Orginised's best assests are cheap courhouses and civics. The civics always represent a very small part of your total economy, yes they can add up to hundreds late game, but by then you should be well established and it should ideally be not a big deal anyway. Courthouses should be very weak buildings for non-militant civs, they should only be cutting costs by 1-2 gold per turn (on 6 cities with only a few buildings in the peripharal cities, as usually is when you get CoL) If they cut costs signifigantly you must have a big empire, which means you are eather militant or over settling. If your militant Imperialistic (or other militant traits) will pay off much more in both the short and long runs, if your over settling, then youre over settling and using a trait up to compensate for bad playing. Currencies extra trade route alone should be as good, unless you need a religion.
A few games back I had Persian tanks starting at level 6, oh yeah, they rolled over evertying including anti-tanks.
Interesting argument. Let me see if I can further explain why I never expected anyone to value Imperialistic like you seem to.
First off, a "very small part of your total economy" is quite relative. Oftentimes, if I'm expanding at a reasonable rate, running OR or any other high cost civic, the civic costs range between 5% and 15% of my total economy. That is one of the largest individual costs I have in a game, and losing 50% of it is a *TREMENDOUSLY* more significant factor than you're making it out to be.
Of course, I'm sure that you'll write these costs off as my being a "Bad player" and over expanding, causing my costs to skyrocket.. Let's say that is the case and think about this 7'ish % pure economic boost you're getting for organized. A bad player playing Darius will be able to get away with more sloppiness in his play. A good player playing Darius will be able to build and support more cities, units, etc, than the same player playing another civilization. You can try and write it off as "only the bad players like this trait because they use it as a crutch to hide their poor playing" all you want, but in simple numerical terms, the civics bonus given to organized is a very significant cash bonus that operates passively from turn 1 to victory, and gives both good and players more economic freedom.
Economy is an important factor whatever your playstyle is, and a cash bonus seeps out into whatever it is you're trying to do. At peace, at war, going all cultural, when you're spying or building spaceships or whatever - cash counts. It'll let you run higher tech, support more units, pump more into culture or espionage. The civic cash bonus from organized helps you however you're playing, all the time, and it does so whatever your playstyle. You cannot play in a way that the cash boost from organized isn't good for you, and will let you do more of whatever it is you're trying to do.
For gravy, we have one of the most important buildings (courthouses) in the game cheaply. I don't know why you're trying to downplay this... Maybe you only play small maps, but on larger maps, the cities you have which will be necessary to your victory (see: not idiotically made cities by poor players) will cost you a bloody fortune due to distance. Usually the first war on huge maps leaves me treading a very, very fine line between things going according to plan and my economy flatlining, and those fast courthouses are a gift from above. The factories aren't to be ignored either, because as every player knows, they're *expensive* and you'd usually rather be building infantry when you get them, and getting them makes building infantry go all the better. The ligthouses are situationally nice too.
Imperialistic... Well, I noticed the only real point you're putting forward is those super-duper tanks, and it makes sense that you are doing so - it's pretty much a one dimensional trait. Settler bonus? Nice, but about on par with cheap lighthouses. It's one of the few traits, to boot, that I can identify as actually having poor synergy - I mean, if you're getting all those generals, it stands to reason your expanding is going to be more or less covered by conquest, so who needs settlers? This makes the settler bonus pretty mediocre past anything but the first few turns of the game. That leaves you with great generals. Good if you're warmongering (I wouldn't even say great, since charismatic's boost pretty much smacks this boost silly), but more or less useless for any other playstyle.
But you know, you and I may just have very different playing experiences. I'm a peaceful builder at heart, and I only play huge maps. Intuitively, it seems to me that imperialistic favours smaller maps (smaller maps, fewer cities, the more difference each city loaded with great military instructors makes, and the less you care about that ever increasing experience curve for bringing out more GGs). I know that organized favours larger maps (more cities, more of the structures in question being built, more "OMG I need a courthouse here now!," and higher civic costs in general). Maybe you play smaller maps and war more than I do, so that influences your pick more. In any case, organized is a trait that gives you cheap costs on two buildings which are pretty much "must builds," one of which being one of the most important buildings in the game, and its main bonus benefits every playstyle in a notable manner. Imperialistic helps one playstyle, and its main bonus is arguably overshadowed by charismatic's main bonus. Say what you like, but there's a reason why people think organized kicks ass.
I'd be interested to hear your stance on "oversettling" some time. Playing huge maps with 14 civs on monarch/emperor, what I find to be necessary settling sometimes costs me 10-12 gold for some of my further cities by the time I'm building macemen. If I'm not settling like I am, my opposition is out expanding me on close to a 4 to 1 basis, and I've found from extensive experience that that's a tough type of city deficit to overcome in either a tech, military, or space race.
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