allunderheaven
Settler
i've been looking through the forums, and i have been wondering what traits are best for a newbie, as in a trait that is both powerful and easy to bring to its full potential, i know that financial is good.. but what else?
newbie traits
- Thread starter allunderheaven
- Start date
Darth Meanie
Warlord
I would play with weak traits like expansive/imperialistic Juoa to learn how to play without crippling yourself.
Monkeyfinger
Deity
- Joined
- Oct 24, 2006
- Messages
- 2,002
^^^almost as stupid as the people who think Spiritual is a newbie friendly trait.
In addition to what DaveMcW said, there's industrious (allows the wonderspamming strategy which attracts so many newbies to actually work) and charismatic (stronger troops, less having to worry about finding happiness boosters.)
Harbourboy
Deity
Financial and Spiritual. Knock yourself out with the Malinese.
KMadCandy
giggling permanoob
very true!
financial and creative traits are powerful and they're easy to get the benefits from even while you're brand new and trying to learn a zillion different things at once, which may be part of what you mean by "easy to bring to its full potential". the best part of creative imo is what it does in the background ... give every single city culture every turn, forever. that gives you flexibility when you're figuring out where to put your cities, because the debate about "should i put it on tile A, where it's a worse city now but i get the resource i need 20 turns quicker without having to build a monument to get culture?" or "should i put it on tile B, where it's a much better city long term but i need to build that monument to get some culture before i'll own that important tile" becomes easier ... if nobody else is right there ready to settle when you're ready to settle, go ahead and put it on tile B. you're creative so you don't need to build a monument to get all the tiles around the city. it's also quite handy when cities you captured in a war come out of revolt, or if you're living next door to a jerk who's trying to get cities too close to your own, etc.
and financial, well, more commerce is always good
. and having more commerce available to turn into more beakers or gold is a great thing. maybe if you're like me and make some wrong moves along the way, having some spare to use as a "mistake recovery fund" when and if the need arises is awfully handy too! 
there's a lot to learn in this game. which is great, and part of why we stick around. but it sure can be overwhelming at first. i've been playing forever and i still i hit F12 to open the pedia at least once every 30 minutes to look up something i ought to know by now
. then again, i'm a really slow learner, and i play to have fun, not to become an expert, so it's all good *giggle*.i hope you have fun! welcome to CFC
MrCynical
Deity
Financial is an easy trait to use - cottaging everything is quite a simple strategy, and it still does fairly well from coast and resource tiles even if the player doesn't actively build cottages.
For the other slot I'd suggest either creative (again, requires no real thought to use) or Aggressive.
For the other slot I'd suggest either creative (again, requires no real thought to use) or Aggressive.
Hi
I really have NO idea who to link to an old post so I am just copying and pasting a post on this topic I made a lil while ago in another thread Someone was asking which traits/leader combo might work for a newbie wanting to be a peaceful builder. It's not really EXACTLY on topic but I do kinda give a overview of the traits and how they might be useful or not to someone just learning the game so *maybe* it might be helpful and if it isn't, sorry just remember it thought that counts hehe
the repeated stuff starts here:
Hi
Hmmm..someone very new to game who wants a peaceful civ and plans mainly to be builder with small defensive military.
I think the best civ suited for that is the Native americans.
Their unique unit has two advantages for that. One it requires NO resources so you are guaranteed to have it and dont have to worry about trying to look for and make sure you find the resource for it and hook it up. (And since it a early game unit you also dont have to worry about being in situation where only choice is going to war to get the resource or doing without the resource and the unit you want to have--at least early on) Two while their Unique unit is not the greatest for attacking and capturing cities it is VERY good for sallying out to attack invaders out in the open. Especially if they are promoted with that idea in mind.
Also city defenders (the units you have fortified inside your cities to take brunt of a city attack) usually tend to be primarily and sometimes even soley archer units. And the native american Unique Building helps out in this area by giveing a BIG boost to Archer units. So with native american you civ would be very well defended early on. You will have strong city defenders fortified in your cities and a Unique unit you KNOW you will get no matter what that is very good for going out to stop invaders before they even get to your cities or pillage your resources.
