Civilization IV Leader Traits: Self-Actualization, Axemen, and You

sylvanllewelyn said:

I could've sworn I saw this question a hundred times, but I couldn't find it anywhere. Perhaps a more formal treatment then:

If I am imperialistic, I settled on a plains-hill and I have a plains-hill to work on, should I start off with a settler? For simplicity assume standard settings, prince difficulty.

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depends on your methods for the first 100 turns (marathon scale). Normally an IMP leader would like to REX the map out, so maybe yes.

now please correct my calculation if i'm wrong:

For marathon; settlers = 300 hammers
turn:1 (4000BC), capital pop: 1
city tile on a plains hill : 2F, 2H, 1C
work on plains/hill with forest: 3H

for settler building, "food surplus+hammers" are counted. that makes 0F+5H.
With imp trait, it makes 7.5 hammers. I think, it shoud be rounded down to 7.
So 300/7= 42.85 = 43 turns!
If it's 7.5, then 40 turns.

WOV! That's very fast for 1pop capital. Normally, without IMP trait and plains/hill city, it would take75 turns! So, starting with settler shines at the first glance.

But still waiting until making a decision where to settle the 2nd city, seems a more reasonable choice.

Scout the area, check if there is any very important resource that you would never want to miss. Because before building your 2nd settler for 3rd city, that resource may already be lost to an AI or barb. Which resources can it be?Well, especially copper, horse, stone, marble; depending on your playstyle. that may take a few 10 turns to scout the area totally. Building a settler in turn 43 might be early as Sisiutil commented.

So you have 2 choices here.

1) build a worker (24 turns in marathon, plains/hill capital)
irrigate a corn tile. It makes 5 food! So it speeds up your settler building turn a little bit. But the main speeding up will be after you research bronze working, CHOP. So instead of turn 43, you can do it in turn 55-60. Still, incredibly fast, even faster than 75! Plus you will have a worker.

2) you can train units/build wonder until your capital pop reaches 2/3 or maybe 4.

camarilla said:

irrigate a corn tile. It makes 5 food! So it speeds up your settler building turn a little bit. But the main speeding up will be after you research bronze working, CHOP. So instead of turn 43, you can do it in turn 65-70. Still, incredibly fast, even faster than 75! Plus you will have a worker.

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well, i know this changes very little for an imp trait as food is not multipleid by 1.5 But still, you need that resource early to let the capital grow faster, right?

and researching bronze working takes 50-55 turns even if you start with mining. that'S why, you can use the time between the 1st worker and bronze working by mining unforested hills or farming flood plains, food resources.

but if you want to REX really very early, you could build the settler and then build a worker. but still, i don't think such a very fast start might be required unless you start on a location very near to AIs, like standart world/18AIS etc.

afetr you scout the area, you will also have a few hundred golds from goodie huts, and so you can settle mroe comfortably. so, i suggest just waiting a little.

AndiD said:

Another point regarding Charismatic: In the early game, Char gives in fact two more population to cities (+1 happy by itself, +1 happy by Monument). In terms of percentage, this is HUGE, especially at higher difficulty levels and/or if you happen to lack happiness resources...

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Charismatic leader or not, I build the Stonehedge in about 8 games/10. I know I'm biased here, but how do you guys survive without the +1 culture that Stonehedge provides?

P.S. playing large + maps here

In the early game you only need / can only have a fairly small number of cities before CoL, so building a monument in each city isn't necessarily that hard. I'd likely go for stonehenge anyway, though.

FrancoisB said:

Charismatic leader or not, I build the Stonehedge in about 8 games/10. I know I'm biased here, but how do you guys survive without the +1 culture that Stonehedge provides?

P.S. playing very large + maps here

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well depends.
forget about creative leaders and HC. even when you start with mysticism, you aren't guaranteed a religion in high levels.
so i try to build the SH most games. and TGW in every game. another issue, especially building the stonehenge before the great wall increases your chance on the 1st GP be a great prophet instead of a great spy. great spies are also fine but great prophet bring very good income with shrines. anyway, you will have each of GPs in the game. but early shrines bring good effect. during 1000BC, i built the Confu Shrine and that brought me 20 gpt which was very fine. i quickly built 2 more cities and still i was in good profit.

but there is an exception here. if you have an ancient UU or if you want to make an axe or chariot early rush, then going heavy militaristic and starting the early rush earlier is more important than a stonehenge. so i just build a worker, a settler, the great wall and then start training units. and i build the 2nd city just near the strategic resource, resource being in first 8 tiles of 2nd city.
getting rid of nearest neighbours is more important than SH.
if you have a early/mid game UU like gallic warrior, you still have time to build both wonders. but if immortals are your UU, then SH seems like a waste of time. you will be killing your neighbours already so why need a stonehenge. just killing 2 neighbours is better.
you know each unit has an age of being superior, such as immortals.
building the great wall may cost you killing 1 less neighbour.

especially, if you are playing on a huge map or playing on standart speed than killing is harder. if you build both wonders and then start the rush, immortals loose their superior power just after you killed the 1st victim and there isn't any more time to kill the 2nd.
well, time is important.

but if you get the stone, the issue is different, sure.

after you got rid of closest neighbours, you should be having at least writing and so libraries will give you the culture. you may also get the confucianism thru oracle. confuc+early courthouse+early caste system is very fine with oracle.

