The Worst Trait

[The 777 Hoax]

Organized. It can be useful, but not as useful as the other traits.

 

[Mad2rix]

Each trait has their own ups and down. Anyways:

Best = Financial
Worst = Spiritual/Expansive if played on smaller/easier maps/difficulties.

 

[TROOPERBLUE]

Are Granaries, Harbors not that useful at higher levels? Is that why Expansive is up there as one of the worst traits? After settler production, I think I find it best to start your city off with growth, ie - Granaries, Harbors? Personally, I believe that Granaries may be built in more abundance than any other building, for City Growth. Because of Hereditary Rule! I find Spirtual and Creative to be the least useful traits!! I voted for Spirtual as the worst trait because of that and Culture is more of an advantage than having "No Anarchy"

 

[acidsatyr]

spiritual is not about no anarchy, and no expansive is not bad because of fast granaries but because +3 health is peanuts in most cases

 

[pigswill]

Being asked to vote for worst trait I'd say expansive not because its useless but because its less useful than the alternatives.

 

[Impaler[WrG]]

I did some extensive Trait Moding and I would be interested in seeing what you guys think of them. The Mod can be found in my Sig and I will place a summary of the major changes here...


New Traits Mod v2.0 by Impaler
!!! REQUIRES CCP v1.0 !!!!

Adds 10 new traits and modifies existing Traits, adds 9 new Buildings and modifies existing buildings

The goal of this Mod is to make each Trait both stronger and more focused on a
particular aspect of the game. These traits will also hugly incresse the number of
unique combinations (306 vs 56), Mods that create new leaders and Civs need not
replicate existing combinations and can create leaders that more accuratly match
history. A new Promotion inspired by Zuuls clever implementation of an Attack Promotionhas has
been added. Extensive balance testing will likly be needed on the first (and second) version

NEW TRAITS

AMBITIOUS: +50% Wonder Production
MERCHANTIAL: +1 Commerce on plots with 2, double production speed AirPort and new building RailYard
SCIENTIFIC: +20% Science, double production speed Library, Observatory, Lab
PROLIFIC: +1 Food on plots with 4, double production Granary, Supermarket
DEFENSIVE: Free Defender I promotion most Units, Double production wall, castle, bunker, bombshelter
CHARISMATIC: +2 Happiness per City, doulbe production Colosseum, Monument, Fun Land
SEAFARING: Free Navigation I, Combat I, Sentry I promotions all Navel Units, doulbe production Harbor, Lighthouse, DryDock
+50% production speed all Navel Units (Caravel improved)
ENLIGHTENED: +3 Health per City, double production speed Aquaduct, Park, Hospital, Recycling Center
PROGRESSIVE: +1 FreeSpecialist in all Cities
DIPLOMATIC: +4 to Diplomatic Relations, Double Votes in U.N.

OLD TRAITS

PHILISOPHICAL: only indirect change to University see below
AGGRESIVE: Expanded promotion to all Unit types except Archer and Naval, double production speed on Barraks, new building AirForce Base, Stable
SPIRITUAL: Droped no Anarchy, double production speed Temple, Cathedral, Monastary, +50% prdocution speed on Missionaries
EXPANSIVE: +50% production speed Workers (includes Indian fastworker), Settlers and Recon units
CREATIVE: Droped +2 Culture per City, +20% Culture, double production Theater, Broadcast Tower, new Sympony Hall
ORGANIZED: No Anarchy (Anarchy length increesed), -50% Civic upkeep, double production Jail, Courthouse
FINANCIAL: +20% Gold, double production speed Market, Bank, Grocer
INDUSTRIOUS: +1 Production on plots with 3, double production speed, Forge, Factory, new building SteelMill

NEW BUILDINGS

BREWERY: borrowed from Mylon Mod, +1 Happyness, +1 Health, Cost 80, No Prerequisite
PARK: borrow form Mylon Mod, +2 Happyness, +2 Health, Cost 150, Prerequisite Ecology
FUN LAND: borrowed from Mylon Mod, +3 Happyness, +8 Culture, 1 Free Merchant, 1 Free Artist, Cost 225, Prerequisite Mass Media
MONUMENT: borrow from Mylon Mod, +1 Happyness, +4 Culture, Cost ??, Prerequisite Nationalism
SYMPHONY HALL: original Building, +2 Happyness, +25% Culture, Cost 120, Prerequisite Music
RAILYARD: original Building, +1 Trade Routes, +50% Trade Yield, +2 Merchants, -2 Health, Cost 175, Prerequisite Railroad
AIRFORCE BASE: original Building, 3 Airlifts, +4 Exp Air Units, +50% Production Speed Air Units, -2 Health, Cost 350, Prerequisite Flight
STABLE: original Building, +3 Exp Mounted Units, Cost 80, Prerequisite HorseBackRiding
STEELMILL: borrowed from Lost Wonders, +25% production, +25% Production with Power, -2 Health, Cost 250, Prerequisite Steel

