The best trait.

[TravellingHat]

My vote for top of the pops has to go to Charismatic: quicker promos = tougher troops; happiness = bigger cities = more production/commerce. What's not to like?

Financial is very powerful, but I've become dependent on it, and a disgusting cottage addict, so I'm trying to wean myself onto a specialist economy.

As for creative getting cheap libraries, that makes sense to me. A creative leader may be a patron of the arts, and that includes writers. Writers (as well as scientists) contribute the contents of libraries, ergo, creative gets cheap libraries.

 

[Bast]

I don't understand your point. Organized means good infrastructure (production) and leadership, so all those buildings make sense in a way. (Forges could belong here too, but that would make the trait too good i think)

Ok maybe organized leaders should keep factories but not lighthouses.

Organized does not mean good infrastructure or production. Where did you get that?

An organized leader to me is one who is efficient and has the countries affairs in order.

-50% Civic unkeep? That's a perfect effect. Courthouses. Great! Factories, ok I have to retract that. I suppose the efficient part does come into it somewhere.

Lighthouses? WHY? It's a stretch if anything.

 

[cthom]

For all that I think spiritual is the best trait tho. Spiritual is the best for versitility. No anarchy means you can seriously abuse the civics system and make your civ be whatever it needs to be at any given moment in any given situation without any pain.

this is why i always built pyramids in older versions of the game (when you could change govt. type). you can respond to changing circumstances instantly.

 

[Figaro]

Charismatic is the only trait that gives a direct bonus both for military and building, so I'd call it the best trait when they're compared one-on-one.

But this isn't really a good way to compare them - many traits are only good in combination with one another. For example, I don't consider Aggressive or Protective to be good traits on their own, but to have them both gives you triple-promoted Gunpowder units which will slaughter those of any other leader - therefore they're excellent alongside one another. Similarly, I don't really like Imperialistic or Creative on their own, but together they make the very best combo for taking land quickly. Other combos I consider less useful; for example Aggressive/Financial strikes me as a schizophrenic combo that doesn't augment itself very well.

Traits don't exist in vacuums either; for example, Joao's Imp. trait goes very well with his UU because it allows him to send (cheaper) settlers to colonise the new world before anyone else. Agg/Char is seen as an unbalanced combo, but with the (crap) Gallic Warrior to counter that Boudicca isn't too unbalanced overall.

Above all, traits are situational - Imp and Org are next to useless if you're playing One City Challenge or a small map. On the other hand, on larger maps Org becomes much more useful. The difficulty level is also key, as someone else said - Charismatic is better the higher difficulty you have, because the more difference that extra happiness makes, esp. in the early game.

 

[Sjaramei]

Ok maybe organized leaders should keep factories but not lighthouses.

Organized does not mean good infrastructure or production. Where did you get that?

An organized leader to me is one who is efficient and has the countries affairs in order.

-50% Civic unkeep? That's a perfect effect. Courthouses. Great! Factories, ok I have to retract that. I suppose the efficient part does come into it somewhere.

Lighthouses? WHY? It's a stretch if anything.

Think of it as roads. Disregard the effect it actually gives. Organized means good infrastructure like in efficient use of land. Lighthouses certainly makes sea travel more efficient.

Think old russia if you want to know what not organized is

 

[dragodon64]

Tie between philosophical and industrious, went with phil. I love great people though I rather suck at effective SE. Industrious is fantastic too, but I find 1-2 extra EARLIER Great Engineers to be better.

Would also like to mention that I like spiritual and think it is a major boon to one of my favorite strategies: build AP, Sankore and Minaret. The +100% temple build speed really helps cities pay for themselves, get a production and happiness boost and produce more culture.

 

[Antilogic]

Charismatic is the only trait that gives a direct bonus both for military and building, so I'd call it the best trait when they're compared one-on-one.

But this isn't really a good way to compare them - many traits are only good in combination with one another. For example, I don't consider Aggressive or Protective to be good traits on their own, but to have them both gives you triple-promoted Gunpowder units which will slaughter those of any other leader - therefore they're excellent alongside one another. Similarly, I don't really like Imperialistic or Creative on their own, but together they make the very best combo for taking land quickly. Other combos I consider less useful; for example Aggressive/Financial strikes me as a schizophrenic combo that doesn't augment itself very well.

Traits don't exist in vacuums either; for example, Joao's Imp. trait goes very well with his UU because it allows him to send (cheaper) settlers to colonise the new world before anyone else. Agg/Char is seen as an unbalanced combo, but with the (crap) Gallic Warrior to counter that Boudicca isn't too unbalanced overall.

