Best traits for early game?

[salty mud]

Which traits do you find most fortuitous for early game play? I can narrow it down to two:

Charasmatic - the extra +2 happiness (assuming one builds a monument) gives your cities a huge advantage over your rivals - that's an extra 2 tiles being worked per city. Two more cottages growing, extra mines being worked, extra food resources being harvested. Also delays the investment needed into the Monarchy tech. The XP bonus is also useful if one is going for an early rush to wipe out a neighbour.

Financial - potentially the only trait that can be utilised right from turn 1. Having such a large economy boost early on can, if properly utilised, propel one into a large lead.

 

[InovA]

For early game, specifically, yes those two traits are great. I think Charismatic falls off as the game progresses if you don't plan on warmongering and taking advantage of its -25% exp needed. I'd rank the traits:
1. Financial - obvious reasons
2. Industrious - help guarantee an early wonder or for wonder bread economy. +100% on forges is great, too
3. Expansive - +25% on workers is nice, but the +100% on Granaries is fantastic
4. Charismatic - + is really helpful while whipping. Also only 4 experience needed for a warrior to have Woodsman II promotion, allowing double moves in forest/jungle, good for worker stealing
5. Imperialistic - +50% on settlers goes a long way for early expansion
6. Philosophical - using the +100%GP points towards bulbing or 0-100% finishing a wonder (probably Mids) can rocket you ahead of others. Also decent to use on a holy city ASAP, though diplomacy on high levels means you'd rather not lead a religion that doesn't already have followers
7. Creative - new cities popping borders to give access to more resources so quickly is nice
8. Organized - much more useful in mid and late game, but the reduced civic cost plays a role in early expansion while trying to tech and gives +100% on lighthouses if you're on the coast
9. Spiritual - also more useful in mid and late game, but no Anarchy for Slavery, Caste System, and Hereditary Rule switches is appreciated. If you have an early religion, +100% on temples for the + isn't so bad for a few cities
10. Aggressive - warriors with Combat I upgrade fare better against early barbs. Obviously good to have for axe/sword rushes if you don't have the land you want to expand
11. Protective - you don't want to build archers in the first place. Can be good for the Oracle -> Metal Casting -> (pre-chopped) Forge for Engineer to create a Great Engineer (non-Oracle city) -> Bulb machinery for a very fun crossbow rush. Fear my Cho-ko-nuuuuu!

 

[ztrapon]

2. Industrious - help guarantee an early wonder or for wonder bread economy. +100% on forges is great, too
3. Expansive - +25% on workers is nice, but the +100% on Granaries is fantastic

Strongly disagree. Industrious is near useless if you plan early game expansion -- since you'll be conquering wonders anyway, and there's much more potential value per production in military units than wonders.
I've had this argument so many times before: if you prefer to play peacefully that's one thing. But there's really no question that early game aggression is far superior to remaining passive and constructing wonders instead (unless you play on very big maps with few civs). Conquering 1-2 neighbor civs is always going to be better than whatever wonder you can build, or tech you can bulb, that early on.

Just consider this: even with Industrious, you get more than 5 (!) swordsmen for the cost of Pyramids. These can potentially be used to capture several cities, including the Pyramids. They also raise your power rating, enabling more Diplomacy options (such as demanding civs to DOW).

And you say the extra production on Granaries is "fantastic". Well that's essentially 30 free production per city, one time, at most. And cities you conquer likely even have Granaries built anyway. Whereas the extra citizen from Charismatic is potentially 4-5 production every round throughout the game. That means that in less than 10 rounds, Charismatic has given you the same production value. And that's not including Monuments.

TS I think you are right -- and I'd go as far as saying Fin/Chm (Hannibal) is arguably the strongest trait combo in the entire game. Strong, versatile, beneficial long- and short-term, and best of all they are good in any strategy you choose.

If you can snatch Stonehenge early one way or another, Charismatic is far above any other trait except Financial - especially early game. When you have free Monuments by default, you can also immediately build Granaries/Barracks in new cities, and whip them at 2 population instead of a Monument. All while culture is ticking for border pop simultaneously.

