Preface: I'm usually play Emperor. I also generally run hybrid economies so I do like cottages (I play rather quickly so I generally don't like to constantly micromanage my specialists).

It's interesting to see lots of players say things like "Financial is OP! I can't live without Financial! Is Financial better than any other two traits?"

First off, what does financial do? Financial gives you +1 commerce (not gold) if the tile you are working on has two commerce. And...that's it! The problem is, at least in my experience, Civ isn't like football (err American football to all you non-Americans). It is less a game of inches than a game of big plays. Sure inches help, but in the end you can't win unless you go long.

What do I mean by that? I mean that while financial is a nice side benefit, it doesn't really let you do broken stuff. On the higher levels, it's very hard to win as an island; the AI gets so many bonuses that it's very hard to out-tech them by turtling. That's why two of, if not the most broken actions in civ are are:

1. War
2. Tech leapfrogging (Whether it be through Oracle, Lightbulbs or Pointy-stick
research).
3. Diplomacy.

One can argue that financial helps you do both by getting to tech faster. I suppose that's true, but then again, you can start warring when you get AH or BW. Getting 2-3 enemy cities is nice, as are using your units to pillage the AI's unassaultable cities. You can't really cottage a person to death.

Similarly, learning how and when to tech trade is also very powerful. GS lightbulbing is very powerful; lightbulbing philosophy will help you get more GS for education/liberalism as well as trade for 2-3 medieval techs; power techs such as machinery/feudalism/currency. (It's obvious that AIs love education, cuz they are always willing to attack someone for it). Furthermore, selling off obsolete techs is another great way to get cash (in fact selling of Rocketry is a good way to divert opponent's shields away from tanks to something harmless). It doesn't matter if you're selling Rocketry for 30g if it's to a civ with no chance of winning. Only look at the frontrunners and no one else.

Diplomacy is IMO what separates the better CIV players from the so-so ones. Actually, skillful diplomacy is probably the MOST powerful thing you can do. I remember in the beginning I was very hesitant to give up techs or money, especially because I was jealous and wanted to keep my precious techs and money. Now, I am more than willing to give some money to people to make friendships.

I also will freely give up techs to have an AI attack another AI. Diplomacy helps in SO many ways; 1-2 wars is more than enough to knock off the AI from the space race and it really helps when YOU want to attack the AI that you're bribing the second AI to attack. One of my most cherished moments is when before a war Elizabeth had both Civil Service AND Machinery over me, while I had...Elephants and Catapults. Nevertheless once I researched those techs, a quick bribe to Genghis Khan followed by a few (ok a lot) turns of buildup meant that her power was 2x mine before the bribe and we switched places after she surrendered. :lol:

So what traits do I think are as good as financial?

Charismatic: Getting a 50% happiness boost in your capital and 66%(!!) boost in your other cities early on is tremendous. I generally think that charismatic gives you the fastest rushes in the game; whipping is THAT powerful. In addition, the ability to get a level 4 unit ASAP should not be underestimated. Heroic Epic is very powerful.

Spiritual: The diplomat's trait. Anarchy is good only in very limited circumstances. The ability to change religions and civics without anarchy can save you a TON of gold, research production, and Great Person Points (two turns of anarchy just to make one civics switch with a related religion switch hurts). Furthermore, it really helps when civs ask you to switch civics. Just switch and then 5 turns later switch back; you shouldn't lose TOO much and you get positive diplo modifiers. I like getting Defensive Pacts, since you can stop building units and instead go win; Spiritual lets me get into a pact, use my favored civics/religion then back into the defensive pact with minimum loss of efficiency.

Philosophical: Lightbulbs are powerful. People will go to war for techs. Philosophical helps with that. Not much more to be said.

Creative: I'm probably one of the few people that like creative. But I really think it's not too bad a trait. Early border expansions are great, they let you pick optimum city sites early, saving you either obelisk + mysticism or giving you a substandard city later. In packed spots the early border expansions will help you win wars over crucial resources.

Expansive: I have to admit, I used to not like this trait at all. Now though, I think it's a good trait. It really shines in the end game, where happiness is abundant and health is often limited. When you're building spaceship parts or you start surrounded by floodplains, then you'll definitely not regret having additional health.

Other things:

Strong early UU: Yea this one doesn't really fit in. But Quecha, Immortal or (my favorite) War Chariot are awesome UUs. The ability to have axeman-like power AND maybe 2 moment for 10-20 shields less is crazy. Even if there is no one to rush, having nice defenders against barbs is always a bonus.

Begging for money. Oh how I love begging for money. 50 gold-100 gold early on is a lifesaver. Make friends. Beg for their money. Then have them fight your wars for you. It's fun!

Land is power. Land is power. Land is power.

I hope this helps people who really think Financial is OP. Wean yourself off of it; Civ4 has a lot of different strategies and you are doing yourself a disfavor by not trying them out.

I thought I'd take issue with this, but there is a lot to agree with. Financial shouldn't be a crutch - if it is then you are definitely missing out.

I probably appreciate financial as a very helpful warmongering trait more than you do - you can't cottage an enemy to death, but you can afford a larger army and afford to take more cities from them with financial. You can also get construction online quickly if you don't have metals.

But I hate to play the same way always. I'll play all leaders and I won't be restricted to just financial. And looking at my hall of fame, my top games aren't with financial leaders either.

I don't really agree with either Creative or Expansive being top tier traits. They are both at the bottom of my list. Creative helps you set aside land that the AI can't build cities in - but I want them to build cities close to me! It doesn't help you fight better and it doesn't help your economy much. Saving you from building a monument in a city isn't a big enough plus for me compared to the other traits. I will play with Creative - its fun - but its not a power trait.

Same with Expansive. Extra health is great on some maps such as an isolated start, but in a lot of games health isn't too hard to come by - especially if you are warring - the resources you capture will sustain your health without a lot of effort. Late game health is rarely a big issue to me - by then most cities have enough health to work all their good tiles and you can quickly build health buildings if you need them. So for me this is huge on an isolated start and limited value otherwise.

Aggressive, Charismatic, Spiritual, Industrious and Philosophical are all top tier traits that can be as good as financial. All enable a particular style of game that is distinctly different to a Financial game.

Like everything in Civ, the strength of a given trait depends largely on your starting position.

Cottages obviously benefit from Financial, but this is mostly a factor in the long-term game. Other traits, like Philosophical, can do a lot more to jump-start your early game. Right?

Well, it depends. If you're near a decent financial tile to begin with, Financial is going to add a coin to your research on turn 1. This can be huge, allowing you to be the first to an early religion, for example.

So to me Financial is a top tier trait, but it is over-rated. It's top-tier because it will always benefit any civ in the long-term game, assuming that player builds a lot of cottages. It's over-rated because it doesn't do much to help early-game gambits, as you point out.

Also, one may forget the AI loves cottaging. Taking their cities mean taking their cottages. Each conquered city gives you 4 or 5 extra commerce is huge.

You don't want to be taking their cottages. You want to be pillaging them to rape mass amounts of gold and feed your army. They are actually PAYING for you to conquer them.

Then you plant farms over where the cottages used to be after there is nothing left, and u sign peace.

Financial is good if you are planning space race or cultural from the beginning. It is also good if you are playing archipelago maps or if you are planning early colossus from the beginning. Otherwise it's kinda "meh"

I think it should get back its cheaper banks tbh.

Nice arguments although I personally find the financial trait to be in the absolute top tier. Same with Industrious and Aggressive which the OP dosen't mention in his list.

One thing - while financial might not always be as good as one thinks on it's own, it can be absolutely stellar in synergi with another trait. Take Elizabeth (Fin+Phi) who get's the best from both worlds/economies and becomes a demi-Goddess when Redcoats are available - Capec (Fin+Ind) is a tech monster because of his traits in every game I encounter him and Ragnar (Agg+Fin) has funds to pay for a large Beserker/Trebuchet army with additional XP points and can be quite powerful in early-/midgame.

I don't really agree with either Creative or Expansive being top tier traits. They are both at the bottom of my list. Creative helps you set aside land that the AI can't build cities in - but I want them to build cities close to me!

Strangely enough I just had a game where the complete opposite occurred. I played KK and I have to say creative was a godsend.

1. First off Bronze was in my capital's third ring and the land around it was crap. Creative made it so that I didn't need to waste a settler over there, instead I could use a settler for furs + pigs (happiness = yummy)

2. Bismark's 4th city was two squares away from my second city, in between us was cows and elephants. Creative let me get those juicy resources and made it so that the moment I declared on him I would be one turn closer to his city.

3. I was fighting cultural pressure against Hatty for one of my big shield cities. The ability to get quickly get a theater/colisseum/library helped me win culture and get more resources (mmm..about 40-50 shields worth).

4. I flipped 2 cities! Including the Christian holy city :lol:.

Same with Expansive. Extra health is great on some maps such as an isolated start, but in a lot of games health isn't too hard to come by - especially if you are warring - the resources you capture will sustain your health without a lot of effort. Late game health is rarely a big issue to me - by then most cities have enough health to work all their good tiles and you can quickly build health buildings if you need them. So for me this is huge on an isolated start and limited value otherwise.

I don't know about that. I find that the extra health is great for squeezing out those last spaceship parts or for letting you do funny GE tricks. In the end game happy is really easy to get; health becomes a LOT harder.

One thing - while financial might not always be as good as one thinks on it's own, it can be absolutely stellar in synergi with another trait. Take Elizabeth (Fin+Phi) who get's the best from both worlds/economies and becomes a demi-Goddess when Redcoats are available - Capec (Fin+Ind) is a tech monster because of his traits in every game I encounter him and Ragnar (Agg+Fin) has funds to pay for a large Beserker/Trebuchet army with additional XP points and can be quite powerful in early-/midgame.

