Addicted to Creative

[Mossada]

Heya all, I've been lurking the forum for quite awhile now but haven't posted before. I recently made a transition to Emperor lvl and I can now beat it pretty consistantly but only when armed with a particular trait, namely Creative. After playing a few civs at random I realized just how dependant I've become on that trait since falling in love with Katherine in vanilla. So my question is really, how do you do it?

I've played the game long enough to know the obvious ways, of course. Monuments, Stonehedge, religions, etc. However, Stonehedge and early religion founding requires that early resources be dedicated to that, something I usually spend very differently when playing Creative. Even more importantly, I realized how dependant on Creative my city founding ever was. How do you deal with a city that wont have essential resources for its growth for many turns (i.e build monument, then 10 turns to expand)? Do you place it in less than optimal for long-term potential location to take advantage of those resources right away?

I really enjoyed Justinian's university thread, probably learned more than from a dozen of games. His early strategy seemed highly dependant on expanding the borders quickly, yet he had nothing to do it with other than Monuments. However, as I mentioned before a city may have to wait many turns before it expands and becomes fully productive. How do you cope with that on higher difficulty levels?

 

[mercury529]

As you said, Stonehenge is a decent way to get culture in every city. It really depends on the circumstances whether or not it is worth it though.

When I don't have Stonehenge, a monument is usually the first thing I build in a city. Generally speaking, most of the time you will want to whip or chop out your monument. For that reason, I usually try to include a food resource in the first city ring. That makes a whip faster and ensures the borders expand sooner. If you have enough workers, you can prechop so that the monument is built on the first turn.

With a prechop monument, you still lag 6 turns behind a creative leader, but if you include a solid growth tile in your first city ring, it usually does not make a big difference. Also considering placing your cities nearer to your other cities if the situation is right. You will get some outer tiles from the culture of your capital or other cities.

 

[VirusMonster]

yea, first thing new cities build are monuments. They are poprushed at city size 2. Same deal in my 500k game...

and no, I don't place cities in non-optimal locations to get resources 30 turns earlier. Optimal placement is crucial.

 

[Zanttu]

1 chopped forest= 2/3 monument. Locations with high production already (i.e. forrested plains hill) can build the monument in about 10 turns (normal speed). If no forests, no production, then whipped at pop 2.

Getting your other cities going fast isn't usually so essential. Waiting for 20 turns before the borders pop isn't that bad. Of course Creative saves you 15 of those turns per city, and that's quite a boon. But 15 turns is still only 15 turns.

 

[Winston Hughes]

Monuments are never more than a necessary evil imo. I'll usually want a Granary asap, so time spent building anything else first is time wasted. If there's no other choice but to build one, then a worker can usually be sent along to chop it out quickly. Failing that, grow fast and whip it.

On a map where I'm going to need lots of quick border pops, though, my preferred move is to get CoL from the Oracle, and use Caste System to run an Artist (or more than one if it's a conquered city). That'll pop those borders even faster than being Creative.

Obviously, this is no help if you need to stay in Slavery... But that's just another reason why Spiritual is my favourite trait - spend five turns in Caste System and you can pop all your new cities' borders. It's almost like being Creative.

While the culture bonus is always nice, I'd say the cheap buildings (esp. Libraries) are the main advantage of Creative once the first 2-3 cities have their fat crosses.

 

[aelf]

I find that the early to mid-game border push advantage that Creative gives is often quite significant. If you are fighting a cultural war over a few fat cross or resource tiles with your neighbour, with whom you have no intention to go to war (yet), this trait becomes quite handy when you have it and quite formidable when your opponent has it.

 

[madscientist]

Mossada, welcome to the forums!

I'll assume you are playing only Vanilla base don your post. Understand creative is alot stronger in warlords/BTS because of the fast libraries and thus fast access to scientist sepcialists.

Easiest thing is to get Stonehenge, period. Takes twice as long but worth it. Favored for the industrious leader, or someone who starts with mysticism.

Chop out the monuments/obelisks once you get BW.

Slavery. Once the city hits pop 2 use the whip.

Early religion, yes still alot of benefit from that. Just make sure you have good trade routes via roads/rivers. Prioritie the wheel.

Once you tech Drama keep your culture slider at 10% to pop borders faster.

Adopt CAste system ASAP and run an artist specialist in each new city. You can use the oracle to slingshot to it for faster work.

Once you have a method to expand borders, you will find that there is no real problem playing without creative.

If you enjot the trait by all means use it. But the best way to play the game well is to learn how to use all the traits, and all the leaders.

BTW, CAthy was one of the most overpowered Vanilla leaders arround. Very close to the warlords/BTS HC IMO.

