the missing trait combos

[Mylene]

No need for taking our word on this, @Obsolete showed his "wonder economy" stuffs here over years.
And you could hear him saying "i need my Ind or Phi guys".
He got put into a special category of players, while in reality he only used all thingies that make you strong early. It's not surprising that peoples now won't understand why this trait combo would be devastating, if you thought what Obs did was super special. It was not, for me.
,

 

[bhavv]

Wonder economy stuff is great up to Emperor difficulty, but its doable with any PHI leader.

The trait combo wouldnt be 'overpowered' or 'devastating', it would simply be slightly better, and fun for a lot of players.

Its not going to be anymore powerful than Agg / Cha Preats, or Fin / Org Rathouses.

 

[Tlalynet]

Exactly!
With enough GS one can tech past many. With enough GMs, I'll have have more gold than a FIN leader. More GEs means more wonders. PHI gives a lot of options. [IND/PHI] would just be sick, in the hands of someone who knows what they are doing

WHEN, WHEN WILL PEOPLE LISTEN THAT PHI DOESN'T GIVE EXTRA GP's???


lol.

The way GPP scaling works PHI always gives less than one additional GP to a PHI leader than a non-Phi leader would have had. Much less post NE.

Unless you're saying that Ind\Phi allows you to open worldbuilder and spawn as many GP's as you like there is no argument here.


And why do Obsoletes games keep getting referenced? He did what he did without this trait combo anyway... Obviously what he took worked for him.

 

[plasmacannon]

Darius of HRE isolated on a small mostly tundra continent, where he had to tech astronomy to find anyone, with no iron, copper, horse, stone, marble, of ivory, wouldn't do well.
The IND/PHI leader in the center of a large continent surrounded jungle and by Shaka, Monty, Ragnar, Genghis and a few others, with no stone or marble, no copper or horse, would get eaten alive.

A lot depends on the map.

 

[rah]

While I think the combo would be better than some others, my games come down to land more than anything else. There are leaders I like to see on that opening screen, and if there was one of these, I would include them in the list I'd like to see, but I'd still be more interested in the land behind it.
So do I think it would OP? No, not really that much better than some of the other combos I like.

 

[bhavv]

Darius of HRE isolated on a small mostly tundra continent, where he had to tech astronomy to find anyone, with no iron, copper, horse, stone, marble, of ivory, wouldn't do well.
The IND/PHI leader in the center of a large continent surrounded jungle and by Shaka, Monty, Ragnar, Genghis and a few others, with no stone or marble, no copper or horse, would get eaten alive.

A lot depends on the map.

Regenerate map then!

And if so much depends on the map, then IND / PHI isnt going to be any better if you start with no production.

Your comment here makes about as much sense as using Rathouses in State Property, or Sac Alters in Caste System, if you happen to remember that thread.

 

[Jabarto]

WHEN, WHEN WILL PEOPLE LISTEN THAT PHI DOESN'T GIVE EXTRA GP's???


lol.

The way GPP scaling works PHI always gives less than one additional GP to a PHI leader than a non-Phi leader would have had. Much less post NE.

Is this explained in detail anywhere? I only recently started hearing about it and I still don't understand mechanics behind it.

 

[plasmacannon]

Regenerate map then!

And if so much depends on the map, then IND / PHI isnt going to be any better if you start with no production.

Your comment here makes about as much sense as using Rathouses in State Property, or Sac Alters in Caste System, if you happen to remember that thread.

I was just commenting that even good leaders can have conditions in which they would perform at less than optimal.

Yes, regenerating the map would be the solution on single player games.
Multiplayer games are another story as that option is not available to us, unfortunately.

 

[Tlalynet]

Gah, I goofed the GPP scaling, I thought it powered after 200, were its actually semi-liner when I looked it up again.

100, 200, 300, 400, 500, 600, 700, 800, 900, 1000, 1200

Total costs unmodified
100, 300, 600, 1000, 1500, 2100, 2800, 3600, 4500, 5500 ect...