You may consider revising some of the middle strength rankings – some traits moved up there because they are stronger than it seems at first glance. Protective is now the same way.

Currently, the divisions are:

Strongest:
Financial
Philosophical

Medium:
Spiritual
Aggressive
Creative
Expansive
Industrious
Organized
Charismatic
Imperialistic

Weak:
Protective

According to some of your own criteria, a better division would probably be:

Strongest:
Financial
Philosophical

Medium:
Spiritual
Creative
Industrious
Organized
Charismatic

Weak:
Aggressive
Expansive
Imperialistic
Protective

I’ll attempt to give some reasons for this below.

First, a side note on Creative: while it is most useful in the early game, the free culture is useful whenever you are taking enemy cities, when all cultural buildings are destroyed. Granted that you can use an Artist specialist from Caste System to expand borders, you don’t always want to be in Caste System. Creative allows you to work on other initial builds in captured cities without having to focus on culture first.

Now, why should Aggressive, Expansive, and Imperialistic be moved down with Protective?

Here are some comments from your guides:

Regarding Imperialistic:

I originally included it in the “Weak” category, but now feel it belongs in “Medium”—if it’s used properly.

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This indicates that proper use is essential to a trait’s rating. Given this, the comments on Protective:

The problem with the Protective trait is that it’s largely defensive in nature. (. . .) In many ways, the Protective trait seems to have been added more to benefit the AI than the human player. The AI prefers to play defensively for the most part, so Protective suits its programming.

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are enlightening. Clearly, the AI does not use the trait well – but does it follow that a human player should emulate the AI’s use of a trait? By that measure, none of the traits are strong.

The key is in this, from the Stack o’ Doom guide:

While I have listed siege units as optional, in many cases they should be considered essential.
In the very early game, however, when cities’ cultural defenses are quite low (usually 20% at best), siege units are often not required to capture cities. A +20% defensive bonus can be readily overcome provided you have enough attacking units with sufficient offensive promotions, and you’re willing to lose some of your units. Even when attacking a city with a +60% bonus (such as a holy city), you can overcome its defenders with sheer numbers; usually a 3-to-1 or 4-to-1 ratio of attackers to defenders will be required in that scenario.
As the classical era of the game draws to a close, however, cities’ cultural defenses will rise to 40% or higher, and several cities may be defended with walls and even castles. Also, your opponent may build the Chichen Itza world wonder, which boosts the defense of all cities in that civilization by 25%. Longbowmen, the strongest medieval-era defensive unit, also begin to appear. Under these circumstances, siege units go from being useful to being absolutely required.

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Since siege units soon become the primary offensive weapon of the game, neither Aggressive nor Protective plays a direct role in offensive action – Aggressive’s Melee troops are more often than not City Raiders, which is available without the free C1 Promotion. After the Siege Units are done, the free C1 doesn't make that much difference.

In essence, the only time Aggressive’s free promotion makes a large, direct difference is in the extremely early game, before the advent of siege weapons.

Protective can make an effective use of the Drill Promotions (with Longbows/Crossbows before Gunpowder) because Siege Units are used to take cities and damage units. Piece of Mind makes the point that Protective is the only trait that makes Drill 4 feasible, and that Drill 4 is an excellent promotion, in this thread:
http://forums.civfanatics.com/showthread.php?t=307430&highlight=Protective+Underrated&page=7

Given, again, that Siege Units do most of the work, units with First Strikes can be better – and more profitable, XP/Great General points wise – for cleaning up.

Aggressive actually becomes useful mainly for opening up some specialized promotions which drill does not. You mention under Imperialistic that:

You don’t have to play as a warmonger with the Aggressive trait; you could leverage it to build a strong army and military infrastructure (the cheap barracks and drydocks count towards your power rating, after all) so you’re left alone to build.

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The same applies to early game Protective, with their cheap walls and castles. The question is when it happens. The part of the game where Protective builds Walls and Archers is the part of the game where Aggressive has its potentially largest impact.

After Siege and particularly after gunpowder, the situation reverses itself. Protective becomes very effective thanks to gunpowder units with extremely quick access to Drill 4. Protective also has a solid if potentially short-lived economic boost in quick castles.

