Most important Civ Attribute?

[headcase]

I voted happiness because it's the ceiling of how big your empire can be for everything else.

 

[peddroelm]

(buy military units, buy RAs, buy CS, buy buildings , upgrade military units... )

Only way to get enough early -> grab a lot of dirt (ICS) secure luxuries and strategics to sell for ... Only late techs [economics ] and lots of cities [puppets] with trading posts during GA can generate the massive amounts of gold required to get the edge....[again lots of land] ..The Monarchy commerce opener superTallcapital cannot hold a candle to that ...

Once you grab the dirt -> you have the money and production for military muscle to DEFEND and expand (grab more dirt from your neighbors) ....Military muscle gives you CONTROL - ability to sabotage other civs - steal their wonders and their land and removes their ability to mess with you...

At this point Victory is insured. Most lategame turning points involve some sort of gold abuse -> selling conquered cities, getting absurd amounts of cash from peace deals ...

 

[apocalypse105]

Food because more population means more science more population means more tiles to be worked so more gold / production and specialist (more science,culture,gold)...

 

[King of Prussia]

Yes, but it doesn't matter if you can mass produce swordsmen if your opponent already has infantry units...Outteching a production heavy opponent always seems to lead to that opponent's doom, in my experience.

Like I said in my original positing, Science has its hands in everything (maybe too much so) and seems to be what every other attribute is trying to get to. While it would be insane to completely ignore any attribute (they're all somewhat important), I've found ignoring Science is the quickest path to doom.

It's interesting to see what people in the poll are saying so far, though...

I would have to say production seeing as I can turn that into gold and science. I played a game where my enemy had tanks while I had rifleman. I managed to out produce him and take 2 of his cities. Only because I can out produce him. but I would say you will need a fair balance of all of them to win.

 

[Catastrophe90]

Food and/or Happiness. More population usually leads to more of everything else

 

[black213]

Maybe we could try having a same start with different bonuses: one with +20% food, one with +20% production et cetera. But I think the one with science or food will win.

 

[bozosmithy]

gold you can use the gold to buy anyting in life

 

[bcaiko]

It's cool to watch this thread progress. As my original post says, I really thought Science would run away with this. At first it was, but now Science is in the high 30s. Looks like a lot of people think Production is king, too. Poll results so far are more spread out than I thought they would be.

 

[TPQ]

Undoubtedly gold. Gold can be turned into anything via the purchase of buildings, units, borders, city states, resources, RAs and it can be used to stir up trouble among the AIs, weakening them for you. No single other game element can do all that.

Gold can be translated to science via research agreements and the purchase of science buildings (for science multipliers), maritime city states (to fill scientist slots), and through educated elite (via buying cultural city states to get you through the policy tree to it and buying city states for their science contribution).

Gold wins every time. There's nothing you can't do with it, either directly, or indirectly via it's use.

 

[NicTeos]

Production >> all, and gold is imho total unimportant. Maybe, there could be a situation, where gold could save a city or whatever, but this situation wouldn't have come, when the main focus would have been at production. And there is far too much gold in the late game, even when not really going to improve gold, it's a side effect to buy food from CS.

--> Production : 1
--> Gold : 6

Food can be useful at the begin, or rather said, it's worse to start without any bonus food. After some turns food gets less and less important. At the end even more worthless than gold. It's then unavoidable to have more food than ever need.

--> Food : 5

Further High production allows more culture,happiness,science buildings, but hardly the other way round. And between this 3, science buildings are the most useless, that doesn't mean I never build any of them, indeed I build plenty of them, when other stuff has been build, and mabe there and there a library can be good, I prefer to build any other production building before. And for a long time, the basic science from pops is quite enough. Building a library, when a city hits size 10 is early enough.

--> Sciene : 4

Further, you can't ever have too much culture, but maybe too less happiness. And, If I should have enough happiness for some turns, it makes no (hardly) sense to increase happiness further, instead building culture, 'cause many policies are strong. And with this ressources, to get production really starting, but without basic production nor happiness or culture makes sense.