Funny thing is that I find Ragnar really weak. Fishing + Hunting means that it takes FOREVER to utilize aggressive (3 techs + bronze hookup? Umm no). He's really more of a techer, but that basically wastes his aggressive trait. Liz I agree with; she has a really strong start. Capac..well if he didnt' have the Quecha he'd definitely be a lot weaker :lol:.

P.S. I do have to admit my thoughts are a bit difficulty specific (Emperor). I really haven't played Monarch in over a year and I'd definitely be out of my depth. You might think that is funny but it's true; things that are good for Emperor are not as needed on Monarch. I played futurehermit's cottage game and got owned. I was shocked when AIs didn't get feudalism at 400 AD and when I actually had a bigger power graph before declaring war!

Ragnar definitely isn't weak. fishing is on the path to pottery, so go there first. Then your tech rate accelerates. It doesn't matter that its another two techs to bronze - you couldn't build a settler before then anyway. What else do you need? You want a few cities before your axe rush - otherwise the AIs don't have much worth taking.

The thing Ragnar has is a really good UU that benefits from the aggressive trait. And the main enabling tech (CS) is one you want for a cottage economy anyway. And you can afford a huge army and a lot of cities. I was still teching rapidly at 40% science in futurehermits game.

Capac is probably a bit less awesome apart from Quechas. Industrious financial isn't a combo that I love so much. One dictates running lots of mines to build wonders and get GPP for settling and the other dictates running lots of cottages. Financial aggressive is much better, or Industrious + something else.

The best leaders in my opinion combine one of the economy strengthening traits (Spiritual/Financial/Industrious/Philosophical) with one of the military traits (Spiritual/Aggressive/Protective/Charismatic) - Spiritual works in both categories.

Financial is good if you are planning space race or cultural from the beginning. It is also good if you are playing archipelago maps or if you are planning early colossus from the beginning. Otherwise it's kinda "meh"

Sorry, but I don't agree at all. Perhaps it's true that for a veteran SE player like you, CE doesn't run as smooth as when youre going SE, but in general financial is one of the stronger traits even for warfare.

Getting three commerce from an early river cottage finances expansion like you wouldn't believe and whipping cottage tiles away is no worse than whipping away specialists..

There is one situation where I would agree with you, and that is a map which is sorely lacking in rivers/grasslands (like the middle of Great Plains). In that case financial is truly kinda meh.

Funny thing is that I find Ragnar really weak. Fishing + Hunting means that it takes FOREVER to utilize aggressive (3 techs + bronze hookup? Umm no). !

Come on now, were are now being critical of Ragnar simplty because you cannot get bronze working fast enough? Stalin is the ONLY agressive CIV to start with mining so everyone else has to research Mining first (Shaka, Alexander, Ghengis ...), so Ragnar with his fishing and financial allows you tech faster (providing you have freshwater or seafood) towards that. Plus you can always take archery first, protect your cities then go. I have looked at alot of advice on these boards and everyone has a fascination/obsession about getting braonze working immediately.

I would say financial/agressive is extremely powerful for war-mongering. You can tech very fast (and yes financial is powerful for early fats teching) and beeline to theology or fuedalism, then start building the conquering army once you run either theocracy or vassalage. It is amazing the troops he can spit out that can attack/defend anything (he is the best counter to an AI with war elephants sinc ehe can rather quickly get double promoted spearmen that start with combat 1). He's even better than Hannibal (except for horse units) because of the combat I start on units.

HC is awesome being industrious/finnacial in that
1) archery is rather insignificant for a long time
2) He starts with mysticism and can found an early religion easily (polytheism or if that fails judaism).
3) He has the best chance for the oracle and thus metal casting with it's cheap forges. He easily can have forges in everycity before he even HAS bronzeworking.
4) He can rely just on quenchas and chariots (I usually go for animal husbandry before bronze working with him) to protect his borders.
5) I frequently find animal husbandry before bronzeworking is preferred. It's cheaper and allows pastures for other resource besides horses.

3) He has the best chance for the oracle and thus metal casting with it's cheap forges. He easily can have forges in everycity before he even HAS bronzeworking.

I don't see how that is possible, let alone easy.

Spiritual is the sort of trait that is neutral amoungst all other combos. The problem is it's been severly nerfed in civ IV, and then nerfed again.

Back in civ III, it was not uncommon for anarchy to last 7 or more turns. Those were brutal. Those problems are gone in civ IV, which obviously puts spiritual at a major penalty now, as they didn't do anything to balance this out. In fact, they even made things worse than that. Furthermore, you now have a cool-down time after switching civics, before you can switch again!

Once again, this severely penalizes the spiritual trait, which is the only real advantage of the leader in the first place! So while there used to be even doubts about spiritual in civ III, try to put things into perspective now...

I really don't like Firaxis' nerfing of that. The game shouldn't be all about warmongering traits.

I don't really agree with either Creative or Expansive being top tier traits. They are both at the bottom of my list. Creative helps you set aside land that the AI can't build cities in - but I want them to build cities close to me! It doesn't help you fight better and it doesn't help your economy much. Saving you from building a monument in a city isn't a big enough plus for me compared to the other traits. I will play with Creative - its fun - but its not a power trait.


Each to their own but I find Creative one of the most useful. Rather than having to settle on or next to a metal you only need it in the fat cross and can expand out to it in five turns (which is usually around the same time it will take to get a road out to it anyway).

Not having to worry about building a monument/library in every city (as you have a fat cross in five turns) gets your seccond and third city up and running quicker along with all the cities you capture later. The latter helps with a speedier domination victory and limits the danger of counter attacks.

I don't care about creating a zone of control in the early game, as you say close cities are easily captured cities but this doesn't affect it as 2 culture a turn is negligible once the city is up and running (while a city won't be set up in your fat cross anyway.

I play random anyway but the only reason I see it as a low level trait is if your going for a cultural victory.

Sorry, but I don't agree at all. Perhaps it's true that for a veteran SE player like you, CE doesn't run as smooth as when youre going SE, but in general financial is one of the stronger traits even for warfare.

Getting three commerce from an early river cottage finances expansion like you wouldn't believe and whipping cottage tiles away is no worse than whipping away specialists..

There is one situation where I would agree with you, and that is a map which is sorely lacking in rivers/grasslands (like the middle of Great Plains). In that case financial is truly kinda meh.

financial is not a good warmongering trait, plain and simple. why? because cottages produce neither surplus food (indirect hammers) nor direct hammers and production is king when warmongering (hey that rhymes!)

Vale, my bad, metal casting requires bronze working. My point really was HC does not need bronzeworking that fast and mining is enough to get started on the oracle although if you had bronze working it certainly would be easier (and preferred). Still he can get to the oracle faster than any other civ.

Financial is fine for war-mongering. At the least it helps you finance you army by allowing you to run research 10% less, let alone helping you get to better techs. ALL traits can be used to help war mongering if used correctly, some are more helpful at sertains times though.

When warmongering (and even not) I turn research down to 0%, not just 10% less. If your warring right, shouldn't you be making your opponents GIVE you techs? That used to be one of my main reasons of going to war. The few extra cities also helps of course. This is why I make alphabet a priority before going to my first war, then money spending goes to zero until theaters come in and I fight the war weariness.

Financial helps covering expenses in war and as such is a good trait for warmongering. Usually until 1 AD all my cities outside capital (where i build as much cottages as possible) are production/whipping sites,mines and food are highest priority here so i have ample production.

The AI builds a lot of cottages itself and being financial helps again in financing taking these cities.

To be honest I play everygame as it unfolds, I have warmongered very well with Asoka while playing a peaceful game with Cyrus, depends on the situation. Example, my currentgame (marathon/huge/Prince) Ragner. I have my first city in the northern ice with lots of seafood and hills and marble/copper/gems, great city for great people and wonder production; BUT far away from everything else. Second city became the new capital got 6 cities total, made friends with three civs arround me (we are all Buddhists), and founded three religions by teching to them first. At this point I was way ahead in tech friendly with everyone, exploring the oceans (ended up being 2 continants) and saw no reason to be a raging war monger, although I did attack Brennus with beserkers to take the buddhist holy city (and two other border cities). He is still friendly with me and I see no real reson to war monger and trash the world, but will likely head towards a diplomatic or space victory (or even a Viking cultural victory). I can and will certainly bash heads all game if I need to or want to, but there are times when it is more enjoyable to tech away. That is one thing I love about the game is the unpreditability on how it will unfold and also why I do not prefer the more advanced level which really require a pretty rigid/predictable game.

Come on now, were are now being critical of Ragnar simplty because you cannot get bronze working fast enough? Stalin is the ONLY agressive CIV to start with mining so everyone else has to research Mining first (Shaka, Alexander, Ghengis ...), so Ragnar with his fishing and financial allows you tech faster (providing you have freshwater or seafood) towards that. Plus you can always take archery first, protect your cities then go. I have looked at alot of advice on these boards and everyone has a fascination/obsession about getting braonze working immediately.

Yes I really think it does matter. On Emperor barbs come early (~1800 BC). With Ragnar you are lucky to maybe get an axe out by ~1700 BC. If you're in a not-so-crowed map...it's rough. Bad BW techs = higher chance of barbs coming in to mess you up, pillaging your resources and slowing you down significantly. And if you have to wait until swords/catas to attack or use chariots to defend...grats, you didn't use aggressive for a good half of the (war) game! I'd much rather have charismatic instead. Heck, give me Hatty and war chariots!

For the other agg civs at least most of them start with wheel or mining, saving you potentially a whole lot of time and grief.

Mmm....I hate to ask, but what levels/maps do some of the posters play? It'd establish a general ground with which to see the level differences (which as I said I'm not too familiar with). I generally go Emperor/Conti/Standard. Yea I guess if you like lower levels (nothing wrong with that) then good barb defense isn't as needed. Then again, I'm pretty sure that it's easy to out pointy-stick research the AIs even on Monarch, making financial even LESS needed.

financial is not a good warmongering trait, plain and simple. why? because cottages produce neither surplus food (indirect hammers) nor direct hammers and production is king when warmongering (hey that rhymes!)