And putting Aggressive so far down the list makes no sense either. You're saying Organized -- before Courthouses are even available -- is supposed to be preferrable to getting double promoted units early game?
Or Philosophical, before you can even generate GP points?

Strong traits early game: Agg, Chm, Fin, Imp*
Weak traits early game: Phi, Org, (Pro)

* Great General bonus is underestimated for rushing. Getting your first Medic units that soon, means saving huge amounts of turns you'd otherwise spend healing units.

 

[Robo-Star]

And putting Aggressive so far down the list makes no sense either. You're saying Organized -- before Courthouses are even available -- is supposed to be preferrable to getting double promoted units early game?

Caste System was cited; what demarcates "early game"?

 

[ztrapon]

Caste System was cited; what demarcates "early game"?

Valid question, I'd say real early game is the period before Catapults -- but I'd extend it to before AI civs start building Longbowmen. These two events mark clear shifts in the game.

Courthouses can indeed be considered early game, since bulbing/researching Code of Laws can be done very fast.
But regardless it's not a strong strategy for early game, since 1) Courthouses (Organized or not) are a huge waste of production, 2) Caste System is inferior to Slavery, and 3) Chichen Itza sucks. Remaining is founding religion, but if you've rushed to CoL, chances are you already have founded one, and founding religions is not relevant anyhow.

 

[Windsor]

Early game for me is the land-grab phase where focus is on exploration and expansion.

 

[Fippy]

Cre, Exp..

 

[Tristan_C]

^ Exp rustles my jimmies by altering the whip overflow. It seems easier to bang out 2 pop → 2 workers without the trait. The granary is alright because you can whip right away at 2, though.

 

[lymond]

Cre, Exp..

Yep, Creative was my first thought, and you know how much I love EXP. Creative seems the one trait almost specifically designed for the early game. As experienced players know, the early game is so important and those two traits provide important bonuses on things that help snowball.

Industrious I'd still say is pretty far up the list. It's more about the fail gold than anything..even knocking out some fail gold from things like Stonehenge, GW, etc. early is most helpful.

Tristan - I hope your jimmies are ok..ha. Two pop worker whips still fairly easy with EXP, and usually give nice OF from just 1t into a worker, but also nice is a chop into one or a good settler whip into one.

Charismatic is always nice and way up there. FIN, AGG and IMP pretty low IMO. FIN is ok, ofc, but also circumstantial if you don't have anything to work.

Oh, another thing about EXP that is often overlooked is flexibility in resource trades. The extra health means that I have no problem trading away single health resources liberally to start boosting diplo asap, or grabbing a happy.

 

[ztrapon]

Yep, Creative was my first thought, and you know how much I love EXP. Creative seems the one trait almost specifically designed for the early game. As experienced players know, the early game is so important and those two traits provide important bonuses on things that help snowball.

I usually agree with your posts (kudos for contribution), but this one makes no sense to me.

So compare Creative to Industrious: one of them gives +2 culture, which is indeed neat and helps hogging resources early. But an Industrious leader can construct Stonehenge for the cost of 2 Axemen (without Stone), and that's essentially +1 culture per city, additional culture and GP in city built, and stealing it from AI civs -- whereas the flat +2 culture is more or less useless after the first border pop.
(Excluding Library production here, since Industrious has Forge production which is arguably equivalent.)

Under what circumstance would you prefer Cre over Ind?

 

[Fippy]

Faster worker at start is also great (if you are lucky with plains hills).

Yup early game means so much, and while FIN i.e. is never wasted i would not really say it's a typical trait for this topic.
Fast border pops are thou, every city can be placed on the best spot and there's no long wait for important tiles.

IMP is certainly also one for early game, but Cre border pops are imo stronger cos a city settled earlier & waiting for a monument will usually still be weaker than settled a bit later & with all tiles available.
And then there are cheaper libraries, 2nd best early building usually after granary and it's an expensive one.

@ztrapon i think it's a question of difficulty level also, Stonehenge is not rated very highly on Imm+
IND would overall be rated higher than Cre on polls, no doubt..but that's cos it's so much better for the whole game. If we take only let's say 70-80 turns, most high level players would pick Cre.

