Ranking Leader Characteristics

[odin1981]

It has been awhile since I've played but with normally playing huge/large marathon/epic immortal/diety game's I would say top tier is Ind/Phi, small gap then financial, noticable gap then Spi/Cha/Imp/Cre imho.

The fail gold for keeping the slider up is what in my eyes makes Ind the best in addition to the speed up for certain key wonder's you want to build the best. Closely in second I'd say would be Philosophical only because it starts to drop off midgame because after 5-6 GP the amount of GPP needed for additional GP rises substantially so there are some diminished return's on it in comparison to Industrious.

My group of the next 4 traits wasn't in order but they all have the same effect and bang for your buck. If I had to rate them I'd say Cha, followed by Cre, Spi, then Imp. You don't have to war often but it is more efficient to take cities at the difficulties I play at so that's why I'd rate Imp last. Spiritual is dependent on if you want to micromanage and if you like to win culturally/religion/tech route more so over Dom/Conquer style. I value creative I would say reasonably high compared to most but it is powerful for land choking peaceful civ's plus the cheap libraries are great. Charismatic I feel is fourth because in a stack of doom you really do need I'd say 8-15 well promoted killers and needing less experience for promotions is very great to get the core of your SoD up and running.

 

[Kaiman]

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

To be fair most of this board uses so many initialisms that you'd think everyone was ex-military.

To tempt more players into wonderwhoring so I can conquer them.

Everyday I'm peacemongerin'

 

[Pangaea]

To be fair most of this board uses so many initialisms that you'd think everyone was ex-military.

Indeed. I've said the same many times. It's like deciphering declassified military documents I try to write out many of them myself, but in fairness it is easy to fall into the habit of a zillion acronyms.

 

[odin1981]

To be fair most of this board uses so many initialisms that you'd think everyone was ex-military.

Lol I'm a medically retired US Marine.

 

[Henrik75]

I think best traits usually depend on player's personal playstyle prefence, I dislike space and culture victories and prefer to war in the classical era or the renaissence, and finish my games up usually by the industrial time. For me the best traits would be Industrial or Financial, Then Spiritual, Philosophical, Creative, Organized, Expansive and the rest.

I think Philosophical is really good but slightly overrated, its slightly limitted since the bonus is additive rather than multiplicative, and if you are in pacisim and have the national epic (and even the parthenon), the bonus is less and less effective. Usually by being Spiritual you can switch into Pacism to get that 100% boost anyway, assuming you were in organized earlier and spread your religion around which is not hard to do and should be done anyway. That being said, it's still an excellent trait of course, and gets you your first academy really fast, and GP in general.

My personal favourite traits are definitely spiritual, folllowed closely by creative and organized. Charamatic is up there too. Financial is really nice but it's just a boost rather than something you can play around with, less interesting but powerful. I change my civics pretty regularly, even moreso if im spiritual to manipulate AI with religions or their favorite civics. Creative is amazing because you can skip monuments and mysticism in the early game and go straight into producing more workers, which saves you WAY more turns than the 25% boost on expansive, or it gives you those 30 hammers back spent on the granary from not having to make monuments. Obviously you don't need monuments everywhere, but I would say I build them in 3-4 out of my first 5 cities (excluding capital) regularly. Ontop of that, you get lightning fast theatres, fast libraries (I build these two buildings in every city practically when creative), and a cheap colloseum for the capital. Organized is very interesting as well. Although I'd rate financial slightly higher just for the early game boost, (on water starts/maps organized wins for sure though), 2 pop whip courthouses and civic upkeep reduction, fast lighthouses, fast factories make this trait really powerful all the way from about 1000BC onwards. If you can develop and claim enough land by then, you'll be set if you're organized.

I've only began beating deity recently myself, on the following leaders: Hatshepsut, Mansa Musa, Suryavarman, and Justinian, utilizing spirtual or creative or both traits have been key for me in my games.

 

[civac]

Creative is a gamble. It can be very good if you need the border pops. They are fast and claim land. If you can get away without early culture in most cities the granary bonus from Expansive alone beats all of Creative.