Well, yes, I'd agree that for simple numerical unit output farms+mines make more units than cottages, but that wasn't my point. I meant that on the strategic level, financial is good for expansion/war. You can settle more cities, keep more cities and generally not worry about falling behind tech-wise. Your war phases can drag on slightly longer than they would with non-financial.

You simply end up with more gold and beakers. That's pretty good whatever strategy you are pursuing.

Imho, being able to easily support a large empire outweighs the disadvantage of having a bit less production per city (compared to a farm-mine spam).

As a wild example, take imperialistic warmongers like Genghis Khan or Julius Caesar. Would you really not prefer to exchange imperialistic for financial when playing them??

All that said, the game is situational, and on some maps financial fails. But in general I stand by my point.

[EDIT] I took a look at your CottageEconomists game in order to see what your issues were with financial. Imho the vikings have slightly too many cottages for the opening. I know the agreement in that game was cottage spam, but in this case I think it was the abundance of cottages that killed production/warmongering. Your tech rate around 1 AD was really nice; I didn't check but I guess you had construction ages ago. Cats would have given you the iron and Roosevelts cities early and easily. (I didn't have CS at 1 AD, but I had taken out Roosevelt, so I guess the price of warfare is a reduced tech rate).

Still that's not an issue with Financial in general. It's an issue with cottage spam.

I agree completely with your comments if you were referring to financial with extensive early cottage spam, but imho even financial civs should hold out with the heavy cottage working till after the closest AI is dead (anyway, theres generally some cows/horses/agricultural resource and hills around that you can work in parallell with any cottages you have built). Sorry if I misunderstood what you meant earlier.


...production is king when warmongering...


:) Civilization rap-song, anyone?

I play on Prince only so other levels are out. I also play on Huge maps.marathon speed which require patience. That said here are the agressive leaders
Ragnar (Fishing/hunting)
Alex (Fishing/Hun ting)
Both Kahns (Wheel/Hunting)
Shaka (Hunting/Agriculture)
Monty (Myst/Hunting)
Tokugawa (Wheel/Agriculture)
Stalin (Mining/Hunting)

Again, Stalin is the only agressive civ to START with mining. Tokugawa is the only one to start WITHOUT Hunting. The Kahns start with the wheel but should shoot for animal husbandry first. Now since Ragnar is the ONLY financial agressive CIV AND starts with Fishing (three commerce on every seafood and fresh water) seams like he should be the first to tech mining/bronzeworking/wheel, hell he can get archery fast so he can protect his butt.

Financial becomes more effective on sea squares. A financial civ who has coastal cities gets 3 commerce for each square, instead of two. It also helps to have 3 commerce right off the bat on a cottaged river square. Financial is not a warmongering trait early on, but if you can gain an edge on some of the AI's, particularly around gunpowder/chemistry, you can use the tech lead to get more advanced military. But it is important to remember that financial is not the end-all be-all, it just can help a little. It's just as easy to play a CE withoput financial, and financial AI's such as Mansa can easily be countered by war directly with them, having more land than them, or can get spies around.

For Expansive + Creative, they get much better at higher difficulties, when otherwise you can't compete as well with the AI's early on. Creative can block the computer from your land and helps to get better cities immediately. Even if you use it to block the path of the AI's so you can found a couple "meh" spots, those extra cities can help crank out war units to defeat an AI early on.

Expansive helps greatly with workers and health. Workers can be made faster and can start chopping out settlers, units, buildings, or hook up important resources.

^^for frob2900: yes, I agree with you 100%. In my CE game (which I played horribly after liberalism), I didn't go to an early war but I did expand as fast or faster than the AI's. I noticed that at the 2000 bc checkmark, everyone had 2 cities, while I got my third city in 1960 BC. Expansion at easier difficulties/war mongering is > than cottage spam at start IMO. I didn't wage war and kept my production low, but if I wanted to I could have assigned people to productive squares and moved all the way up to 1rst in productivity by a little.

I only have two wins on Monarch. My first was a JC pangea domination.

My second win was a few days ago. It was Vicky, isolated Space Race 1969. And Mansa Musa was in the game.

When warmongering (and even not) I turn research down to 0%, not just 10% less. If your warring right, shouldn't you be making your opponents GIVE you techs? That used to be one of my main reasons of going to war. The few extra cities also helps of course. This is why I make alphabet a priority before going to my first war, then money spending goes to zero until theaters come in and I fight the war weariness.

I do the same. Unless I want an extra early rush, I wait till I get alphabet before I start my war, then later leave my neighbour with one or two lesser cities, then sue peace and extort a few techs from my poor neighbour. If I have good early UU like immortals or war chariots sometimes I can hit two neighbours and get 6-8 freebies in total.

This is the same reason I research currency early if I play warmonger. Squeezing out a few more hundred golds doesn't hurt, I guess.

Madscientist -

The rush to BW is all about chopping, not axemen.

Meanness, I understand and I am not saying to forget BW or even not getting it early. Chop now, Chop later not as big a deal to me. The point of my posts to this thread had mostly to do with Ragnar (or HC) not being a great was monger because of the financial trait. My point is he can get to BW FASTER than other agressive AIs except for Stalin, and can probably hook it up faster than Stalin because of the fast techtime. Again, I play marathon games on a huge map so I am accustomed to patience, hard to conquer 10 other AIs with an axerush.

Great thread!

To me, the best thing about financial is it's a powerful trait that is super-easy to leverage and has benefits that are relevant for the entire game. Cottage spamming is a very easy strategy to learn and execute and, once one masters a few other basic strategies like early warring and city specialization, will lead to consistent wins on prince and even monarch levels.

But as I've moved up to Monarch and lately to Emperor (still not winning consistently there) my opinions on the traits have swung wildly. I read Jack's SE thread, tried that out, and thought to myself man, Philosophical is almost as overpowered as financial! Then I realized if I focused on getting one early high-food city with a library I could pop GPs pretty quickly with a non-Philo leader, just like I can run a CE without financial.

More recently I've fallen in love with Creative, because it lets me not worry about culture in the early game, makes it easy to get libraries up in my capital and GPF, and makes managing captured cities easier as border pops are free. And I find Expansive shines early just as much as late, as a granary is the only building I put up in every single city. Charismatic and Organized help ease the burden of adjusting to the higher maintenance costs and lower happy caps one faces at higher levels. Industrious, one of my favorite traits on Noble and Prince, became one of my least favorite on Monarch because I couldn't build more than 1-2 wonders and still pump out enough units for a good BC war... but as I've gotten better at early multitasking, it's starting to make a comeback.

So now when evaluating traits, I think not only about the advantages they offer but also how hard one has to work to use those advantages effectively. But one point in ds's original post is undeniable: playing different leaders and learning to maximize different traits can hugely improve one's game. In my case, I still see financial as an awesome trait. But it's also true that before I could win consistently on monarch, I had to learn to play without it.

Yes I really think it does matter. On Emperor barbs come early (~1800 BC). With Ragnar you are lucky to maybe get an axe out by ~1700 BC. If you're in a not-so-crowed map...it's rough. Bad BW techs = higher chance of barbs coming in to mess you up, pillaging your resources and slowing you down significantly. And if you have to wait until swords/catas to attack or use chariots to defend...grats, you didn't use aggressive for a good half of the (war) game! I'd much rather have charismatic instead. Heck, give me Hatty and war chariots!

For the other agg civs at least most of them start with wheel or mining, saving you potentially a whole lot of time and grief.

Mmm....I hate to ask, but what levels/maps do some of the posters play? It'd establish a general ground with which to see the level differences (which as I said I'm not too familiar with). I generally go Emperor/Conti/Standard. Yea I guess if you like lower levels (nothing wrong with that) then good barb defense isn't as needed. Then again, I'm pretty sure that it's easy to out pointy-stick research the AIs even on Monarch, making financial even LESS needed.

Well I play Emperor too, and don't find barbs enough to stop me going pottery first with financial on floodplains. The fact is that with aggressive warriors can defend you for a while. And going wheel-pottery-mining-bronze will get you there fast enough. Or with Ragnar go wheel-pottery-archery to be ultra safe.

By 2000BC, I expect to have bronzeworking and a second city settled. I probably have time to even get animal husbandry by then - the early cottages will double your research rate. On Monarch (futurehermits cottage game), I had time to go to archery after that before barbs became a nuisance.

Early bronze is not as useful as you think. I think anytime in the first four techs is fine (probably first three for a non financial leader). You need your city to grow before it can be usefully whipped and you want your worker improving your best tiles rather than chopping while you are still size one.

An ultra crowded map might be different - an enemy capital within 10 squares range might be a great reason to gamble on rushing bronze first.

Barbs come early on higher difficulties, but fogbusting should give you sufficient time to get BW and either horse or bronze. Barbs start streaming in as warriors/archers, and take a little while longer to get axes. If you are able to get either horse or bronze, axe vs axe, axe vs archer, chariot vs archer, and chariot vs axe all are reasonably in your favor.

Spiritual is the sort of trait that is neutral amoungst all other combos. The problem is it's been severly nerfed in civ IV, and then nerfed again.

Back in civ III, it was not uncommon for anarchy to last 7 or more turns. Those were brutal. Those problems are gone in civ IV, which obviously puts spiritual at a major penalty now, as they didn't do anything to balance this out. In fact, they even made things worse than that. Furthermore, you now have a cool-down time after switching civics, before you can switch again!

Once again, this severely penalizes the spiritual trait, which is the only real advantage of the leader in the first place! So while there used to be even doubts about spiritual in civ III, try to put things into perspective now...

I really don't like Firaxis' nerfing of that. The game shouldn't be all about warmongering traits.
If I'm remembering correctly, there's something in BtS that fixes this....

