Best of the 6 abilities?

[ApocalypseKurtz]

Top 2: Scientific and Religious .
Scientific because science is the most valuable thing in the game; religious because not having a period of adjustment between governments is a huge advantage and everyone needs happiness improvements.

Middle 2: Commercial and Industrious
Neither of these are great but they both are decent and will certainly help your cities out.

Bottom 2: Militaristic and Expansionist
Militaristic just doesn't help you enough to make much of a difference; I would only recommend it if your strategy is all-out war. Expansionist in my opinion is the weakest.

 

[Malys Faisent]

Swap your top two with your middle two and that would be my opinion...the Frenchies are my first choice (though the Babylonians are my second...)

I find that the late game benefits to being industrious and commercial are just plain gigantic compared to the other combinations...though I generally play a limited war/expansionistic/infrastructure game. (ie. I work towards getting a decent amount of real estate, well situated cities, lots of roads and improvements, and fight short wars to ensure my neighbors don't get too uppity). Yes, I generally a tad bit behind in the tech race once I hit the Middle Ages...even skipping the new government types! But then my workers get my nation linked to a few others...and all of a sudden I am trading my iron, horses, luxuries for tech, gold/turn, maps, contacts...I become the damn supermarket of the game and quickly pass everyone by the few turns it takes for me to start trading like mad. I like being the first one connected to other empires...I get first dibs on trading my stuff or getting their stuff...generally I go for the Great Lighthouse to help this...when I decide that a neighbor needs to be taught a lesson nobody else in the world even bats an eye, and once I've gotten back to peace with them they quickly are nice and polite with me.

But wowzers, the culture you get as the Babylonians is insane, especially if you don't mind turning your people into books and temples!

 

[Arrian]

ApocalypseKurtz-

I think you hit the nail right on the head, at least for my normal playing style (which is while I love the Babylonians). I expand as much as possible peacefully, settle in and build up, and then fight later on for resources and such.

I think just about everyone agrees that expansionist is the weakest - unless, of course, you get lucky. It could, in a particular game here or there, be quite powerful. Militaristic is only useful if you really do intend to fight enough to get several great leaders. Again, there is a degree of luck involved.

I'm unclear on exactly how valueable commercial is. At first, I figured it would be huge, due to the corruption issues (I chose the Greeks first), but it didn't seem to help much. Industrious is nice for the workers, but I usually end up with tons of captured workers anyway (and if I'm playing the Babs, they are often Persians, who are industrious). I'm not saying that commercial and industrious aren't any good - clearly not, and some people will have more success with those attributes than I would.

-Arrian

 

[WarandPeace]

I agree that Industrious is one of the best abilities. A worker that can dig and harvest twice as fast means a lot to one's empire, especially in its early stages, where expansion is key to one's survival.

 

[Suvorov]

I like militaristic. I go for constant campaigning and the great leaders this (usually) produces allows you to rush build a whole lot o wonders.

 

[Hommer]

I'm sorry but I don't know about these abilities!!! What do they mean???

 

[WarandPeace]

.....

here:

http://www.civfanatics.com/civ3infocenter.shtml#civilizations

read down from there, it's not too long, and it'll tell you all you need to know.

 

[Malys Faisent]

Commercial does help corruption, here are some stats from my current game (right before I finished my Forbidden Palace and drove my corruption way down).

Cities ~50
Income 1150+
Corruption ~250
Government Republic
Large Map (12 civs, well 11 now)

I only had about 5 cities with the 1 shield corruption problem, and of them 3 were way deep in other civs territories (to gnab resources, call me Mr. Coal). Because I am also industrious, the cities that have around 50% corruption (I do have several of those) are still producing well, since they are all roaded and mined (and starting to get RR'd).

Once I get home I will post what my stats are after the Forbidden
and I plan to switch to Democracy as well, which should help even more...currently my population is 15,000,000 give or take a few.

 

[Alphidius]

Yeap, Industrious is the one for me. With workers completing tasks at twice the speed, I can have 'Engineers' from civ II with Democracy (government: workers work at 150% faster) and Replacable Parts (tech: doubles work rate of workers).

All done in one turn:
Build road (on all land tiles except mountains, forest and jungles)
Build railroad (same as above)
Build mine (same as above)
Irrigate (all irrigatable tiles)

Plus all cities pop above 6 get 1 shield and another after 12.

Give me an industrious civ anytime

 

[Sam_Catchem]

I think religous is just too huge to ignore. Cheap Temples and Cathedrals..high culture. Also, the free Civ2 Statue of Liberty thing is down right awesome.

I have never known the science one to help all that much...but I haven't played very many times as them. So I am not going to bash it.

