Attribute mechanic and strategy

[remconius]

So, I am curious how attributes will work.

In total there are 6 attributes (Militaristic, Diplomatic, Expansionist, Economic, Scientific, Cultural)
Each leader and civilization has 2 attributes. Over the course of a game you will have access to 8 attributes, 2 fixed throughout the game from your leader and 6 (3x2) changing attributes from the civs you are playing for each age. The attribute trees stay with you and are developed over the course of the game.
Form streams it seems you could get to the bottom of 1.5 trees per age, or maybe fully complete 1 tree per age?

That would mean you cannot complete them all and part of the strategy is to figure out which parts of which trees you want to get.

Some questions this raises:
- How do the attribute trees relate to the traits. Can you only progress in attribute trees if you have one of the traits active (leader or civ)?
- if you go for something like a scientific victory, would it make sense to have a scientific leader and 3 scientific civs. Is this an overkill or will the repeatable +% at the end be the way to go.
- What is the benefit or downside of having the same attribute for the leader and civ you are playng.
- Are certain attributes OP for certain ages (like expansionist in the first age?)

Just keep thinking while waiting for release day...

 

[Siptah]

So, I am curious how attributes will work.

In total there are 6 attributes (Militaristic, Diplomatic, Expansionist, Economic, Scientific, Cultural)
Each leader and civilization has 2 attributes. Over the course of a game you will have access to 8 attributes, 2 fixed throughout the game from your leader and 6 (3x2) changing attributes from the civs you are playing for each age. The attribute trees stay with you and are developed over the course of the game.

You do not automatically get these points. You need to fulfill associated quests. But there are other ways to get points: legacy paths, wonders, goody huts, narrative events, some bonuses. I'm not sure what the maximum is, but Marbozir in his Ibn Battuta video that goes a bit more than half into the exploration age has more than 10 invested in the culture tree.

Form streams it seems you could get to the bottom of 1.5 trees per age, or maybe fully complete 1 tree per age?

The last attribute in a tree (or two last for expansion) are repeatable. See Marbozir's video: he selected the last culture attribute 6-7 times.

That would mean you cannot complete them all and part of the strategy is to figure out which parts of which trees you want to get.

Like with commander promotions, but on a more general level, this is a core of the strategy, as it seems: which tree is the best for your game? However, I think it's better to specialize than to go for too many. Maybe choosing two is good as well, bust mostly, it seems to be preferable to go down into one as soon as possible. Another Marbozir video shows how well it works if Greece (with its Influence bonuses) and the Diplomacy attribute tree are combined early on: plenty of free peacefully incorporated cities in Antiquity (4?). If he would have invested some points into expansion or science, it would have only weakened the overall performance.

Some trees are more flexible than others though. E.g., expansionist and diplomacy seem to be of more all-round use, while culture, science and military are much more focused on the respective part of the game.

 

[TheMarshmallowBear]

I believe the general idea is that the attributes assigned are what you are most likely to get through narrative events. You can still get them through Wonders (many wonders give them out).

So if you're playing someone like Ibn, you will often get Wildcards through narrative events as that is one of his attributes.

 

[Leucarum]

I'm not sure if it'll be my first game - I think that's reserved for Trung Trac - but I really want to play an Ibn Battuta game early to see how much fun I can have with the atrribute trees.

 

[tedhebert]

I wonder if it will be a good strategy to take ancient civs (and a leader) that are more militaristic, diplo, expansionist or economic than those with science and culture, and leave those two for later ages ?

Seems to me those 4 might be more important in the early game than the latter two ?

 

[Siptah]

I wonder if it will be a good strategy to take ancient civs (and a leader) that are more militaristic, diplo, expansionist or economic than those with science and culture, and leave those two for later ages ?

Seems to me those 4 might be more important in the early game than the latter two ?

Aside from free culture/science for each city (on Palace and City Hall), the trees also have early bonuses for constructing wonders (culture) and all buildings (science). I don't think they are bad for a start. Culture greatly helps with the culture legacy path, and science helps with the science legacy path (you get free science towards masteries relatively early).

But the start of expansionist (production towards settlers) and diplomacy (free happiness which translates to more celebrations) are good starters all around.