Total Costs PHI only

50, 150, 300, 500, 750, 1050, 1400, 1800, 2250, 2750, 3350, 4050

So Phi gets an extra GP at 300, 1050, 1800, 2750, and 4050. It gives +5GPP by 4500 in a fairly normal game. I was working on some wrong maths, sorry bout that all.

 

[Iranon]

I made a thread about GPP scaling some time ago: http://forums.civfanatics.com/showthread.php?t=291740

Unless we neglect Great People or other GPP multipliers like the National Epic to a questionable degree, we can expect to be 3 Great People ahead for much of the game. This doesn't really increase with time or empire size.

 

[plasmacannon]

I hear 2, 3 or 5 great people.
I guess, the point is that, if one pushs for them and gets alot, they can really help your game.

I know, I rarely sought them the first few years I have played Civ4.
Getting 2-5 free techs, or 2000+ gold per GM can make a huge difference.
Not to mention, more golden ages, acadamies, scotland yard and wonders obtained.
Being able to quickly upgrade all of my axemen to macemen and HA & Chariots to knights in 1 turn, makes one ready for an assault immediately.
I'd like to stay at 100% research too if possible. I typically drop down to around 50% (Probably, some mismanagement envolved there). caste system + PHI and getting GMs usually solve this for awhile.

 

[babar]

It's not hard to test PHI/IND - just a quick change in xml.

I've been playing with such a leader in the game for a while now, and it's nothing too special, either for me or the AI. Occasionally it can be very strong, given the right map (particularly with a strong capital and stone and marble) but not more so than other combos in their ideal situations. Even in OCC, while it's clearly the best, it's not by as wide a margin as one might think.

 

[TheWilltoAct]

The net output of Great Persons over the course of a game seems mighty irrelevant. Speed (of generation) is the metric of interest.

 

[TheMeInTeam]

In a game I am playing, I have a PHI leader of India using unrestricted leaders. India's Fast workers allow me to move into forest tiles and chop them more quickly than anyone else. I started with stone in my BFC. India seems to have stone or marble in most of my games btw. If I was IND too, I would be able to build mids and other stone wonders faster than anyone else in the game. I would benefit from my PHI trait on those wonders faster than anyone else in the game. Especially, when we take into account that India starts with Mining and Mysticism and can start research BW on turn 0, while building Fast worker->Stonehenge.

Less trash arguments, more numerical comparisons of getting your wonders or gpp a bit faster as opposed to other trait benefits. At least TRY to build a case rather than repeating irrelevancies. Anyone can list the benefits of traits. If you want to say that PHI/IND would be better than other traits in OCC, I'll agree, since the total benefit from most traits gets neutered in that setting. But OCC is both non-standard and a challenge format unto itself, so who cares?

Of course, there isn't "an example of actual usage of the trait", because the game designers didn't put in into the game.

XML edits can drop it into the game easily, if anyone actually wanted to put their foot in their mouth trying to show how much better this trait combo supposedly is (but even then only on 1 difficulty and probably only on faster speeds on said difficulty).

So, you haven't rushed an opponent with regular chariots and won?

So, you haven't built pyramids and farmed gpp without phi/ind and won?

So, if a choke point is a single forest tile and I block it with regular axemen, I will fail horendously, since I am not AGG?

So, if I have stone or marble and I hook it up, I will fail horrendously at getting the wonder?

I hope you see what I did with these little statements. Move along now.

I can easily see an example of an IND/PHI leader on a continent with 1 AI starting with horse in his BFC and Stone and Marble somewhere on the continent, chariot rushing the AI, defeating him, then building wonders for the rest of the game to a Space or other victory. The AI doesn't do too many massive naval invasions, so the game is pretty much won at that point.

Please, STOP with the inane, theoretical examples that would allow literally any trait combo or 0 traits to also succeed in the same situation. At least TRY to make an actual case. I don't like winning arguments because the other side stops trying, but that's what's happening here.