OLD BUILDINGS

RECYCLING CENTER: Added -25% Production, Cost 300
COLESEUM: Droped Commerce Happyness, +3 Happyness, +4 Culture, Cost 150
THEATER: Droped Commerce Happyness, +1 Happyness, +3 Culture, +1 Happyness from Dye
BROADCAST TOWER: Droped Commerce Happyness, +50% Culture, +1 Happyness Musicals, Singles, Movies
LABRATORY: Droped -1 Health
UNIVERSITY: Droped Science Bonus, +25% Great People, +3 Culture, +1 Each Specialist slot
SUPERMARKET: borrowed from Lost Wonders, +25% Food, Cost 200
GROCER: Droped 1 Merchant, Cost 125
Other Buildings: Production Traits changed for many other buildings to link them to new Traits

NEW PROMOTION

Defender I: +15% Defence, No Prerequisite, Uses City GarrisionI Icon
Defender II: +15% Defence, Prerewuisite Defender I, Uses City GarrisionI Icon
Defender III: +20% Defence, Prerequsite Defender II, Uses City GarrisionI Icon

LEADER:

The games Original Leaders have had the new Traits randomly inserted just to show them off, Leader Traits
can easily be changed back to the original ones by removing the LeaderInfo file from the Mod. If your creating
new Leaders and want to use these New Traits just combine your LeaderInfo file with references to the
new traits along with any art files you have added. I will be looking for advice on reassigning traits for
all the original leaders based on historical data.

MISILANIOUS:

Caravel now carries any land unit

 

[godotnut]

I agree with those who say that creative and expansive are the worst. I would put it this way, myself: creative is the worst trait for builder games, and expansive is the worst trait for aggressive games.

Contrary to popular belief, the creative trait stinks when going for cultural victories. Culture games are about buildings and great artists. A single temple is better than the cultural trait.

 

[monkspider]

Creative is quite strong in my opinion. I am surprised to see it have so many votes. There are a lot of benefits to being creative. It certainly makes your early game easier not having to worry about having to rely on religion/obelisks/Stonehenge to generate your culture. The most powerful benefit of creative though is the flexibility it gives you in your city placement and allowing you to obtain the resources that your civ needs to thrive. With creative, you don't have to worry about placing a city in a dodgy spot just to obtain that copper or that ivory. These optimally placed cities with copious luxory/health resources can reap huge benefits over the course of the game, and the culture bonus can actually prove very key in pursuing the cultural victory in the late game, especially with all the modifiers that cathedrals and such buildings provide. All of these factors make creative one of the top four or five traits.

The worst trait in my opinion is industrious. Before Civ IV was released, when we first heard of the trait that gives a 50% wonder production bonus, we thought it was overpowered beyond belief. Of course, like the old saying goes, generals always try to refight the last war. In Civ III, this trait would have been broken, but in Civ IV it is actually fairly weak. Why? Because wonders themselves have been greatly weakened. The benefits they offer are modest, and typically not game-breaking. There are a couple that might offer advantages strong enough to turn the tide of a game (Pyramids, CS slingshot Oracle, Kremlin) and others that are very helpful (Great Library, Three Gorges Dam, etc), but the truth is that wonders just aren't as powerful as they were in past games. I have seen some players who consider this to be one of the most powerful traits. It is easy to be deceived since building wonders is just so gosh darn fun, but fun does not always equal to sheer power.