--> Happiness/Culture : 2

And finally pops, after some techs, policies and wonders, each specialist is strong. Giving 1 basic gold through trade, some basic research, with SoL 1 hammer for 1 food and hardly unhappiness + specialist bonus. And then it hardly matters, where you build cities or what you build nor what you do. Always good production leads at fastest rate to this point. And then

--> Population : 1+

 

[Antarion]

imho its culture, because its the key to all other although prod means all too, and science and so on. but imho i enjoy culture most.

 

[ezbutton]

I voted growth simply because it has the most flexibility, more food means more citizens (to work specialists slots or trading posts or mines) and science. The only drawback of course is unhappiness.

Then again an argument could be made for any of them, but happiness should definitely be up there simply because it could handicap all of the other attributes, such as growth (at -1 happiness), science (at -5 I believe) and production (-10?), but doesn't affect gold or culture (except mandate of heaven policy). But really all you need is a happiness of 1 to keep the civ rolling smoothly.

 

[Knut_Are_M]

Gold has the least use on all stages the game except lategame in some situations.
gold is very useful at rushing key buildings and especially nukes.
Rushbuy becomes better and better because the ratio from gold to production becomes better the more costly the units are.
This is easy to mod, but the reason gold is so bad is that it is very inefficient to rush buy buildings/buy city states and even upgrading units.

food is really important for the capital. 2 wheat/deer/bananas in the first ring can speed up the early game by alot if also accomanied by hills.
food becomes less and less important for 2 main reasons. 1: food cost to raise pop is almost exponential in cost. second almost all happiness is local.
A city with only production is not good, but it is better then a city with only food for non capital cities.

Production is king because it allows you to get everything in a fast and orderly way.
it is the fastest resourse to get everything from food/culture/science/wonders/units/growth/gold.

culture is very important early game and then becomes less and less important.

science is important, but it usually best to fous on production early on since you will quickly catch up in science later on anyway. High production with moderate food and happiness policies from culture leads to enourmous ics empires of 10-20 size cities.

 

[Aristos]

The poll has a basic flaw: ignoring the KEY resource (specially in Civ5, but true for all iterations).

Population is THE most important "attribute". From pops you get everything else, including food (which creates more pops).

 

[gozpel]

The poll has a basic flaw: ignoring the KEY resource (specially in Civ5, but true for all iterations).

Population is THE most important "attribute". From pops you get everything else, including food (which creates more pops).

Food gives you more pop, which is in the poll.

Science all the way for number one, then production, then gold.

 

[Nevyn]

Science is still the enabler. It is what lets you produce that market, it is what lets you build that watermill to build that market faster. It lets you build wonders. It enables you to get access to happiness.

But what I like with both CIV (beoynd the sword) and CiV is that you must focus on all aspects. You just have to have gold, you just have to have production, you just must be happy. Everything is interconnected.

 

[Aristos]

which one was first? the chicken or the egg?

 

[Onan]

which one was first? the chicken or the egg?

If it's an egg-eating chicken, then the eggs, for sure.

Science definitely gives you the edge, long term. Production can give you the edge, short term, if the guy teching hard doesn't or can't build enough units to stop you. Gold is really necessary and versatile. Culture is fun and gives long term advantages. Food enables everything else, though only with enough happiness.

A balanced approach seems wise. Drop the ball seriously on any one of these, and you've got a civ that's hitting the wall in one way or another.

 

[bozosmithy]

which one was first? the chicken or the egg?

An egg

back to the topic i believe that its a toss up between Sci, food and Prod as all are crucial to sucess, gold can be taken from your enamies as you take there cities

I dont believe that Culture is that great in 5 as even if you dont go heavy culture build you will get the standard ones that you wanted anyway.

Happiness can be baught taken from CS or with production built