Map dependant traits

[madscientist]

After reading the steady stream of threads regarding strengths and weakness of traits, particularly financial, I think I have found my biggest with financial (which I think is pretty stronge) is that it is very map dependant. Some traits are essentially immune to maps, some it can affect alot

Some of my ideas

Those MAP dependent:

Financial: Very map dependent. You will get alot more return if you are on a long river that multiple cities can use, or on a very coastal archeopolego board.

Industrious: Well you need hammers, which most likely means mines. If you have flat land, alot of coast, few hims, or few forrests this trait is not going to help much as the AI will beat you to wonders simply because they have more mines or in-land area.

Expansive: This trait really excells if you have early access to grains and seafood for lot's of health from cheap harbors/graneries. IF you get heritary rule very early you can have some massive population cities.


AI dependent (meaning you need access to an AI to exploit)

Agressive: Unless your happy smacking barbs arround, this requires someone to beat up on. Not good for isolated starts, or at least you have to wait a long time to exploit.

Charismatic: The happiness is always useful, but the fast promotions are not as good although you can build new decently promoted units before you ever fight an AI with teh right promotions.

Imperialistic: Well you get no GGs unless you go to war (exception privateers). ANd if you have alot of early land those fast settlers are not as valuable.

Unsure:

Protective: Do we need well promoted units if there is no AI attacking? Walls/castles which may be obsolete before fighting an AI?

MAP independent

Creative: FAst building are always good and the fast border pop is big. Terrain is irrelevant.

ORG: THe bigger your empire the more it works for you. Terrain is irrelelvant.

SPIR: Well this saves you on anarchy so it's comepletely independant of the map although the more religions in your empire (thus more AIs you know early) the more cheap temples you get.

PHIL: No limitation unless you are unlucky enough NOT to have one city with food for a GP farm.

ANy thoughts here?

 

[oyzar]

Financial is very map independent as you can almost always run cottages somewhere...

 

[KMadCandy]

Those MAP dependent:Expansive: This trait really excells if you have early access to grains and seafood for lot's of health from cheap harbors/graneries. IF you get heritary rule very early you can have some massive population cities.

well i see where you're coming from, you're looking at the cheap granary and that sort of map is where you'd get the most bang for your hammers. they don't get cheap harbors, i don't think anybody does? org gets cheap lighthouses.

but coming from the complete opposite direction i think it helps a lot too. on a map where you start with limited health resources, your health cap is 2 higher than it would be. health can cap you harder than happiness on plenty of maps, especially isolated starts that i've had. happy cap is really easy to overcome without resources. health just isn't. sure, it only costs you an extra food but that can get to be a lot of food if you're unlucky and really slow you down. and from the view outside, the green clouds are uglier than the faces, imo. which is really important too.

 

[madscientist]

Financial is very map independent as you can almost always run cottages somewhere...

But my point is that certain terrain makes financial more powerful, others not so at least early on.

Like I said a cottage on a river gets you 3 commerce, while a cottage on a grassland get you 1. Sure that 1 pops to 3 once you go to a hamlet but that takes times.

Another idea, cottaging limits use of mines. What I mean is you start with a capital and it's 5 pop. For quite a while you can work maybe a few food, then cottages leaving little room for mines. Put yourself in a forrested area with a fresh water lake (seams I get this enough) and maybe you'll one food resource, and have to farm grasslands near the lake. This limits your ability to exploit the financial trait. IT is ependant on a worked tile in the city screen.

Likewise Industrious, it is dependent on working city tiles that produce hammers.

That's what I am saying, financial is locked into the city screen. Thus it is map dependent.

 

[madscientist]

well i see where you're coming from, you're looking at the cheap granary and that sort of map is where you'd get the most bang for your hammers. they don't get cheap harbors, i don't think anybody does? org gets cheap lighthouses.

but coming from the complete opposite direction i think it helps a lot too. on a map where you start with limited health resources, your health cap is 2 higher than it would be. health can cap you harder than happiness on plenty of maps, especially isolated starts that i've had. happy cap is really easy to overcome without resources. health just isn't. sure, it only costs you an extra food but that can get to be a lot of food if you're unlucky and really slow you down. and from the view outside, the green clouds are uglier than the faces, imo. which is really important too.

Good point, it's map dependent as far as helping on poor terrain maps, or better example a heavy floodplain start which is a financials dreams, but health nightmare.

Harbors are built faster by expansive leaders.

