions and as you can see the strat as i laid it out doesn't even include researching mysticism.

and if i wanted to go domination instead (better goal given the initial strat) expansive and creative don't really support the necessary aggression.

now of course cyrus has immortals...let me give you a sense of how my game went.

starting strategy worked pretty good at first. by 2590 bc my scouts had revealed enough terrain that i had 12 different potential cities dotmapped. i could see where hatty, napoleon, and issy were. the thing was though that napoleon was close to me to my immediate sw and he was boxed in. to expand, he'd have to go through me (yikes) or else galley away to nearby islands.

i decided that i'd have to go to war with him or else he'd probably come at me (he was building a large army). this decision was greatly aided by the fact that i uncovered horses in my capital and 2nd city (which was built at a chokepoint boxing napoleon into a small, tundra-filled area).

so, i built my third city on the western coast and went for sailing for galleys. i built a galley to blockade his capital and only port city and then immortal rushed him. unfortunately, he had copper deep in his capital so he had some spears. after a long and bloody battle, i took him out. in doing so i added four cities to my empire.

but guess what? i only built one more settler (to take a prime gpp spot before hatty did) because a barb city appeared at another targetted spot and the rest were taken by hatty and issy. (i'm playing on emperor, btwn).

so what does this show?

1) revealing a bunch of the map is nice, but totally unnecessary as at higher levels the ai will box you in pretty early and you'll know where they are and you won't be able to build are your nicely-dotmapped cities anyways.

2) even when you want to avoid aggression early and build your empire, being aggressive IS a far superior way to expand your empire. and cheaper barracks and a free combat 1 promotion are sooo much better than cheaper granaries and +3 health in this regard.

3) creative is sorta nice because you can build other stuff right away, but honestly i find 1-pop poprushing obelisks very easily takes care of border expansion. as long as you have one surplus food resource nearby you grow back fast and even if you don't, it doesn't take that long. if you have a really bad spot (that has good stuff upon border expansion) then you can always chop the obelisk if you need it fast.

i have to say after my experience with cyrus that i definitely think the reputation of these two traits and one tech are well-deserved. before this i concurred with the general sentiment, but now i have stronger reasons for doing so. aggressive in my mind is unquestionably the best trait (you can 1pop poprush barracks in many cases). organized or financial next to support your army and empire. and starting techs, since you can't get mining as aggressive, ag and the wheel. this adds up, for me, to capac, tokugawa, and napoleon as being the best civs.

of course all are playable (i was still doing quite well with cyrus), and you don't have to go for an aggressive-based strategy, but on emperor the ai certainly dictates it by expanding toward your territory quickly. furthermore, if you don't trim them back they just seem to blow past you (and if monty is nearby, if you don't go at him, you just know he's comin' at you).

all in all, i can see how expansive and creative can be used, but at least at higher levels they don't support aggression, which seems to be the most important part of the game (they also don't support your economy either...). plus, at lower levels, the health cap isn't as severe so do you really need the +3 health?

well, i hope this post has been somewhat interesting and/or informative, i hope it generates some discussion.