Imperialistic is a top tier trait

[Phoenician]

I think Imperialistic is a lot better than traits like creative and charismatic and here's why:

Imperialistic in comparison to creative: You pop out settlers faster which negates the whole "I don't have to spend time building monuments" bonus with creative. Also, libraries are already cheap buildings-I don't see the huge benefit in this as opposed to double production bonuses towards very expensive buildings as courthouses and universities. Plus creative becomes useless after the early bonuses while imperialistic still has the great general bonus till the end of the game.

Imperialistic in comparison to charismatic: Wouldn't you think that getting more great generals is better than promotions that are a little cheaper? Plus you get the early expansion bonus with cheaper settlers.

This is why I think Suleiman (philosophical/imperialistic) is one of the best leaders.

So I would rank the best to worst traits as:

1.Philosophical
2.Financial
3.Imperialistic
4.Spiritual
5.Expansive
6.Organized
7. Industrious
8. Aggressive
9. Charismatic
10. Creative
11. Protective

 

[Joshua368]

Seems kind of silly that you don't mention the +2 happy bonus of charismatic, I mean that's like the best part the trait, more important than the promotions. Size 7 cities rather than size 5 cities at 2500 BC is huge, and you can delay things like religion or hereditary rule.

Creative isn't powerful because you can skip building monuments, its powerful because you can settle right next to the AI and push their borders back. Monuments can't do that. Of course imperialistic is also strong in this regard because you can block off their land faster. The best solution? Play Catherine.

 

[TheMeInTeam]

IMO you're underrating CRE. Cheap libraries means a faster first 2 GS than anybody but PHI, and that's huge. It also means culture pressure. They'll bet to 4 cpt sooner and stack with your 2 from trait, making cities win culture battles like nothing and easily block the AI. CRE is a mid tier trait though.

I agree IMP is pretty well underestimated/utilized. The GG's aren't much compared to the other military traits but the settler bonus (which applies to whips and chops) is huge.

You have CHA too low. Don't ignore the +2 earlier than anything else in the game. That is a substantial economic benefit that leads to fast starts. Working extra tiles immediately can also lead to faster expansion, though not quite like IMP or EXP (another painfully underestimated trait).

 

[Phoenician]

Seems kind of silly that you don't mention the +2 happy bonus of charismatic, I mean that's like the best part the trait, more important than the promotions. Size 7 cities rather than size 5 cities at 2500 BC is huge.

yes, but I was looking at it in a purely military comparison, but even including that imperialistic is better.
You have to admit, that more great generals > cheaper promotions.
Faster expansion > 2

 

[Phoenician]

IMO you're underrating CRE. Cheap libraries means a faster first 2 GS than anybody but PHI, and that's huge. It also means culture pressure. They'll bet to 4 cpt sooner and stack with your 2 from trait, making cities win culture battles like nothing and easily block the AI. CRE is a mid tier trait though.

I agree IMP is pretty well underestimated/utilized. The GG's aren't much compared to the other military traits but the settler bonus (which applies to whips and chops) is huge.

You have CHA too low. Don't ignore the +2 earlier than anything else in the game. That is a substantial economic benefit that leads to fast starts. Working extra tiles immediately can also lead to faster expansion, though not quite like IMP or EXP (another painfully underestimated trait).

Would you say imperialistic is better in comparison to creative or charismatic in your opinion?

 

[Joshua368]

yes, but I was looking at it in a purely military comparison, but even including that imperialistic is better.
You have to admit, that more great generals > cheaper promotions.
Faster expansion > 2

Faster settlers = faster expansion
2 = +2 size cities early = more production/commerce/whipping = faster expansion, faster armies, faster research

Personally I would stick "top tier" traits as ones that can single handedly support your economy. Warfare and expansion are both fairly easy to do with any trait, (until deity, where expansion becomes extremely hard to traits like imp and cre skyrocket) supporting your lands and keeping your army up to date are more challenging. I'd stick Charismatic in the top tier because its happy boost aids your early economy like the Organized, Philosophical and Financial traits, and put Imperialistic in the mid tier as a great support trait like Creative and Expansive.

Imperialistic beats the heck out of Aggressive and Protective though.

 

[TheMeInTeam]

Would you say imperialistic is better in comparison to creative or charismatic in your opinion?

I'd rank them pretty similarly. If I had a lot of land, but the choke to block it were wide, CRE all day. Times that need rapid expansion since you can't block = IMP for certain. In situations like isolated starts or non-blocking areas with plenty of room, I'd put CHA above the other two.

But, give me the "starts with gems and another nearby early resource" "trait" and I don't care what the traits are. I'll use Sid with no traits!

 

[Phoenician]

I think the creative bonus for faster libraries is not nearly as good as the philosophical bonus for double production universities which I think is huge--in fact I would argue that is the absolute best double production bonus in the game.

 

[TheMeInTeam]

I think the creative bonus for faster libraries is not nearly as good as the philosophical bonus for double production universities which I think is huge--in fact I would argue that is the absolute best double production bonus in the game.