Still 0 evidence. If you want to refute my points from earlier posts, you have to actually address them. Can you refute them, or do you intend to simply repeat arguments over and over without addressing them?

Let's try this again:

The real question is "just how many turns faster (or slower) does IND/PHI put you in position to win on each speed/difficulty".

Show me numbers.

Can you possibly claim it will do that on monarch/anything? Deity/marathon? Immortal/epic? Multiplayer? Not really.

Note that with 100's and 100's of words posted, you still haven't and probably can't. Why can't you? Why can't you tell me how broken phi/ind is on monarch? Why can't you quantify how large an advantage it is in multiplayer? I ask for these things, and the burden of proof is on the "this is OP!!!!!!!" crowd to pony up and show us why it's OP. Instead, every proponent of that joke argument on this thread has shied away from giving numbers that compare the faster GPP to say, expansive saved or faster libraries with creative, or to literally anything else. The arguments don't even give demonstrations, instead simply hiding behind a list of what the two traits can potentially do when combined. You can do that junk with any trait combo and make it seem "op" by using that.

Try an actual argument.

No need for taking our word on this, @Obsolete showed his "wonder economy" stuffs here over years.
And you could hear him saying "i need my Ind or Phi guys".
He got put into a special category of players, while in reality he only used all thingies that make you strong early. It's not surprising that peoples now won't understand why this trait combo would be devastating, if you thought what Obs did was super special. It was not, for me.

I also remember players like ABigCivFan, Rusten, U_Sun, and others completely trouncing his position (and win date) on equal maps, even when he had one of those traits. Can the strategy win? Sure. I pulled off a chariot rush in that deity HRE game, does that mean it's obviously overpowered to rush with chariots? Would you make that case when comparing my position to people who chose better options? I bet not, and yet that's precisely what you're doing with obsolete's games.

By the way, in BOTM 10 Unconquered_Sun had tanks and bombers at 1300 AD or so on deity (ready to attack, too, which means he had the techs even sooner). Clearly then IMP/PRO is overpowered right? I mean, just look at what a player managed to do on deity with it! So strong. Firaxis never should have put IMP/PRO into the game because it's obviously broken!

Sigh.

A lot depends on the map.

Not a very strong case for PHI/IND being overpowered, but a fairly good one for the trait fitting into current combos.

Most of us understand the value of GPP. What we're looking for is not that, but numerical comparisons of the direct timing + benefit of PHI/IND combo against other trait combinations. Other traits get GPP too. PHI/IND can go to war or expand too. But, on average, which one gives the greatest benefit? What if you factor UU/UB and the PHI/IND has crap in those categories? All of this "OP" nonsense and not even an attempt, not the smallest effort to look at whether the combo's earlier GPP + ability to build some wonders compares abnormally favourably to a couple 100 extra early, the ability to rush + kill someone more often, or to someone like gandhi who can economize hammers via fast worker and carries one of the traits (or to liz, who can break a lot of maps with GLH, Colossus, drafted redcoats, or just a straight cottage approach still getting the fast GPP).

Well, feel free to prove me wrong. Let's see those record-shattering games with a modded PHI/IND leader of a weak civ like america, japan, or germany. Good luck.

 

[Mylene]

By the way, in BOTM 10 Unconquered_Sun had tanks and bombers at 1300 AD or so on deity (ready to attack, too, which means he had the techs even sooner). Clearly then IMP/PRO is overpowered right? I mean, just look at what a player managed to do on deity with it! So strong. Firaxis never should have put IMP/PRO into the game because it's obviously broken!

Sigh.

Sooo what?
I won with Charly in 1100AD or so before, botm10 map must have been very favorable with land for getting all these techs so early.
Tanks and Bombers = playing around, you can end almost all maps with just Cavs cos AIs are just not good enuf in war.