This being BtS you also can choose unrestricted leaders to get a better Leader
Now I KNOW everyone LOVES financial. Financial is definitely and very strong trait and if leveraged it can be the MOST powerful trait in the game. But it only works best IF you place your cities in locations that can take advantage of it. IF you build cottages in those ideal city locations. IF you balance and manage your cottages so you dont wind up with a civ full of cities that that may be bringing in TONS of commerce but cant build anything since their production is so low. IF while balancing to make sure at least a few cities can produce you ALSO balanced your cities to make sure you have enough food to work all those cottages. IF you take care after working those cottages you make sure they are never pillaged and HOPE they are never sabotaged. Cottages take a LONG time to grow into towns and depending on game speed you can literally have hundreds of turns spent working a cottage wasted if it gets pillaged. And while you can defend against pillaging stopping spies from sabotaging them is pretty much all luck even if you do spend tons on espionage and spies. Luckily the AI will very rarely send apies to do that but it still a risk.
To me that seems like LOTS of "if's" for someone who is just learning game basics. Vetern players run cottages in thier sleep so to them it piece of cake. To someone learning the game it can take some getting used to. And we havent EVEN gotten into how some civics are better for a civ running tons of cottages.
Now yeah you DONT have to run so many cottages but without at least SOME kind of cottage or cottage/hybrid economy or you happen to have tons of cities planted on coasts then financial will do pretty much nothing for your civ.
To me the two best traits for new players are Creative and Organized. I think those are good traits are both good since you dont have to do ANYthing to get the most out of em. And they are very useful especially early on and help out in two of the biggest problems civs can run into at start of game and can be a big pain for people just learning game.
Creative will help your borders pop on their own without needing to worry about getting culture buildings fast into new cities. And organized will help let you expand early without hurting your economy.
Zara Yakob the ethiopian is Creative/organized so you might want to try him with the native americans.
Other leaders you might want to try with Native Americans are
Napoleon (Charismatc/Organized) Charasimatic works nice since another early problem is happiness and Charasmatic helps. Also creative is not as crucial with Native americans since Native american Unique building produces culture and you will want it in most if not all of your cities anyways. Their unique building also nice since it works with charasimatic for even more happiness.
Chruchhill (charismatic/protective) Protective might be nice for defensive minded players since it it also gives a boost to archery units. So when combined with Native americans UB you will have VERY tough Archer units. And with charasimatic that means BOTH of Churchills traits will be synergizing with the UB.
FDR (organized/Industrious) Industrious is nice since if you wish to be peaceful builder it can help you in building wonders without worrying about getting the different resources that boost wonder building. (and if you do egt em then it just icing on cake) FDR's combo is also handy since two biggest production buildings for a civ are forge and factory and FDR's traits lets you build em both (organized for factory and industrious for forge) faster. So even if you never build a wonder it will still help your civs production over all.
If for whatever reason you dont like those leaders and want to shop around here is my advice on traits in general. And again this is keeping in mind plan for a inexperienced player who wants to be primarily peaceful and avoid warring and have a mainly defensive military.
Traits would suit that situation best in no particular order Creative, Organized, Charismatic, Industrious, Protective.
Traits you might want to avoid are Finanical, Spiritual, Philosophical. It's not that thes traits are weak. In fact they just opposite they can be some of the strongest if not THE strongest traits in game IF you actively work to get the most out of em. If you dont work at em then they just become mediocre or even worse useless. So for new player who maybe wants to concentrate more on game basics and not have to worry about also making decisions to get most of their leader traits then maybe save thse for later when you more comfortable.
Traits to avoid just because they wont suit prefered game style as much. Agressive, Imperialistic. Agressive for obvious reasons, Imperialistic because for techy reasons (you can look up if you REALLY wantto know the techy details) the settler bonus is a bit deceptive and actually you wont really be making settlers THAT much faster then non imperialisitic civs especially early on. And the great general bonus only helps if you fight alot and even just having great generals only helps much if you fight alot so this trait really wouldnt help you much and if game goes your way and you avoid wars you wont even use it.
I think that only leaves Expansive. Expansive is not a BAD trait it is just that it wouldnt help as much as the other traits I listed already. Faster worker production is deceptive for same dealio as Imperialistic with its settler production bonus. The extra health is nice but early in the game health problems are not really as hurtful as happiness problems. Health only really becomes an issue late in game and by then there will also be TONS of other ways to deal with it. So while it might not be a trait to avoid it also not a trait you would particularly want to get compared to others.
