the missing trait combos

as you probably know, the following trait combinations do not exist in BTS:

Industrious/Philosophical (the elusive one firaxis refused to create since vanilla!)
Organized/Protective
Creative/Charismatic

i think everybody can agree that the last two would not be overpowered, but why were they not included in the game? did they not have the time to put more content in (my guess)?


Organized/Protective in particular doesn't really seem to be too notable. it doesn't really lend itself to any strategy in particular besides both traits benefiting espionage (cheaper courthouses, castles, great wall). has anybody tried a mod that includes this trait combo?


Creative/Charismatic is interesting because charismatic allows your cities to become 2 population bigger than most competitors in the early turns. combine that with cheaper libraries and you've got a very good setup for early scientist spamming. the only issue i find with this setup is that pericles usually does that better unless you're looking for raw beaker output.


Now the big one: Industrious/Philosophical. The taboo combo! the wonder spammer's dream! is this one really that big of a deal? obviously you have a very strong game once you get polytheism->literature as both parth and NE become monsters. another route you could take is beelining metalcasting and actually being able to produce great engineers; using their rushbuilding powers to stockpile more wonders. this leads to more engineers and other great people. i think a great engineer strategy is interesting because there's really no other good way of getting them for a very long time.

in particular, i think GEs were poorly designed in the first place. you have no real way to actively pursue them in the early-mid game which is where they have the biggest impact. by the time the late game comes around, there are almost no wonders left that are on the beeline to the stuff that gives GE points. caste system can't make them, and unlike priests the only option you have to get GE points is to either build the mids, HG, or (lol) hagia sophia. that's not enough. did firaxis think GEs were really that good? if so, how did they not realize that scientists are the best specialist by quite a bit? i can only imagine this (or the NE abuse) as being the reasons this trait combo was left out. it's a mystery to me.

Discussions on this topic can be found by searching here.

ah yes, i only searched industrious/philo and saw nothing very relevant, this is much better.

It's a popular topic for sure, I think you hit the main points!

Great Engineers are scarce but not unfairly so; by stacking other specialists with an engineer you can hurry the spawn rate which could payoff with an early engineer (risk/reward). Personally, the Hanging Gardens can be OK to build and not just for the engineer chance, Pyramids maybe if you can capture them, and the Hagia Sophia which might otherwise be unattractive. Sometimes I'm not content with the improving speed of my workers and I will build it, rather than having a go at Serfdom...

1) Organized/Protective: To me this would seem like a leader who used archers offensively. So, Henry V comes to mind. This would make for some possibly OP Redcoats later though with both the ORG trait and their Stock Exchange for financial backup.

Also, as mentioned in one of those other topics, Spain would benefit from the faster built Walls & Citadels.

I think, the Celts could equally use a faster built Dun to speed up their offensive with Gallics. The designers probably figured this would create too fortified of an archer to defend hilled cities with though.

Andrew Jackson of America could have been another choice for this trait combo. He was very protective of New Orleans in that battle. He actually did rapidly build a wall to defend vs the British and won the Battle of New Orleans. The results? "At the end of the day, the British had 2,042 casualties: 291 killed (including Generals Pakenham and Gibbs), 1,267 wounded (including General Keane) and 484 captured or missing. The Americans had 71 casualties: 13 dead; 39 wounded and 19 missing." - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_of_New_Orleans


2) Industrious/Philosophical: I agree. This one seems OP. Especially when I think of who this should apply to and my mind drifts to Greece. Many of the wonders in the game were built by the Greeks or the Romans. I wouldn't think of giving the Romans any more power.
I'm not sure who a suitable under-powered leader might be, other than to use a minor race with no starting techs as a special hinderance.


3) Creative/Charismatic: I think of someone who fought and expanded the borders of their country. This could be an El Cid or Alfonso VI of Spain. Both fought and expanded Spain's borders, giving Spain another leader.

Or Afonso Henriques for a 2nd leader for Portugal. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Afonso_I_of_Portugal
As he was known as "the Founder" and waged wars for 46 years against the moors.

Calling IND/PHI overpowered has been a long-standing joke assertion. There's no evidence for it and I expect there never will be. We're talking about the same game where you can warrior rush with the quecha and spam cottages to cheese out deity, win HoF space by rushing with immortals using FIN/ORG, mop basically any difficulty with close spawns using war chariots, or run around with noobtorians and reduced maintenance. Avoid giving IND/PHI a top tier UU and the leader with it won't even be the strongest choice in the game. On some starts it won't even be close.

Industrious:
Wonder production increased 50 percent.
Double production speed of Forge.

Philosophical
Great People birth rate increased 100 percent.
Double production speed of University.

