Leader Traits: Not enough? (And a discussion of the Philosophical Trait)

[Legionary37]

Trait Benefit

Philosophical: 100% of the Civilization's birthrate and half cost of Libraries and Universities.

Spiritual: No anarchy when changing to a different government, and cheaper temples and monasteries.

Creative: Gain a bonus to Civilizations' culture and half-priced theaters and broadcast towers.

Organized: Civic Upkeep costs half the original cost and Labs and Courthouses are cheaper.

Expansive: Healing units inside cities is much faster and Granaries and Grocers are cheaper.

Aggressive: New units get the Combat I bonus for free. Barracks and Jail prices are cut by half as well.

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These are the traits of the leaders. With 18 civilizations, and 26 Great leaders, with 2 traits for each leader, there seems a few traits missing. I mean this by there could be a few more traits than they have.

In civilization 3, I feel we had a "glut" of civs. By this I mean we had multiple civilizations with very similar traits and unqiue units (The Hoplite and Numidian Mercenary leaps to mind.) that made the civilizations less unique and overall made them less valuable.

In your opinion, do you think that there will not be enough of a range of unique units\leader traits for each civilization to make the different civs diverse enough? or do you think this problem will be avoided?

Also, what is the "100% Birth Rate" mean? How does this relate to "Philosophical"? And what in-game effect is there? Largter population increase?

 

[Loppan Torkel]

Why not introduce a negative trait to each leader in the expansionpack? All the leaders that we know of now and probably the ones we don't know can't be all good, can they?

The traits that exist now are imo enough for the leaders, I wouldn't mind a couple of more but they will probably add some with a couple of new leaders and civs in the expansion.

 

[Urederra]

The 100% birthrate is being discussed in another thread.

I agree with you, only six trades, two trades per leaderhead means 6*5 = 30 different possibilities, not many. If they release an expansion with more leaderheads, they will have to repeat traits for some of them, or increase the number of trades.

I think they should include more trades in first place, since it does not seem to be difficult to implement once the game is written. It could be difficult to balance, though.

 

[Vietcong]

thay need a veration of seafearing and agucultral! the 100% birthrate chold go to agucultral, with easyer to buld grainerys farms

seafearing gets easter to buld docks and harbors. and navial units gain experance faster or something

 

[Stephan Hoyer]

I agree with you, only six trades, two trades per leaderhead means 6*5 = 30 different possibilities, not many. If they release an expansion with more leaderheads, they will have to repeat traits for some of them, or increase the number of trades.

Actually, it's 5 traits to match for the first trait, 4 for the next, etc. So 5+4+3+2+1 = 15 combinations of traits, which means that there will be 11 duplicates.

I wouldn't be surprised if there is an extra trait or two they aren't telling us about, which would let them make each civilization unique. If not, we'll just have unique units to differentiate them.

 

[Saltylicious]

More traits would be good, they'll probably add them in an expansion.

And I like that idea of a negative trait for each leader, Loppan Torkel.

 

[Avayaman]

i didn't find some traits that useful in civ 3... maybe they could improve/balance the traits.

 

[Aussie_Lurker]

Who says that these are the only traits in the vanilla game? Isn't it possible that they are just the ones they are prepared to let us in on at this point? From a marketing perspective, it would be foolish for them to reveal all their cards at one time !
Personally, I reckon they are holding back on at least a 'Nautical' and 'Agrarian' trait, not to mention an 'Industrious' and 'Mercantile' trait. If so, then that would give a total of 10 traits for 26 leaders.

Yours,
Aussie_Lurker.

 

[Aussie_Lurker]

To look at it another way. The Creative, Philosophical and Expansive trait are sort of a mixture-then teasing out, then beefing up-of the Scientific and Expansionist traits, from civ3, into 3 seperate traits. The Organised trait seems to be almost entirely new, but also seems to have its origins in what the Expansionist trait should have been in Civ3.
Spiritual is clearly the Religious trait, and the Aggressive trait is the Militaristic Trait of Civ3.
Hope that makes sense.

Yours,
Aussie_Lurker.

 

[Legionary37]

Well, that's always possible. I hope you're right.

 

[Lord_all_Mighty]

I doubt it. Did they conceal any of the traits before Civ III was released?

 

[eg577]

Maybe starting techs won't be linked to traits giving another dimension to civ specification.

 

[Stephan Hoyer]

I doubt it. Did they conceal any of the traits before Civ III was released?

We still haven't heard a lot of information about this game yet. I wouldn't be surprised at all to find out there are more traits.

 

[Lord_all_Mighty]

We still haven't heard a lot of information about this game yet. I wouldn't be surprised at all to find out there are more traits.

Not a lot? Check all the pre-release info and tell me that's not a lot.

 

[vbraun]

Not a lot? Check all the pre-release info and tell me that's not a lot.

Then you should be able to tell me exactly what your going to do the first 10 turns of a game.

Civ is a really complex game, there is probably 4 times the amount of info, that Firaxis isn't willing to share yet.

 

[Polietileno]

I think that is the Civ3 effect: In the expancion packs, we will see more civilization (babylon, neederlands, the celts, Irouquis, Zulus, etc) more leaders and also more triats, like seafaring, agricultural or industrius, or even more.

 

[Bast]

I have a problem with philosphical = 100% birthrate too. How? But it COULD mean that because the leader is scientific there are more advances in medicine/health?

 

[troytheface]

this question made me think of something that no one really talks about much game wise and that is balance- which is extremely crucial in multi player.
Rome Total War has like just killer graphics and the battle scenes are beyond compare but it also has the worst balance of all time - ergo making civ3's multi player preferable. (Although the agricultural trait threw even civ3 into the realm of inbalance). What is the point of this thread?..oh yeah - leader traits - don't give a rat's ass as long as they keep balance and preference (ie
i like sea units so i will be a sea civ with a trade leader that likes to war all the time ect.) Assuming of course that since civs themselves have no traits one can still gear ur civ to a trait like seafaring....
Also- i would really like to see a spiritual /creative combo get creamed by an aggressive organized for the idea of it .

 

[Sullla]

I agree with Stephan Hoyer and Aussie_Lurker; 15 trait combinations is way too few for a game that we know will ship with 26 leaders. I can't imagine there being 11 duplicates in the release version of Civ4 (and if there are, I will be very disappointed). For that matter, these traits are probably being rebalanced all the time by the Firaxians anyway. I can't imagine a +100% birthrate possibly being balanced enough to make it into a final version of the game!

 

[Slax]

I can't imagine a +100% birthrate possibly being balanced enough to make it into a final version of the game!

As mentioned in another thread about the subject, the "100% birthrate" may mean that the civ with this trait does not get twice the population, but simply 100% healthy births, while other civs get, say, 80% due to low health, etc.