If it isn't it's up there. Whipping unis to get oxford sooner is huge. PHI is a really really strong trait though, and not just for PARCS / SE but in general.

But the cheap libraries are still good because of 1) faster first great scientist or two which is very important and 2) the quick doubling of culture making the CRE culture pressure excessive.

Think about situations where you settle cities at the same time. You get the first border pop first. Then if you ignore the monument and just chop or whip in a library in short order, the hapless neighbor needs a similarly fast library, otherwise he's looking at 1-2 cpt from monument (maybe 3 with religion) while you have 4-6. Your 2nd border pop will very likely come faster with no/minimal effort also, giving you complete control of contested tiles and in some cases if you can get 2 cities to culture press one AI city the ability to flip it without a supreme effort.

Nothing CRE does is spectacular but between getting cities set up more quickly (instantly start the most important building, granary and access best BFC tiles no matter what), blocking, culture pressing, and grabbing a fast GS it's a very stout early game trait that tends to translate into a strong start...which can be held for the rest of the game usually.

 

[Earthling]

First, I think fast forges are the single top production bonus - but organized has three sweet ones: courthouses and lighthouses, and factories, and expansive with granaries (I think this one fades a lot after the first couple cities though). Libraries and unis are both weaker than these - but libraries come a lot earlier (the bonus to theatres is small but still exists, useful both for culture and fighting WW). So really I see unis mattering very little as a whole (but philo is still great)

I suppose I've always been a bit biased against Imperialistic though, didn't sit well with me since warlords (I'd like to remove all bonus to settler/worker - imp gets a new maintenance reduction for distance - incidentally SP is changed). For warmongering I don't think Imp provides more than a mere pittance, and in fact I think aggressive is far better in that department, but the settlers are the meat of the trait. Creative is and has always been in the middle - it's useful in all situations, but also not great in all situations, so I'd say it's of a similar type as imperialistic. Not as good as Fin, Philo, and Org come at the top boosting economies.

A last thing to remember is that the traits are also important in the context of the leader and the civ. Philo + a good UB makes Suleiman very strong in the first place, but on a leader like Genghis Khan, already lacking in economy, I can't see imp doing much but aiding overexpansion.

 

[TheMeInTeam]

IMP is great for GK because he gets his horses sooner. Don't over expand, use the faster 1-2 settlers to get writing to ASAP HBR, Then go on a keshik rampage. IMP is a marginal benefit but 1 settled GG + an xp civic = 3 promo keshiks so that's better than nothing in terms of helping his mounted (after making a super medic, that is). What I don't like on him is AGG, I'd trade it for something else actually like ORG, EXP, FIN, or CRE (combining the two best of the current mongol traits).

 

[ahmedhadzi]

When I just started playing this game I thought Industrious is the best trait since I thought that most important thing in the game were Wonders, boy I was wrong. I think ranking of the traits is directly under the influence of difficulty you are playing (right now I'm at Monarch). In those terms I would say that the strongest trait is Spiritual since it gives you most flexibility throughout the whole game. You can compensate if you lack other traits by just switching civics when you need something (i.e. you need GP you go Pacifism, you want to go to war? Sure, go Police State, Vassalage or Nationhood, Slavery (if you for some reason don't use it already) and Theocracy).
But if you think about Imperialistic, how many GGs do you really need for the whole game? 1 for super medic, and maybe 2 more for the military academies and that's it, you will be able to produce so many units that sooner or later you going to have more GGs if you need those of course. The war civic combo also allows you to build really advanced units of the bat so why would you need any other trait to emphasize that?
Now second trait would be the one which suits you the most. And since more and more I'm becoming warmonger than builder I would rate Charismatic and Aggressive as my second choice (that's also why I think Monty is one of the best leaders in the game), but that is if I'm not Spiritual. Right after these I could not chose between Financial (allows you to support and have a lot of units) and organized (which is in synergy with civics swapping).
Also I'm experimenting a lot with SE lately, and I came to a conclusion that Gandhi is also very good leader so I would choose as second best trait to be Philosophical.
That leaves us with Imperialistic, Creative, Expansive, Industrious and Protective which all can be compensated somehow during the game.
I should also mention that rarely it happens that I found more then 4-6 cities (I play standard size maps, everything else I take by WAR) so what good is Imperialistic for again?

 

[noto2]

I dunno about this. Imp is a good trait, but it's not better than aggressive or charismatic, although it's probably better than protective. Aggressive, charismatic, and imperialist are all about equal. Don't forget that everyone can get GGs, and GGs are more powerful for a charismatic leader. He needs fewer to get the same levels. I think imperialistic is strong in some cases as it allows you to create specialized military cities, like with Vicky. She's financial, so she can have lots of good commercial cities, and then some good production cities with GGs in them for high level units. It's also a good trait for JC (although charismatic would be just as good for him) because praets are so strong he doesn't even need aggressive. Nothing beats aggressive, however, for early game military power.