Pick up to four traits that you'd most prefer to see for our leader.

Obviously there is a lot more to a leader than just their traits - unique units, unique buildings, and even starting techs are all important as well - but traits are still quite a big factor in the game. And besides, let's face it, polls are fun to do. ;) :p

So, go ahead and vote for what your personal most preferred traits are for our leader. Feel free to comment after you vote on why you voted that way.

Let's see how the votes stack up. :)

(EDIT: The poll is actually attached this time. ;) )

Breakdown of my vote:

Financial - because it's the most generally useful trait in the game

Industrious - because as long as stone and marble aren't plentiful, it's exceptionally powerful; for instance it gives us a very good shot at important early wonders like the Pyramids, Great Lighthouse, and Great Library, especially if no other teams are Industrious (in the last game no-one was Industrious)

Charismatic - because bonus happiness is always useful, doubly so if the map maker doesn't place happiness resources in abundance around our start (which is pretty much a given); also, the cheaper promotions are very useful and are applied to every unit type in the game

Organized - because while the economic bonus isn't as good as Financial's, the cheaper buildings are some of the most useful ones in the game (Lighthouse, Courthouse, Factory)

CHA - Free happiness, cheap promos are of some use.

EXP - Fast Granaries and Harbours, cheaper workers.

SPI - Unrestricted civic changes

CRE - Cheap Libraries, and instant border expansions. Allows much more flexibility for settling cities, and monuments are unneeded saving 30:hammers: in every city. Also forces other civs to settle further away from our cities. Useful no matter the situation.

Cha- See above
Cre- See above
Org- See above
Fin- See above
:D

Finantial - the king of commerce of water,hard to be wrong with.

Philisophical - give it food, it shall give you everything.

Spiritual - to change freely, and a lot, Civics and Religions.

Creative - an easier play, just put the cities where you want; and libraries.

Fin: We need all the Commerce we can get
Phil: More GP points is always a good thing
Imp: Help get out settlers quicker
Cre: Help in the early part of establishing our territory. Nothing can expand Culture borders like Cre can. Even with Monuments you have to whip to get them out quicker. By then the Cre leader city has already expanded to it's full BFC.

lol, no votes for AGG or PRO (not at all surprising)

Yep. And Creative is doing as well as Financial at the moment, which is interesting. Expansive only has one vote, which I'm surprised by, as it's a pretty decent trait.

Which means we may end up using Williem :)

Financial, Imperialistic, Creative and Organized. Those are the traits I usually go for incl philosophy.

Civ A:
1. Philosophical. This lends itself more to a SE.
Advantages: It's probably unlikely this game is still undecided by the post-emancipation era, and given that we can expect a lot of warfare going on it would keep us relatively safe from our economy being pillaged.
Disadvantage would be the micromanaging involved.

2. Charismatic. Extra happiness for synergy in SE. Cheap unit upgrades are also very nice.

Civ B:
1. Industrious. So it can build the wonders for Civ A, giving us effectively an Ind-Phi combo. Also it would be very important to get the Pyramids in this strategy.

2. Imperialistic. Just so we could get the Romans as Civ B and their lovely praetorians :) Otherwise probably take creative as 2nd trait. Org or even Agg might do too though.


If early contact is a given (and i suppose it is), we might perhaps expect a more pangeae-type of map, which would undermine Fin a bit.

Spiritual may look like a good idea at first sight. However, since in this setting we have two civs which we can specialize towards different aspects, we may not need to change civics that much after all.

FIN, obvious especially if tech trading is off
CRE, allows better city placement knowing borders will expand quickly
CHA, higher happy cap means higher population. Population wins
IMP, fast settlers, faster growth, higher population - population wins

Spiritual may look like a good idea at first sight. However, since in this setting we have two civs which we can specialize towards different aspects, we may not need to change civics that much after all.
We can also just start a Golden Age to change civics without Anarchy. :)

We can also just start a Golden Age to change civics without Anarchy. :)

True. So that's maybe a better argument for philosophical over spiritual. Since you can gift GP for golden ages (civics changes) but not the spiritual trait which would be limited to one civ.

Financial - no explanation needed
Expansive - my 2nd fav economic trait
Charismatic - Tolstoy's favorite trait, it's good in War & Peace :lol:
Creative/Spiritual/Organized/Industrious - these all are about even but I marked Creative in the poll due to cheap libraries + free border pops. Really, when it gets down to this level it's more about strategy -- do we plan on pursuing wonders (IND) or are we playing a torroidal map with HRE (ORG) or do we plan on swapping civics a lot or playing a religion based strategy (SPI)?


I wouldn't be against going for other traits if we had a clear strategy with it. For example, with 2 civs it seems like IMP & EXP gain a bit -- the ability to create cheap workers & settlers and gift them across civs would be a boon.

Civ A:
1. Philosophical. This lends itself more to a SE.
Advantages: It's probably unlikely this game is still undecided by the post-emancipation era, and given that we can expect a lot of warfare going on it would keep us relatively safe from our economy being pillaged.
Disadvantage would be the micromanaging involved.

