Favorite Trait?

Mining leads straight to bronze working, its an excellent start for chop rushing settlers, which works well with creative.

 

I really like expansionist.

 

Yes, people who don't like expansive aren't playing on high levels.

 

Russia's techs give them unmatched early versatility . Having Hunting and Mining allows them to research 4 second-teir techs right off the bat, something that only 5 other civs can match: Germany, India, the Incas, and Spain with 4, and the Aztecs with 5. However, all of those except Germany start with Mysticism, not giving them a whole lot of versatility in those immediate second-tier techs.

The Russians (and Germans), however, can research Archery, Animal Husbandry, Masonry, and Bronze Working right off the bat. Each of these techs give very different advantages, meaning that Russia and Germany are literraly just 2 techs from virtually any concievable opening strategy. There is nobody who can instantly tailor their research to the exact situation the way the Russians and Germans can .


Edit: just for clarity, I say "and Germans" because they have the same starting techs as Russia.

 

The thing I don't like about Russians... It just takes soooo long for those cossacks to get into play... You can often tell at that point if you are going to make it or break it anyhow.

 

I like Expansive because of the +2 health bonus to all cities as I often find my cities with populations more than 10 unhealthy. The starting Scout is also a huge advantage in the early game because it allows you to plan ahead for future city locations and fortify in hills and woods. Furthermore, fortifying in harms way and getting attacked by marauding animals can lead to valuable experience.
Sometimes in peaceful games I find that my 5000 or so year old Scout is the only unit I have with over 4 or 5 promotions! (something that is required for West Point and other world and national wonders).

 

I like to promote my scouts to medic, then use them with my army stacks.

Expansive is also nice for the grannery.. another health bonus, and helps get your cities up to speed.

 

I like creative so my new cities don't have to wait for the construction of a cultural building for expanding their borders, that way, all of my new cities can have an expanded border at the fifth turn rather than the twentieth. Besides, those 2+ for culture per city can really help when having the same borders than another civ to have the larger piece of land.

 

I realy don't like the aggressive trait. I have seen some people post about how great ceasar is because of his free promotion. I found this utter nonsense. One of Ceasar's greatest weaknesses is that trait. His UU is the preatorian, and despite it is a melee unit, the game will not give him early promotion. Perhaps they did this as to not over-power these units.

So half your traits are sitting there not even being used for anything with Ceasar. That realy sucks. Preatorians stay around for quite some time.. the agressive trait never is used until the game is practicaly over. IMHO a big waster.

I'm not saying the trait is totaly useless. It's just for the Romans, a ******** feature that doesn't make sense.

 

Spiritual

Allowes me to adapt quickly to any situation and get exactly what I need for that specific time whether it's GPP, cash, tech, hammers or experienced soldiers.

 

I don't know. Spriatual had it's plusses back in civ III, but it seems too watered down in civ IV.

 

The fact that you now have 5 different civics make up for the shorter anarchy time.
There are many combinations of civics, each for a different situation. Without the anarchy you can just change whenever you want to.
Would a non-spiritual leader change his civics, build units for several turns and change back for just a few rounds before the next wave?

 

In civ III it was common to see anarchy for 20 turns. This is why there was so much pressure against changing governments unless you were religious. Now on the other hand, it only takes 1 turn of anarchy. This difference is HUGE, and the use of religious traits imho is mute. You save 1 turn of anarchy... this is easily surpassed by having a good trait such as financial for example. You would still make up for your losses, and then some.

 

Caesar is not aggressive, he's expansive and organized.

 

Now that would DEFINITELY explain why praetorians do not get promotion without barracks. Why people keep mentioning Ceasar's aggressive trait I don't know now. Maybe they are confused because he PLAYS in an agressive maner. Another reason why I should pay more attention to the leader info on start-up, instead of what others say around here. NO offence to civfanatics.

 

On the other hand, on CIV3 you usually had one just one goverment type that you needed and once you reached it, you never looked back. On CIV4, all civics might be needed at some opint of the game so we're not talking about switching 2-3 times during the game but closer to 20 times (=20-40 turns of anarchy). No non-spiritual leader will dare to switch civics so many times.

 

I think they're all good, though some require more creative strategies for full effect.

Personally, I've always thought financial is overrated.

 

I'd say there are two things that are clear about traits in Civ4: Financial is the best trait, and Organized is the worst. There are lots of arguments about how the other five are ordered, but the best and worst traits are pretty obvious.

Financial is just clearly the best trait, there can be no debate about that. I'm not trying to say that other traits arn't useful, it's just that no other trait provides the same ammount of benifit as Financial. In the early game Financial will provide you with nearly +50% gold output from your tiles, and about +10-20% in the later game, once you have those towns up. The sheer magnitude of that kind of benift is without peer.

 

I love Organized because for a warmonger it greatly aids in conquering additional cities in the early-mid game and building a huge empire without crippling your economy. Roman Praetorians are fantastic but their Organized trait is just as important for them.

Financial is the best overall trait no question. I do not particularly care for Expansive at least for Monarch level though I can see how it'd get much better at Emperor and above because it would be huge in the early periods.