Expansionist, I have tried to play several times. It blows. Sure you can get a lot of cool stuff from goody huts. Scout out turf early..yada yada. So it is cool early, but later on you wish you had something else. Also, there is no gaurantee you are going to get that many goody huts..that seems totally random. Also, if you are the Iroqouis, the American and the Aztec generally tend to be right by you. The Americans are expansionists and the Aztecs have those fast little kitty warriors. They get a ton of those before you do.

Commercial, very nice, it does help a ton with corruption! Especially when your cities get really huge.

Industrious, Is very nice, except I wish it were a higher bonus. Like those jungle would come down more quickly. I like it though. Early on your cities get high pop fast cuz of the super fast work of your workers. Very nice if you wanna pop out some settlers and take over some land. Building roads wuick is very cool.

Militaristic seems totally dependent on how you play. If you aren't warlike..don't bother. If you are..look into it...more GL's..getting the Heroic Epic, Pentagon, etc..very coolerific.

I pick Religous coupled with one of the others...except Expansionists..I like the bonuses that are going to last longer.

 

[Ohwell]

Here's my list:

1.Commercial- With this, you can buy your improvements
and units, plus less corruption.
definatley number 1
2.Industrial- You can mass produce stuff, and build
wonders faster. This is best combined with
commercial
3.Scientific- This is also useful because you can get techs easier
and with industrial, you can build new stuff quick
4. Religious- Not really helpful except for culture and no anarchy
5.Militaristic- This one has really no benefits. It says you can
get promotions quicker, but I dont see a difference
6. Expansionist- This one really, REALLY sucks. Bottom line.

The best combo would probably be Industrial and Scientific because you would get quick techs, combined with mass production, would win you pretty much any type of victory

 

[Malys Faisent]

Heres where I am now, after the Forbidden Palace (which I put in the wrong place, darn it, seems like I won't be fighting the Russians since Egypt has 90% of the worlds oil) and my switch to Democracy...

Warlord
huge map
12 (11) civs
Cities ~50
Income ~2300
Corruption ~180

Its 1575 and I'm researching steel, at 50% science, 0% luxury (I import 3~4 goods and have the other 4 locally) making ~700 gold/turn and getting an advance every 4 turns. A good portion of my gold (probably about 300/turn) comes from trades with the AI nations, I've pretty much financed my economy by selling off tech, SRs, and Luxuries to everyone else. Once Nationalism came on the scene I offered MPPs for lots of gold/turn to everyone else as a gamble nobody went to war (thankfully) and I ended up with LOTS of gold/turn because everyone wanted me on their side.

Industrious is awesome...in 1475 I was sitting at around 16,000,000 people, 100 years later (what like 20 turns or so?), my population has almost doubled (31,000,000) but I haven't added any cities, I've just been able to RR, clear forests, and irrigate extremely quickly...under Democracy w/ Industrious it takes one turn to irrigate (or mine), 2 turns to clear forest, 1 turn to make a road, and 1 turn to RR. 5 workers turn a forest getting 1 food 2 shields into grasslands producing 4 food and 3 trade in one turn!!! (or alternatively 2 food 3 production 3 trade---I still mine if there is a shield in the grassland). And I had thought that industrious wasn't going to be worth nearly as much after the Ancient Era...I was really wrong...I don't even notice the added production in my city centers, its all the other added production! Add to that the fact that once I get my infrastructure built, I can just keep 6 workers on pollution detail and rejoin the rest to the cities that are growing slowly, but can support a larger population.

Commercial has a noticable effect on corruption too, empires that I've had this size as other nations would still be suffering 20~30% corruption as opposed to 7~10%

 

[Arrian]

In my experience, commercial doesn't have enough of an impact on corruption to make the top 2. I've played commercial (Greek) and non-commercial (Babylonian and Iroquois) civs, and the difference in corruption with similar sized empires is minor. Depending on how they tweak corruption in the patch, this may change.

Industrious, I admit, is an attribute I have yet to try out. I will shortly, since so many people rate it highly. In my experience thus far, however, I usually have so many workers (many of whom are captured) that it doesn't really matter that they take longer to do things... put enough in a stack and it's done in 1 turn anyway.

If you think about it, the fact that there is such disagreement (except about expansionist) among us as to which is the best attribute means that Firaxis did a decent job of balancing. Thus, everyone has options to fit their various playing styles. I like it. Perhaps Expansionist could be tweaked to give them a slightly better chance of popping a free settler out of a hut (more so than now, b/c they apparently already DO have such a bonus).

-Arrian

 

[Alphidius]

Thus, everyone has options to fit their various playing styles. I like it. Perhaps Expansionist could be tweaked to give them a slightly better chance of popping a free settler out of a hut (more so than now, b/c they apparently already DO have such a bonus)

I agree. The last ability I would look for is the expansionist, even militaristic rates better!

