The Creative Trait

[toll_booth]

A little background: Financial, Spiritual, and Charismatic are my top three favorite traits. Financial for obvious reasons, Spiritual lets me pick exactly which available civic I need at nearly any given point in time, and Charismatic is great for both early-game cities and wars at any time. I never even gave thought to playing as a Creative leader, until I decided to use the Dutch out on a water map. Turns out...this may be a trait that I play with more. Three words: Free border pop. That saves you having to build a monument or theater for the sole purpose of the border pop, which means you can start building exactly what you want in that city. In other words, you have that much less time to wait for the granary, courthouse, and forge (three buildings that, depending on what stage of the game its in, are typically some of the first in my new cities' build queues). I like.

 

[Grashopa]

Creative also means a cheap library. That makes Oracle -> Civil Service a high percentage play on immortal if you have the right land.

 

[Fei Kelei]

Creative is really nice in the early game, but it doesn't do much for you later on (okay, you don't have to build theaters in captured cities, big deal), so you really need to make the most of it while its advantage lasts. My favorite Creative leader may be Sury, because the Expansive trait's cheap workers and granaries in combination with the free culture can get you off to a really fast start. Also, like Grashopa said, the cheap libraries are useful.

 

[Silu]

Creative is really nice in the early game, but it doesn't do much for you later on (okay, you don't have to build theaters in captured cities, big deal), so you really need to make the most of it while its advantage lasts. My favorite Creative leader may be Sury, because the Expansive trait's cheap workers and granaries in combination with the free culture can get you off to a really fast start. Also, like Grashopa said, the cheap libraries are useful.

A point surprisingly many forget - after Music you can BUILD culture to pop the borders, much faster than building culture buildings. Also usually faster than waiting to pop them with the Creative trait

edit: typo

 

[Silence101]

Creative is a fantastic early REXing trait... and games are often won or lost in the early game.

 

[Calouste]

Creative is a fantastic early REXing trait... and games are often won or lost in the early game.

Yep. Creative has the most benefits around the time you build your second, third and fourth cities. Being able to grab all the resources in the second ring of the BFC in 5 turns instead of having to build a Monument and then wait 10 turns allows for far more flexible and better city placement. You also can put off researching Mysticism a long time, which almost gives you a free starting tech.

There are a number of small advantages that Creative gives that all add up:
Faster fogbusting. Higher cultural defense. Having slightly more land so you often have an extra turn to react when faced with an invasion. Additional land and sea tiles in your territory can add additional trade routes along coast and rivers. On an archipelago map, ocean tiles covered by your cities' culture can make the travel time for galleys significantly shorter. Guaranteed to win culture border wars over resources early on, and with cheap libraries and theatres, your cities will have a second border pop far earlier than your neighbors, which allows you to grab resources in their territory (and hamper rival cities' development by depriving them of good tiles).

 

[futurehermit]

Cre is definitely one of my fav traits. I prefer rushing or rexing (see my sig). Cre is great for both. The cheap libraries help with economic recovery. The cheap theatres/coliseums are great for combating WW in the mid-game.

 

[toll_booth]

A point surprisingly many forget - after Music you can BUILD culture to pop the borders, much faster than building culture buildings. Also usually faster than waiting to pop them with the Creative trait

edit: typo

But that still takes hammers. Even if you have a 3 unimproved tile, it's still going to be four turns (on normal speed) before the border pop occurs. And that's four turns of building nothing, which is exactly what you *don't* what to be doing right after settling a city.

 

[Fluxx]

Aside from the SE hungry players on these forums, I dare to say at high level play Creative is considered as THE best trait in the game.

 

[blitzkrieg1980]

Faster libraries means faster 1st Great Scientist as well. Faster library = faster university = faster Oxford (in some cases)

Also, the trait does last throughout the game whether or not it is a huge boon. Settling on unclaimed islands (or claimed ones & taking the resources/tiles back) is something you get for free with CRE. Also, after conquering cities, unless you're in CasteSystem (artists), a 5 turn free border pop is never anything to sneeze at.

(okay, you don't have to build theaters in captured cities, big deal)

Well, you can build that granary or courthouse instead of the theater. An earlier courthouse means an early halving of maintenance in a captured city. I'd say that's pretty nice.

I love Hatty for these reasons. Spiritual for civic micro-ing, CRE for all the reasons stated, war chariot for early rush / barb squashing, early UB for the fastest great person on the map. Although the UB is not in synergy with CRE, you only really need to be working Prophets in your GP Farm or temporary GP Farm since food tiles triumph in the very early game. Prophet spam is not something to sneeze at either.

 

[Silu]

But that still takes hammers. Even if you have a 3 unimproved tile, it's still going to be four turns (on normal speed) before the border pop occurs. And that's four turns of building nothing, which is exactly what you *don't* what to be doing right after settling a city.

The matter in question was conquered cities, so they often pop in 1 turn. City settling after Music is not that common. Not that I'd care about 4 turns of doing something to pop borders... The nation is probably not going to fall apart if a size 1 city isn't doing something "productive" for 4 turns. Actually I wasn't even making a point to criticize Creative... just making a point for popping borders for non-Creative leaders.

 

[Grey Fox]

Pericles got both faster Libraries and faster Universities

 

[budweiser]

The best way to pop a border is to switch to caste system and hire an artist for a few turns. That works for everyone. No need to build a theatre in a war torn border town or a new town that needs a granary or a forge or a courthouse.

 

[blitzkrieg1980]

The best way to pop a border is to switch to caste system and hire an artist for a few turns. That works for everyone. No need to build a theatre in a war torn border town or a new town that needs a granary or a forge or a courthouse.

I'm assuming a Spiritual civ in this case, right? B/c if not, you'd take 1-3 turns of anarchy (depending on speed/era) just to pop borders?

 

[Silu]

Not to nitpick, but if you're not in a desperate need of a fast border pop (i.e. to claim a happy-resource faster), it's usually still better to build Culture and work, say, a grassland forest, which allows you to grow while still popping the borders in 5 turns on Normal (this doesn't mini-pollute the GP pool either ).

 

[madscientist]

Creative has always been an average trait to me because it's usefullness wanes as the game progresses.

However two leaders specifically have an insane synergy with the trait

Catherine being IMP and creative is one of the strongest REXers in the game and fast libraries can resurrect an overextended economy pretty fast.

Pericles gets faster libraries, faster universities, and is philosophical getting GSs much faster. The Greek UB provides extra culture and happiness and is also built twice as fast. Add an early UU that has no good countering unit and he is pretty strong.

 

[blitzkrieg1980]

this doesn't mini-pollute the GP pool either

Unless you planned on turning the city into a GP Farm or popping GP from it, there is no worry of GP pollution. Cities remain independent of one another with regards to GP percentage AFAIK. Though I could be wrong, I'm pretty sure this was addressed a while ago.

 

[Silu]

Unless you planned on turning the city into a GP Farm or popping GP from it, there is no worry of GP pollution. Cities remain independent of one another with regards to GP percentage AFAIK. Though I could be wrong, I'm pretty sure this was addressed a while ago.

Yes of course, the thought just popped to my mind and included it as a semi-joke

 

[blitzkrieg1980]

LoL . I kinda figured, but for any newbies reading/lurking, I thought I'd throw my 2 in there

 

[JammerUno]

Creative is great because it saves you hammers when you don't have many to spare on top of giving you early access to the entire BFC of new cities. Like Mad says, usefulness wanes, but its uses come early and thus pay more dividents than other traits.