What matters here..you could repeat these early wins over and over, cos all you need is GP, maybe Pyras and stuffs like Nat. Epic, Glib. etc. Without Ind, you rely on stone or marble for such early dates. Without Phi on good food. With both on nothing concerning your land, so thankfully this trait combo was not put in

 

[Iranon]

Two things need to be considered in my opinion:

1) What's people's usual wonder distribution with Industrious, and would also having PHI make them change their preference?

I tend to collect most in my GP farm and put the rest (cheap, high-culture, awkward GP type) where I need the culture output. The resulting dominance of the GP farm (which has the National Epic soon) makes PHI a little less strong than it could be as we're not getting the "GP loan".
Strong players generally seem to rely more heavily on predictable GP spawns than I do though, which favours a different approach.


*

2) What about religious civics, Organized Religion or Pacifism? Does PHI change it? In my opinion, this consideration can really muddle the issue.

Stacking bonuses generally has diminishing returns, so beyond the very beginning we may have the same GPP output as we'd have witout PHI but a building discount.
On the other hand, having access to both PHI and Pacifism means we rely less on the National Epic. We may now prefer multiple good GP farms instead of one great one.

Tricky.

 

[TheMeInTeam]

Sooo what?
I won with Charly in 1100AD or so before, botm10 map must have been very favorable with land for getting all these techs so early.
Tanks and Bombers = playing around, you can end almost all maps with just Cavs cos AIs are just not good enuf in war.

Nope. "Sooo what?" is my point, used to push aside the little obsolete example as silly and not relevant to the point. I merely used BOTM 10 as a means to show that citing obsolete's games can in no way be used as evidence that a trait combo he's never even posted a game for on the forum is overpowered. It seems you're in agreement with me though and now acknowledge the obsolete example as silly <3.

It's odd you say U_Sun was "playing around" though. He didn't say so in his summary, and he had the fastest win on that map by a solid margin. IMO that's a bit insulting to the other players trying to win that map.

What matters here..you could repeat these early wins over and over, cos all you need is GP, maybe Pyras and stuffs like Nat. Epic, Glib. etc. Without Ind, you rely on stone or marble for such early dates. Without Phi on good food. With both on nothing concerning your land, so thankfully this trait combo was not put in

At least we're heading in the right direction for a change. You're putting for that, on one difficulty + speed combo (deity/normal), IND/PHI contributes to winning more consistently than other traits? Am I mistaken that such is your implication? Just to be clear you're not going to assert this consistency on multiplayer, lower difficulties, etc right? Let's go with deity/normal since it's really all your argument has.

- How does IND/PHI escape early DoW? Similar to other non-war traits, but that slows you down. You miss wonders and therefore GPP. The once god-mode trait combo falls behind. If outright survival is on the line you might even prefer a war trait, although admittedly needing a war trait to survive is very rare in practice.

- What happens when boxed in on 3 cities, or possibly even 2? This definitely can happen on deity, and nice as it is to tech quickly with those GPP, I don't see a 2 city cuirasser whip doing much damage. But, if you go on the offensive earlier, what is IND/PHI contributing?

- Are you going to beat out riverside FIN on good starts?

- How are you factoring UU/UB? You claim IND/PHI is overpowering, but with a crummy unique there are some things existing civs can do that said trait combo can't. Inca cheese comes to mind, but so do the chariot UU. Can access to faster gpp from wonders consistently beat out the times from these uniques?

- Sorry to say but low food will screw IND/PHI too. If you can't grow the capitol onto production tiles in a timely fashion, it's going to be hard to get a lot of wonders because deity AI will start beating you to them. It will also be harder to run specs to benefit of the pyramids, which by the way is NOT a deity-consensus top tier wonder and far from it.