Wodan

Spiritual is the sort of trait that is neutral amoungst all other combos. The problem is it's been severly nerfed in civ IV, and then nerfed again.

Back in civ III, it was not uncommon for anarchy to last 7 or more turns. Those were brutal. Those problems are gone in civ IV, which obviously puts spiritual at a major penalty now, as they didn't do anything to balance this out. In fact, they even made things worse than that. Furthermore, you now have a cool-down time after switching civics, before you can switch again!

Once again, this severely penalizes the spiritual trait, which is the only real advantage of the leader in the first place! So while there used to be even doubts about spiritual in civ III, try to put things into perspective now...

I really don't like Firaxis' nerfing of that. The game shouldn't be all about warmongering traits.


Except spiritual is way powerful - in the top three anyway. Its about switching civics every five turns, queue loading and getting synergies between civics and your immediate purpose that no other empire can match. In civ 3 you just advanced through the government forms one after the other. Now you can change your religion, your government every few turns.

Spiritual doesn't need to be strengthened - its already powerful. The only thing that bothers me is that BTS is supposed to include a wonder that lets you switch civics without cost too - which duplicates the entire trait.

Well I play Emperor too, and don't find barbs enough to stop me going pottery first with financial on floodplains. The fact is that with aggressive warriors can defend you for a while. And going wheel-pottery-mining-bronze will get you there fast enough. Or with Ragnar go wheel-pottery-archery to be ultra safe.

I guess it's just a matter of playstyle. To me aggressive is best when it's CR axe versus Archer (and draft too, but that comes later). The faster I can get CR axes the more cities I can take, and the more cities I can take the more resources I have which let me grow my cities faster. Once I get construction I find that agg lags versus charismatic; you have to build catapults and can build elephants, neither of which leverage Agg very well.

That's why I think Ragnar is kinda meh. His starting techs can make his rush SLOW, which close . It seems you like attacking with catapults and axes/swords. What timeframe do you usually attack and what is the opponent's tech level? I generally go Alpha-->Lit to GL, Tao and CS--> Liberalism--> Nationalism/Military Tradition. I suppose Math-->Construction will let you get catapults faster, but I'm just too addicted to the Great Library and the GPP and research boost is provides.

In addition I guess I'm just spoiled by Egypt. At least for me War Chariot = Aggressive all by itself. Str 5 Movement 2 is for 25 shields is flat out overpowered, and Hatty needs ONE tech to find and connect horses.

Except spiritual is way powerful - in the top three anyway. Its about switching civics every five turns, queue loading and getting synergies between civics and your immediate purpose that no other empire can match. In civ 3 you just advanced through the government forms one after the other. Now you can change your religion, your government every few turns.

Yep, I love me some spiritual. As for Christo Redentor, doesn't it come a bit late?

IMO Spiritual is sort of "nerfed" by the effect of religions on AI diplomacy. At higher levels if you don't have a good start, declaring state religion can be a risky business, particularly when you have multiple warmongers with different religions as your dear neighbours. A lot of time I will stay religion free all the way till liberalism. Without using state religion a spiritual leader loses almost half of his civic switching benefit.

The religion mess needs to be somewhat adjusted. I usually found confucism and taoism but can't use them. It's kinda retaxded.

I guess it's just a matter of playstyle. To me aggressive is best when it's CR axe versus Archer (and draft too, but that comes later). The faster I can get CR axes the more cities I can take, and the more cities I can take the more resources I have which let me grow my cities faster. Once I get construction I find that agg lags versus charismatic; you have to build catapults and can build elephants, neither of which leverage Agg very well.


Yes, but don't you need a few cities for a good axe rush? Unless the enemy is really close, I'd like to have at least two cities building units. And if you don't start with copper you will need another city to capture it anyway. I can easily have BW by the time I have my second city.


That's why I think Ragnar is kinda meh. His starting techs can make his rush SLOW, which close . It seems you like attacking with catapults and axes/swords. What timeframe do you usually attack and what is the opponent's tech level? I generally go Alpha-->Lit to GL, Tao and CS--> Liberalism--> Nationalism/Military Tradition. I suppose Math-->Construction will let you get catapults faster, but I'm just too addicted to the Great Library and the GPP and research boost is provides.


Whether you can do an ultra early rush probably depends on two things - location of copper and location of opponents. More often than not I am deficient in either copper or a close opponent which means my first war isn't ultra early.

In the last two games I played (both with financial leaders, one as Vicky on Emperor and one as Ragnar on Monarch), I went to war with catapults. In Vickies game I didn't have much choice since I had no metals at all. I did have elephants though. In Ragnars case I left Ironworking late which was a mistake and I didn't have copper.

With financial I love early construction because you can get there so fast. But I still have time to pick up the GL if I have marble. On Emperor I probably wouldn't bother unless I had marble. Both times my opponent had archers. And cats vs archers = destroyed opponent.

Both games involved me building around four cities to begin with, getting COL from Oracle, teching to literature and then to construction. Then go for Monarchy as the war progresses. Then civil service, machinery while lightbulbing philosophy and later education.

But that is my gameplan for financial only. I play completely differently with other traits. But generally I will only rush a very close AI - otherwise maintennace is a killer while you don't have COL and are don't have Alphabet to keep up research with trading.

The nice thing about a catapult rush is that you can capture wonders and you can capture better developed cities including capitals. My last game with Ragnar saw me capture Pyramids, Parthenon, Temple of Artemis and the Great Wall. If I'd rushed my opponent too early I wouldn't have picked these up.



In addition I guess I'm just spoiled by Egypt. At least for me War Chariot = Aggressive all by itself. Str 5 Movement 2 is for 25 shields is flat out overpowered, and Hatty needs ONE tech to find and connect horses.

Yep, I love me some spiritual. As for Christo Redentor, doesn't it come a bit late?

War chariot is an excellent reason for an early rush. You are only powerful while the opponent doesn't have metals and you have the fast movement that distance isn't a problem. Thats a different game, but I would go early rush then too. Likewise Immortals. Aggressive axes have a much longer lifespan.

War Chariots are excellent suppression units too. Rush with them, take a couple of cities but keep warring to keep the enemy boxed in until you are ready to take more cities. You can prevent them from ever getting metals.

I hope you are right and Christo Redentor does come late.

I hope you are right and Christo Redentor does come late.

According to the previews, you need Radio for the Christo Redentor. I suppose it could be handy for late-game warring, especially with promotions for air units now. Personally, I don't fight many late game wars.

Financial is above average for warmongering. At worst, you could compare it to organized without the courthouses. I'd say it's better than industrious, since you're not warmongering if you're busy building forges. I guess industrious can partially build wonders for money.

If you've ever started next to an oasis (or 2nd city), your early tech is amazing.
Early cottages by the river are an early +3 commerce, whereas farms with specialists would be 3/2=1.5 science+1 commerce, so potentially 2.5 science without pyramids. Otherwise, it would be 2.5 science vs 2 commerce. 5 turns it's 4 vs 2.5. With civil service and financial, a grassland is either 1.5 science or 1 commerce, in 5 turns 1.5 science or 3 commerce. Financial makes it viable to go cottages in some cities early, which has big benefits later.
And I would be very reluctant to pillage an enemy city with villages or towns. I'd have to be really hurting for gold (although that does happen).

Spiritual is amazing, not ok. So you can almost always trade with someone (would you trade a turn of anarchy for a favorable trade?) with favorable civic/religion. Bum some gold off someone, and you can shave a few turns off research. Someone demands a switch of civic is a cheap, permanent + diplomacy bonus.
Like aggressive/charismatic. You can produce a queue of +4 exp units, and you've traded for theology vassalage because you're spiritual.
Like charismatic: Cheap temples for +1 happiness. Sometimes I can rely on temples instead of building a globe theatre. And in wars, you can go police state.
Creative: Once you have civil service, you can pop borders with artists. No need to build monuments/stone henge.
Production: slavery/organized religion. Later on, a quick switch to nationhood, then switch back while waiting for the unhappiness to go away.
Philosophical: to be a warlike philosophical, you can use it in between great people bursts, while partially building units to be completed when you switch civics.
Industrious: organized religion+wonder building for gold.

I guess anyone can do this, but would you really accept losing that much production? Sometimes you even use serfdom. You can often time chopping later on with organized religion. Spiritual is like most of the traits combined, used properly.

In my experience, Financial is very strong when you have high food river tiles next to your capital and in archipelago maps. It is good when you have normal river tiles (2 food 1 gold) and it is bad when you have none of the above.
In the first case it is propably the strongest trait in the game and in the second case it is one of the top 5 (along with philosophical, creative, industrious & charismatic).
Working 3-4 early cottages in 3 food tiles gives you huge research and in your capital stacks well with bureocracy.

As you see I also really like creative, early border expansion is a big advantage + the cheap libraries + borders of conquered cities expand fast as well! It is not random that the only leader to have their traits changed in BTS is Augustus!

Charismatic is another favorite trait as except from the extra hapiness, which is great early on, and the -25% on promotions, I use all the GG as specialists and get +3 beakers from each one! If you built the pyramids, this is a big early research bonus.

Spiritual I was never able to make full use of it as some of the civics I never use (vassalage, theocracy, free market, enviromentalism, nationalism) all these seem underpowered to me compared to the others you could be using.
It is good for cultural victories though with cheap temples.

Every trait has some advantage. Some are easy to utilize (financial is one) and some not (imperialism). It's really how you play the game.

The fastest Realms Beyond Mao's Muse game (you start the game at 4000 BC with any one free tech) was one by having environmentalism. Starting with +6 health and 1 happiness for tree was a huge advantage.

Of course, in a real game, by the time you get that far, you probably have enough resources to offset that. The one time I went environmentalism was in a OCC.

One of the main flaws of environmentalism is that forests and jungles are far more valuable chopped thousands of years earlier.

