My Argument for FIN as Top Tier Trait

I know that FIN has had its undue glorifications as well as the counter-justifications that it is simply a middle-of-the-road trait. Usually, the latter group will say that the harder the difficulty, the less FIN should be celebrated. I am here to make a case for FIN as I have gone up in level (currently regular winner at Emperor), it has become more vital. As a disclaimer, I am NOT trying to say that FIN is "overpowered" nor am I saying it is the absolute best trait in the game (I, personally, think Spiritual is the best in the game tying with PHI). I am making a case for FIN as the third top-tier trait.

Before I jump into the analysis of tile improvements, I want to say that a trait that doesn't require active micromanagement is already nice in my book. The bonus is realized without having to actively pursue it allowing you to focus your strategies on other things.

Now, let's look at the beginning and early game. It's a happy occasion to see gold or gems within a distance that your first or second expansion city can claim. Why is this? It's because of big . And with big commerce comes faster teching and the ability to more easily expand to at least 6 cities. These resources become stronger and stronger as you go up in level since maintenance and unit costs are inflated making early expansion more difficult to fund.

How does this relate to FIN? Sure, it may seem like 1 on 2 tiles is small but it's a 50% increase right off the bat. When you have a lot of riverside land in your start location, this means a cottage immediately provides 50% more than non-FIN leaders. Your first expansion city (even if only a happy cap of 4) will give 3x3=9 (with a food resource being the 4th citizen). That's more than 1 gold mine and these tiles feed themselves meaning you can have this city as a secondary worker pump while working this pseudo gold mine. Or you can work a 4th cottage if you really need commerce and you're up to 12 which is nearly 2 gold mines.

Okay, so FIN is clearly good when you have obvious cottagable territory such as riverside grassland / floodplains. But what about those low-commerce, high food starts?

We've all seen those starts that scream "specialists!!!" and they usually are lacking in riverside and early lux resources so commerce is at a premium. It is in these situations where FIN really shines. Writing is clearly a priority but Pottery is, too, because with lots of food comes lots of whipping (and, therefore granaries are a must). While scientists may provide output, they do nothing for . The higher in level you go, the less your palace's 8 will do for you in the way of funding expansion. This is where the non-riverside grassland cottage comes into play. Oh, I know people tend to say these are not great tiles, but don't be so close minded! If you need to fund your expansion and prevent certain leaders from gaining too much land/blocking you off without destroying your tech rate, you need those tiles! In 10 turns, a seemingly crappy tile becomes half of a riverside town. That means 2 of these tiles will be worth a town's commerce after 10 turns. A single "meh" city with 4 grassland tiles will realize a 50% bonus over non-FIN leaders after about 20 turns which is crucial to expansion in these situations.

So I think I've made the case for FIN with riverside and non-riverside starts. What about coastal with mediocre food and lots of production (also a common start)? This is an easy one. That extra gives 2 coastal tiles the same economic output as a fully developed town. So while your 2 seafood tiles feed the mines that will build troops to expand in a more physical manner (lol), you will be funding those troops and that expansion. In fact, FIN makes non-resource coastal tiles actually worth working in the early game without grimacing. And it's okay to whip them away because you don't need to actively grow them like cottages! In emergency situations, 5 coastal tiles gives 15 or the same output as 2 gold mines + 1.

Early game expansion and teching are some of the most important things for setting up a strong basis for your empire. But what about later game? One of the most effective arguments for FIN being a mid-tier trait is that its bonus peters out as the game progresses. While this may be true, in a cottage-spammed city (let's say 12 cottages at different stages of growth), you're seeing 12 extra from FIN which translates thru buildings to 24 or 20 without academy. In a bureaucracy capital, that's actually 18 more which translates to 58 (with the obvious bureau-capital improvements) or 36 per turn (non-WS). Whether talking about a bureau capital or just a commerce city, that's a lot extra and with 2 or 3 of these types of cities, it's a difference of 60-100 and/or per turn.

I do acquiesce that a specialist-heavy research base will only really benefit from FIN in the early game expansion and only slightly in the mid game for funding. In this case, production and pointy-stick-diplo will likely become your strategy and once you capture those AI cottages, FIN kicks in hard. But this niche situation still benefited from FIN earlier in the game as described above which funded those units that you are using to boot stomp the AI.