- Speaking of which, without a resource IND can't guarantee too many wonders on deity. You can pick some up, but you always risk pre 2000 BC oracles, 1900-1800 BC pyramids (hell, i've seen that on immortal let alone deity), 2800 BC stonehenge, and so forth. Great library is a bit more reliable, but that's mostly due to tech prioritization, and people get that off math-boosted chops anyway. The fewer wonders you actually win, the weaker PHI/IND is compared to other trait combos. I seriously call into question the consistency of attaining all of these wonders...indeed pursuing them can create a lot more of these "not much land" situation holes that you claim the combo can dig out of.

So basically, your argument that IND/PHI boils down to the following:

"On one difficulty+speed and ONLY on that difficulty/speed, I believe the trait combo would allow players to win slightly more consistently than they would win otherwise...but still haven't seen that belief quantified".

And even then, existing cheese options will outperform IND/PHI. Are you going to claim that IND/PHI of Germany is stronger than HC of Inca? Than Darius of Persia? I think that would be quite difficult to claim...and I think it's 100% impossible for you to rationally claim that the trait combo is overpowering on lesser difficulties. When you can win not just a rush but the ENTIRE MAP with only horse archers consistently the ability to reach deeper tech faster just isn't that meaningful, is it? So then, is it really fair to claim a trait combination that only truly shines on the highest difficulty, and will STILL occasionally (or perhaps with fair frequency) see other things outclass it depending on the map is "overpowering?"

No, it isn't. I have serious doubts an IND/PHI leader on a weak civ would even make a dent in the HoF tables, and I doubt the deity/normal/standard win rate would change a whole lot either. Is a 5% increase in win rate overpowering? Can IND/PHI even give THAT? No evidence, and thus the OP claim is absolutely bogus.

 

[Mylene]

Let's just agree on that we will not agree, and that's fine
Just 1 thingy, by no means did i want to "insult" what U-Sun did.
I ment in general you dun need tanks + bombers *now*.
Maybe a patch was missing back then, so long ago..or peoples have digged deeper into Civ4 by now, finding faster ways for winning. I really dun know, but it's not connected to his great win.

 

[Iranon]

No huge clash of strong opinions and maybe I'm bargin in... but I want to comment anyway

Let's go with deity/normal since it's really all your argument has.

- How does IND/PHI escape early DoW? Similar to other non-war traits, but that slows you down. You miss wonders and therefore GPP. The once god-mode trait combo falls behind. If outright survival is on the line you might even prefer a war trait, although admittedly needing a war trait to survive is very rare in practice.

None of the trait combinations I consider strong is particularly suited to early warfare, so I wouldn't hold that against IND/PHI. If anything, survival considerations point towards the importance of Uniques - Skirmishers will help more than any traits.

- What happens when boxed in on 3 cities, or possibly even 2? This definitely can happen on deity, and nice as it is to tech quickly with those GPP, I don't see a 2 city cuirasser whip doing much damage. But, if you go on the offensive earlier, what is IND/PHI contributing?

If any combination can break out of a squeeze gracefully, it's IND/PHI and probably before cuirassiers. Get a decent science city with the Great Library and you're set with minimal ongoing dedication of citizens to economy. Build up and hope for an opening... usually, one presents itself.

- Are you going to beat out riverside FIN on good starts?

Given how many trick paths PHI enables when you get a good start, with a discount to Oracle and forges (often Oracled)... possibly. You admittedly don't get the easy sustainability.

- How are you factoring UU/UB? You claim IND/PHI is overpowering, but with a crummy unique there are some things existing civs can do that said trait combo can't. Inca cheese comes to mind, but so do the chariot UU. Can access to faster gpp from wonders consistently beat out the times from these uniques?

In most scenarios, any advantage IND/PHI may have over other top combination is well within the margins of Uniques to compensate.
OCCs... tricky to say. An IND/PHI leader with lacklustre Uniques may struggle to surpass e.g. Ramesses who's not much worse economically but has more for outright survival (SPI for diplomacy, War Chariot) and cheese wins (Obelisk, SPI diplomacy for PAs).
My opinion: Somewhat overpowered, but not as bad as some cheese already in the game.