 

[futurehermit]

1pop pop rush obelisks and you will find creative to be weak (i've become convinced of this). you can do this when city grows to size 2. if you have 1 surplus food resource in your starting ring of 9 squares you can grow to size 2quickly and then again quickly after you pop rush the obelisk. if that's not fast enough to grab copper (if you need it really quickly) you might as well just build on top of it.

industrious weak? on higher skill levels it is harder to get wonders, for sure. but you have to examine industrious a little bit. for me industrious is a great cultural victory trait since wonders produce very good culture.

so take gandhi. spiritual + industrious + starts with mysticism (many religions, can start stonehenge asap) and mining (bronze after found hind and jud).

with gandhi, even on monarch-emperor, i regularly get stonehenge (even though i don't care whether i get it or not) and oracle and then consider pyramids too if i get stone and/or marble. with the fast worker you can chop more efficiently as well. with gandhi i don't consider industrious weak at all.

but, sure, if you're going aggressive industrious isn't great but that's cuz you wanna be warmongering not building.

as for wonders not being game-breaking, sure, any one individually isn't game-breaking, but the point of industrious is to get LOTS of them. and if you do get LOTS of them, THAT is game-breaking.

 

[gunkulator]

The biggest advantage of industrious is the half price forge, an otherwise expensive early game improvement. With forges up quickly you can get those +2 culture monasteries or +1 obelisks up and running for your culture. The benefit of industrious helps you to quickly gain the benefit of creative.

Industrious also gives you a good shot at the Oracle, which you can then use to get Metal Casting for forges. Like forges, Metal Casting is otherwise a pretty expensive undertaking for the early game.

 

[futurehermit]

if you're industrious, and not financial, then i would say courthouses are important, unless you're going cultural and not planning on building an empire through warmongering (another reason why industrious goes well with cultural). if you're industrious and financial (qin i believe?) then going forges makes sense. going forges also works for bismark due to his health bonus, but i worry about his economy without fin/org/courthouses.

 

[MamboJoel]

Phi or Exp come close. I voted Phi because GPP strategies are to avoid, it only gives about 40% more Leaders IIRC at the end of the game.
I can't put Creative in the list because I now think it's very usefull is MP games. Expension is so wild and games are often shorter.
I played a GREAT Multi players Terra game last night (5 players no quitters !!!) with 5 civs all very close in score, waging a lot of wars in the old continent. I had Cathy, and I can assure you beeing creative when it comes to rush colonization of the new continent is completly overpowered.
Funny : I only had one city in the main continent (I was stuck on a peninsula with a weak fat cross) while others had 5 or 6 cities. I could found 2 commerce cities on a small Island next to the continent and 5 cities in the new world (occupying 50% of it's land mass very quickly), I was by far last in score until the colonization began.

 

[monkspider]

The biggest advantage of industrious is the half price forge, an otherwise expensive early game improvement. With forges up quickly you can get those +2 culture monasteries or +1 obelisks up and running for your culture. The benefit of industrious helps you to quickly gain the benefit of creative.

Industrious also gives you a good shot at the Oracle, which you can then use to get Metal Casting for forges. Like forges, Metal Casting is otherwise a pretty expensive undertaking for the early game.

That's a good point. Cheap forges are the best part of the industrious trait. I don't think it's a bad trait. It's certainly a fun trait. But I would consider it to be weaker than the other traits.

 

[Andrei_V]

Creative is not bad at all. Early in the game instead of rushing Obelisks (for only 1 culture) I'd be rushing workers and settlers.

Later in the game, after Calendar, it is real good for absorbing recently captured cities. Without Creative, you'd rush a Theatre for border-expansion as the first thing. With Creative, you can rush a garrison unit or a Courthouse, then build a Theatre without rushing, since it's cheap.

 

[Kalleyao]

The worst trait to my game styyle and from my personal view is Financial. It's nearly always the least useful.

 

[karlhegna]

The worst trait to my game styyle and from my personal view is Financial. It's nearly always the least useful.

What?!?!?!?!?!?

 

[uberfish]

Voted for industrious, it's just too weak at immortal/deity level because the computer builds the ancient wonders too quickly.

 

[DigitalBoy]

I voted for Organized. Lighthouses are not high on my "to build" list when I found a coastal city, as the land squares are generally more productive. I only build Lighthouses when all the useful land tiles are already being worked, and then the Lighthouse only takes a few turns to construct anyway. Double Courthouse production is alright, I suppose, but I don't build them unless maintenance gets very high (double digits). Also, I have newly conquered cities crank out cultural buildings before Courthouses.

I don't think the Creative trait is all that bad, but that might be because I abhor whipping. I don't like stiffling my city growth.

 

[Zombie69]

Phi or Exp come close. I voted Phi because GPP strategies are to avoid, it only gives about 40% more Leaders IIRC at the end of the game.

About 40% more GPP, but only about 10 to 15% actual GP.

 

[Kalleyao]

What?!?!?!?!?!?

What do you mean <What?!?!?>?!?!?!?!?