When I saw the expansionist ability long ago on the website, the first thing that came to mind was faster growth rate (as in smaller boxes for the food collection to the next pop) but found out it was not so.

The only benefit is the better chance of getting goodies from a hut which to me is not worth anything since you have to rush to open all of the huts or the opponents will. The free scout is useless too with 0/0/2 attribute, all it takes is a barbarian conscript warrior and that guy's dead meat. What a waste of a potential civ ability!

 

[CrayonX]

I think it's really neat that everyone has their favorites based on their styles. I think it's totally subjective. Personally, I like religious and scientific, they really help establish a decent civ in the beginning of the game, and military is more important in the mid-to later games.

However, I can totally understand how each ability has it's advantages.

crayonx

 

[sumociv]

Since bigger cities under commercial produce more trade, doesn't this actually increase your science output more than the science benefits? It seems to me that this makes the science civ-ability useless except for non commercial civs.
The most potent combos to me would seem to be industrial and commercial to maximize your city's value or commercial + scientific to really get those advances.

 

[RastaMon]

If they made settlers only cost 1 population point for expansionist civs, it would be more useful, and would truly help expansion. Would it be too powerful???

 

[DavesWorld]

First the two that I really have zero use for: Militaristic and Expansionistic. They just flat don't give anything near enough to compare to the other four traits.

First the four useful ones:

Industrious: Double-speed workers, and an extra Shield in every city square.

Religious: half price Temples/Cathedrals, one-turn Government switches.

Commercial: Lower corruption civilization wide, an extra Commerce in every city square.

Scientific: half price Libraries/Universities/Research Labs, one free tech at the beginning of each new Age (three total for the game?)

I think most combinations of the above four traits are competitive if matched to the right strategies (i.e., don't pick Commercial then pursue total-war, or have a six city empire, etc...). It really depends on what you're after with your game.

My favorite combination is Religious and Industrious.

Religious makes the all-important Temple much easier to get; this one advantage alone shaves as much as ten or twenty turns off the startup time for all your initial cities if you pursue a somewhat standard 'Builder' strategy. It also makes it possible to rush build them much easier (either via Despotic slave labor or modern cash payments). Plus the one-turn governmental switch ... really hard for me to understate how useful that is. Normally a governmental switch means you're throwing away as many as ten turns of useful function, civilization wide. Since changing governments can be a cruical survial trait, usually involving war for one reason or another, I value this ability quite highly. The ability to switch almost effortlessly from a 'peacetime' government to a warfooting one, and then back again, that literally saves you an average of ten to fifteen turns for every round-trip switch.

Industrious ... the fast workers are really the use here. You *must* use Workers to realise the Industrious advantage, but if you do its almost as priceless as the draw-gun-holster-gun government switch Religious offers. You save a hard-to-calculate number of turns of waste by getting worked squares developed in half the time. Related to your war and internal security efforts, you have a valuable tactical and strategic advantage in a complete road and rail network sooner, and/or for less cost than non-Industrious civs. Even end-game you save turns of lost resource gathering by getting pollution squares back into service quicker and/or with less effort. Remember workers cost a gold to support same as all other units; Industrious civs literally can use half as many as non-Industrious and not be behind in most circumstances. Or they can get the same work done twice as fast, and have 'free' turns over their opponent. I think its amazingly powerful.

 

[Thunderfire]

Top: Religious & Industrious

Usefull for Peace, War & Expansion. Faster workers, are nice switching
governments fast ist very important, cheap religious building is a nice
bonus.

Ok: Comercial & Expansionistic
Expansionistic Civs start with a scout and are able to build a granery
early. This means they are able to get a good start with some luck. Only
usefull at the beginning of the game. Comercial is just the opposite it
is only usefull if you have a large empire.

Bad: Militaristic and Scientific.
A free tech sound good but isn't that important in the long run. Cheap
religious buildings are more usefull. I haven't noticed a big difference
between militaristic and non militaric nations combat/leader wise. The
bonus is to small to be usefull.

 

[Sam_Catchem]

OK..I know I blasted the expansionist. I started to try and play them more and more. Other people love it..so I figured I would try it out. I think it is all how you play them. If you take all those goodie huts and get lots of free tech early in the game..you can leverage that well by trading. The only thing of it is..if you are a expansionist on an island (which happened to me)..you lose out. I guess if you want to play expansion..play large landmass maps. I now see the usefulness of it though. You get ahead early with little effort and then can leverage your early gains by getting money and staying ahead.

I agree though that something has to be done about it. There should be some extra bonus to it other than the scout and goody huts. Just because in random maps it is too risky to pick them.