- Sorry to say but low food will screw IND/PHI too. If you can't grow the capitol onto production tiles in a timely fashion, it's going to be hard to get a lot of wonders because deity AI will start beating you to them. It will also be harder to run specs to benefit of the pyramids, which by the way is NOT a deity-consensus top tier wonder and far from it.

- Speaking of which, without a resource IND can't guarantee too many wonders on deity. You can pick some up, but you always risk pre 2000 BC oracles, 1900-1800 BC pyramids (hell, i've seen that on immortal let alone deity), 2800 BC stonehenge, and so forth. Great library is a bit more reliable, but that's mostly due to tech prioritization, and people get that off math-boosted chops anyway. The fewer wonders you actually win, the weaker PHI/IND is compared to other trait combos. I seriously call into question the consistency of attaining all of these wonders...indeed pursuing them can create a lot more of these "not much land" situation holes that you claim the combo can dig out of.

Oracle-> Metal Casting -> enjoy cheap forges and Engineer-rush Pyramids if needed is quite solid. The Aesthetics/Literature path is attractive and safe thanks to AI priority, and even if we go light on other wonders in favour of a more balanced approach the trait combination pulled its weight.

If we managed to expand well on the side (the above only has one early wonder built by hand), failure cash is a respectable source of income. The Hanging Gardens allow us to efficiently transfer resources to new cities. If some early wonder didn't get any takers, we can efficiently chop it for culture.
I don't think IND requries as many concessions in expansion to work well as is commonly believed.

 

[plasmacannon]

Less trash arguments, more numerical comparisons of getting your wonders or gpp a bit faster as opposed to other trait benefits. At least TRY to build a case rather than repeating irrelevancies. Anyone can list the benefits of traits. If you want to say that PHI/IND would be better than other traits in OCC, I'll agree, since the total benefit from most traits gets neutered in that setting. But OCC is both non-standard and a challenge format unto itself, so who cares?

XML edits can drop it into the game easily, if anyone actually wanted to put their foot in their mouth trying to show how much better this trait combo supposedly is (but even then only on 1 difficulty and probably only on faster speeds on said difficulty).

I am not comfortable editing those files yet. I play multiplayer games and need my install to match another and I am not interested in swapping files out or creating a 2nd install simply for this example, of which the answer seemed fairly obvious.

So, you haven't built pyramids and farmed gpp without phi/ind and won?

ok. This argument is completely off. In my example, Any empire can use a normal chariot rush and capture an AI city. One doesn't need a UU chariot to capture a city.
Yet, For building wonders; a non-stone/non-marble empire < IND empire < stone&marble empire < IND empire with stone&marble
and for generating GP non-PHI < PHI
Therefore, IND/PHI empire with stone&marble > everything else in those two catagories

So, if I have stone or marble and I hook it up, I will fail horrendously at getting the wonder?

Again, apples to apples, not apples to oranges. If, both the empires IND and non-IND have stone and marble, then the IND will complete it's wonder first, all other things being equal.

I hope you see what I did with these little statements. Move along now.

I hope, you will correctly compare apples to apples. Use examples of both traits having stone & marble, not just one. Let's keep the condescending tone to a minimum too please.

Please, STOP with the inane, theoretical examples that would allow literally any trait combo or 0 traits to also succeed in the same situation. At least TRY to make an actual case. I don't like winning arguments because the other side stops trying, but that's what's happening here.

ok stop and take a deep breathe. I think, your blood pressure is going up.
Without editing xml, I believe I am giving some brief but obvious examples of success. I will explain them, if needed. In my example of:

I can easily see an example of an IND/PHI leader on a continent with 1 AI starting with horse in his BFC and Stone and Marble somewhere on the continent, chariot rushing the AI, defeating him, then building wonders for the rest of the game to a Space or other victory. The AI doesn't do too many massive naval invasions, so the game is pretty much won at that point.