The one downside is that commerce/cottage heavy economies are easy to destroy via pillaging or spies. But the AI isn't really effective with wars of attrition (or any wars for that matter). Since FIN can be used in many different start situations, carries through rather well into the mid/late game, and requires very little active management, FIN is a top tier trait in my book.

Now, tell me why I'm wrong so I can learn more about this game and FINALLY move to IMMORTAL!

Well while commerce is nice, other traits give bonuses to buildings i.e. and getting those can be important too and sometimes more important (esp. Ind with wonders).
And Phi generates beakers in different ways via great peoples, it's no "i can see that benefit each round" trait but often stronger.

More traits give you beakers in different ways (EXP for example if you get granaries earlier and workers, you could use more cottages quicker in theory in most cities), again it's not so obvious and thinking only FIN gives you commerce could be the reason for over rating it.

A fair argument. But my disclaimer at the beginning gives PHI it's due as being the best trait in my opinion (tied with Spiritual). EXP is a great trait, too, but 25% to for workers won't get you an awful lot of bonus unless chop/whip and even then you're getting +5 and +7 per which isn't enough to say you're getting those cottages online faster in such a way that an equivalent amount of is gained.

Your argument for EXP's bonus to granary and, therefore, faster growth into cottages is interesting and something I didn't think of. I don't have time to crunch the numbers that specifically, but measuring the commerce gained from 1 less pop whipping a granary and growing into cottages might equal out the FIN bonus in the early game. However, the FIN bonus carries throughout the game as discussed in my OP. Also, when comparing, once the granary is built for FIN leader, the EXP trait no longer gains ground on FIN. Each population after granary is built will be working a 50% higher yield cottage. So this might apply to the first cottage or 2, but after that, FIN becomes stronger (in terms of commerce). I understand that it's not always 50% more (the bonus becomes smaller in % as the cottages grow) but a FIN town is always larger than the same tile non-FIN town would be.

As to IND, I wouldn't value it that highly as, from what I've experienced, higher difficulties still usually need the bonus resource to win the good early wonders. It's good for fail gold and for national wonders, but I definitely wouldn't include IND in the top-tier traits. Mid-tier, but not top-tier IMHO

The argument for industrious is usually about the fail gold and national wonders, and for getting the wonders you specifically want to focus on. Fail gold means running the slider at 100% longer (with industrious, fail gold > wealth for all wonders), which still translates into more useable commerce (commerce that actually gets put into beakers). And national wonders are almsot always built, so spending less time on them is good. And half price forges is very good too, as it's one of the few buildings you should (almost) always be building. It's a very good trait.

I did think so too before joining this forum and trying to finish IMM + games without massive loading to counter invasions.

While FIN is still a decent trait, its often overrated. As I understand the game now (I still may be mistaken) it comes mainly from fact that You would like to get everything really fast. Cottages are nice when You grow them regularly,on very high difficulties You may have problems to do that, as You need fast expansion, heavy whipping and fast specialists...

Its just quite difficult peacefully to let you cottages grow even on Immortal and eve more so on deity. I was in other opinion when I joined here, now I tend to agree, that specialists are more powerful than cottages (ofc hybrid is for the best)

Don't get me wrong, I'm not comparing specialists and cottages. Nor am I comparing PHI to FIN. I've already said that PHI is better and, possibly, the best trait. That being said, I've been watching a large number of Deity playthroughs from TMIT and AbsoluteZero on YouTube. Cottages can be utilized on all levels and must be used on later difficulties to leverage expansion costs when lux resources are not available. Whipping is not always the best course and in many situations, you can let one city simply grow cottages to fund expansion for other cities that can be whipped or focus on production. As I put in my OP, it is usually these situations (less commerce sites available) that FIN really comes through big for funding.

Managing diplomacy is a big part of the higher levels and being able to spawn next to Shaka and work diplo so I can build up my 6 cities is one of the things I've learned to do from watching TMIT and AbZero. Doing so can allow a city (or even 2) to focus on to fund your expansion (be it peacefully or violently).

Even in the later stage of the game FIN adds more commerce to tiles besides cottages.
Watermills, windmills, forest preserves and a lot of resources also will have extra commerce.
All that extra commerce means more cities, faster research and a bigger army.
In most of my games the tech leaders have the FIN trait and if behind in research they catch up really fast.

blitzkrieg1980 said:

Managing diplomacy is a big part of the higher levels and being able to spawn next to Shaka and work diplo so I can build up my 6 cities is one of the things I've learned to do from watching TMIT and AbZero.