Which does not mean that Protective should be moved up to medium strength. Rather, Aggressive has gotten a higher rating than it deserves.

Likewise, Imperialistic and Expansive, which a person will only realize as being useful after taking more than a first glance.

Expansive gives you cheap Granaries and workers in the early game, cheap Harbors in the midgame, and better resistance to all the unhealthy buildings in the end game. However, it wanders somewhat from benefit to benefit; each one fades out as another takes its place. Compared to a trait like Industrious or Spiritual (Spiritual starts applying as soon as a religion spreads to you), Expansive doesn’t have quite enough long-term “Oomph.” You might get the granary cheaper, but after they’re built, another trait uses Slavery to the exact same or better (Charismatic) effect.

Imperialistic allows for rapid expansion, then provides for better warmongering once there’s no more room for Settlers. There's two bonuses, but rarely room for both at the same time.

Neither Protective, Aggressive, nor Imperialistic is as strong in war as the only trait which directly boosts siege units (and every other military unit in the game) by lowering the promotion XP requirements – Charismatic. These traits therefore should not be ranked as highly as Charismatic. They belong in the weak category with Expansive. Not because they are worthless or useless, but because they are a collection of small or specialized bonuses rather than general or sweeping bonuses.

Thanks for that analysis. I'll consider it for the next revision.

the only time Aggressive’s free promotion makes a large, direct difference is in the extremely early game, before the advent of siege weapons.

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This is not true. Having your units be 10% stronger matters any time you are fighting at anything less than significant superiority, in terms of combat strengths. And this sort of combat situation happens all the time in the game, right through to the end. There are three main situations:

• In any defensive war.
• In any war where you are pillaging but not taking cities.
• In any war where you have significant tech superiority.

It is true that it is possible, by building a large enough number of catapults, to reduce any defense to where having aggressive attackers is not very useful. It is also true that sometimes this style of attack is available to you, and yet cheap enough to warrant executing. But this is a relatively costly style of warfare: every city you take costs lots of lost cats, plus the war exhaustion that comes from that. It is far preferable, when possible, to attack only when you just gotten a nice tech lead, i.e., you get riflemen. Then you still do use cats to knock down walls, and perhaps a few to take the edge off the defense. But the 10% bonus strength still matters quite a bit.

In any war where you have a significant tech superiority, the case can be made for drill being the better free promotion. As I mentioned above, most units that receive Aggressive's free promotion are usually promoted up the City Raider line anyway. If City Raider did not exist for Melee units, then the free C1 becomes more interesting.

It would be interesting to see a low-siege game that did not make use of mounted units to get in to cities, but I've rarely seen such a game once siege units were available.

The whole thrust of the aggressive/protective comparison was to dispel the illusion that Protective is not useful in offensive actions, and to point out that siege weapons are usually doing the real work.

Having your units be 10% stronger matters any time you are fighting at anything less than significant superiority, in terms of combat strengths.

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In any war where you have significant tech superiority.

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It would be interesting to see a low-siege game that did not make use of mounted units to get in to cities, but I've rarely seen such a game once siege units were available.

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Rifle draft + spies. Snaaty even advocates it directly for high levels in some cases. Combat I is arguably better in that case since you won't be taking on damaged defenders and it boosts your survival odds more.

By the way, IMO it's a bit ridiculous to tier PHI and FIN above all the other traits. I've seen minimal empirical or real evidence that such is the case. Even in HoF, which skew things considerably, the prime driver of fast space wins is marathon + a power rush unit...but in situations where one isn't abusing away 2 AIs with a suped up unit that gets a massive production discount, there just doesn't seem to be any true support for this tiering.

Combat I is arguably better in that case since you won't be taking on damaged defenders and it boosts your survival odds more.

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Does a spy-induced revolt not damage defenders in the city, then?

There are a few powerful trait combinations I think you overlooked.

While Protective by itself is rather weak, in the hands of Tokugawa, it becomes extremely powerful, and I think he has one of the best (or at least one of my favorite) UUs in the game (Plus, in my experience anyway, Macemen, which is what the Samurai replace, seem to have the most longevity compared to other units). While the samurai are only given the Combat I and Drill I promotion, they have 3-6 first strikes to start out with, which is equivalent to Drill III, if I am not mistaken. I often build samurai and promote them with City Raider I-III and they are able to take several cities without having to stop and rest between raids. Then once you move into the gunpowder era all new gunpowder units have Combat I, Drill I, and city Garrison I. That means all Japanese gunpowder units are extremely able city defenders in addition to being well equipped aggressive units. So you can take a stack of whatevers, capture a city and leave one behind to defend/keep the citizens relatively happy by not having to worry about their safety, then move the rest on to keep taking more cities without having to build units specifically to defend your new conquests.