 

[ztrapon]

@ztrapon i think it's a question of difficulty level also, Stonehenge is not rated very highly on Imm+

I play exclusively on Emperor/Immortal (admittedly: K-Mod and usually no tech trade though), and Stonehenge is just as good as on lower levels.

If you're Ind or have Stone, it's 60 (!) production -- to get essentially free 30 hammers, and border pop progress from round 1, in every city. Most importantly you can use first population growth to whip something other than Monument, so it's more like getting a free building of choice.

Creative is comfy, yes, and certainly at its best early in the game. But if you have neighbors you attack them, you don't sit around waiting hundreds of turns for Culture takeover. And if you don't have neighbors, then that extra early game momentum it provides means very little. The bonus from Cre can be aquired by other means.

 

[Lain]

I rate IND very very low. For early game and just generally. Even below stuff AGG. Because in the toughest of games (no stone, no marble, maybe boxed in) IND does literally nothing. It's not like you would build lots of wonders without resources. Failgold is a luxury which can turn good games into very good (HOF worthy) games, but doesn't decide between win or loss. And if I have marble/stone, I will probably win anyway, IND or not. I rate traits based on the question: "Can it help me maintain a 100% win rate on Deity?"

CRE is infinitely more valuable for tough games. Superior city placement in isolation, culture border fights/land blocking in semi-isolation and continents (AI won't settle behind you). Guaranteed early research potential, just beeline writing even in low commerce environment (45 hammers for library are always available). Sets up faster early rushes, where every turn counts. IND is useless. Even AGG at least helps to save 25 hammers (Barracks) and better promoted units in a time where every unit counts, which is at least somewhat useful.

Forges come much later, irrelevant for HA rush or Construction attack. And I probably won't build Pyramids etc without stone, being IND or not. Other early wonders are not worth talking about (Deity).

CRE is my top pick for the early game. Give me a leader with only CRE as trait over someone like Qin Shi Huang or Stalin any day of the week.

 

[InovA]

@ztrapon I think you really underestimate the potential of wonderbread economy and the fail gold you can receive from it. The fact that it helps you towards getting a key early wonder like Oracle or GLH is nice, but when your empire is at the city count you currently want and shouldn't try to make more settlers just yet - and you haven't teched Alphabet or Currency (for Research/Wealth building), fail gold is the only way to earn before you should be able. And by putting whip overflow and chops into early wonders (along with the marble/stone bonus) you increase the Wealth building by 150% (with marble/stone) on top of whip overflow and chops. This can net you 100s if not 1000s in fail gold for each wonder if done properly among many cities. Have you seen this HoF game thread touching on the topic? http://forums.civfanatics.com/threa...-10-year-veteran.574724/page-12#post-14463743

And 30 per city is nice, but also means you finish the granary sooner which can result in ~12/13 if its pop rises a cycle before it would have w/o EXP. It also means this city can begin building a settler/worker/warrior/failgoldwonder/wealth sooner than it would have. And since this is every single city being accelerated by ~5 turns on its most necessary first building, this goes a long way. If you only have room to get up to 6 cities, yeah, it's not as good as it could've been. Maybe you'd like to do a swords rush if you can, or maybe peaceful tech up to elepults, cannons, or cuirs, but in most cases you'd rather expand than attack. That's why aggressive is so low on my list - assuming you're trying for a good start and not a "good enough" start, you'd be better off expanding than putting so many hammers and slowing your tech for such an early attack (unless there's a good wonder nearby to steal).

As for your opinion on Code of Laws, yes the tech isn't great in itself, but many use Oracle on it and then go for Mathematics -> Civil Service which is a fantastic tech. You can immediately switch to Bureaucracy and begin irrigating through chain farms. With your capital being your most tech-heavy city (presumably) this can boost your overall tech rate by 20-35%, especially if you didn't have the land you wanted to get ~10+ good cities.

 

[lymond]

ztrapon - CRE has nothing to do with culture takeovers...it's completely about strategic settling, land blockage, and hammer investment early game. Comparing a trait like CRE with IND early game based on the possibility of Stone is not logical, and with Stone I'm likely not to have it hooked up before someone finishes - unless I settle on it, and even if so look to use it for fail gold rather than complete it. I think you have a style of play that quite different from a lot of high level players and early aggressive approaches on IMM+ are not common or advisable.