Philo is much weaker without AIs to abuse diplomatically (without the 'Mids at least).

Civ B:
1. Industrious. So it can build the wonders for Civ A, giving us effectively an Ind-Phi combo. Also it would be very important to get the Pyramids in this strategy.

I don't really rate Ind-Phi as a great combo anyway. It's not Fin/Org.

If early contact is a given (and i suppose it is), we might perhaps expect a more pangeae-type of map, which would undermine Fin a bit.

It still wouldn't stop it from being the most powerful trait. If it's two civs, one has to be financial or its game over for us from the start.

I don't really rate Ind-Phi as a great combo anyway. It's not Fin/Org.
Moreover you can only have one trait or the other at any one time (depending on which civ has control of the city). So while you're building the wonders you're not Philosophical, and once you gift the city it can no longer build wonders as fast. Not to mention I think when gifting a city its GP counter resets to 0, so this is not a good thing to do regularly.

Not to mention I think when gifting a city its GP counter resets to 0, so this is not a good thing to do regularly.
That sounds like a good thing to test directly.

That sounds like a good thing to test directly.
Yeah, I'd be interested to see the result. I'll try it later on, if no-one gets to it before then. But my assumption is that they'll be reset, because food, production and culture are all reset to 0 upon a city gift (this I've confirmed in the past) - the exception being if you already owned that city in the past and had some culture produced in it, then it gets restored to that level. Doesn't seem like much of an extension to assume GP counts will be reset too. But it's worth testing just to be sure.

I voted:
Financial
Organized
Philo
Industrious

Some of you already well explained those traits.

Much will depend by the double civ/unrestricted leaders setup.
supposed we have both,
i suggest Darius and Ramesses.
The first can provide strong research, while the second can provide wonders, mainly SH, which will make almost useless the Creative trait and possibly the Parthenon, same for the Philo trait.

Civs:
Rome, for the great early UU and the UB (a market with +25% GP points)
Other great UUs are:
Phalanx (Greece, axe)
Cataphract (Byzantium, Knight)
Immortals (Persia, Chariot)
Samurai (Japan, Mace)
Berserker (Vikings, Mace)
Vulture (Sumeria, Axe)
Later UUs are not so useful.

Unfortunately, only few of them pair with really interesting UBs, thus the candidate 2nd Civ can be:
Byzantium - if we focus on a mid game war
Viking - if we need fast ships
Sumeria - if we prefer good UB and another early UU.

I'll add more (and think more) after seen some comment.

Yeah, I'd be interested to see the result. I'll try it later on, if no-one gets to it before then. But my assumption is that they'll be reset, because food, production and culture are all reset to 0 upon a city gift (this I've confirmed in the past) - the exception being if you already owned that city in the past and had some culture produced in it, then it gets restored to that level. Doesn't seem like much of an extension to assume GP counts will be reset too. But it's worth testing just to be sure.

I assumed it wouldn't. If it gets reset that would make it almost useless to gift back and forth with wonder building. I should really check these things first :lol:

Moreover you can only have one trait or the other at any one time (depending on which civ has control of the city). So while you're building the wonders you're not Philosophical, and once you gift the city it can no longer build wonders as fast. Not to mention I think when gifting a city its GP counter resets to 0, so this is not a good thing to do regularly.

Sorry if this seems like a stupid question, but I'm new to team games and I'm not sure I understand the mechanics here. Each civ on the team can only utilize one of it's traits? Is that correct?

I don't know the mechanics of a city gift to another player.
I can guess that eveything will be resetted, but this can be useful at the early stage of the game.
Let's suppose to have a relatively not-yet developed city. Gifting it to an industrious Leader to build the Forge will save many turns. Like the gift to a Creative Leader to build a Library. And so on.

But i don't find this useful for developed cities with GPPoints in it and so on.

Each civ's actions (builds, promotions, upgrades) occur within it's own traits, but cities and units can be gifted back and forth to gain some aspects of shared traits. However, the latest patch (and maybe some earlier ones too) took away the worst (or best depending on POV) parts about gifting. A couple of things still work, like having one civ build wonders fast and then gifting the city to the other (PHI) civ to get more out of the GPP. But you don't want to gift cities back and forth quickly because the act of gifting might clear out accumulated GPP and maybe other things too.

I checked it, it clears out GPP indeed.

It wouldn't matter that much if you could time the gifting according to GPP rate, but the problems with wonders is that you don't have so many spare turns before you have to start building them or someone else would beat you to it.
That shouldn't be much of a problem if you spread out the wonders so every city itself only gets gifted very infrequently, but then you run into the problem that the subsequent spread of GPP would be a lot less efficient than when you concentrate it.

So i'd change my preference to Lincoln & Capac since as the game progresses gifting 'windows' (after each GP pop) get more infrequent and we'd need another source of research/gold to counteract, which might come in handy with developing financial towns.

