Ranking Leader Characteristics

[Fippy]

This question depends a lot on your settings. Many here consider Philosophical and Industrious strong traits. In a NTT (especially MP) game both are on the lower side of the spectrum.

I would never consider PHI on the lower side, no matter which settings
Why should GP suddenly become weaker if you cannot trade techs?

MP players are often stuck in their habits, like "grab every free piece of land".
So those always want traits that recover their economy and make them competitive (in one forum i have even seen gold / gems for everybody as standard on edited maps).
Occasionally somebody will play better, and some of the most dominant performances i followed (like reading sgotm play) included PHI.

 

[lymond]

EXP actually was really nice because health is the limiting factor in long-term OCC growth thanks to Globe Theater - especially when I have the +3 but even with it lowered to +2 it still seems useful.

Peter is a very good OCC character. Gandhi is probably the best for OCC.

edit: Yeah, I find myself a bit confused why Philo would not be considered good in an NTT game. I would think it even more important.

 

[Kaiman]

The combination of Frederick's Organized trait and the German UB means that Frederick gets a +150% bonus towards building his unique factories if he has access to Coal. And possibly more if you have a Forge/Organized Religion/etc.

Ah, the Unique Building from Warlords, that's why I didn't realize.

Peter is a very good OCC character. Gandhi is probably the best for OCC.

Yeah those are the two that I've probably done best with in OCC.

 

[civac]

With NTT you have to produce a significantly higher amount of beakers over the course of the game. The fixed values provided by Great People become relatively less valuable. Conversely, sheer economic power becomes more valuable so people settle more and more marginal cities. Cheap early game techs have more time to pay off, skipping them for a hard beeline will hurt more.

Regarding MP, the community at RealmsBeyond buffed Philosophical to +150% GPP in their balance mod for example.

 

[Lennier]

I believe you don't require any tech to trade resources for other resources or gifting them away for diplo points, you only need to have a trade route connection with another civ. Admittedly those are difficult to get without techs like Wheel, Sailing, Writing (for Open Borders), etc., but if you can manage it you should be fine I think.

Just to be clear, you don't need OB to trade or gift resources. The OB (plus trade network) enables trade routes. The trade network is enough to trade or gift resources.

 

[Fippy]

Regarding MP, the community at RealmsBeyond buffed Philosophical to +150% GPP in their balance mod for example.

Okay can i have PHI please

 

[lymond]

RB uses that yet they refuse to use BUG

(edit: my original post was a garbled typo disaster )

 

[drewisfat]

I don't play multiplayer so grain of salt... but I just looked at their rtr balance mod. It's wild. I'm having real trouble understanding how a community wanted barracks to give culture, towns to be unpillagable and act as forts, and castles to get triple nerfed.
It's a completely different game at this point and comparing strategies is like comparing apples to broccoli. In BTS I'd say IND is even better in NTT as wonders have a longer timeframe to pay off and in particular rushing TGW for an EE would be my go-to every time I'm not isolated. It's only weaker when you consider it in the context of multiplayer and on a mod where all the good wonders are nerfed, and failgold is nerfed even on top of production bonuses being removed.

 

[Pangaea]

In MP, I can see the sense in making towns unpillagable. Would probably be real hard to grow any cottages if it worked like in BTS.

Surely PHI would be even stronger in NTT, when bulbing is even stronger

 

[Pangaea]

This is partly due to playing space games lately, but I've got a weak spot for ORG. It really is quite strong in games like that. You go to the end of the tech tree and will get out factories and coal plants, and most likely a bunch of courthouses due to a big empire. Said big empire then has much lower costs from civic maintenance, which can mean several hundred gold per turn in the end game. Not as much a FIN probably, but still very good. Plus, you get half-price lighthouses, courthouses and factories. The two latter are quite costly, so this saves a lot of hammers, particularly in a big empire with maybe 40-50 cities.

It doesn't have the "Wow factor" of IND, but it is a strong trait in the right kind of game.

What would have been an awesome trait is Forester. +50% from chopping and higher chance of forest regrowth. Maybe +1 per forest instead of 0.5. Well, one can dream. Chopping is nice!

 

[civac]

Regarding RealmsBeyond, I was not actually talking about the RtR mod but the newer attempt called CtH which is much closer to the base game.

Ind is nice early game but past the Masonry stage tech rate is much more important to who gets key wonders. Also most wonders in the game really do not matter too much.

 

[civac]

In MP, I can see the sense in making towns unpillagable. Would probably be real hard to grow any cottages if it worked like in BTS.