Pericles is another great leader, not specifically because of his traits or UU, but because of his traits combined with his UB. He's Philisophical, which obviously lends itself to the SE, but he's also creative and his UB is the Odeon, which replaces the Coliseum and adds 2 happiness and 3 culture instead of just one happiness. This actually lends itself surprisingly well to warmongering because it allows you to quickly get 2 happiness and 10 culture in a new city that you've just captured, by allowing quick build of the odeon (3 culture), library (2 culture), and theatre (3 culture) plus the 2 culture from his creative trait. Those close borders with neighboring cities won't be very close for very long, and war weariness is essentially a thing of the past. My favorite thing about Pericles is that you don't have to worry about religion or monuments early in the game, and since you're going to want construction fairly early so you can get catapults anyway (or at least I do most of the time), happiness won't be a big issue either. And if you're not a warmonger, Pericles makes for a Prime Culture Victory Candidate, since you can quickly start placing artist specialists and get a great many Great Artists out of his Philosophical Trait.

Bandobras Took said:

You may consider revising some of the middle strength rankings – some traits moved up there because they are stronger than it seems at first glance. Protective is now the same way.
...

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Hmm, I realized how I missed those never-ending trait discussions IMO, the combination of below all shows the power of your state.
* game settings: map type/size, # of players, game speed, game rules (with or w/o barb etc.), difficulty
* location u start: climate nearby, starting 9 squares, who your neighbours are (opp. leader personality)
* nation&leader: traits, UU, UB and starting techs
* style: economy (SE/CE/etc) and victory philosophy (warmonger/builder/etc) type

yes, power is a combi of all, but there are some exceptions. for ex: immortal, financial, rathaus are very strong for nearly all maps & strategies. they are very strong even themselves, w/o other factors.

Still I wanna show my -most recent- views below (disgarding the other factors and only by regarding the one trait itself)
top tier: Financial, Organized, Charismatic
mid tier: Imperialistic, Philosophical, Industrious, Aggressive
lower tier: Expansive, Protective, Spiritual, Creative

Why I said "most recent"? Because my views change by time, not much but little. CIV4 gives the player many options and so when i get bored of playing my usual style, i switch to another style and it gives me a new excitement. And priorities change accordingly.

Hello guys. As the topic is related with warmongering, let me attach an old doc of mine, simple but useful.

recent version of the doc
View attachment xp guide v2.zip

Is a revision still in the works? My noobness is just curious if this guide is still relevant with the latest of BtS.

Gazurtoid said:

Is a revision still in the works? My noobness is just curious if this guide is still relevant with the latest of BtS.

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It should be pretty up-to-date; the most recent patch didn't change much that's relevant to this guide. I am working on a slightly tweaked version of most of my guides--just finalizing them before Civ V comes out.

Great and useful article! Quite handy, thank you so much for making/sharing with us!

Nop, aggressive is not bad.
- gives you a very early game military advantage on building barracks and +10% power
- gives you an early game advantage with shock out of the rax and Formation for your pikes
- gives you a late game crazy advantage having march and COMMANDO 1 promotion before

As for expansive and imperialistic being bad... Most of the game is decided in the early stages, and they both give you a big bonus early game. The faster you have your 2nd settler or your first worker, the faster you'll have more workers and settlers, the faster you'll grow, the faster you'll be big and have a huge army / science.

Alleria said:

Nop, aggressive is not bad.
- gives you a very early game military advantage on building barracks and +10% power
- gives you an early game advantage with shock out of the rax and Formation for your pikes
- gives you a late game crazy advantage having march and COMMANDO 1 promotion before

As for expansive and imperialistic being bad... Most of the game is decided in the early stages, and they both give you a big bonus early game. The faster you have your 2nd settler or your first worker, the faster you'll have more workers and settlers, the faster you'll grow, the faster you'll be big and have a huge army / science.

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I never said they were bad, just not as strong as Financial or Philosophical.

I agree with most of Bandobras Took analysis above.

Charismatic, however, deserves to be in the strongest catagory. On deity it allows each of your cities to work two extra tiles giving it almost as much of a commerce boost as financial in the early game. When establishing a Heroic epic/West city Charismatic is is basically the equivalent of two free great generals. A Heroic epic/West point city will be able to train Level 4 units with only three settled great generals instead of the usual 5. This unlocks commando and march for new units which are critical for a domination win.

Agressive and Expansive both are just not as powerful as the others. I also think they should go in the weak catagory.

Imperialistic however I am not so sure about. The 50% settler bonus is especially helpful on marathon, when all unit production is discounted except settlers who cost a whopping 300 hammers each. In addition the great general bonus while not nearly as good as charismatic still helps in establishing that critical military city capable of churning out level 4 units. I would leave that one where it is in the middle catagory.