Rank these traits paired with philosophical.

1. aggressive (alex)
2. creative (pericles)
3. expansive (peter)
4. charismatic (abe)
5. organized (fred)
6. imperilistic (suleiman)
7. protective (sitting bull)
8. financial (liz)
9. spiritual (ghandi)

I'd say charismatic. Charismatic is always an awesome trait, but it's even more useful if you want to assign specialists since larger cities are generally the ones most capable of running specialists while maintaining decent productivity.

I'd say charismatic. Charismatic is always an awesome trait, but it's even more useful if you want to assign specialists since larger cities are generally the ones most capable of running specialists while maintaining decent productivity.

True. Also see expansive. If you have enough luxuries this trait will be good when making lots of specialists.

You're missing one Spiritual (Gandhi) He' probably my favourite Phil Leader, very flexible and the SE seems a million times easier with him switching between Slavery/Caste System, Organized Religion/Pacifism, Representation/Universial Sufferage.

I think only a Ind/Phil Leader would beat him if he ever existed lol.

elizabeth for sure, but ghandi and lincoln are close.

Creative is nice with the boost to Library production. Fast Libraries and Universities ain't bad.

It depends on what are you going to do with your philo. The question is to generic this way - you not even stated if you want to run SE (i kind of assume this with Philo). You will got lots of different answers - every player has his style and strategy of play and hence will value the traits different.

Personally i like to play Peter - those 2 health often help a lot.

For the purposes of a specialist economy; Expansive. Yes, it doesn't boost your city's population through health as much as charismatic boosts it through happiness (2:health: = 1 unit population, 2 :) = 2 units of population), but happiness is a much easier commodity to find during the game.

For a cultural victory; Spiritual. I haven't gone for a cultural victory with BtS so I'm not experienced with the new ways of effectively planning this victory. But half price temples in your non-culture cities, required for cathedrals in your culture cities, means they spend much less time focusing on an aspect that doesn't aid your economy or military.

For great synergy and a nice game, with no particular goal; Creative. Cheap libraries + quick scientists makes a powerful level of research in the early/mid gamevery easy to achieve.

I like CRE/PHI combination.

Expansive. Faster growth -> faster specs.

i like creative and financial. charismatic is also ok.

Peter and Ghandi ftw

I imagine Peter could make for a pretty fun game if you wanted to go with a SE, but the mid-late game UU and UB have always been immediate turn-offs to me. Although the research institute provides an amazing (albeit late) bonus and can probably be beelined for with the appropriate industrial age techs.

When I have the time, I'll have to try a game with him.

I've just started playing Liz, but I'm liking here. I usually end up with a hybrid economy, so Finacial is a great second trait.

I like Suleiman's traits combo, therefore I say Imperialistic!

By the way... no Philosophical-Industrious combo??? I was going to answer this way!!!

Expansive from someone starting out with mining.
Hammer out a worker asap, while going traight for BW, then Poly, and chop the Temple of Artemis as if there was no tomorrow.

+10GPP and +100% Trade route revenue is something that really helps you for a really long time.

Ghandi and Elizabeth. I'll try Abe next, I think.

Favorite trait to use with PHI? IND of course! But I guess that requires "playing outside the box" and maybe a little XML editing...

Financial, no real argument. Lizzie with a hybrid economy can outresearch and outbuild any other leader in the latter half of the game.

Financial, no real argument. Lizzie with a hybrid economy can outresearch and outbuild any other leader in the latter half of the game.

My answer as well.

Charismatic, Financial and Creative, in that order.

I find it ironic that some of my best domination games are with Lincoln.

Since I don't care about Phi, my best combo with it would be Fin. And on top of that, England is a very nice civ.

A week ago I would have said: Pericles (Philo / Creative)

Easy cultural victory in early Industrial Age.

But since then I began a new game in which I missed all the early important wonders - because of lacking hammer-tiles.

So, Philosophical is wonderful with Creative if you posess enough production

Financial is the best trait...so I would try and pair it with anything else you like

I have been playing Pericles recently and having a lot of success. The two traits are both good, and his UU and UB both work well in the early game. Getting both healthiness and happiness from the UB is huge.

1. aggressive (alex)
2. financial (liz)
3. organized (fred)
4. charismatic (abe)
5. imperilistic (suleiman)
6. creative (pericles)
7. spiritual (ghandi)
8. expansive (peter)
9. protective (sitting bull)

That's based solely on the leader traits (not UU/UB/map type)

^^
If solely based on leader traits, spiritual and creative should be higher.
Double production speed of temple or library?
makes more GP

Nah, I'm a warmonger, so if I choose to go with a Philosophical leader, I want strength (Agg or Char), strong economy (Fin) for the gold that my hybrid/coastal cities will bring, and strong infrastructure (Org) to maintain my huge empire without bankrupting myself.

I wouldn't choose spiritual unless I plan on switching off of a SE in the future. If I go for Spiritual, it's usually combined with Fin or Ind so I can do bursts of GP generating followed by periods of military growth, rinse repeat.

It's all about your style of play.

But if you're a warmonger, why don't you choose protective?

Peacemongering btw, then Peter owns.

^^^ I find protective to be a horrible warmonger trait. Early game conquest, archer / longbow with CGI/CGII are more than enough to hold already captured ground. Later in the game, a few Drill I/Drill II machine gun is equally as good to hold ground.

I'd rather have quick level ups (char) or the automatic Combat I and fast barracks/dry docks (agg) for war mongering. Everyone's got their own style, but protective is less of an offensive mongering trait than a defensive trait IMHO.

Except, ofc, if you beeline machinery :mischief:

I love protective as a warmongering trait. I can usually REx up to enough cities that an early war would merely kill me. I don't find that I need to war much other than maybe an early axerush, before gunpowder, and protective makes shiny, happy crossbows and gunpowder units. My favorite combo with Philo is charismatic, creative, spiritual then protective in that order.

I go back and forth between Creative (for libraries, universities and easy culture pops) and Spiritual. Spiritual is very nice in the mid-late game so you can easily switch between peaceful teching civics (rep, beauracracy, caste, merc, pacifism) and war civics (police, nationhood, slavery, merc/free/state, theocracy).