Ramesses-Rules
King
Yes, Industrious sure makes a difference. I always play random leaders (with their usual empires). In my current game, I got an Industrious leader for the first time (despite having played for years - RNG, go figure), Augustus. Although my poor starting territory let the early wonders be taken by other empires, I have really cleaned up the rest, while still building the largest military in the game and teching ahead of them all. This is only Noble but I would not have even considered all that wonder building without the industrious trait.
That's very true. Once I get to Organized Religion+Forges (Ramesses builds forges and temples faster than other buildings), I rarely lose a wonder-building race unless I get a very late start. Industrious+Spiritual is a great combination for Cultural Victory. So I need to keep that in mind when giving advice based on how I play to guys who play other leaders. As you know, it is important to match your style of play to take advantage of your leader's traits, but we sometimes forget that when talking here on the forum about what is "easy" or "impossible" to do based unwittingly on our limited experience with our favorite leaders. I'm just sayin'.