Discussing the traits

[JamesT]

I am still a newbie at this game, but I wanted to share my experience regarding civ traits and see what other people have had success with. My style so far is to expand quickly, fight some early wars to gain control of land around my capital so that I can build a nice empire.

I find that more than anything, the Industrious trait helps me. Being able to boost tile output quickly is huge, and more importantly, I can get a road network up very fast. This aids both in expansion and in conquest, as I can pump out units and get them to the frontlines very quickly.

I'm still not sold on my second trait. I like Militaristic for obvious reasons, as I tend to be a warmonger by nature, and this helps with early conquests and with Great Leaders, as my units advance to Elite status faster than other civs. This leaves only the Chinese (I think). I don't quite understand how Commercial works yet (does corruption lead to loss of shields as well, and does commercial help with this if it does?). I haven't gone all that deep into games yet to see how often I will be switching governments, so Religious is still a question for me as well. Expansionist seems nice, but I'm not too excited about a trait that essentially expires in the ancient age. Scientific has obvious advantages.

Any thoughts on a trait that best synergizes with Industrious, particularly for my playstyle? I'd also love to hear thoughts on the traits in general.

 

[Aabraxan]

There are lots of old threads on civs & traits. You might run a search and dig some of them up. There ought to be some good discussions to read on traits, UUs.

If you're playing C3C, & I assume that you are, Agricultural is always a strong pick, for any VC. Having more food in the early game leads to a faster-developing empire.

Religious -- Again, look around for other threads on this. Religious is fine if you need cheap temples or to change governments twice, but if all you really want to do is warmonger, I don't recommend it. I'm generally a warmonger and I often: (a) don't build any temples; and (2) only change governments once. So I don't really need religious.

Expansionist -- Great for hut-popping, but my understanding is that the odds of getting something good decreases as you go up in levels. And yeah, once you run out of huts and have surveyed the landscape, it doesn't seem like there'd be much benefit.

I also like Militaristic, but I think I like it more than lots of players better than I. It's not really a highly-prized trait in the upper-level games that I've seen. As for me, I like the cheap raxes, quick promotions and starting with archers.

If you like archipelago maps, try seafaring. The AI doesn't use suicide galleys, so it's pretty easy to set yourself up as the world's tech broker as a seafaring civ on an arch map. The extra movement for boats is nice, too.

I like commercial, but it doesn't really begin to show its effects until later in the game, when you've got enough cities for corruption to be an issue.

 

[Macezek]

Commercial works by reducing the amount of corruption your cities encounter. Corruption includes lost shields and commerce. Commercial provides an extra 1 commerce on the city tile in your cities. Its a balanced trait in my opinion, it doesn't provide some kind of highly visible and direct bonus that you can use like militaristic, but it's a good trait to have for economic reasons, and it pairs up really well when you are a Republic with a lot of cities. You get really low levels of corrpution, and it gives you more cities that you can use as your core.

Industrious is one of my favorites, it's a really good choice if you ask me. You need less workers to do the same work other civs do (or same # of workers and get the job done faster than others), which saves on upkeep costs. This provides an obvious advantage in the early game, when you can get your tile improvements up faster, specifically roads for the Republic switch. Industrious also gives 1 extra production on metro city squares.

Scientific is pretty good since you get the free techs, which are really useful for hoarding in money, luxuries, and other techs when you trade them for gpt. It also lets you build science generating buildings slightly cheaper.

Expansionist isn't the greatest, and Religious is only good if you plan on switching governments really frequently, which you shouldn't be doing in the first place. Once you switch to Republic, you should just stay there.

If you like to expand quickly and fight early wars, then try China. They are Industrious and Militaristic, and their unique unit is the Rider (replaces Knight). It's a second era unit and it has the movement range of Cavalry, which lets you travel long distances in less time.
You can also try Persia, they are Industrious and Scientific. Their unique unit is the Immortal, it replaces the Swordsman and has an attack of 4.
There is also France. Industrious and Commercial, but their unique unit the Musketeer is defensive, replacing the Musketmen with 3 attack.