I hope this helps a little
Kaytie
end repeated stuff.
Hopefully that will give you enough overview to decide which traits you like best. I personally think for someone very very brand new to game going unrestricted leaders and using Zara Yakob as Leader and Rome as the civ is best/easiest combo to use. Zara has two best newbie traits in game and Rome has one of best units in game that even if made without a baracks is still pretty tuff so they help erase LOTS of mistakes hehe.
Anyways good luck and have fun
Kaytie
I really have NO idea who to link to an old post so I am just copying and pasting a post on this topic I made a lil while ago in another thread
Someone was asking which traits/leader combo might work for a newbie wanting to be a peaceful builder. It's not really EXACTLY on topic but I do kinda give a overview of the traits and how they might be useful or not to someone just learning the game so *maybe* it might be helpful and if it isn't, sorry just remember it thought that counts hehe the repeated stuff starts here:
Hi
Hmmm..someone very new to game who wants a peaceful civ and plans mainly to be builder with small defensive military.
I think the best civ suited for that is the Native americans.
Their unique unit has two advantages for that. One it requires NO resources so you are guaranteed to have it and dont have to worry about trying to look for and make sure you find the resource for it and hook it up. (And since it a early game unit you also dont have to worry about being in situation where only choice is going to war to get the resource or doing without the resource and the unit you want to have--at least early on) Two while their Unique unit is not the greatest for attacking and capturing cities it is VERY good for sallying out to attack invaders out in the open. Especially if they are promoted with that idea in mind.
Also city defenders (the units you have fortified inside your cities to take brunt of a city attack) usually tend to be primarily and sometimes even soley archer units. And the native american Unique Building helps out in this area by giveing a BIG boost to Archer units. So with native american you civ would be very well defended early on. You will have strong city defenders fortified in your cities and a Unique unit you KNOW you will get no matter what that is very good for going out to stop invaders before they even get to your cities or pillage your resources.
This being BtS you also can choose unrestricted leaders to get a better Leader
Now I KNOW everyone LOVES financial. Financial is definitely and very strong trait and if leveraged it can be the MOST powerful trait in the game. But it only works best IF you place your cities in locations that can take advantage of it. IF you build cottages in those ideal city locations. IF you balance and manage your cottages so you dont wind up with a civ full of cities that that may be bringing in TONS of commerce but cant build anything since their production is so low. IF while balancing to make sure at least a few cities can produce you ALSO balanced your cities to make sure you have enough food to work all those cottages. IF you take care after working those cottages you make sure they are never pillaged and HOPE they are never sabotaged. Cottages take a LONG time to grow into towns and depending on game speed you can literally have hundreds of turns spent working a cottage wasted if it gets pillaged. And while you can defend against pillaging stopping spies from sabotaging them is pretty much all luck even if you do spend tons on espionage and spies. Luckily the AI will very rarely send apies to do that but it still a risk.
To me that seems like LOTS of "if's" for someone who is just learning game basics. Vetern players run cottages in thier sleep so to them it piece of cake. To someone learning the game it can take some getting used to. And we havent EVEN gotten into how some civics are better for a civ running tons of cottages.
Now yeah you DONT have to run so many cottages but without at least SOME kind of cottage or cottage/hybrid economy or you happen to have tons of cities planted on coasts then financial will do pretty much nothing for your civ.
To me the two best traits for new players are Creative and Organized. I think those are good traits are both good since you dont have to do ANYthing to get the most out of em. And they are very useful especially early on and help out in two of the biggest problems civs can run into at start of game and can be a big pain for people just learning game.
Creative will help your borders pop on their own without needing to worry about getting culture buildings fast into new cities. And organized will help let you expand early without hurting your economy.
Zara Yakob the ethiopian is Creative/organized so you might want to try him with the native americans.
Other leaders you might want to try with Native Americans are
Napoleon (Charismatc/Organized) Charasimatic works nice since another early problem is happiness and Charasmatic helps. Also creative is not as crucial with Native americans since Native american Unique building produces culture and you will want it in most if not all of your cities anyways. Their unique building also nice since it works with charasimatic for even more happiness.
