best traits in the long run

[mazzz]

people have talked about the best traits in countless threads, but what about which ones are best in the long run?

Expansionist

Only good in the ancient age, quickly useless, you can just explore with a warrior anyway, and if barbs come out it is very easy to kill them

Industrious

so what? you build road a few turns quicker? just build more workers

Religous

Some what useful, with one turn Anarchy you can seven like seven turns and the cheaper temples are not bad either

Scientific

you only get three free techs through out the game, and "an increased chance of a Science leader" not worth it

Commercial
Extra gold, one of the main keys to the game, good trait

Militaristic
cheap barracks and "an increased chance for a great leader" which now is only useful for armys which quicky become obsolete (you build an army of swordsmen thatis very useful but can not be upgraded)

an "ok" trait but not the best

Sea Faring
An extra movement through out the game? The very good
Plus starting on the coast, you could build the the early sea wonders very easily with this

Agricultural

One of the best traits by far, extra food= bigger cities= more rushing power and more production

So all in all I think the best traits for the entire game are

Agricultural-Bigger faster growing cities
Sea Faring-Extra movement is very important (even in the modern age)
Commercial- More gold = more science and larger army

 

[Doc Tsiolkovski]

My takes:

EXP
Great, great trait for Emperor/ Demigod. The long term impact of 2+ free cities or Settlers early on is huge. However, you get nothing you need below or above that levels.

AGR
Nuff said. Strongest trait above Monarch, pretty much useless IMHO below (since Growth isn't your problem at those levels). Cheap Aquaducts are mood, since you'll try to settle at fresh water anyway, and Solar Plants???

SEAAn extra movement through out the game? Nice. Early contacts? Great. Trade bonus? Fine. Very useful cheap buildings.
But starting on the coast is a major drawback, often forcing you to move the Palace.

MIL
Armies rule. The buildings are fine, but not great. Solid trait if it works well with the other trait and the UU (EXP and MIL doesn't work for me).

SCI
3 free techs? Great. Cheap Libraries? Great. SGLs? Um, on DG/Deity I get perhaps one per game with a SCI Civs - but not a single one without! Great!

REL
In 75% of my unmodded games, I revolt exactly one time. Cheap temples? Great. Cathedrals, don't care; built about 5 of them in total.

IND
Get more Workers/ Slaves. Useful in the first 50 turns, but gives me nothing later.

COM
Extra gold, fine. Lowered corruption, great!

That said, usually I do not pick EXP above DG, REL other for cultural goals, and never IND. But I like all others, even SEA on Pangea.

More important to me is the UU, especially the timing of the GA. There simply is no way I want a GA before the Middle Ages, and since you cannot avoid using Horsemen, Swordsor Spears, all those Civs are out.
My ideal Civ would be AGR/COM with a Knight or Cav-based UU (wait for RaR...).

 

[socralynnek]

Hmmm... I somehow don't agree with you, mazzz.
You're kind of right if you only count the direct benefits, but there are also big indirect benefits.
E.g.: Scientific
You forgot to mention one direct benefit i.e. cheaper libraries and univ.
And the indirect benefits: 3 free techs:
That is often the difference between behind in tech and paying a whole lot for the techs and between the leader.
So if you get e.g. Steam Power first and sell it to everyone else, you get a lot of money which you can use otherwise and because the Ai is paying you money they research slower!
Not to forget the SGLs: Each SGL is worth one wonder and its impact!

Exp has a lot of indirect impacts, expanding quicker is the key! Each city you have more and on a good spot will give you a lot of benefits and making contact early for tech trading and cheaper research times is worth a lot and each early advantage gets multiplied by time.

But with one I agree with you, Agr is the strongest trait, because it gives an early boost AND is directly useful the whole game!

 

[Elras]

I think the Expansionist trait is amazingly powerful..the whole thing about Civ games is that the beginning is soo important to a Civ later on...

Benefits of Expan Civ:
1) A scout at the beginning...maybe 10 turns of 2 tile movement even before the other
less gifted civs have even popped out a warrior?

2) All good goodie huts...Jesus H Christ!...what more can you want!...free techs, gold,
units, with no chance of getting barbars and maybe even a free city or two if your real luckly...if you have 3 cities while everyone else only have 1...think of the lead you have?

So if all Civs in a game use the same quick start / efficient settler crank out / barbar gold farming strats...the Expans can do all that *and* storm around the map grabbing goodie huts...so they get the most land area early on...which means they're more than likely to get the important strategic resources later on...meaning...they can stay at the top while the other less gifted civs are still scratching around with rifleman units.

An Expan civ is only scuppered if it's unfortunate enough to start on a small island...
but on big landmass maps..you can't beat it. IMHO.

Elras (still playing at Warlord )

 

[collin_stp]

I think the argument about which is the best in the long run can be faulty. A good example is with an early UU that is very strong, you can attack your neighbors early, and be in a better position later in the game to expand further.

Take the expansionist trait. You have better techs, and better early luxuries and resources, allowing you to take the initiative early, thus making you more powerful in the long term. The same goes for industrious (also the production bonus), the early roads from all your cities to your luxuries/resources and enemy territory can really give you a boost, which if taken advantage of leads to long term success.