Wodan

if i'm playing with mansa though and there is a gold in my starting location, it does feel a bit overpowered... personally, I think having gold in your starting location is just too much in general and with financial it just makes me go what the...? in one of my luckiest starts with mansa I started off by the coast with some fishes in the sea and TWO gold tiles within the city radius of where my settler started off. that was just crazy.

granted, these are very lucky scenarios and I should probably just enjoy it. :p

Why Financial isn't as good as you think

Normally Financial trait civ doesn't take a good land.
7ppl of city with Financial trait =< 8ppl of city with non-financial trait

Expansive trait is the best in Warlords but it will be changed in BTS.

I would say:
top tier--financial, charismatic, phil
middle--org, agg, expansive, spiritual
bottom-- creative, protective, imp, ind.

financial--I agree with the analysis that sometimes it's huge, mostly it's pretty strong, and only rarely is it marginal.

charismatic--gettting +2 happy early on with a building you mostly need anyway is just huge. And the unit promos make it probably about as good as aggressive on that alone.

phil--if you play at high levels you need to bulb and more gp is really important.

org--seems like generally not as good as fin. but the ch build is strong.

agg--I think this is overrated and could go in the lower category.

expansive--the granaries are huge--you can whip at pop 2. That really gets cities going. Health is OK for later on but the gran is key.

spiritual--this is underrated I think and could be put in the first tier. You can go back and forth between civics--caste/slav and nat/fs or beau. That is in addition to taking religion for 5 turns to get the relations boost, etc. Makes for MUCH more of a MM game tho.

creative--I'm not a fan of that one. Yes it saves building a culture expander--when you capture cities you are usually whipping something or later on can build culture, have religion, etc. But other than the cheap lib it's useless pretty quick.

protective--to me the worst trait. Bonus to buildings I don't build and units I don't build (other than the gunpowder ones).

Imp--another one I'm not wild about. Yes you get the key first settler out quicker but if you don't whip it likely you are building a lot of it with food which is not bonused. The extra GG are just not that much.

Ind-probably a lot of people would put that higher but at high levels you really don't build too many wonders. I mostly play immortal and if I get 3 wonders that is a lot. Nearly all of those have 100% bonus so another 50% is really only 25% better or a few chops--not much for a trait pick.


The great thing about civ is that different leader traits lead to different strategies for the same maps.

I also think anyone who has to have certain traits (or wonders) would be better off skipping them for a while to develop other aspects of their game.

Every trait has some advantage. Some are easy to utilize (financial is one) and some not (imperialism). It's really how you play the game.

I think this is really the Key. Financial, Creative, Aggressive are automatic traits. You reap the advantage of them with little to no work through your part.

Traits like Industrious, Philosophical, and Spiritual, you have to know your way around the game to really leverage them.

I would say:
top tier--financial, charismatic, phil
middle--org, agg, expansive, spiritual
bottom-- creative, protective, imp, ind.


My ranking would be:

On Monarch:

Top tier - Financial, Spiritual, Industrious, Philo
Middle tier - Aggressive, Organized, Charismatic
Bottom tier - Creative, Protective, Expansive, Imperialistic

On Emperor:

Top tier - Financial, Spiritual, Philo, Charismatic
Middle tier - Aggressive, Organized, Industrious
Bottom tier - Creative, Protective, Expansive, Imperialistic

I play Emperor/Monarch which obviously changes things, so I can only argue the ratings at the level I play at.

Industrious is stunning at Monarch - the power of an early wonder rush can set your economy up very early in the game for incredible research and production. You get GPP from wonders and your production and research capabilities just continue to accumulate. You can easily have any wonder that you want to. My fastest space race times are with Industrious and I'm about to complete a domination victory from an isolated start. Its still very powerful on Emperor but I agree its less useful at higher levels.

Spiritual is always top tier - its like having the benefits of philo/industrious/charismatic/aggressive all up your sleeve ready to use whenever you want them. Takes a while to get going and demands some skill and MM.

Aggressive is definitely not a weak trait. It remains good on higher levels due to mass drafting. Charismatic gets better on Emperor though where you appreciate the +1 happy a lot more.

Expansive I rate fairly weak except for an isolated start. Cheap granaries are nice - but its a while before you need them and they aren't that expensive anyway. The health bonus is situational - sometimes you appreciate it.

Otherwise I pretty much agree. And there are definitely no bad leaders. It may be harder to get the same mileage out of creative than financial, but doing so makes for a different game and makes the game much more fun.

My rating
top: financial, spiritual (who undervalues it? once you've played it, non-spiritual leaders are so awkward), organized
1st: charismatic, expansive, philosophical (my main lightbulbs are philosophy, maybe theology, education, paper... then you trade for everything else and you're just building academies)
middle: creative, aggressive (because city raider matters more)
bottom: industrious, imperialistic, protective. you'd rather not have these. although sometimes you hate for the computers to have them

creative, it's not top tier, but it when i play, i'm often pretty happy i'm creative. it means your 2nd and 3rd cities get better placement. library and theatre is good for a builder, since you have to build 6 of the damn theatres anyway, and your commerce cities are getting a library.

The faster I can get CR axes the more cities I can take, and the more cities I can take the more resources I have which let me grow my cities faster.

[...]

That's why I think Ragnar is kinda meh. His starting techs can make his rush SLOW

This makes no sense. Nobody has rebutted the point that there is no aggressive leader who starts with Bronze Working, aside from Stalin. So how exactly is Ragnar slower than any other Aggressive leader? Also, as was pointed out, he's quite fast if you start with seafood.

So why are people still saying Ragnar has a slow start? It's not like you have to get Pottery before you start toward BW. I almost never prioritize Pottery from turn 1; most people don't as far as I'm aware. You want it soon, but you want military techs sooner.

This makes no sense. Nobody has rebutted the point that there is no aggressive leader who starts with Bronze Working, aside from Stalin. So how exactly is Ragnar slower than any other Aggressive leader? Also, as was pointed out, he's quite fast if you start with seafood.

So why are people still saying Ragnar has a slow start? It's not like you have to get Pottery before you start toward BW. I almost never prioritize Pottery from turn 1; most people don't as far as I'm aware. You want it soon, but you want military techs sooner.

I agree it makes no sense. But I will still go pottery first with Ragnar if I have floodplains. The thing is that often the best time to take out your enemies is after they have built a few cities and you have a few of your own. Plenty of time to get military techs. You probably have to build a settler anyway.

This makes no sense. Nobody has rebutted the point that there is no aggressive leader who starts with Bronze Working, aside from Stalin. So how exactly is Ragnar slower than any other Aggressive leader? Also, as was pointed out, he's quite fast if you start with seafood.

Um....what techs do you need to hook up copper?

Mining-->Bronze Working + Wheel.

Stalin, starts with Mining
Kublai starts with Wheel

And when did I ever limit the discussion to aggressive leaders?

Compare Ragnar with:

Mansa: Mining + Wheel
Too many other civs to count: Mining OR wheel.

Fishing? As a starting tech, fishing probably goes best with mining. Ragnar has..hunting. Hooray!

The fact is, in terms of an axe rush Ragnar (and I guess most of the aggressive civs) simply aren't as fast as lot of other civs.

Charismatic: Abuse slavery.
Creative: get your copper + food resource ASAP.

Yea I know the whole thing about cheap barracks. I still think the ability to set your fat cross ASAP with creative and the power of slavery in Charismatic more than makes up for it.

Emp+

Tier 1:

Agg (rushing is often needed at these levels and this trait helps a lot. The edge is more than 10% because you can pop shock or cover axes and medics out of barracks)
Cha (happiness is big early, your rushers also get to CR3 faster)
Fin (it's actually better in the early game when that +1 commerce on a river cottage is increasing its output by 50%)
Phi (lightbulb abuse)
Spi (without it, you are running suboptimal civics a large proportion of the time to minimize anarchy)


Tier 2:

Cre (useless late game, but early game is much more important, and the easy culture expansion and cheap libraries are powerful)
Exp (workers and granaries are nice, but happiness is a problem a lot earlier than health is)


Tier 3:

Imp (AI fills the land too fast)
Ind (AI builds wonders too fast)
Org (very overrated, the economic bonus is only even remotely comparable to Fin/Phi when you have enough cities to seal the win anyway)


Tier 50,000,000:

Pro (attacking wins games, defending just delays you losing them)

Org (very overrated, the economic bonus is only even remotely comparable to Fin/Phi when you have enough cities to seal the win anyway)

I'm shocked you feel this way...especially at the higher difficulties I find Organized to be close to the best trait. You can typically have about 25% more cities (okay, I made that number up but it feels about right) for a given economic level. This translates into more production, which translates into more troops, which translates into an easier time conquering your neighbors. You can also whip in half cost Courthouses as you go :).

Otherwise your list pretty much matches mine, although I'd put Imperialistic in the 50 million category, and I'd have Industrial in Tier 2 on Emperor but Tier 3 on Immortal.

Darrell

My rankings (immortal):

Tier 1: Financial, Charismatic, Philosophical.
Tier 2: Aggressive, Creative, Organized, Spiritual.
Tier 3: Expansive, Industrious, Imperialistic, Protective.

I really don't care for Expansive (it wouldn't have been my choice for nerfing), and I'll speak for Creative as a solid middle-tier trait. Overall pretty good agreement with most folks here.

peace,
lilnev

I know civic maintenance goes up by 10% per level or so, but the difficulty of capturing cities from the AI goes up by a lot more than that. Also, the AI cities tend to be oversized on high difficulty levels, so it's easy to just whip a courthouse for 4 points of unhappy pop after you conquer a city without organized.

It's the sign of a very deep, well-balanced game that people who play even the advanced difficulty levels can propose such a wide range of "most powerful traits." It's amusing, though--and very telling--that the one trait NO ONE has praised in this whole thread thus far is Protective.

It's the sign of a very deep, well-balanced game that people who play even the advanced difficulty levels can propose such a wide range of "most powerful traits." It's amusing, though--and very telling--that the one trait NO ONE has praised in this whole thread thus far is Protective.