 

[Sjaramei]

I'm not entirely sure what you are after, but Charismatic isn't dependent on an AI. The happiness bonus is very nice even when you start isolated. (It still will be useful when you need ships and stuff later)

Everything else seems right, but again i don't understand the point? Is this another try to find the "best" trait?

 

[KMadCandy]

oops you're right about harbors, sorry. i have a future start game open in the background where i'm expansive. but harbors is on the second line when i hovered over my flag so i missed it! never noticed it playing since the cities start with 'em.

 

[madscientist]

I'm not entirely sure what you are after, but Charismatic isn't dependent on an AI. The happiness bonus is very nice even when you start isolated. (It still will be useful when you need ships and stuff later)

Everything else seems right, but again i don't understand the point? Is this another try to find the "best" trait?

maybe best trait that is map independent!

Actually everytime this issue about financial (and it's always that trait) comes up it's always a question whether it's
A) overrated
B) overpowered
C) THe best hands down
D) Requires only a CE economy

And I always hold back I find arguments against financial even though I like the damn trait. Then I realized that some of my games with financial leaders I rocket out and dominate, and some I slog by. I think map type is more a factor with financial than any other trait. Sure Washington will do well on a nice river map, but Mansa will just kill everyone. And if you cannot leverage the financial trait easily at the beginning you'll struglle because of the lack of other "edge" aspects of the trait.

Just my 2 cents!

PS: My idea on the charismatic is that you get more promotions and leverage the trait better the more you war. No wars and your not getting faster promoted units.

Also Charismatic is somewhat map dependent since you get the +2 happy (with monument) if you have no precious metals, Ivory, or religion.

 

[Morgawr]

I think Creative is map dependent. You make best use of it on massive continents or Pangea maps where you claim territory quickly and border pressure your neighbors. Whereas on archipelago maps or maps where you start on your own island, the extra culture doesn't really get you much

 

[futurehermit]

i think another important factory is victory condition.

i think the reason financial and philosophical are consistently seen as top tier traits is that they can help you pursue any victory condition. take elizabeth (fin/phi). i could see her easily going for a cultural victory. fin means you are able to run high culture slider later in the game and phi for the great artist production later. however, she is a great candidate for science victory with fin powering the sci slider and phi helping with GSs and golden ages later. however, she is a great candidate for warring as she can use lightbulbing and strong fin-based teching to go to a military edge and then go to war.

techs like agg don't help you pursue a cultural victory or science victory (at least not directly) so they dictate what you are doing (dom/conq).

 

[Gliese 581]

I would say it has nothing to do with what traits you have, easy victory or fast loss is very map dependable, period. Together with difficulty and opponents of course..
Financial is independent of map in that it is always a tier 1 trait, but if you get a crappy start location you might suffer a crushing defeat nevertheless.

I'd say industrous is great unless you find stone and/or marble. If you do, it's weak.

 

[madscientist]

Good point about versatility of victory type although Charismatic and agressive AIs can get you more mature cities from the AI faster and more efficiently and thus increase your empire in big blocks. You cna always catpure several AIs, then relax and take any victory.

 

[oyzar]

In a multiplayer setting any non-militaristic victory is just lazy if allways peace ins't selected...

 

[absimiliard]

I find analyzing the map-dependencies of the various traits much more interesting than the traditional debate I see so often. (eg: "Financial is the best!" "Not if you run a wonder or specialist econ." "No, Financial is the best." "My dad can beat up your dad if he's financial" . . .. and so on.)

FWIW, I don't see Financial as terribly map-dependant. It's excellent for water, it's excellent for rivers. Maybe it's not quite as good for non-riverine, and non sea-faring, civs. But it's still quite powerful in that the first 10 turns of cottage growth blow by pretty quickly, after which Financial kicks in just fine.

I think ALL the war-monger traits are perhaps the most map-dependant ones there are. Consider how sucky it is to be an isolated Tokugawa for the extreme example.

-abs

 

[DigitalBoy]

All traits are dependent on circumstances to some extent, but I'd say that financial is one of the most map indepedent traits. A commerce based economy is virtually always feasible (coast tiles, grassland cottages), and financial will always give you something a little extra here. Charismatic is also pretty map independent; as far as I'm concerned, the trait's real advantage is the extra happiness, and not the reduced XP thresholds.

Creative is always useful for border pops, but I think it really excels at land grabbing and REX, so it's kind of dependent to that degree.