I checked it, it clears out GPP indeed.
Okay, that's useful to know. I had suspected it would, but I wasn't completely sure. So that means having one Philosophical leader and one Industrious leader definitely isn't as strong as it might have been.

I vote for:

Financial: for better tech rate
Philosophical: for more GP/bulbing to further boost research
Creative: for quicker border pops and (peaceful) resource competition w/ neighbors, and cheap libraries
Charismatic: for help with happiness.

I guess this would result in a Willem (FIN/CRE) + Lincoln (PHI/CHA) leader combination.

I suggest a civ with a military and an economic trait (unless we play with 2 civs).

I want to point out that Industrious trait allows you to build National Wonders faster. It can be crucial to get the Wall St in your holy city (especially if it's not too productive).

Depending on the Civ, industrious can provide some good strategies. For example Asoka (Spi/Ind) starts with Mysticism - get a religion, build Oracle (faster with ind), use Oracle for Metal Casting, build forge (faster with ind), then colossus (faster with ind). This is just an example. Faster Forges and National wonders are very nice.

I suggest a civ with a military and an economic trait (unless we play with 2 civs).

I want to point out that Industrious trait allows you to build National Wonders faster. It can be crucial to get the Wall St in your holy city (especially if it's not too productive).

Depending on the Civ, industrious can provide some good strategies. For example Asoka (Spi/Ind) starts with Mysticism - get a religion, build Oracle (faster with ind), use Oracle for Metal Casting, build forge (faster with ind), then colossus (faster with ind). This is just an example. Faster Forges and National wonders are very nice.I agree on the usefulness of the Industrious trait. But Asoka is Spi/Org.
Bad example.

Ramesses is Spi/Ind. And Egypt has a good UU.

I'd rather Hatty over Ramesses

I think it's important to also point out that it is the Civs that have UB, UU, and the Techs and not the Leaders themselves. I've already made that mistake myself.

Just loaded a test on that and am now wondering what the point of unrestricted leaders is other than role playing?

With this news its clear that unrestricted leaders adds NOTHING to this game.

That's not true at all, like if you combine a Cha leader with Egyptain or NA Civ thier Monument UB will have the added bonus of an addtional :). Another combo that some like is Boudica of Rome, giving Prats an start with the +10 str bonus and quicker leveling up.

Or a protective leader (Wang, maybe) with Mali... protective skirmishers rush... probably deadlier than praets.

Never tried a skirmisher rush? i did... good results.

That's not true at all, like if you combine a Cha leader with Egyptain or NA Civ thier Monument UB will have the added bonus of an addtional :). Another combo that some like is Boudica of Rome, giving Prats an start with the +10 str bonus and quicker leveling up.
I think you mean +10% strength... if there was a trait that gave a +10 strength bonus I'd pick it every time! :lol:

But yeah, I agree. Ethiopia is another nice one to give a Charismatic leader (more promoted Oromos + happy Steles)

Or a protective leader (Wang, maybe) with Mali... protective skirmishers rush... probably deadlier than praets.

Never tried a skirmisher rush? i did... good results.
Skirmishers probably come too early to rush on the map we're likely to have for this game (a larger one). And I strongly disagree that Protective Skirmishers are deadlier than Praets - especially since you're effectively sacrificing an entire trait for those two promotions, which isn't really worth it IMHO. Praetorians by themselves are probably better, let alone Praetorians with an Aggressive or Charismatic leader.

It was just an example of the unrestricted leaders. I think they only work on Marathon.

Anyway, i wiped 2 civs out of 3 in my starting continent with them only. A great game, despite the Oracle BIAFAL (1200 BC on Monarch) before i get PH. And a demonstration of the power of the Financial trait.

Uh... what's BIAFAL?

Uh... what's BIAFAL?

Built
In
A
Far
Away
Land

newbie :lol:

I'm familiar with the term, but had never seen anyone use the abbreviation like that before...

I'm familiar with the term, but had never seen anyone use the abbreviation like that before...You probably are not much in the GotM forums. You can learn a lot in acronyms there.

Mainly if you play SGs.

BTW, i'm the captain of a (non) team there. If some of you would like to join for next SG, announced after Easter, it would be nice. I'm afraid only one or two of my teammates will play and 6 to 8 people is what a good team needs.

Just you have to win regularly on Monarch, possibly higher.

That competition usually see the absolute strongest players (in fact i usually finish in the middle of the pack) you can imagine.

Ah, okay. Yes, I haven't played much in the GotM forums, nor in the SG forums recently. Apparently there is an acronym for almost everything in Civ these days. :lol:

Like staying on topic? :D

Your right lord Parkin I did forget the precent sign. I just couldn't remebe the name of the promotion.

As for unrestricted leaders I think they work just fine on slower speeds. In fact I think the Lincoln/Egypt works better on slower speeds due to faster Gp.

Please come and vote here (http://forums.civfanatics.com/showthread.php?t=359008) for your preferred leader(s) and civ(s). :)