Surely PHI would be even stronger in NTT, when bulbing is even stronger

I wrote some points above why I think bulbing is substantially weaker in NTT games. Do you disagree with any of them?

 

[Noble Zarkon]

NTT games

I have no idea what an NTT game is!

the community at RealmsBeyond buffed Philosophical to +150% GPP in their balance mod for example

Take one of the strongest traits in the game and ramp it up for balance

 

[civac]

No tech trading. Shouldn't be so lazy I suppose but I saw the abbreviation here several times.

The point I was making that the MP community at least at RealmsBeyond does not think Philosophical is a strong trait. I have seen that elsewhere too.

 

[drewisfat]

I don't agree with needing to tech more making the fixed value of great people worse. You can get more ideal bulbs in because the midgame lasts longer. Bulb value doesn't really drop off until the late game. And it's not like GP are all fixed value. Merchant increases a bit over time. GS can produce academies. GSpies can produce Scotland Yard which is incredibly powerful if you remove tech trading (Granted it looks like realms beyond removed espionage entirely). GEs can find meaningful wonders to rush all the way up to Cristo. And PHI leaders may be inclined to focus MoM and run GAs even at the cost of 3 GPs per GA. Heck at 150% people may start pulling an Obsolete and settling specialists.
We have a pretty consistent tier list with civics with PHI/IND/FIN top tier. CtH mod still keeps the basic trait changes in place. FIN is nerfed with land tiles needing 3 commerce to get the bonus commerce. IND is nerfed not only out of top tier but possibly into bottom tier because GLH's bonus is cut in half, TGW is useless, resources are only half as effective, and failgold is further hit by not being allowed to finish the building and get failgold from it from another city. Again, I don't play MP, but I would think IND is weakened substantially just because building wonders makes you a target. All the other nerfs seem excessive. Even GLH strikes me as unnecessary, because I'd expect people to just close borders with the builder. Also, am I wrong in assuming MP games are typically on pangaea?
All of this to say with FIN nerfed and IND dramatically nerfed, I would expect PHI to be the best trait, so buffing it by 50% is . I'm not even one of the ardent PHI lovers here. Why is it so much weaker in multiplayer?

 

[Pangaea]

I wrote some points above why I think bulbing is substantially weaker in NTT games. Do you disagree with any of them?

With so much talk about MP and Reals Beyond, I'm not sure if we are talking about the same thing any more. I talk about the BtS game. With NTT, in my view bulbing is even stronger, because you can't easily trade yourself up when somebody like Mansa or Willem techs what you want. You need to do it all yourself, so bulbing towards Lib is even stronger I'd say. Once you get a military strong point, like the typical cannons or cuirs, it will last longer, maybe much longer, because AIs can't trade either. I reckon NTT hurts the AI more than the human. Often crucial AI techs like Feudalism will go around quickly once a few guys have it. But here they must all do it themselves, possibly giving you a bigger window of attacking inferior units.

Not sure why they would think PHI is weak, but maybe MP has a lot more emphasis on non-stop warfare, so producing great people looks weak? GP, golden ages and bulbing strategies are more for the peaceful periods, until you get a milestone you can take advantage of. Maybe MP is more about non-stop warfare so you never really get a breather to work specialists and stuff like that. I've never tried it so don't know what it is like.

 

[civac]

Tbh, I don't even know for sure why the perception seems to be Philosophical is not top tier. I may also have overstated this a bit. It's clear that Financial and Expansive are considered better fairly universally. After that a bunch of traits have incomparable advantages that depend on the settings.

The MP games I have seen are not necessarily extremely bloody but players are usually forced to maintain a large and modern standing army. Free for all play also has the effect of encouraging warlike expansion. If you do not look for opportunities someone else will and be ahead if they are successful. Typical unit progression is axes, catapults/horse archers, knights, rifles which doesn't fit the typical SP beelines very well.

The experience I have with no tech trading in SP is that you can indeed take out civs (especially guys like Mansa, Willem) easier but someone far off will tech faster than you.

You mentioned cannons how would you set up efficient bulbs to reach cannons fast?

 

[MilesBeyond]

If I were to design a multiplayer balance mod, I'd majorly buff IND. Maybe up to like +300% wonder production speed. Why? To tempt more players into wonderwhoring so I can conquer them.

 

[s.bernbaum]

Perhaps a bit off topic but what is Realms Beyond? I thought you all were talking about a mod but I have looked for it and cannot find a mod by that name.

 

[Noble Zarkon]

It's another Civ fan site.