I think the whole point of protective is to make the game harder for the player by having some AIs that are much harder to rush. So it adds value to the game, but isn't very useful for human play.

That said, the protective leaders (except Saladin) are pretty good. Qin gets a UU that gets the protective bonus and is very cool, Tokugawa produces awesome gunpowder units - imagine drafting with this guy. Wang Kon gets the powerful financial trait and is the most effective leader fighting without metals. Churchill gets a powerful UU that benefits from the trait and can field units with lots of promotions.

There. Some praise at least. But its still bottom tier.

Well, I'm sure there are many defensively minded players who do enjoy building a powerful city defence and appreciate protective. I think less of them would be attracted to the strategy forum, though.

On Immortal, it's not very good since you just don't have that early boost of happiness to afford working cottages. You have to wait until Monarchy and probably Calendar to have this trait really shine, but, at this level, how you manage your early wars is probably the most important determinant in the outcome of the game. There are just other traits that help you earlier when it really counts.

Better traits on Immortal include Organized and Charismatic. Organized because it always helps, from start to finish and can really save your from strikes after your early conquests. Charismatic because you can easily get cities outside your capital with +6 Happiness (+3 from difficulty, +1 from Pre-Calender :happiness: resource which you can probably snag at least one of, +1 from Monument, +1 from Charismatic) meaning you can work cottages prior to Monarchy.

However, the lower the difficulty, the better the trait, as you can actually work more cottages, earlier.

I think it probably could be considered top-tier on most difficulty levels, but not Immortal.

Given floodplains and the ability to work four cottages in the capital I'd still be very happy with financial. Its still going to generate more commerce than Organized can save - its still an extra commerce from gold/gems/silver, plus some of the calendar resources are actually better to build cottages on. Plus extra commerce if you are working seafood.

I agree with Charismatic being more powerful at the top levels and financial gets weaker and depends on a good starting position more though. But I think thats probably true of all traits at the top level - a lot more luck on your starting position. Aggressive with no metals is severely nerfed and philosophical is going to choke with low food starts.

Makes Hannibal seem a pretty good option.

On Immortal, it's not very good since you just don't have that early boost of happiness to afford working cottages. You have to wait until Monarchy and probably Calendar to have this trait really shine, but, at this level, how you manage your early wars is probably the most important determinant in the outcome of the game. There are just other traits that help you earlier when it really counts.

Surely this is an argument against organized, since it doesn't even do anything until after you've already won the first war?

With financial, if you need to research Iron or Construction before attacking, you get there faster.

Yeah, but really how hard is it to come up with Iron Working, even on Immortal? In the early game I'm much more likely to worry about hammers than anything else, so other than the occasional high commerce special tile I won't be getting too much from Financial. It is true that Organized doesn't buy me anything until I found my second city, and doesn't buy me anything significant until after the firts war, but if it lets me take an extra two cities in that initial rush, that's huge!

It would be interesting to setup a comparison game, with Tokugawa in one save and Huyana Capac in another, although I guess the Quecha would tend to skew things.

Darrell

There's also MP to consider. The traits tier is radically different there. Which is why Expansive gets a nerf in the upcoming BtS.

Yes, multiplayer is a whole different ballgame altogether, mainly because human players aren't a peaceful lot :lol:

Organized is also kinda nice if you don't have a close neighbour to rush. You can afford 4 instead of 3 (assuming no precious metals) cities, which is pretty nice and the cheap courthouses allow further expansion :)

Philosophical is definitely better than Financial. My best games are almost always with a Philosophical leader.

Isn't all this discussion kind of moot since it's all going to change in... 19 days (according to the countdown clock up in the menu). e.g., Philo is going to be nerfed.

Wodan

Isn't all this discussion kind of moot since it's all going to change in... 19 days (according to the countdown clock up in the menu). e.g., Philo is going to be nerfed.

Wodan

This is news to me. In what way is it going to be nerfed?

I was thinking about this, specialist economies should take more pop than cottage economies. One hamlet on a river is 1 pop, 3 commerce, while a farmed flood plains is 2 pop, 3 science. Grassland farms are even worse, with 3 pop for 3 science.

This is news to me. In what way is it going to be nerfed?
BtS New Game Options (http://forums.civfanatics.com/showpost.php?p=5439660&postcount=4), "Can trade away a technology only if you have researched it yourself"

Wodan

I was thinking about this, specialist economies should take more pop than cottage economies. One hamlet on a river is 1 pop, 3 commerce, while a farmed flood plains is 2 pop, 3 science. Grassland farms are even worse, with 3 pop for 3 science.
Yes, this is true, but your math is all wrong. Plus, if you grant a river to the hamlet you should grant the river to the SE.

Comparing one floodplain tile to one floodplain tile (Prior to Biology):
1 cottage on floodplain with river = 1 pop, 2 commerce, 1 extra food
(1 hamlet on floodplain with river = 1 pop, 3 commerce, 1 extra food
1 farm on floodplain with river + 1 scientist = 2 pop, 1 commerce, 3 science

The thing is that the farm gets to the 2 pop faster. Before the scientist is assigned, the farm on floodplain has 1 pop, 1 commerce, 2 extra food. That's how the SE has higher pop than the CE.

Easier to understand might be to compare equal pop to equal pop:
3 cottages on floodplain with river = 3 pop, 6 commerce, 3 extra food
(3 hamlets on floodplain with river = 3 pop, 9 commerce, 3 extra food)
2 farms on floodplain with river + 1 scientist = 3 pop, 2 commerce, 3 science, 2 extra food, 3 GPP

Wodan

Another significant factor is that in the early game people tend to locate cities near food resources; farmed rice can support two specialists (and extra health) but are you likely to build a cottage on it?

BtS New Game Options (http://forums.civfanatics.com/showpost.php?p=5439660&postcount=4), "Can trade away a technology only if you have researched it yourself"

Wodan

Ok, you're referring to the "Lightbulb and trade" research strategy. I am not convinced of that as the reason Philosophical is successful at researching anyway. I have two objections.

Firstly, it's only an option and probably not the default which most people will play. Only if it is the preferred option could it change things for most people.

Secondly, why does this make Philosophy less effective than other traits? In games with this option there will be less trading among the AI and that could favour the player. The overall rate of research will be lower since trading is restricted, but that just gives more time to apply a tech before it is superceded. Slower research is not a bad thing in and of itself.

You will be researching a lot of key techs on the way to Liberalism and you can trade those to any of the AI which has researched different techs. If the AI diversify the technologies they research it might increase the trade options for the player who wins the Liberalism race rather than restrict them.

Note: I assume above that the basic research strategies will be the same as Warlords for the sake of argument, but I hope that it is revised as I'm getting tired of the same old well worn research paths.

Ok, you're referring to the "Lightbulb and trade" research strategy. I am not convinced of that as the reason Philosophical is successful at researching anyway.
For the record, I'm not convinced of that either. I think it's as valuable, if not more so, to keep an advanced tech to yourself rather than gift it to the AIs. Make them earn it the hard way.

But, regardless, there are high level players who swear by the "trade-techs-around-like-the-clap" strategy. These players say this strategy is successful on high levels. To continue to be successful, they will have to use other strategies. That's the definition of "nerf".

Firstly, it's only an option and probably not the default which most people will play. Only if it is the preferred option could it change things for most people.
"Probably" is not a good word with which to base a conclusion. We'll have to see which is the default. Personally, I'd like it if it was the default the other way. But, we'll have to see.

Secondly, why does this make Philosophy less effective than other traits? In games with this option there will be less trading among the AI and that could favour the player.
Another iffy word: "could".

The overall rate of research will be lower since trading is restricted, but that just gives more time to apply a tech before it is superceded. Slower research is not a bad thing in and of itself.
Yes, I agree with your line of reasoning. However, I disagree to the extent that what matters here is the amount of research by each individual player (human or AI). If you (the human) are researching much slower, and each AI is researching only a little bit slower, then your point that the AIs are researching slower is kind of moot.

Actually, since we're talking about trading, it might be better to say "much less fast" and "a little less fast". As a word choice, "slower" doesn't seem quite apt to the situation. Anyway, that's just semantics.

You will be researching a lot of key techs on the way to Liberalism and you can trade those to any of the AI which has researched different techs. If the AI diversify the technologies they research it might increase the trade options for the player who wins the Liberalism race rather than restrict them.
More iffy words: "if" and "might"

Anyway, that paragraph could be used to describe the strategy as it exists now, with Warlords. The thing is... the AI does not currently lightbulb or trade techs to the extent that humans can. This is a huge advantage of the human player. Any restriction on this advantage is a nerf.

Note: I assume above that the basic research strategies will be the same as Warlords for the sake of argument, but I hope that it is revised as I'm getting tired of the same old well worn research paths.
Well they already said they're changing the Alphabet/Literature path. We'll have to choose between beelining up the tree, or going to the new dead-end (Literature) simply to be able to build the Great Library. That will change things significantly for most SE strategies.

Also: let me point out that you seem to be assuming that lightbulbed techs are still eligible for trading. I'm not sure that's a given.... Is a lightbulbed tech one which you "have researched yourself"? Even if you only partially lightbulbed, this might preclude you trading the tech, since you didn't do the research yourself (only part of it).

Wodan

But, regardless, there are high level players who swear by the "trade-techs-around-like-the-clap" strategy. These players say this strategy is successful on high levels. To continue to be successful, they will have to use other strategies. That's the definition of "nerf".

Uh....what? How does that option nerf Philo? If anything it makes it even more powerful.

1. You can't do 3-way trades anymore, so you HAVE to have techs no one else does. Philo helps with that.

2. Academy is very powerful for self-research. Philo helps with that.

3. University + Oxford boosts your self-research. Philo helps with that (and even gets you to Education quicker to boot).