So I'm guessing that this has something to do with spamming Wonders for Great Person points, which are worth twice as much compared to non-Phi leaders, correct? Well, there's a small problem with that strategy: Great People don't have that significant an effect on the game. Honestly, it sounds about as overpowered as playing Pericles for scientist-spamming, or going Toku/Ottomans, beelining Gunpowder and Nationalism, and then rushing your enemies with crazy amounts of conscripted uber-Janissaries. Or my personal favorite, firing up Gods of Old, playing Sitting Bull, going straight for Stonehenge and the archery shrine, and archer-rushing everyone.

TheMeInTeam said:

Calling IND/PHI overpowered has been a long-standing joke assertion. There's no evidence for it and I expect there never will be. We're talking about the same game where you can warrior rush with the quecha and spam cottages to cheese out deity, win HoF space by rushing with immortals using FIN/ORG, mop basically any difficulty with close spawns using war chariots, or run around with noobtorians and reduced maintenance. Avoid giving IND/PHI a top tier UU and the leader with it won't even be the strongest choice in the game. On some starts it won't even be close.

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G-Max said:

Industrious:
Wonder production increased 50 percent.
Double production speed of Forge.

Philosophical
Great People birth rate increased 100 percent.
Double production speed of University.

So I'm guessing that this has something to do with spamming Wonders for Great Person points, which are worth twice as much compared to non-Phi leaders, correct? Well, there's a small problem with that strategy: Great People don't have that significant an effect on the game. Honestly, it sounds about as overpowered as playing Pericles for scientist-spamming, or going Toku/Ottomans, beelining Gunpowder and Nationalism, and then rushing your enemies with crazy amounts of conscripted uber-Janissaries. Or my personal favorite, firing up Gods of Old, playing Sitting Bull, going straight for Stonehenge and the archery shrine, and archer-rushing everyone.

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I've modded in extra leaders for all the unused trait combos, and while the wonder-spam to GP-spam Ind/Phi does work as a strategy, I'd reckon it only yields an extra 1-2 great people than an ordinary Philosophical/specialist strategy (during the part of the game that matters). That's not game-breaking. I'd imagine the gap between player expectations and actual performance is something like the formerly forbidden fruit, Agg/Cha.

I like Creative/Charismatic. Sure, you don't need monuments to serve as an early border-popper, but you got a cheap option for +1 happiness on the backburner for when you need it. Cheap libraries are a huge plus, and like Cre/Exp, which gives you the health required to run extra specialists early-game.

Organized/Philosophical, like the OP states, is basically a cheap building trait combo. Protective does lend itself to better troops in the modern age (if not against Agg or Cha, at least against peaceful traits), where you can pick up the +25% v. types promos more easily off Drill I, and you have the option of making a Drill/March army now. Your troops will be less effective than a Combat/March army, but it's maybe worthwhile to maintain both Combat-line promos and Drill/March troops. It's not particularly memorable, but maybe I didn't pull off an optimal strategy for it on my run-through.

For, Industrious/Philosophical to seem OP, I just have to look to Ramesses of Egypt and Augustus of Rome, and think, what if they were Philosophical instead?
The traits work together well, especially, with a Forum and Parthenon.
Couple that with UU & trait combo and I can easily see them as OP, when compared to a Saladin or Brennus combo, for example.
Not unbeatable, just not as balanced as other trait, UU & UB combos.

Someone with War Chariots or Praetorians doesn't also need to be IND/PHI is all.

Since Civ is a game of diminishing returns on % bonuses, Phi\anything is not that incredible. It is powerful and top tier in that it gets the important first few GP out faster, and the early game is important. But in the long run because of how GPP scales it never gives you more than 1 extra GP. Thats right, NEVER. It doesn't even give you one extra, but it always lets you get your next one sooner.

Cre\Phi > Ind\Phi, you can build a library faster than a wonder, and libraries let you produce the same amount of GPP as three wonders. Plus, libraries give you scientist points, something none of the early wonders can compete with.

Ind\Phi is not bad, but it is not overpowered in any way.

TheMeInTeam said:

Calling IND/PHI overpowered has been a long-standing joke assertion. There's no evidence for it and I expect there never will be. We're talking about the same game where you can warrior rush with the quecha and spam cottages to cheese out deity, win HoF space by rushing with immortals using FIN/ORG, mop basically any difficulty with close spawns using war chariots, or run around with noobtorians and reduced maintenance. Avoid giving IND/PHI a top tier UU and the leader with it won't even be the strongest choice in the game. On some starts it won't even be close.

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I figured you were going to say this after I watched over 25 of your 'Let's Play' Civilization IV episodes on Youtube from start to finish.

Ind + Phi would be *very* overpowered on Deity, combinations of Pyras + fast engineers and scientists + marble wonders + academy(ies) + fast bulbs + fast Unis and Ox possible = crazy stuffs.
No no TmiT your beloved Fireaxis devs got this one right

Sure, you can argue Incas are still more tasty and cheesy, but that's cos of 1 unit and not so much connected with trait combos.
You can also say there are other combos that work very well on Immortal, but a game should be balanced for it's biggest challenge of difficulty.

Some civs are always going to better than others. Unless you're going to nerf all the good ones, I don't see a problem with having another good one. It would be fun to see how badly the AI would handle it.