I'm assuming you don't have any expansions installed, since you didn't mention the other 2 traits, Seafaring and Agricultural. Seafaring is really good if you are playing archipalego, otherwise on pangea it's useless. Agricultural gives you 1 extra food on city tiles, lets you build granaries and other buildings cheaper, and irrigated deserts provide like irrigated plains. Agricultural is probably the best trait all around because it lets you grow faster than anyone early on and desert actually becomes useful.


crosspost with aabraxan

 

[vmxa]

Traits are best select for the game and settings. The VC is part of the settign, but not an overriding one.

As an example, Expansion is great on any map with lots of land and Emperor or lower. The less the land and the higher the level, the less I like the trait.

On high levels you are not going to be allowed to travel across their land and the huts are progressively less kind to even expansionist nations.

Ind is still a solid trait, even in C3C and some of the nation that have it come with strong UU's to use.

Religion, I have no use for it. Seafaring no use for it, even on an island map. I will admit that Dromons can rule, but it is not a fun game IMO. I have used them all the way to Sid, so I know they are fine.

Commercial and AG are strong.

 

[Chamnix]

Just a couple minor corrections…

Commercial also makes commerce generating buildings slightly cheaper to build, and it provides an extra 1 commerce on the city tile in your cities.

Commercial does not make any buildings cheaper. It provides reduced corruption/waste (as you mentioned) and extra commerce in the city center tile (+2 gold for sizes 7-12; +3 gold for sizes 13+).

Industrious lets you build granaries and some other building at a reduced cost (as far as i remember).

Industrious also does not provide any reduced cost buildings.

Other than that, nice quick analysis .

 

[JamesT]

I think I have Civ 3 Gold or something to that effect, and since I have not seen anything about Agricultural/Seafaring in-game I don't have the expansions. Or maybe I do and I just didn't notice.

Are some of the traits pre-expansion better?

 

[Macezek]

Civ3 Gold has the Play The World expansion built in. They added Seafaring and Agricultural in the Conquests expansion. Since you only have 6 traits to consider instead of 8, its easier since you can forget about religious and expansionist and reduce it down to 4 traits to choose from. You also have to consider unique units. Some civs have awesome early game unique units, but a poor mix of traits.

 

[JamesT]

Civ3 Gold has the Play The World expansion built in. They added Seafaring and Agricultural in the Conquests expansion. Since you only have 6 traits to consider instead of 8, its easier since you can forget about religious and expansionist and reduce it down to 4 traits to choose from. You also have to consider unique units. Some civs have awesome early game unique units, but a poor mix of traits.

Ah, gotcha. Thanks.

 

[Mursi lives]

On high levels you are not going to be allowed to travel across their land and the huts are progressively less kind to even expansionist nations.

Is that a sid-level feature? At deity my scouts certainly are allowed to go across AI territory.
They may also get fewer goodies at high level, but the free techs they get are much more valuable .


Or maybe you were talking about Incas?

 

[Spoonwood]

Expansionist -- Great for hut-popping, but my understanding is that the odds of getting something good decreases as you go up in levels. And yeah, once you run out of huts and have surveyed the landscape, it doesn't seem like there'd be much benefit.

One could use one's scouts as reconiassance units before you have explorers.

Industrious lets you build granaries and some other building at a reduced cost (as far as i remember).

I think you mean agricultural.

 

[Macezek]

Yes, you're right. Agricultural allows for cheaper growth related buildings like aqueduct, and hospital.

EDIT: apparently, there is no trait that allows for cheaper granaries. I was pretty sure of it for a while, can't remember why though.

 

[Chamnix]

There is no trait that gives cheaper granaries. Agricultural gives cheaper aqueducts, hospitals, hydro plants, and solar plants, IIRC.

 

[dexters]

The reason why AGRI is such a strong trait for the AI is because the AI doesn't prioritize growth properly. I've seen AI on large islands mining desert tiles for the production and all their cities are stuck below size 7. The weakness of the CivIII's otherwise competent growth AI is that it assumes their core will be near rivers or high food producing tiles.

The extra food in AGRI helps them grow even if they don't have the tiles for it.

In fact, I think the difficulty settings in CivIII should have included a food bonus

 

[AutomatedTeller]

Actually, expansionist has some very large advantages on higher levels, which is that you can get 1 or 2 free cities/settlers from it, which can go a long way to overcome the advantages the AI have over you. Or it can give you an expensive tech for free, or some cash.

Certainly, it's not all that valuable after the AA, but it can give you a big bump early.