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I wonder what do players learn from them? Everything I ask I never get a straigth answer.

Tatran said:

Even in the later stage of the game FIN adds more commerce to tiles besides cottages.
Watermills, windmills, forest preserves and a lot of resources also will have extra commerce.
All that extra commerce means more cities, faster research and a bigger army.
In most of my games the tech leaders have the FIN trait and if behind in research they catch up really fast.

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Yes of course! I don't even mention lux resources in my original post. FIN watermills and windmills in the post-Electricity game are also boosted. I don't often reach Electricity in my games these days unless I'm going Space Race but you make a very good point. This just enhances my theory that FIN is top tier and not mid tier.

I wonder what do players learn from them? Everything I ask I never get a straigth answer.

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I learn the most from watching them play on YouTube. Most of the skills I needed to get to Emperor I got from reading the forums. But to start winning emperor and get ready to move to immortal (now), I've been using YouTube videos from AZ and TMIT. Hopefully, I'll be playing deity before Christmas.

I like financial, but I prefer imperialistic. It is probably the most under rated trait in my opinion. Or maybe Catherine is just under rated as a leader. I find that on a boreal map, on noble with the hut gold I get from my scout, I can fund the expansion to about ten to fifteen cities before 1 AD and come out the tech leader. Especially when running a mainly specialist economy.

I find that IMP is a mid-tier trait. Mostly good for fast settlers but the GG are a nice bonus. Cathy is also Creative which is one of the stronger mid-tier traits IMO. As for the expansion you mentioned: On noble, it's not necessary to have a definitive plan for funding expansion. Like you said, you can get to 10/15 cities without worrying too much. But on Emperor+ you have to plan out how you will fund an expansion (especially to that many cities) as your economy will plummet if you haven't laid out a plan. Of course, Currency and CoL will allow you to expand endlessly, but that's not exactly the early first wave expansion that gets buffed big time by FIN

Tatran said:

I wonder what do players learn from them? Everything I ask I never get a straigth answer.

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And you won't. The pedagogical effect of the videos is hard to create in words. Watching a more skillful person than yourself complete something causes you to emulate the actions.

Again it is about map and win conditions.. Coast sea food for example gets 50% commerce boost... and you get food too and you don't need many cottages early.. so can run 4 food tiles (like 2 fish + 2 clam/crab, - typical capital on some maps) and 2 specialists same time very early.. you get your bulb and you get your basic commerce running without single cottage...

@blitz: "We've all seen those starts that scream "specialists!!!" and they usually are lacking in riverside and early lux resources so commerce is at a premium. It is in these situations where FIN really shines. Writing is clearly a priority but Pottery is, too, because with lots of food comes lots of whipping (and, therefore granaries are a must). While scientists may provide output, they do nothing for . The higher in level you go, the less your palace's 8 will do for you in the way of funding expansion"

I don't get this paragraph at all. In river-poor starts you usually have much less food than river rich starts. Yeah scientists contribute beakers and that's not commerce.... but w.e, just dip the slider down, since this won't affect scientists. I also don't get the higher level palace ratio argument. I guess you're saying maintenance gets higher, but again you're also building fewer cities, because the AI beats you to everywhere.

I think the biggest reason that FIN is overrated is simple: cottages are overrated. Good deity players simply don't get much of their commerce from cottages. What's worse is that cottages get worse the harder the map is. In fippy's challenge iso map on S&T fippy got to astro first iirc on a ridiculously commerce poor start with 0 lux resources -- with no cottages.

In more normal games your wealth comes from prioritizing early trade routes and early currency, building wealth / fail gold, and most importantly resource trades. I can't stress enough how important it is to sell most of your resources for GPT (and this includes ones where you have a single copy). In continents maps this can give you hundreds of GPT in the mid game. And lastly and most importantly is bulbing and tech trading. As you get better with both of these, again cottages matter less.

It's still map dependent, in that large maps where you can peacefully rex to 15 cities rely on cottages/FIN a lot more. But on pangea they're not really important.