 

[Mossada]

Thank you for the replies, though I'm not sure if they helped or only served to reassure me how powerful Creative is . I'm playing BtS atm usually using the new Kathy - Willem the Oranje. Major problem with Creative is that it's obviously alot less useful after early game, otoh it's easily the strongest early era trait (at least a reasonably defendable argument can be made).

Question regarding Stonehedge, is it really worth it, even with Industrious trait? I never see it built in higher difficulty settings reports but it does seem pretty efficient.

 

[Zanttu]

Question regarding Stonehedge, is it really worth it, even with Industrious trait? I never see it built in higher difficulty settings reports but it does seem pretty efficient.

With Industrous trait and high production capital I'd say 'henge is worth it, at least on emperor and below (on immortal/deity the barbs can really be a big problem if you spend your time costructing wonder instead of defence). With stone, however, I'm not actually sure. If playing on the lower difficulties where barbs aren't much of a problem, Stonehenge is a no-brainer. But on higher levels if you have to choose between Great Wall and Stonehenge, I'd prefer GW. Of course if you can get both, then you know what to do.

 

[Polobo]

How are your cities generating enough commerce to pop @ 10% culture slider when they are only size 1 (maybe 2)? This does work OK if you happen to be on a rampage and you need to pop a few captured cities, plus you get to reinforce your core border cities at the same time.

Another option once you have Music is to build culture. You can generate 1-5cpt without any worker improvements.

 

[bardolph]

In the early game, city placement is key. Make sure you have access to food before your first border pop, even if it's only a farm.

With Slavery, you can whip a Monument as soon as your city reaches 2 pop. With Caste System, you can immediately assign an artist.

If you have a religion, you can pre-build a missionary and spread your religion as soon as the city is founded.

Stonehenge is also a terrific option, if you can get it.

In the early, early game, you need either a religion or Mysticism to have any culture at all, so keep that in mind if you are hoping to hook up a strategic resource like copper or horses. If you don't have access to culture, it's often best to settle adjacent to or on top of such resources.

 

[troytheface]

it was a sad day when they took Creative away from Frederick.

 

[Mossada]

I felt the same way when Cathy lost Financial in Warlords Or was it Creative? Either one.

 

[OTAKUjbski]

Creative can essentially be replaced by standard game mechanics and has almost no usefulness starting around the Renaissance Era, so I think it's at best a middle-tier trait.

Question regarding Stonehedge, is it really worth it, even with Industrious trait? I never see it built in higher difficulty settings reports but it does seem pretty efficient.

I prefer the Great Wall. The primary reason I find myself building Stonehenge is for the Great Prophet .

 

[aelf]

Creative can essentially be replaced by standard game mechanics and has almost no usefulness starting around the Renaissance Era, so I think it's at best a middle-tier trait.

I don't really agree. Creative is free culture on top of anything else that anyone, including the Creative player, can do. Even being Spiritual and switching to Caste System still presents a tangible, if small, opportunity cost of not being able to use another labour civic for a couple of turns. And when you are talking about culture wars, a constant free culture that does not depend on certain conditions is quite significant.

I agree that the nominal benefits of Creative diminish over time, but they are not simply replaceable by something else. And we haven't even talked about the cheap libraries (!) and other improvements and the benefits of those, which also have great bearing on cultural output. Creative is a trait that can really give you a headstart that you can transform into a game-long advantage.

 

[OTAKUjbski]

I don't really agree.

Sounds like part of you does, though!

At least in my experience, Creative is too situationally beneficial to make it worth having every time ("addiction") -- especially if at the expense of other, better traits.

I'm almost always running Caste System, so I seldom have to switch anything to unlock the Artist option. I don't typically "hang out" in Slavery and seldom use Serfdom, so the only labour civic I could see switching out of is Emancipation, which is available at a time when "border pops" are all but forgotten.

Not every game sees heavy culture wars (in fact, most of mine only see culture "spats"). But, in those games where a culture war does break out, I certainly wish I was Creative.

Cheaper Libraries is something everybody needs -- especially early in the game when production is at a premium, but that benefit is only a one-time thing typically early in the game. That usefulness substantially diminishes throughout the game.

Cheaper Theatres only means they go from cheap to dirt cheap, and Theatres are more-or-less situational as well. Theatres are only useful if you need the culture, have Dyes or are using the slider for .

Cheaper Coliseums is pretty nice, though. They're heavy builds and find themselves in my cities fairly frequently, so I have nothing but good things to say about that.


In the grand scope of things, Creative is not a bad trait by any means. But it is a lesser trait by comparison to many of the others and not worthy of "addiction" over superior traits.

 

[Mossada]

In the grand scope of things, Creative is not a bad trait by any means. But it is a lesser trait by comparison to many of the others and not worthy of "addiction" over superior traits.