4. Philo gets you philosophy, which helps you do 1-3.

Besides, it's not a good idea to trade for everything RIGHT NOW. WFYABTA will bite you in the butt if you do that.

We'll have to choose between beelining up the tree, or going to the new dead-end (Literature) simply to be able to build the Great Library.

How do you know this? Where can I find info about the new tech tree?

The GL is not necessary for SE wins, not even on deity.

But, regardless, there are high level players who swear by the "trade-techs-around-like-the-clap" strategy. These players say this strategy is successful on high levels. To continue to be successful, they will have to use other strategies. That's the definition of "nerf".

They attribute their success to this but that doesn't make them right. I strongly suspect that vigorous trading simply increases the overall research rate and does not advantage the human. It is their ability to leverage the key technologies they have rather than the rate they gain them that make them successful.


"Probably" is not a good word with which to base a conclusion. We'll have to see which is the default. Personally, I'd like it if it was the default the other way. But, we'll have to see.

Another iffy word: "could".

Kindly refrain from criticising my writing style. Perhaps you should look to improve your own before finding fault in others. I have seen you do this to other people and it is objectionable. Just address my arguments as I put them rather than complain about their style.

Returning to the point. You made an assertion that Philosophical had been nerfed. Here my first objection shows that it is only an option that has been nerfed, if anything at all has been nerfed, which is questionable. That undermines your assertion, at the least. You should acknowledge this weakness.


More iffy words: "if" and "might"

I use conditional statements when appropriate. I only have to sow doubt onto your arguments. It is for you to substantiate your assertion and answer my objections.


Anyway, that paragraph could be used to describe the strategy as it exists now, with Warlords. The thing is... the AI does not currently lightbulb or trade techs to the extent that humans can. This is a huge advantage of the human player. Any restriction on this advantage is a nerf.

You assume that lightbulbing and trading are the reason humans do well and that is not proven. The AI does not lightbulb much. But on the contrary, the AI does trade techs vigorously among themselves and without the premium they ask for trades with the human. Therefore it is likely that the trading restriction would hurt the AIs more than the human since they will have to do more of their own research rather than relying on trading. That is the opposite effect to what you're predicting.

I can see no reason for you to assert that Philosophical will be more more strongly affected (nerfed) than any other trait by this optional change to tech trading. The rate of tech trading will be lower among the AIs regardless of the human's traits. As I said earlier that might even make it better for the human allowing him to trade a unique tech more widely than at present and could lead to a widening set of research options. It really is too early to tell what the effect of this optional change will be (and in any case it is lumped in with other changes including ones to the way the AI behaves) and I think it is pointless to argue further. I suggest you withdraw your statement, or at least qualify it carefully.

*Cough* Uh, guys...

Where the HELL are you getting the idea that lightbulbing won't count as self research? You're getting it from your own GP, generated by your own points in your own borders. This new setting should only apply to techs that come from foreign sources: Goody huts and other civs.

*Cough* Uh, guys...

Where the HELL are you getting the idea that lightbulbing won't count as self research? You're getting it from your own GP, generated by your own points in your own borders. This new setting should only apply to techs that come from foreign sources: Goody huts and other civs.

I also believe lightbulbing will be considered as part of your "own research". Well, basically generating GP and lightbulbing is like you provide a favorable research environment and this cultivates more great scientists in this system who lead to some research breakthroughs, so this is still your own effort, right?

I am not sure about if they will consider good huts a foreign source, though, but if this the case, it helps human players because the AIs have better chance of getting freebies at higher levels.

And I still don't buy the idea BtS "nerfs" philosophical trait. In current system, if I lightbulb philosophy, and I trade this to a military oriented leader, say for feudalism so I can beef up my power-ranking a bit to avoid being attacked, I am so afraid this guy will then just trade the philosophy to Mansa or Huaya, who immediately re-distribute this tech like cheap candies, and suddenly everybody is in the liberalism race. With the new system, I am no longer afraid of this from happening. I think Wodan sort of under-estimate how the AIs love to share techs. IMHO I believe this new tech trade limitation may actually help the lightbulbing fanantics. Well, we'll see in 19 days.

GPs are also needed for corporates. Although it's quite likely by that time a philosophical leader may run out of GP already.

Lightbulbing gives a specific amount of beakers without overflow, so you should be able to trade lightbulbed techs. I guess if you acquire opponents' techs, you can't trade those. However, I don't think this is so bad, since the AI seem to prioritize similar tech, like monarchy/feudalism.
I think not being able to trade with techs you traded for helps the player, since you can now trade your nationalism to computers without being worried about losing value for it by their trading it. You might be able to deny trades to a specific player by trading a specific tech to everyone else.

Uh....what? How does that option nerf Philo? If anything it makes it even more powerful.

1. You can't do 3-way trades anymore, so you HAVE to have techs no one else does. Philo helps with that.

2. Academy is very powerful for self-research. Philo helps with that.

3. University + Oxford boosts your self-research. Philo helps with that (and even gets you to Education quicker to boot).

4. Philo gets you philosophy, which helps you do 1-3.

Besides, it's not a good idea to trade for everything RIGHT NOW. WFYABTA will bite you in the butt if you do that.
Those are all good points, except #1, which isn't true. However, all of the points aren't what we're talking about. The only relevant point might be #1, because it is asserting something that would change. #2 - #4 are unchanged so they aren't relevant to the discussion.

How do you know this? Where can I find info about the new tech tree?
Look in the first thread in the BtS forum, among others. You can also find a lot of information on Apolyton. Apparently they put Aesthetics where Literature is now, and Literature is now a dead-end tech.


They attribute their success to this but that doesn't make them right. I strongly suspect that vigorous trading simply increases the overall research rate and does not advantage the human. It is their ability to leverage the key technologies they have rather than the rate they gain them that make them successful.
Interesting opinion. I think you're both right and wrong. Regardless, I think it's a mistake to totally discount the opinion of those actually doing the deeds. That's armchair quarterbacking. We can have a discussion to debate the merits of it, but to flatly discount it out of the gate... ?

Kindly refrain from criticising my writing style. Perhaps you should look to improve your own before finding fault in others. I have seen you do this to other people and it is objectionable. Just address my arguments as I put them rather than complain about their style.

I use conditional statements when appropriate. I only have to sow doubt onto your arguments. It is for you to substantiate your assertion and answer my objections.
UncleJJ, I don't mind at all if you attack me. But please do it for something I actually did.

I did not critique your writing style. You based a conclusion off of supposition, and I pointed this out. This has nothing to do with your writing style.

Unless you're saying that those things were actually FACT, but that your writing style is to use conditional phrasing when giving FACTS, simply because that's how you talk? Please clarify, because I don't understand.

On second thought, is this really worth it? Honestly, I didn't mean any offense, and it's clear that you took offense. My apologies for the unintended slight.

Returning to the point. You made an assertion that Philosophical had been nerfed. Here my first objection shows that it is only an option that has been nerfed, if anything at all has been nerfed, which is questionable. That undermines your assertion, at the least. You should acknowledge this weakness.
I thought I did.

Honestly, there's one thing that seems clear to me that is weaker, and that's trading. It's a fact that you can't trade a tech that you acquired through trading. Many players use Philo to lightbulb techs, trade them for other techs, and then use those techs to get more techs. This is not going to be possible under the new option.

Everything else has not been defined, not that I have seen in any of the BtS releases or chats, or in the BtS threads on CFC or Apolyton. There are ambiguous statements which could go either way. Whatever the case, it should be plain that the balance will certainly change, and probably significantly.

You assume that lightbulbing and trading are the reason humans do well and that is not proven.
Yes, and that's a good point. However, my point was more that the strategies must change. Whether it's weaker or stronger, the old strategy won't work any longer. That means the old strategy is nerfed.

Does that wording make any more sense? I'm starting to think I simply had crappy wording this morning. Sorry, it was before I had my coffee. :coffee:

Wodan

Look in the first thread in the BtS forum, among others. You can also find a lot of information on Apolyton. Apparently they put Aesthetics where Literature is now, and Literature is now a dead-end tech.

This is what that thread says:

Aesthetics: Fills the space between writing and literature and drama.

Where does it say that Literature is now a dead-end tech? And literature was already a semi-dead end tech anyways, too bad GL and HE/NE are all good.

Those are all good points, except #1, which isn't true. However, all of the points aren't what we're talking about. The only relevant point might be #1, because it is asserting something that would change.

How is #1 not true? You can only trade techs that you research, therefore you need more exclusive techs. How does lightbulbing not help with that?

#2 - #4 are unchanged so they aren't relevant to the discussion.

That's funny, because you go say that Philo got nerfed when in fact it's unchanged. (You also accuse others of putting forth irrelevant points and "conditions" when you do the same thing yourself).

Sorry but they are relevant. You say that Philo got nerfed because you can't trade techs around as much. I say the self-researching power of Philo, compared to other traits is even MORE powerful now.

Interesting opinion. I think you're both right and wrong. Regardless, I think it's a mistake to totally discount the opinion of those actually doing the deeds. That's armchair quarterbacking. We can have a discussion to debate the merits of it, but to flatly discount it out of the gate... ?

I seldom flatly discount anyone's opinion unless I am sure of myself. Here I suspect that many good players are attributing their success to the wrong thing (or at least over emphasising it), which is fine and I don't care what opinions they hold, until they start using their ideas as advice to other players. Then I feel free to challenge them and ask for evidence. None of them have ever substantiated their claims to my satisfaction.

UncleJJ, I don't mind at all if you attack me. But please do it for something I actually did.
I did not critique your writing style. You based a conclusion off of supposition, and I pointed this out. This has nothing to do with your writing style.

I am a gentle fellow and have no wish to attack you or anyone else. You did criticise my writing style or perhaps it was my way of thinking about this problem or making an argument, for me they are all related. My method of reasoning is portrayed in my written words.