PHI and IND are more consistently useful in difficult games on deity. PHI is obvious, IND is less so because you are building fewer wonders than on lower levels. But they help you secure the early OP wonders: TGW/GLH/mids/oracle which can make or break the game.
GLH has no modifier and is quite expensive without IND. Oracle you usually build without teching masonry, so there's no marble modifier to help. Mids is expensive without stone for sure, but sometimes mids is really important, and IND makes it not onerously expensive. TGW is a hard wonder to beat the AI too. It's inexpensive, but it goes early. The only way to get it relatively safely is settling your capital one stone or being IND.

And faster forges is extremely good as they are a crucial building in virtually every city. Lastly as mentioned earlier, fail gold is a big way to efficiently get wealth.

FIN may be a top tier trait, but even in that tier there's a ranking

SPI is not a top tier trait as it's not game changing enough. Cheaper temples doesn't matter as they're a bad build unless AP (and even then not amazing). No anarchy is good obviously, but still you can usually time your GAs for most of your civic switches. The real benefit is that it lets you run slavery and caste simultaneously and makes you more inclined to random AI diplo requests. But what if you're in a low food start and slavery isn't useful? Then neither is SPI.
I think SPI is at the bottom of the tier consisting of CRE/EXP/CHA.

Excellent points, drewisfat. That paragraph you quoted was referring to starts where you see a lot of seafood or pasture resources. I've had many starts that had pigs/sheep/cows and/or fish/clam/crab with very little riverside or lacking in grassland in general. Those starts generally scream to use scientists in most cities until you can break out. In those kinds of starts, if you don't have a lux resource, there is very little commerce to drive your expansion. Trade routes are okay but in the beginning (pre-currency), you're only getting 1 in trade per city. That's not going to drive expansion on high levels. Getting to currency in the first place can be tricky on low commerce maps with few (or no) riverside. I guess that's where selling resources and fail gold come into play, though.

The selling of resources for GPT is awesome. I've used it but not extensively enough (I've never before sold my only source of a resource). I will definitely start abusing this in my games particularly with health resources if I don't need them. AbsoluteZero actually does this often in his YT vids even with strat resources if he isn't planning on using them which I found weird but it makes sense given what you're saying. I think this works better on higher levels b/c the AI has more gold to trade.

As for SPI not being a top trait, maybe that's just my personal preference. Not having anarchy means I can switch civics every 5 turns if I want to. It's amazing for fast war build ups and going right back to strong economy civics without suffering 2-3 turns of anarchy which can be an awful lot. I like cheap temples because it is fast and a little culture. I don't generally build them unless I'm SPI (except for AP temple of course).

I imagine IND on emperor isn't as powerful as IND on deity where getting early wonders is always a race. I guess it makes sense, though, since the 50% bonus to fail gold is applied to any wonder including national wonders. I shall have to try this tactic more often in my games with IND leaders.

All in all, you've made a strong case for IND as a top tier and I will try a game tonight with IND leader using fail gold to get me to currency. Maybe I'll use the Incas which are both FIN and IND

Jerrymander said:

And you won't. The pedagogical effect of the videos is hard to create in words. Watching a more skillful person than yourself complete something causes you to emulate the actions.

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More so, it gives you a frame of reference and some picture of what works and (if you apply effort to learn) why it works. AZ is better than me in most videos skillwise, but if you watch either of our videos as someone learning, your perception of what is reasonable by turn x or what you're trying to accomplish is probably going to change.

It was the same for me, carefully reading summaries by Rusten and Unconquered_Sun for example. Obsolete too. You get a picture of what does/doesn't work and sometimes are surprised.

There are a few players who "learned from" me who went on to outplay me consistently, in large part due to my lack of patience/joy found from micromanagement .

In more normal games your wealth comes from prioritizing early trade routes and early currency, building wealth / fail gold, and most importantly resource trades. I can't stress enough how important it is to sell most of your resources for GPT (and this includes ones where you have a single copy). In continents maps this can give you hundreds of GPT in the mid game.

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Keeping in mind, of course, that this is mostly a deity strat. Lower level AIs (especially middle difficulties and below) simply don't have that kind of cash and tech so much slower that your optimal use of resources is altered.

Hey TMIT. I've found that the lack of micro in your videos makes them easier and more entertaining to watch! You've helped me win pretty regularly on Emperor (I started watching while stuck at 25% victory on Monarch). Another few victories and it's on to Immortal

OP are we talking some hypothetical scenario where we measure each trait in a vacuum? Like with a mod where you only get 1 trait and no UU or UB? Or are we talking about the game as is? Are you arguing that Fin leaders are among the best?