I think you might underestimate the power of this addiction ;p. As somebody mentioned earlier, optimal city placement is *the* biggest priority early game. For a peacemonger the ability to "block off" the AI in order to carve out a decent sized empire is paramount, nothing accomplishes it better than Creative. While it's absolutely true that Creative loses much of its attraction later in the game the real question is whether it makes up for it in the early game.

 

[aelf]

At least in my experience, Creative is too situationally beneficial to make it worth having every time ("addiction") -- especially if at the expense of other, better traits.

I'm almost always running Caste System, so I seldom have to switch anything to unlock the Artist option. I don't typically "hang out" in Slavery and seldom use Serfdom, so the only labour civic I could see switching out of is Emancipation, which is available at a time when "border pops" are all but forgotten.

Not every game sees heavy culture wars (in fact, most of mine only see culture "spats"). But, in those games where a culture war does break out, I certainly wish I was Creative.

Cheaper Libraries is something everybody needs -- especially early in the game when production is at a premium, but that benefit is only a one-time thing typically early in the game. That usefulness substantially diminishes throughout the game.

Cheaper Theatres only means they go from cheap to dirt cheap, and Theatres are more-or-less situational as well. Theatres are only useful if you need the culture, have Dyes or are using the slider for .

Cheaper Coliseums is pretty nice, though. They're heavy builds and find themselves in my cities fairly frequently, so I have nothing but good things to say about that.


In the grand scope of things, Creative is not a bad trait by any means. But it is a lesser trait by comparison to many of the others and not worthy of "addiction" over superior traits.

But it's easy to see where the addiction comes from, and there's even a reasonable justification for it, which I have touched on. In the early game, when city placement is very important, as the OP points out, and when production is a premium, free culture and cheap useful improvements are very attractive in the expediency they afford the player. And for players who like to put up libraries asap for their cultural and scientific values, and indeed this is a very reasonable concern, the cheap libraries are a big plus.

The justification for this is the well-known fact that hammers saved, beakers gained and commerce or production gained (through better city placements) in the early game yield exponential benefits over the course of the game. Better city placement also has long-run strategic value, helping to maximise the amount and value of territory held for probably at least half the game. Then there's also the fact, which I haven't mentioned, that Creative has a strategic military value when conquering enemy lands. Being able to put the new lands into quick use affords a very attractive and often important expedience.

However, I would agree that in practice, many of these potentials might simply not be realised or lost through wastage arising from imperfect judgement or through bad luck. More specifically, advantages gained in the early game can and might be lost over time. Hence, the real average benefit of Creative depends to a large extent on how you leverage the trait, just (in fact) like any other trait. People who always knock the trait probably just isn't doing that very well

 

[Winston Hughes]

@OTAKUjbski

You're quite right that Creative is more or less redundant after the early part of the game.

But it makes for a damned strong opening, which is where Mossada seems to be struggling when playing with other traits.

After all, if you mess up the first hundred turns, you may never recover.

 

[InvisibleStalke]

I think you might underestimate the power of this addiction ;p. As somebody mentioned earlier, optimal city placement is *the* biggest priority early game. For a peacemonger the ability to "block off" the AI in order to carve out a decent sized empire is paramount, nothing accomplishes it better than Creative. While it's absolutely true that Creative loses much of its attraction later in the game the real question is whether it makes up for it in the early game.

Its main strength for me is cheap libraries = faster academy = faster early research.

Otherwise its weak. Really weak. Compare to industrious - build Stonehenge get the free monuments and you free border pops. And thats just one wonder you build. Not to mention your wonders power out so much culture that your second tier of cities may not need border pops. Or spiritual - switch to caste system and put in an artist. Or gain a religion and get free expansion that way.

Optimal city placement is a given - Creative just lets you skip the opportunity cost of building a monument and lets you wait fewer turns. Since a monument is cheap, you should always build your city in the location you want for its fat cross - except maybe if you need to capture a military resource urgently - which is just one city placed less optimally.

I find Creative way too weak in culture spats too. One nearby wonder or holy city can totally drown out your culture. In an immortal game with me playing Willem vs Saladin, I was on the culture defensive the whole game - at least until Sids Sushi got dropped into my threatened cities. My creative bonuses didn't stand a chance against his multiple holy cities.

It can be useful in blocking off land. Especially with Catherine and cheap settlers. But even thats pretty situational - many games don't have a natural chokepoint. Other games you don't care if the AI builds towards you as you are going to take those cities anyway.

The worst thing about the trait for me is that it completely runs out of steam by the medieval era - similar to expansive. By then you have built libraries or can build them easily. And +2 culture is easily obtained through other means and not significant in a border fight.