I do rate IND higher than CRE long term, but strictly speaking of early game, CRE wins out by far.

Also, I meant to mention your logic on granaries saving you 30 hammers once. It's not about that. It's about fast granaries and then benefits thereof. Having grans completed at low pop, often even at size 1 is a huge early boost to growth and production potential that pays back exponentially. Grans are the most important building in the game for a reason.

 

[ztrapon]

ztrapon - CRE has nothing to do with culture takeovers...it's completely about strategic settling, land blockage, and hammer investment early game. Comparing a trait like CRE with IND early game based on the possibility of Stone is not logical, and with Stone I'm likely not to have it hooked up before someone finishes - unless I settle on it, and even if so look to use it for fail gold rather than complete it. I think you have a style of play that quite different from a lot of high level players and early aggressive approaches on IMM+ are not common or advisable.

I do rate IND higher than CRE long term, but strictly speaking of early game, CRE wins out by far.

Fair enough.

In K-Mod (Immortal included), early aggression is not only advisable -- it's consistently your best bet, as the AI will even Archer rush you if you don't have defense, so you may as well invest that production in offensive units instead. If you can opt-out of unit creation, things obviously change dramatically. Also I'm reluctant towards tech trade (maybe 9/10 games turned off), since I consider it a handicap for the human player, and that's presumably a major difference from most players as well.

I actually made a thread about it following this, cause seeing Lain's post (been watching his, and a lot of Deity let's plays before) reminded me we're most likely talking about entirely different experiences. The only time I play vanilla BTS is over Steam for multiplayer. Seeing as I'm the "odd one" in this, I'll humbly submit my advice probably make no sense

 

[Fippy]

Hmm..but Cre would be great especially on K-mod?
Culture adds some natural defense (or sight), and you can grab strat resis like copper easier?

 

[lindsay40k]

CRE, by a long shot. Not only does it mean you have a lot of flexibility with resources, it also means you can settle cities in locations with mediocre inner ring but incredible outer ring. For the early game, cheap libraries generally does more for me than cheap wonders. IND is great for mid game failgold but by then the early game's in the can.

Runners up for me are CHA if I'm not CRE, PHI for early Academy, SPI for slavery and abundant if religion goes well, FIN if there's a lovely river or abundant seafood, IND if there's abundant seafood and hammers so I can both settler pump and get GLH.

 

[lymond]

Yeah, Kmod would be a different beast. I played it a bit some years ago in a succession game. I found it at the time to be pretty much the AI spamming units early and as a result pretty much anyone DOWing early, so you had to be more aggressive with unit production. IMO this does not make for "better AI". And once you get past that first hurdle of killing 20 archer stacks, the game becomes quite easy. But that's not meant as a slight, it really comes down to preference. I play mods sometimes, but get most enjoyment out of besting the vanilla game. Mods do have their purpose. I don't know..maybe tech trading has some different outcome in Kmod, but in vanilla it is definitely to the advantage of the human.

Oh..and as My said above your defenses do get boosted faster, and second tier as well. Forgot about that....

 

[ztrapon]

Hmm..but Cre would be great especially on K-mod?
Culture adds some natural defense (or sight), and you can grab strat resis like copper easier?

Problem is, if you rely on defensive bonuses that early, you're already losing. And like I said there are a myriad of ways to get first border pop anyway. So it's not that Cre is useless, it's only inferior to other traits IMO. The Library bonus is sweet though.

IMO this does not make for "better AI".

Certainly not. Civ AI is not good*, and won't ever be good, as long as it's based on hard coding alone. That's why levels are just crude numerical bonuses. A good AI in such a complex game with so many hidden parameters can't be hardcoded, it requires flexibility and creativity beyond that. I'd love to know what these new developments in AI can do though, and maybe in a decade it's simply a matter of modding it.

I do however think K-Mod AI is more human-like. They gladly screw you over for their own best, backstab and there's just a different kind of pressure and tension. That's personal though but for me it's what makes the game fun. Also I think that the option to ignore several eras of units takes away a large chunk of the game. But you're right it's highly personal, K-Mod has a lot of annoying tendencies not found in vanilla AI as well.

* Unless compared to Civ VI, that is.