 

[salty mud]

Over the years I've seen many of these discussions come and go, and still there is no consensus as to which is best. At one time it another I have seen people argue for every single trait and that it is best.

Except Protective. Protective stinks.

That said, Charismatic gets a bad rep sometimes but I won't hear a bad word said about it. It's a solid, all around useful trait that's useful from early on. Your units will always have the edge over the enemy, and be one or two promotions ahead.
Its real bonus for me, though, lies in the happiness. Every city gets an extra +1, with an extra +1 from a monument. For a measly 45 hammers, my ancient cities have +2 happiness. That's two extra mines worked for military unit production, two extra farms worked for a GP farm or two extra floodplain cottages developing earlier than they otherwise would. Charismatic has allowed me to have some huge ancient/classical era cities which have then further developed.

Not to mention Charismatic synergises very well with Stonehenge. Build it, get a religion and that's even more happiness for even bigger cities.

 

[Fippy]

PHI is usually accepted as best trait..depends on who you ask thou.

 

[Ricci]

Creative is a gamble. It can be very good if you need the border pops. They are fast and claim land. If you can get away without early culture in most cities the granary bonus from Expansive alone beats all of Creative.

I'll be repeating myself for sure: the granary gives you the best multiplier in a common building (almoust 100% food for every new population point), for the most important yield/resource in the game.. food. Any trait which rises even more that bar should be taken seriously.
Granary is probably the soundest building in the game (is that even a word.. "soundest"? jajja)

EDIT: the most sound building then.

 

[civac]

My point is exactly that in many games (when you can place cities in a reasonable manner without early culture) half of EXP is better than all of CRE.

Sound as an adjective does not have a comparative.

 

[sampsa]

half of EXP is better than all of CRE.

That is quite a lot over the top... I like EXP a lot, but I think CRE is still a bit better as it gives extreme freedom for city locations and half priced 2nd best buildings.

 

[civac]

Mr. sampsa, I would very much appreciate it if you could discuss these things in a minimally honest manner. You quote me but leave out the qualification which already preempts your comment. I specifically was talking about a situation in which the +2 culture is not very valuable.

Sorry for the harsh words. However, in the other thread we butted heads in you also apparently were unable to understand the points I was making too (or you responded to them in a way that did not address them properly). It is a bit frustrating.

Moderator Action: Please treat your fellow posters with more respect -- NZ
Please read the forum rules: http://forums.civfanatics.com/showthread.php?t=422889

 

[drewisfat]

-30 from granary and -45 on library are pretty equal as bonuses go. -25% worker cost can be huge on the first worker or meaningless depending what initial tiles are available. Then there's the possibility of worker stealing.

Multiple people have mentioned how AGG makes dealing with barbs easier because of the free promos on your warriors. No one has mentioned how CRE makes dealing with barbs easier even though its benefit is greater than AGG's. The bigger borders will fogbust more land. The bigger borders make more tiles "safe" to improve without your workers luring in barbs. If trouble arises, the bigger borders give advanced warning & culture defense in the city. You can even flip cities by settling in their face.

 

[civac]

I disagree. Granaries are extemely powerful buildings. Getting them with a single chop (+ some normal production) or a 1pop whip makes a world of difference. Libraries are nice but getting them a bit later is hardly an issue.

 

[Trout]

I am very confident that this forum will never have a consensus on this topic except for the "nearly" unanimous Protective is putrid. Creative, Expansive, Charismatic, and Imperialistic seem to pop up the most as to some people passionately arguing they are very strong and others passionately disagreeing completely. Which probably just means all four of them give you an advantage of some sort that with enough experience can be put to great use. I am personally partial to Creative for the way it solves a problem that for all other leaders has to be worked around until the AD years. Half-price libraries are also very nice. But I understand why others could emphatically argue that Expansive, Charismatic, and Imperialistic are all preferable to Creative.

Having said that I always find the topic entertaining and informative to some degree.

 

[Ricci]

-30 from granary and -45 on library are pretty equal as bonuses go. -25% worker cost can be huge on the first worker or meaningless depending what initial tiles are available. Then there's the possibility of worker stealing.