In terms of a vacuum... I'm not sure I'd agree with your argument. In that case there are many problems you could run into as a Fin leader playing against leaders with other traits. Creative leaders, for example, could just completely box you in and steal your tiles. Imperialistic leaders could grab more and better land, more than compensating for their lack of Fin. Aggressive leaders could send shock axes and spears into your lands and pillage everything and you'd lose most fights against their troops.

If we're talking about the game as is, then yes I agree a lot of the top tier leaders, imo, are financial, such as Hannibal, the English queens, Pacal, etc.

noto2 said:

OP are we talking some hypothetical scenario where we measure each trait in a vacuum? Like with a mod where you only get 1 trait and no UU or UB? Or are we talking about the game as is? Are you arguing that Fin leaders are among the best?

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I was speaking of FIN in terms of a vacuum (not taking into account the civs or secondary traits)

In terms of a vacuum... I'm not sure I'd agree with your argument. In that case there are many problems you could run into as a Fin leader playing against leaders with other traits. Creative leaders, for example, could just completely box you in and steal your tiles. Imperialistic leaders could grab more and better land, more than compensating for their lack of Fin. Aggressive leaders could send shock axes and spears into your lands and pillage everything and you'd lose most fights against their troops.

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Comparing any single trait against a myriad of others will also be subject to your argument. As a CRE leader, I can be boxed in by IMP leaders. As an IMP leader, the increased # of cities are subject to the culture spam of a CRE leader. The AGG AI isn't smart enough to shock/cover promote their troops en masse for an attack on you. The danger from AGG leaders is usually that they are war mongers and have high unit build probs.

I would say that your goal will be to block off enough land for (at absolute minimum) 6 cities regardless of being IMP or not. Having a CRE leader culture push your borders is a pain in the butt, however, a FIN leader can make up for the loss of some of their tiles with higher tiles within the capital or other core cities. I've seen CRE vs. CRE border wars and unless I can divert enough to culture buildings, the AI will usually still push up on me.

Although, we could test this out by using unrestricted leaders (FIN leader with, say, the Celts)

If we're talking about the game as is, then yes I agree a lot of the top tier leaders, imo, are financial, such as Hannibal, the English queens, Pacal, etc.

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Pacal's UB is pretty strong but his UU is pretty weak. Mining and Mysticism are pretty weak starting techs. I actually find some of the non-FIN leaders to be top-tier such as Mehmed ,Suleiman, Rameses, or Huayana. The thread was really just a defense of FIN as a trait b/c I feel like it gets a lot of hate because people used to over estimate it's power back in the day.

I find that on high difficulty levels I just don't have the luxury to work a lot of cottages or water early in the game. I need production and I need it NOW. Then again, it depends on what kind of game you play. If it's a large map with only 5 civs or something, creative is far less useful. I play Big and Small, standard size, 8 civs, so it's a little crowded. If I take my time with expansion it's easy to get boxed in and not have enough room for 6 cities, so the creative trait is really helpful.

Yes, if you crowd the map, both IMP and CRE become of much higher importance. I was making the case in my OP that the reason I find FIN a top tier trait is that it helps in so many situations but in niche situations, it may not be as strong.

On high difficulties, every single in the early game is crucial as you simply have to fund your expansion somehow. I understand that resource trades for gold, tech sales, and fail gold can be used for expansion but most of those are post-currency and fail gold requires time to provide the (and without wonder-building AI, you may not see it for a long time). Trade routes work as well, but before Sailing and/or a road to your neighbor, you're only getting 1 per turn per city which really isn't good.

FIN is not just for cottages. Think about those 1 tile lakes or coastal tiles. The 3 over 2 is a 50% gain. The same goes for riverside ivory and marble which also get the boost. Also, though, I try to have 1 early city working cottages (if possible) to fund pre-writing research and expansion unless I'm lucky enough to have gems or gold. With FIN, you can have 2 citizens working cottages and 2 working grass hill mines which is comparable to a non-FIN working 3 cottages and only 1 mine (see the gain in production).

Of course there are stronger traits and in niche situations FIN may be completely useless but I still argue that on most maps, with most starts, FIN is a great early boost and lasts all game.