Above all, traits are situational - Imp and Org are next to useless if you're playing One City Challenge or a small map. On the other hand, on larger maps Org becomes much more useful. The difficulty level is also key, as someone else said - Charismatic is better the higher difficulty you have, because the more difference that extra happiness makes, esp. in the early game.

That's one reason why I like Charismatic--irrelevant of what kind of game I play, the trait is somehow useful. Organized is not a trait you tend to appreciate until you are trying to run Bureaucracy and Organized Religion simultaneously, and you look at your high upkeep civics cost, and wonder what you could be doing with all that money being wasted. The double production courthouses and factories are just icing on the cake. I considered the lighthouses unnecessary and modded them out.

 

[bonafide11]

I voted for Spiritual, but Charismatic is the only military trait is getting any votes... And it has roughly 4 times as many votes as aggressive, protective, and imperialist combined!

 

[Antilogic]

I like Spiritual, but it takes a lot of micromanagement and planning to fully take use of the civic-switching awesomeness. For more casual games, I take Charismatic.

I don't believe there is a single best trait, but I do have my favorites. I'd rate them in tiers...with Imperialistic being in the lowest simply because I can more effectively leverage the other traits' benefits.

 

[BYC]

Charismatic is definitely near the top. It's truly one of those traits where you don't have to do ANYTHING, and yet it still works.

One of the good things about Civ is that since there's no really a huge competition base as compared to RTS, FPS, and other genres with money prizes, we can play how we want. There's really no pressure or enough evidence to state absolutes that often. Aside from a few exceptionals, most of the game is highly debatable.

Generally, traits that require work will probably be ranked lower than traits that don't require a lot of work. Financial doesn't really take that much work other than the usual, and possibly city placement. Spiritual takes a lot of work and really timing the civic changes to see a huge result. Aggressive obviously takes warmongering. Creative, ever since the library boost, is also high on my list, and it also doesn't take a lot of work to use. Organized is definitely unique in the sense it's hard to see why it's good, but I believe if people can see the math involved in Organized, they'll realize it's incredible.

 

[dragodon64]

By tiers:
1st- Phi, Ind, Fin
2nd- Cha, Agg, Cre
3rd- Exp, Org, Spi
4th- Imp, Pro

 

[peter450]

Depends how you want to play, aggressive, charasmatic is a good choice if you intend to win through conquest, another good trait for conquest is char/imperialistic, as you get a lot of GG which are highly useful in conquest games, an so surprisingly is creative/imperialistic as it allows you to quickly hook up resources an get those GG flowing soon aswell.

To be honest the traits are quite well balanced an none i would say is an overpowering combination, it just depends on how you play as to if you make the most of them.

 

[dragodon64]

Honestly, +100% GG rate is ridiculously overrated. The one time i played Imp, I went out of my way to fight wars and received a grand total of 5 GGs, maybe 2 more than i would have had without Imp.

 

[Phoenician]

Imperialistic is definantely the crappiest trait out there.
It's even useless in the early game! Every decent player knows that having more than 4 cities before having COL and/or monarchy is financial/maintenaince/research death.
So, imperialistic is good for popping out 3 settlers quick...

 

[Enigma256]

if the Imperialistic bonus would work with the food that goes into the production of a settler it would be half decent.

as it is, it is worthless.

 

[bob_x]

Creative, ever since the library boost, is also high on my list, and it also doesn't take a lot of work to use.

Creative is the trait that SAVES you work. It's so much easier settling new cities when you're Creative. It can be very painful getting your city borders to expand if you're not Creative.

I think Creative is underrated because people don't see it working. People can see the commerce boost of Financial by looking at their cities. But Creative helps you get productive cities a lot more quickly.

This is why the Dutch are the most powerful civ. They have the most powerful trait in the earliest phase of the game, Creativity. In the late game, when Creativity is useless, they get DIKES.

 

[TM Moot]

Ind is the dogs whatsits..

1st- Ind,
2nd- Phi, Fin, Spi
3rd- Cre, Org, Cha
4th - Exp, Agg,
5th- Imp, Pro

 

[classical_hero]

Judging from this poll, Hannibal is the best leader- so how come I don't hear about more people using him ?

Because traits are just one aspect of the game to choose from. I voted for Financial since the extra commerce cannot be beaten.

 

[Capt Ajax]

Charismatic for me!

 

[Swedishguy]

Philosophical. I mean, who can argue with +100% Great Person rate and cheap universities?