Yes, being the production bonnus from granaries and libraries equal is what determines EXP as the better trait in this respect, as the +100% food from the granary is insurmountable. Take this excercise if you would: load any previous game where you have access to demographics of all civs (the better the merrier) and look for data as crops/food, population, production, even score, in the early stage (very dependant around how much land there is to expand in the given map). And you will notice the steepest curves respond to expansive leaders. Taking away special cases as early wars or very disadvantegeous starting locations it almoust never fails.
Of course it is up to the player (human or AI) to properly leverage it, but the developement burst in the early stage (actually any expansion fase/s) is there no doubt.

Multiple people have mentioned how AGG makes dealing with barbs easier because of the free promos on your warriors. No one has mentioned how CRE makes dealing with barbs easier even though its benefit is greater than AGG's. The bigger borders will fogbust more land. The bigger borders make more tiles "safe" to improve without your workers luring in barbs. If trouble arises, the bigger borders give advanced warning & culture defense in the city. You can even flip cities by settling in their face.

True, CRE has this semi hidden military edge (EXP being purely economic). It is a great trait too. The thing I appreciate the most about CRE is the effortless pop of city culture, it gets you the super important strategic resources early, not sacrificing city location. Which will eventually make up for a better future city as well.

 

[sampsa]

You quote me but leave out the qualification which already preempts your comment. I specifically was talking about a situation in which the +2 culture is not very valuable.

OK. I understand that there are situations where the culture is not worth much. What I was trying to say was that I don't think it's very common for the extra culture to be worthless, because it gives more freedom in city placement.

Like you, I slightly prefer having a 30 granary compared to a 45 library.

However, in the other thread we butted heads in you also apparently were unable to understand the points I was making too (or you responded to them in a way that did not address them properly). It is a bit frustrating.

Maybe that should be discussed there then? For the record, I did understand exactly what you were saying. The disagreement seemed to be either in the conclusion or it was simply semantical.

 

[civac]

Sorry for the outburst. It is to your credit that you respond so calmly.

In the other thread, it felt you kept misunderstanding the very limited point I was trying to make and yes it was probably an issue of semantics. Your ultimate position was likely correct. I was convinced by Fippy's arguments which were stringent and to the point.

 

[elitetroops]

EXP kind of loses value the more aggressive you play. If most cities are captured a lot of them will come with free granaries. None have free libraries. Most workers may also be captured so not very much value from EXP there either. CRE on the other hand can be very useful if you have to live with whatever city placements the AI picked for you. I especially like that CRE gets captured capitals fully functional very fast. They tend to be powerhouses but often several resources in outer ring.

 

[Ricci]

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.

Mmnnm, I can sympathise with bulbing getting less value for the tech you eventually decide to share/trade with TT off, as you won't be getting double or triple economic value fot them. On the other hand, as no one can trade tech either, any bulb which was well chosen (this means significantly betters your developement and/or strategy for the time being) becomes more decisive; as you will solely harness it's benefits maybe for a very long period.
A handy example: you bulb CS with a great merchant, your country is the only one to institute de bureacracy civic, commerce powerhouse on the making. You rip the benefits without concern to trade because the investment needs to pay off and you need some other techs which you left behind earlier and every other civ are trading no stop now. Ok, so eventualy another rival gets CS, you are not compelled to trade it away immediatelly before they do, still only two civs with the commercial powerhouse (maybe maceman even, etc). I wouldn't go as tu say this aspect compensates completely the benefit of multiple value for the bulbed tech, but it surely counts against that loss.

Also, as we all know, bulbing is but one use of GP, you get to have an academy pretty earlier, a merchant & trade mission at half the time, a scotland yard. PHI also allows you to better emphasize a given type of great person as you will not be adding other specialists that contaminate the pool just to get the GP at the right timing, etc.
My view is, and always has been, PHI is the best economic trait, and definitely in the podium of them all.

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

I mostly play MP games and I find this and other modifications sited in this same thread rather depersonalizing of the game. Castles are magnificent buildings, economicaly (trade+espionage+culture) and militarily, really saviours, although you need the proper garrison to make the best of them. They have a short life spam. They are perfect. Nerfing them destroys their beauty and purpose.