People wonderspam on deity now? Cre\Phi gives you better early expansion via free border pops and better early science+faster great scientists via cheap libraries.

You can still get the pyramids if you want too. Lack of industrious doesn't mean no wonders.


It comes down to faster expansion+winning culture wars+cheap libraries+faster first GS vs faster wonders+mint.

IND\Phi doesn't ofer anything special other trait combos don't already offer.

IND/PHI would only be overpowered in One City Challenges in my opinion.
Both traits don't scale much with empire size. Unless you're shuffling around national wonders for failure cash, there are only so many hammers you can gain from IND. PHI hardly even scales with GPP output because of diminishing returns, and that's quite comparable to full-sized empires. Or even ahead.

That said, I sink considerable hammers into wonders even on Deity, although I don't necessarily finish them all.
Wonderspamming generally isn't the fastest way for absolute progression but lowers the chance of overseas runaways and also lowers overall game pace (beneficial on Normal or Quick). Failure gold is perfectly acceptable, with IND we can have +200% to wonders before any gold bonuses become available.

It would be up there with my favourite IND/ORG and maybe even slightly ahead, but not beyond compensation. IND/FIN is also very good and comes tied with what may be the best combination of Uniques.
Just don't make IND/PHI available for Mali or Aztecs...

Yeah, true it would really shine in OCC. Well said.

Mylene said:

Ind + Phi would be *very* overpowered on Deity, combinations of Pyras + fast engineers and scientists + marble wonders + academy(ies) + fast bulbs + fast Unis and Ox possible = crazy stuffs.
No no TmiT your beloved Fireaxis devs got this one right

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Good luck wonder spamming on Deity

How come you cant ever post in just one single thread without mentioning Deity?

I see no reason why PRO / ORG and CRE / CHA arent in the game.

PRO / ORG should have been HAMMURABI!!! Or maybe a second Babylon leader like Nebuchadnezzar, whichever one it was thats famous for defending Babylon with 'bowmen'. In my own mod I changed Hammy to Pro / Org to reflect this along with the buffs I gave to Pro, I need to learn how to make a second leader head for Nebuchadnezzar or just copy paste an existing leader for now.

As for IND / PHI, no I dont think it would break a single player game if it was included, if its too overpowered it could simply be banned for HoF / Multiplay like they already do with Inca.

For CRE / CHA, I want to add in a custom Korea Civ with a Library UB. Someones already made this Civ but I couldnt figure out how to merge it with my mod.

jokulmorder said:

Organized/Protective in particular doesn't really seem to be too notable. it doesn't really lend itself to any strategy in particular besides both traits benefiting espionage (cheaper courthouses, castles, great wall). has anybody tried a mod that includes this trait combo?

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In the vanilla game Pro doesnt benefit the Great Wall at all. For your mod to try this out, Voila:

http://forums.civfanatics.com/showthread.php?t=464119

Hammy changed to Pro / Org, and Pro gives half cost Great Wall, Chichen Itza (changed to +25% EPs per city instead of defense), Pentagon, Kremlin (+8 EP added to both those), Security Bureaus + Intelligence Agencies.

The History Rewritten mod did add Nebuchadnezzar and a few others.
http://forums.civfanatics.com/downloads.php?do=file&id=14855
I have tried it and it does have some decent changes.

bhavv said:

Good luck wonder spamming on Deity

How come you cant ever post in just one single thread without mentioning Deity?

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Maybe you never saw @Obsolete games, iam not the only one who regularly builds wonders.
Just cos you cannot, doesn't mean this combo would not be perfect for other peoples.
And why do i mention deity..cos i can only give feedback on what i play, something you could take lessons in. I dun like this cos enuf peoples think "oh look it's our deity girl again", but if i'd say it'd be overpowered *end* that would be wrong. You really have no clue do you.

Ofc Phi / Ind would be 'perfect for other people'.

I dont see how it would be 'overpowered' on any difficulty, FIN + ORG will still be a lot better in every and any case. And why cant you try to spell correctly?

'Wonder spamming' refers to building 'LOTS' of wonders, not just one or two / 'regularly built wonders'. One or two wonders at Deity level with Ind + Phi is not going to break the game any more than many of the current meta tactics that lots of players use, you get like what, just an extra 2 GPP per wonder? Big fricking deal!

Mylene said:

You really have no clue do you.

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Ok, so me, Thalynet, Antilogic, and Tmit have no clue, only our resident 'deity girl' does. Surely your opinion is the only one that matters on this forum because you play on Deity, no one else is to be taken seriously but you.

TheMeInTeam said:

Calling IND/PHI overpowered has been a long-standing joke assertion. There's no evidence for it and I expect there never will be.

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Its very simple to mod any leader in the game to IND / PHI to test whether or not it would be so overpowered. Anyone can do this, but I assume that the only people that would be interested in doing this would have no interest in playing leaders with modified traits.