In this example, any empire with any leader can chariot rush the AI and capture it's city. Any empire can hook up it's marble and stone and build wonders. The IND leader will do the 1st at the same rate as any other empire, and the 2nd at a faster rate, all other things being equal.

Still 0 evidence. If you want to refute my points from earlier posts, you have to actually address them. Can you refute them, or do you intend to simply repeat arguments over and over without addressing them?

I won't be editing my files, so I will let the math do the work for me.
For building wonders; a non-stone/non-marble empire (or 0 bonus) < IND empire (or 50% bonus)< stone&marble (100% bonus) empire < IND empire with stone&marble (150% bonus)
and for generating GP non-PHI < PHI
Therefore, IND/PHI empire with stone&marble > everything else in those two catagories.
And we are not even mentioning the fact that some wonders require other resourses, such as Copper for the Colossus & Statue of Liberty and Ivory for the Statue of Zeus, which the non-stone&non-marble empire would have to find also and hook up to beat an IND empire, and still could not beat the IND empire when they both have them too, all things being equal.

Let's try this again:

The real question is "just how many turns faster (or slower) does IND/PHI put you in position to win on each speed/difficulty".

Show me numbers.

Can you possibly claim it will do that on monarch/anything? Deity/marathon? Immortal/epic? Multiplayer? Not really.

Note that with 100's and 100's of words posted, you still haven't and probably can't. Why can't you? Why can't you tell me how broken phi/ind is on monarch? Why can't you quantify how large an advantage it is in multiplayer? I ask for these things, and the burden of proof is on the "this is OP!!!!!!!" crowd to pony up and show us why it's OP. Instead, every proponent of that joke argument on this thread has shied away from giving numbers that compare the faster GPP to say, expansive saved or faster libraries with creative, or to literally anything else. The arguments don't even give demonstrations, instead simply hiding behind a list of what the two traits can potentially do when combined. You can do that junk with any trait combo and make it seem "op" by using that.

Try an actual argument.

I am not suggesting that IND/PHI is the best trait combo ever for all circumstances.
One can win via Immortal rushes, with Praetorians or War Chariots. William V Oranje, Liz and many others do well too. All I am suggesting is that an IND/PHI would be a top tier leader for the area where it is specialized in, which is building wonders and getting GP from those wonders.

Most of us understand the value of GPP. What we're looking for is not that, but numerical comparisons of the direct timing + benefit of PHI/IND combo against other trait combinations. Other traits get GPP too. PHI/IND can go to war or expand too. But, on average, which one gives the greatest benefit? What if you factor UU/UB and the PHI/IND has crap in those categories? All of this "OP" nonsense and not even an attempt, not the smallest effort to look at whether the combo's earlier GPP + ability to build some wonders compares abnormally favourably to a couple 100 extra early, the ability to rush + kill someone more often, or to someone like gandhi who can economize hammers via fast worker and carries one of the traits (or to liz, who can break a lot of maps with GLH, Colossus, drafted redcoats, or just a straight cottage approach still getting the fast GPP).

Well, feel free to prove me wrong. Let's see those record-shattering games with a modded PHI/IND leader of a weak civ like america, japan, or germany. Good luck.

So, the IND/PHI leader has to be on a worse footing like "america, japan, or germany" and not on the same starting point as Gandhi or Liz? It can't be IND/PHI of India or IND/PHI of England? apples to apples my friend, not apples to oranges. I'm pretty confident, all other things being equal, that IND/PHI of India will beat Gandhi of India on wonder building. IND/PHI of England vs Liz FIN/PHI of England would be an interesting test. liz can tech faster, the other can build the wonders faster. Both should do well. Again, I don't think anyone is saying that IND/PHI is the greatest trait combo and would trump all others in any circumstance. It certainly would not, like in my example of being surrounded by several aggressive AI types earlier. It would likely lose to multiple DOWs.