Chruchhill (charismatic/protective) Protective might be nice for defensive minded players since it it also gives a boost to archery units. So when combined with Native americans UB you will have VERY tough Archer units. And with charasimatic that means BOTH of Churchills traits will be synergizing with the UB.
FDR (organized/Industrious) Industrious is nice since if you wish to be peaceful builder it can help you in building wonders without worrying about getting the different resources that boost wonder building. (and if you do egt em then it just icing on cake) FDR's combo is also handy since two biggest production buildings for a civ are forge and factory and FDR's traits lets you build em both (organized for factory and industrious for forge) faster. So even if you never build a wonder it will still help your civs production over all.
If for whatever reason you dont like those leaders and want to shop around here is my advice on traits in general. And again this is keeping in mind plan for a inexperienced player who wants to be primarily peaceful and avoid warring and have a mainly defensive military.
Traits would suit that situation best in no particular order Creative, Organized, Charismatic, Industrious, Protective.
Traits you might want to avoid are Finanical, Spiritual, Philosophical. It's not that thes traits are weak. In fact they just opposite they can be some of the strongest if not THE strongest traits in game IF you actively work to get the most out of em. If you dont work at em then they just become mediocre or even worse useless. So for new player who maybe wants to concentrate more on game basics and not have to worry about also making decisions to get most of their leader traits then maybe save thse for later when you more comfortable.
Traits to avoid just because they wont suit prefered game style as much. Agressive, Imperialistic. Agressive for obvious reasons, Imperialistic because for techy reasons (you can look up if you REALLY wantto know the techy details) the settler bonus is a bit deceptive and actually you wont really be making settlers THAT much faster then non imperialisitic civs especially early on. And the great general bonus only helps if you fight alot and even just having great generals only helps much if you fight alot so this trait really wouldnt help you much and if game goes your way and you avoid wars you wont even use it.
I think that only leaves Expansive. Expansive is not a BAD trait it is just that it wouldnt help as much as the other traits I listed already. Faster worker production is deceptive for same dealio as Imperialistic with its settler production bonus. The extra health is nice but early in the game health problems are not really as hurtful as happiness problems. Health only really becomes an issue late in game and by then there will also be TONS of other ways to deal with it. So while it might not be a trait to avoid it also not a trait you would particularly want to get compared to others.
I hope this helps a little
Kaytie
end repeated stuff.
Hopefully that will give you enough overview to decide which traits you like best. I personally think for someone very very brand new to game going unrestricted leaders and using Zara Yakob as Leader and Rome as the civ is best/easiest combo to use. Zara has two best newbie traits in game and Rome has one of best units in game that even if made without a baracks is still pretty tuff so they help erase LOTS of mistakes hehe.
Anyways good luck and have fun
Kaytie
I would not agree that financial is a good newbie trait, since it pretty much forces you to go with one strategy - cottage spamming. I actually wouldn't say that there is a newbie trait, but rather that there are certain leaders that are easier to play. I wouldn't call imperialistic a newbie trait, but Julius Ceasar is certainly easier to play than many other leaders. Some leaders are just more intuitive than others. A civ that has an early unique unit might be a good place to start.
VoiceOfUnreason
Deity
- Joined
- Dec 5, 2005
- Messages
- 3,663
I usually recommend Spiritual + Creative, just to get a bunch of game mechanics out of the way while you concentrate on learning the other parts of the game.
absimiliard
Warlord
Hmmm, again I'm in agreement with the Voice of Unreason. There may be a pattern here.
I think Spiritual and Creative might also be the best. No worries about turns lost to anarchy, and no worries about needing early culture.
I don't actually like Financial much for a newbie trait. It doesn't come with much beyond the extra commerce and won't actually simplify the game much for a new player. It just makes for a more powerful economy, which is a benefit to be sure.
Like VoU said, make it simpler and then the person can learn the strategy more easily. Once they've got that down they can start thinking more about exploiting trait advantages.
-abs
I think Spiritual and Creative might also be the best. No worries about turns lost to anarchy, and no worries about needing early culture.
I don't actually like Financial much for a newbie trait. It doesn't come with much beyond the extra commerce and won't actually simplify the game much for a new player. It just makes for a more powerful economy, which is a benefit to be sure.
Like VoU said, make it simpler and then the person can learn the strategy more easily. Once they've got that down they can start thinking more about exploiting trait advantages.
-abs
Similar threads