Unless you're saying that those things were actually FACT, but that your writing style is to use conditional phrasing when giving FACTS, simply because that's how you talk? Please clarify, because I don't understand.

I only make statements of fact when I am sure that they are facts. If I am unsure you'll see my arguments and statements riddled
with "could", "might", "perhaps", and so on. That indicates the state of my uncertainty and is how I think, how I argue and how I write. Other (less careful) people are prepared to make extravagant claims based on tenuous evidence, but not me. If I have doubt I leave room for error.

You won't find me making a bold statement like "Philosophical has been nerfed" and then when challenged on this not be able to put forward a substantial argument in favour of my opinion. If successfully challenged I would modify my opinion or qualify it to meet the other persons criticism.

For instance my argument would not be based on something else like a change (nerf) in the trading system unless I could tie Philosophical’s main advantage over other traits exclusively to the trading system. There is definitely a nerf to the trading system if that option is exercised (and we don't yet know if is the default for games or merely an option that needs a custom game). But it is very hard to show that Philosophical relies on second order trading (trading on a tech gained from trade) rather than first order trading (trading own researched tech) any more than other traits such as Financial which can also be used for a similar deep research and trade strategy. Why should I not assert Financial had been nerfed as well?

On second thought, is this really worth it? Honestly, I didn't mean any offense, and it's clear that you took offense. My apologies for the unintended slight.

It is Ok; I like you and your attitude in most matters. You often add considerably to debates you join and I appreciate your contributions. And I am not offended by your criticism (in the sense I am upset by it) but I do feel it necessary to defend my point of view. I also insist on being allowed to argue in my own way ... unless you can show me a better way ;)

Honestly, there's one thing that seems clear to me that is weaker, and that's trading. It's a fact that you can't trade a tech that you acquired through trading.

My point exactly. It is the trading system that has been nerfed, if and only if, that option was exercised :D If you don't choose that option it has exactly zero effect.


Many players use Philo to lightbulb techs, trade them for other techs, and then use those techs to get more techs. This is not going to be possible under the new option.

Obviously true but that does not constitute a nerf to Philosophical anymore than it does to any other research-and-trade strategy that relies on second order trading. Why is it not a nerf to Financial as well? Or to Industrious (Parthenon, Pyramids, Great Library …) or even Spiritual (which excels at trading by changing diplomatic relations), why single out Philosophical for nerfing?

Everything else has not been defined, not that I have seen in any of the BtS releases or chats, or in the BtS threads on CFC or Apolyton. There are ambiguous statements which could go either way. Whatever the case, it should be plain that the balance will certainly change, and probably significantly.

Yes, and that's a good point. However, my point was more that the strategies must change. Whether it's weaker or stronger, the old strategy won't work any longer.

There are so many other changes (e.g. espionage, corporations, AI behaviours) that any small effect due to this will be overwhelmed. Of course all our old strategies from Vanilla and Warlords will have to be adjusted. I expect that; and look forward eagerly to working out how it can be done. Forming and arguing about new strategies is always fun for me and we’re in for a feast with BtS.

That means the old strategy is nerfed.

Our differences might stem from how you are using your words. For me a nerf is a substantial change to how something works (like replacing a real sword with a toy one) and not a slight weakening under some special circumstance. It makes the nerfed thing almost unusable or highly uncompetitive. This purported change doesn't begin to have that effect on the Philosophical trait and besides that it's probably a non default option.

That makes your original statement a serious exaggeration in my view. Therefore I think your thinking is skewed and I sought to correct it.

Does that wording make any more sense? I'm starting to think I simply had crappy wording this morning. Sorry, it was before I had my coffee. :coffee:

Wodan
Not a lot more sense to me. You did have a crappy morning :p . Your statement is far too incautious for my taste (which I hope you understand a bit better now ;) ). Next time take :coffee: and then another :coffee: before replying.

Well, I am alittle late to reply to this but I was on vacation and my password was at work. Some comments

Um....what techs do you need to hook up copper?

Mining-->Bronze Working + Wheel.

Yes, three techs. Some leaders start with one. Are all other leaders useless or inferior???

Stalin, starts with Mining
Kublai starts with Wheel

Ghengis starts with Wheel also. Why on earth would the Kahns NOT go for animal husbandry from the get go. Fewer beakers than bronze working (they need to reearch mining also). Chariots from the get go plus they are the fastest at hooking up animal food resources (really best to feed your people before smashing other civs). The faster the cow/pigs/sheeps are worked, the faster you can get a worker/settler out!

And when did I ever limit the discussion to aggressive leaders?

You blasted Ragnar as a poor financial leader because his agressive trait was not utilized by his supposedly slow track to bronze working. My origional posts were a rebuttal to this. I still say Ragnar gets axemen out faster than any other agressive civ, even Stalin because of the early fishing and financial providing he starts on the coast which he almost always does on random starts.

Compare Ragnar with:

Mansa: Mining + Wheel
Too many other civs to count: Mining OR wheel.

Come on, the title of this thread was why financial is not that good and you are bringing up a financial leader to compare Ragnar who is a poor leader in your view BECAUSE he is financial???????

Fishing? As a starting tech, fishing probably goes best with mining. Ragnar has..hunting. Hooray!

As much as everyone complains about early archers I actually will start researching Ragnar off early with archery, especially if he has a few seafood resources which cannot be torched by barbs early on. You may thing I am nuts but I do enjoy building early archers to protect my cities rather than warriors, especially since Ragnar can pop out an early barracks if he has some decent early production tiles.

The fact is, in terms of an axe rush Ragnar (and I guess most of the aggressive civs) simply aren't as fast as lot of other civs.

Early axe rush is the only reason to criticize financial leaders??? I say an early axe rush with better promoted axemen (starts with a promotion, then can get fast city raider promotions because of faster barracks) will produce fewer casualties and thus be more efficient than any non-agressive civ. and Ragnar will get them out the fastest.

Charismatic: Abuse slavery.
Creative: get your copper + food resource ASAP.

As I said on an earlier reply in this thread, all traits have their benefits. I understand why creative helps to get food/copper faster but why is charismatic better than any other trait at abusing slavery???

Yea I know the whole thing about cheap barracks. I still think the ability to set your fat cross ASAP with creative and the power of slavery in Charismatic more than makes up for it.

Sorry dude, the early barracks is more essential to an early axe rush.

And as you can see I am still a little new at this cut and paste/Quote thing. My comments are within the quoted area, Sorry. Just an old 44 year old guy who didn't have computer class is high school and trying to manage!!!! If only the light bulb for affordable personal computers came out in 1977!!!

In reply to the whole philosophical trait issue. I usually target great scientists and speed up tech pace with all philosophical leaders I play unless going for a cultural win and even then I'll try to get a few if I can. I generally use one great scientist to bulb philosphy, a second to bulb most of education. I beeline education with philosophical civs for education not only for liberalism but fast universities. AI's are slower to education and universities are expensive to build, those extra hammers are big. Nor do I think it will be nerfed even IF you I cannot trade my lightbulbed philosphy which I DO NOT think will be the case in beyond the sword.

And as you can see I am still a little new at this cut and paste/Quote thing. My comments are within the quoted area, Sorry. Just an old 44 year old guy who didn't have computer class is high school and trying to manage!!!! If only the light bulb for affordable personal computers came out in 1977!!!

It's easy, even for us Old'uns :old: Just start each block of quoted text with (quote) and end with (/quote), using square brackets rather than the round ones. That way you can divide up the quoted text and insert your comments

I used my first computer way back in 1970, a so called mini computer, the size of a large filing cabinet. It had 4 Kbytes of memory and a paper tape bootstrap. :lol:

It's easy, even for us Old'uns :old: Just start each block of quoted text with (quote) and end with (/quote), using square brackets rather than the round ones. That way you can divide up the quoted text and insert your comments

LIKE THIS, Yahoo!!!!!!!

I used my first computer way back in 1970, a so called mini computer, the size of a large filing cabinet. It had 4 Kbytes of memory and a paper tape bootstrap. :lol:

Thanks for the advice!!!! My kids $19.95 MP3 player has about 5 times the memory (hard disk mind you) of my first Mac classic. I play on a 5 years old Dell after buying the family a new dual core (yeah see, I know a little lingo) for thie own use. I fully expect my next PC t be able to tell me what I will be having for dinner after I login in the morning :)

re: philosophical. imo it hasn't been nerfed. yes tech trading was a nice part of philosophical, but you can still trade for techs!!! i often just trade the techs i bulb for other techs and don't do three-way trades. don't get me wrong, i will if i can, but on monarch where i play often the ai doesn't tech fast enough to do a pile of three-way trades. perhaps it is a slight nerf for emperor+ but imho FE/SE is still the way to go anyways and philosophical has the most synergy there period. tech trading is still going to be part of the game and phil is still going to lightbulb you techs to trade.

i just think that OVERALL the tech-race is going to be more difficult now, especially at the higher levels, and philosophical yes is going to feel that, but no more than a CE.

re: philosophical. imo it hasn't been nerfed. yes tech trading was a nice part of philosophical, but you can still trade for techs!!! i often just trade the techs i bulb for other techs and don't do three-way trades.

I completely agree. Philosophical bulbing is great for getting quite a few of those techs that no-one else has, leading to lots of trading opportunities, despite the new "no non self-researched trades".

In fact (and I apologize if I am repeating what someone else has already said):

The option disallowing trading of non-self researched techs can actually be useful in many situations. I mean, who in their right mind would trade e.g. early chemistry or rifling to some one like Mansa Musa, even if he was friendly and on the other side of the map?? In a few turns every AI would have those techs. (I'm pretty sure AI Mansa must make some very bad AI trades like education for 20 gold etc. but that's another story...).

My feeling is that in practice turning off trading of non-self researched techs will actually slow down the AI-AI trading more, and make it easier to overcome the disadvantages of isolated starts.

We're probably all completely off base because we don't know how effective espionage will be.