 

[dgfred]

I agree with Colin . Even though I like some traits better than
others, each has its merits . The long run return can be misleading.
What helps you early puts you in position for success later .

 

[zerksees]

You can spend all day evaluating which traits are the “best”. Everyone will have an opinion and some, like agricultural, I expect will be a lot more popular than others. But, IMO playing the same traits all the time limits what civs you can play, and your approach to the game.

I like to think about how a given trait compensates in areas of other traits.

Expansionist:

Finding free settlers offsets some of the early advantage of agricultural trait. Unlikely an ag civ will have a second city in 3800 BC.
Offset scientific trait by finding free techs in goody huts.

Industrious:

Reduces drain on population by requiring less workers – offsets agriculture trait.
Leads to more roads/improvements offsetting benefits of commercial

Religious:

Quick cheap culture brings more happiness and quickly expanding borders. More happiness allows more citizen to be at work generating shields or food. Requires less settlers to expand tiles under civs control

Militaristic:

Grab more slave workers when veteran units switch tide of war to your favor.
Additional Great Leaders provide ability to build wonders. (E.G. use G.L. to build pyramids to offset agriculture trait or Great Library to offset scientific trait)

Commercial:

Extra income to keep up happiness. More citizens at work means more food and quicker growth
Extra income to speed up research to offset scientific trait

Agricultural:

Offset commercial by building pop faster – allowing more tiles to be worked and more gold
Offset industrious by building more workers

Other comments:

Seafaring not that helpful unless playing continents or archipelago map
I agree early game advantages should be overweighted since they do have a profound effect on the rest of the game.
IMO becoming too reliant on one civ trait or another is kind of like becoming too reliant on building great wonders.

 

[Pfeffersack]

...

Militaristic:

Grab more slave workers when veteran units switch tide of war to your favor.
Additional Great Leaders provide ability to build wonders. (E.G. use G.L. to build pyramids to offset agriculture trait or Great Library to offset scientific trait)

...

The value of militaristic changed since Conquests because MGL can't rush GW anymore.Despite it is not really weakened because of the gretaer impact of armies; but how useful it is actually, is now more connected to the question if someone plays peacefully or warmongering.


Generally traits are to dependent of difficulty, map size and playstile to give a simple answer.

Agricultural: my general favourite.Nice in every situation...
Scientific: good for cultural victories and lower difficulty
Expansionist: best for large landmasses and higher difficulty
Miliatristic: gets better with higher difficulty and for domination/conquest victories
Seafaring: for continents and archipelago maps

Religious: nice for cultural victories
Commercial: nice in combo with scientific or seafaring
Industrious: I try to avoid it since Conquests

I usually don't go for the last three...I only play civs with these traits if I want to make use of their UU or in case of commercial if it supports the second trait.

 

[LordKestrel]

The best thing about Commercial I haven't seen listed here. Commercial increases the OCN, which makes for less corruption. As it is, at the higher difficulties, OCN is very small, and the Commercial trait lets you have a larger empire at the same corruption level.

IMO, Agricultural and Commercial are the best combo, for general purpose gaming. A game with a goal of a 100k victory is probably better off with Religious and Scientific, while someone going for an early space launch would probably want Scientific and Expansionist. AW games probably want Militaristic and Scientific, although Scientifc/Commercial is probably good for that as well.

UU's generally don't enter into it when I'm deciding on a trait pair to play, but for others that may be the deciding factor.

 

[mazzz]

collin, while you may be two or three techs ahead, we all know that it evens out latter (if your on regent or above)

 

[osco]

This is no place to advertise religeon so keep it where it belongs in your mind
I personnaly believe that religeon is an IQ test
if you believe in the quran or the bible you have failed the test of life and you are basically a moron.

that means you MAZZ so take the advertising away.

 

[fuad]

i would strongly recomend you OSCO not to use word crap !!! regarding any religion be it Islam or Christianity or Judaism.

now as for the add Mazz has , well i beleive that this should be the moderator responsibility to tell him that and judging the amount of posts he made , so i think that the staff of civilization fanatics don't see a problem or an issue in it.

i'm not taking sides here or starting an issue , but with all respect to either u believe or not in any religion .............. just the word crap!!! doesn't seem right when u refer to any religion.

that's all

close subject for me

 

[osco]

i would strongly recomend you OSCO not to use word crap !!! regarding any religion be it Islam or Christianity or Judaism.

Typical of someone who believes in a religeon.... is this the usual OR ELSE religeous approach ?

why would you strongly recomend ?

or what ?

phhh

 

[WackenOpenAir]

Industrious

so what? you build road a few turns quicker? just build more workers

-Build 80 workers instead of 40, costs a lot more people and a lot more upkeep. This one does have impact.


Religous

Some what useful, with one turn Anarchy you can seven like seven turns and the cheaper temples are not bad either

-On the higher difficultis where you will need a lot of happiness buildings, and the anarchy time is also very important, this one IMO is #1

Commercial
Extra gold, one of the main keys to the game, good trait

-Never noticed a big effect on this one.

