I am seeking advice on how to balance a Civ's Traits from weakness to strength . How to get more money if your not a " Fin " Civ for example . One way you might do that is to generate Great Merchants and cash them in on trade missions . Well let's all brain storm and see what happens
Not exactly sure what the ideas are, but I think it is what are the best trait (and why) and how to get maximum gold without being financial. So I will try and list a few
1) Organized. A very powerful trait (No I do not want to open the org vs fin argument) and I prefer it over financial for the reduced maintenance costs and cheap courthouses.
2) Spiritual: No anarchy, which if you think about it you can match an AIs anarchy time by moving your science slider to 0% for a few turns to generate cash!! Also MOST spiritual AIs give you a pretty good chance at founding (and thus Shrining) an early religion.
3) Philsophical. Get COL early for caste system, run merchants and pop out Great Merchants. Send them on the big trade missions for a very large treasury.
4) Agressive/Charismatic: Just go and take what you need.
Those are the big ones I think, the rest do not help to directly get gold but have other benefits to their traits.
Expansive helps build workers faster and cheaper thus cottaging more and hooking up resources faster.
Protective requires fewer defensive units which saves on military maintenance costs.
Imerialistic allows faster settlers, and thus more cities for trade routes.
Creative: Sorry, I can't think of a damn reason this gets extra gold (Nothing wrong with the trait though).
Industrious: Allows faster forges, for faster building production (markets/courthouses). Faster wonders that unlock better finances (Great Lighthouse, colossus. etc...)
Hope this answers some questions. In general I like ALL traits, they have their uses.
