Help! Addicted to Philosophical!

[morchuflex]

Hello.

I made the mistake to play my first game with a Phil Civ and now I can't even consider bypassing this trait. I just love popping lots of great prophets, founding several religions and building shrines. Can anyone help me out of this addiction?

 

[Gargoyle]

Try Financial and Creative. You'll be researching like crazy with the extra income and you cities will expand their borders quickly. Everything else will come.

 

[punchandpie]

Yeah Financial is a great one, try Washington, he's my all time financial guy

 

[MyOtherName]

Play a game on a high difficulty level. Try and found two religions!

 

[War4War]

The problem I see with creative, is that later in the game it becomes meaningless. And a quick obelisk (or stonehenge) in each city does the job well for early expansion. If you have a state religion spreading it's even better.

I played a game with england, philosophical and financial, and it was really cool indeed.

 

[Orca]

Financial trait is best in general - try that one.

 

[DaveMcW]

If you really like religions and shrines, Spiritual is the best trait.

Spoiler Trick for generating more great prophets :

Did you know that priest specialists also make prophet GPP?

You can hire one priest for every temple. Build 2 temples and your city will pump out as much GPP as a Philosophical+Stonehenge+Oracle city!

After you get 7 prophets, you have the fun time of figuring out what the heck to do with another one.

 

[Reprisal]

In regards to having multiple Great Prophets, I would say that they give you a production and commerce bonus, so they're never bad. If you keep those Priests around, I'd probably say that you should invest in building Angkor Wat whenever possible as the +1 Production per Priest can be pretty good...

 

[Barney's Soul]

I always expand a lot because I don't like razing cities I conquier inless they are near another civs borders, so Financial(Eliz and Quin Sh Hung) really helps for keeping research up. When I played a game with Peter, I was forced to drop to 10% research after stealing 8 Japinease cities! Had about 20+ cities in that game, cause I simply didn't raze anything.

 

[naf4ever]

Try the difficulty a bit harder. I loved philosophical too until i played on a harder level. Once you do and arent able to grab all the wonders you normally are able to, the phil trait becomes quite useless. Doubling your great people points when you only have a few per turn to begin with doesnt do much....

 

[snipafist]

The problem I see with creative, is that later in the game it becomes meaningless. And a quick obelisk (or stonehenge) in each city does the job well for early expansion. If you have a state religion spreading it's even better.

I played a game with england, philosophical and financial, and it was really cool indeed.

I disagree. The creative bonus helps expand borders from newly captured cities even in the latest portions of the game, and once you combine the meager +2/turn with amplifiers like cathedrals and free speech, it can quickly overwhelm an enemy. Faster theatres help with getting your newly conquered cities back in line culturally too. Of course it has its obvious uses in the early game for grabbing territority. Nobody can really compete with that. Definitely a good, but not over-the-top, trait.

Regarding philosophical, it is one good trait. In higher difficulties you can't count on getting all those religions though, which makes prophets less competitive choices. Try playing a harder game and you'll see that philosophical is even more useful and flexible than you imagined. I can get along without it, but Lord knows I love having it when I can.

 

[CivCorpse]

Hello.

I made the mistake to play my first game with a Phil Civ and now I can't even consider bypassing this trait. I just love popping lots of great prophets, founding several religions and building shrines. Can anyone help me out of this addiction?

Can't help you here. i am a Elizabeth fan through and through. Perhaps we can carpool to philosophical-anon meetings or form a support group. I am sure we will meet some great people there. LOL

 

[DaviddesJ]

I made the mistake to play my first game with a Phil Civ and now I can't even consider bypassing this trait. I just love popping lots of great prophets, founding several religions and building shrines. Can anyone help me out of this addiction?

You should play random civs. What's the point of always choosing a particular trait just because it's really powerful? That just means that you have to give the AI bigger handicaps to make the game challenging.

 

[Bezhukov]

Founding religions on higher difficulties can get you killed...

 

[jspanglet]

Hello.

I made the mistake to play my first game with a Phil Civ and now I can't even consider bypassing this trait. I just love popping lots of great prophets, founding several religions and building shrines. Can anyone help me out of this addiction?

I have had the same problem. I get stuck on a certain trait and run with it. The cure however is simple. Randomize. The game is actually a lot more interesting this way. IMO

 

[DaviddesJ]

Founding religions on higher difficulties can get you killed...

Really? I thought the AI players don't dislike you unless you adopt a different religion than their own. I don't think they care if you found a religion but don't adopt it as your state religion.

 

[temmage]

Really? I thought the AI players don't dislike you unless you adopt a different religion than their own. I don't think they care if you found a religion but don't adopt it as your state religion.

He's saying that the turns you invest in researching religious tech early on can slow you down enough to get you killed by an aggressive or opportunistic civ.