Sea Faring
An extra movement through out the game? The very good
Plus starting on the coast, you could build the the early sea wonders very easily with this

The starting on the ceast is what i HATE. It is not fresh water, and it ensures my capital is on the edge of my civ rather than in the middle. I would strongly prefer not to start on the coast and build my second city there. The movement point. Well, its handy but not that important.

 

[Lucius Sulla]

I don't think there would be a significatively better trait, except for sea faring, which I consider completely situational.

Expansionist can be possibly the best trait by far in the correct map (more than situational, I would say that it's anti-situational... while seafaring only works in archi maps, is in those maps where expansionist works worse). It really snowballs a lot more than the snowballing trait itself, commercial, when you get one or two more initial cities, and get 3-5 extra ancient techs.

Religious, scientific, industrious, agricultural, militaristic, commercial... all have their advantages, making them better or worse depending on the type of game and the type of victory you would like to achieve in the game. Still I would say industrious and agricultural are the "jack of all trades" here, fitting and getting synergy with the rest of the traits.

Myself, I must recognize I got industrious-addicted... I played all the civs with industrious trait... I just could not stand watching my workers and seeing an increased number of turns... it just got into my nerves!

I'm working hard now in kicking the damn habit now... I could do it with wonders (managed finally in regent to win comfortably without building a single wonder).

 

[collin_stp]

collin, while you may be two or three techs ahead, we all know that it evens out latter (if your on regent or above)

well, a two or three tech lead in the ancient age may not be a great benefit down the road if you do nothing, it can reap huge dividends if you take advantage of the situation.

Often times in emperor, you are not only get behind in tech in the ancient age, but you have little money, since you have to buy them. If you get a few techs for free, then you can sell them for alliance, money, etc., and attack a neighbor or two of yours. Since you know where all their cities and important resources are (horses and iron), you can get a quick jump on them, and deprive them of those resources, and conquer a whole civ, where you would have only conquered a couple of cities.

If you just sit on your new techs, and don't move your settlers towards those luxuries or resources that your faster scouts have found for you, then the trait is pretty worthless.

@osco, you may find mazzz's advertisement annoying, which is understandable, but insulting him over it is much more offensive then advertising your religious beliefs.

 

[Raio]

@OSCO

We should not discuss religion on these forums. I believe that you can find several forums to do that, if you wish.
I also do not believe in any religion, but thake respect for the ones who do.
At least remember these is a forum for discuss C3C...

 

[Berrern]

Expansionist
Only good in the ancient age, quickly useless, you can just explore with a warrior anyway, and if barbs come out it is very easy to kill them

Don't misunderestimate the Expansionist trait! It does of course depend on the map settings, but given a huge pangaea map, I'd say this is THE best treat you can get.
"You can just explore with a warrior anyway" - well, this is true, but a Scout will explore twice as much every turn. Not only that, but you also begin with a Scout, removing the 5-10 turn wait for a Warrior in the beginning.
Also, even though it's "easy" to kill barbs (I assume you're playing either on a low diff. level or with easy barbs), with the expansionist you get techs/gold/Settler/maps instead of Barbs. I'd take a tech over fighting 3 barbs any day
In my latest game on a huge pangaea, I had ALL AA techs (except the governments) while the enemy civs only had the first line!

Industrious
so what? you build road a few turns quicker? just build more workers

With the Industrious trait you don't need as many workers as you 'normally' would - meaning less unit support cost, which in turn means more military units. Plus, you get luxuries and resources connected faster in the very beginning, which is crucial on the higher diff. levels.

Seafaring, Militaristic, Industrious and Expansionist (only on huge maps) are clearly my favorites.

Whenever I'm a Seafaring nation my first unit is always a Curraugh - which enables me to establish many contacts and trade a whole lot of techs in the beginning

 

[Darkness]

I personnaly believe that religeon is an IQ test
if you believe in the quran or the bible you have failed the test of life and you are basically a moron.

Even as an atheist I find this is very narrow-minded and outright insulting.

If you really need to express these short-sighted views, take it somewhere else...

Back On Topic:

IMHO the best traits are agricultural, industrious and scientifc.

Agr - extra growth -> faster expansion -> more production -> win the game
Ind - Need less workers -> less upkeep -> more money for other things like a larger military or a higher science rate -> win the game
Sci - Cheaper libraries -> faster research -> tech leader -> win the game

Commercial is also very good, especially the increased OCN

 

[K.F. Huszár]

I never chose Expansionist - i think it is useless, or only useful in the early AA.
Militaristic: it is a very good trait. if you got your first army in the AA, it will be a short game. you can destroy your continent's civs. very useful before the modern age.
Religious: it seems a good trait. with your early temples and cheap cathedrals you can force rival civs to consider you magnificient. useful before the modern age.
CommerciaL: one of the best traits, if not THE best. very usefull in the whole game.
Seafaring: the commerce bonus is nice. useful till modern age.
Agricultural: food bonus is decisive. very useful in the whole game.
Scientific: difficult to use this trait but you can do huge leaps by taking the advantage in research - more Scientific Leaders=more wonders, more libr/univs=more culture. useful in the whole game.
Industrious: not bad, not bad. useful in early and mid games