The Worst Trait

[EdmundYhee]

Persia is the eaisest for me .
Immortal + Creative+ Expansive.
I basically own my neigbour (atleast 1 ) before i found feulism or something.
So i really dont think theres any uesless traits.
Your game Your Call.
Subjective. and case by case basis. my Poison your meat. kinda

 

[yavoon]

I see creative still hasn't caught expansive for worst. not sure what difficulty level this is representative of but if ur at emperor try trading away ur health resources(ur guarenteed) for the computers excess happiness early. do that a few times and my guess is u wont be saying creative beats expansive no more.

 

[JrK]

Uhm, isn't the solution to that NOT trading off all your health resources?

 

[yavoon]

Uhm, isn't the solution to that NOT trading off all your health resources?

but then u wont get the happiness

 

[Andrei_V]

On Immortal I typically get plenty of happiness with HR long before any resources, but what I really lack at this point is health.

 

[AfterShafter]

Being a Louis man, I'm going to throw in my two cents for creative. Think Pyramids for a minute people (or Oracle, or temple of Artemis, or any of the other very good but "long haul" wonders in the early game). In order to get these *EXTREMLY* useful wonders, you need more than just the techs required to build them - you need a very solid spot and the right resources to increase the shields you're bringing in on them over the long haul.

Now, ask yourself - what is the best possible way to get these things early game? Have solid early game city growth to give you population to work those resources, a road system to connect your stone and all that jazz early, and culture borders. Getting these things fast is what makes the difference between obtaining these wonders or not. With a 600+ shielder like the pyramids, a guy who isn't industrious, has less stone, and fewer forests in borders is not going to beat you by getting the techs a bit sooner if you have these things.

Enter Louis. The guy gets roads, farming, and free culture right off the bat... And he's industrious. This combo makes him, in my opinion, the best early wonder grabber in the game. I can place cities, work them up, their culture expands on its own to grab vital resourcse, and I have optimal pyramid/oracle cities sooner than anyone else in the game - and even on emperor level, I get them all the time because of this.

Sure this is situational... Sure not everyone needs these wonders... But Louis being creative is a cornerstone to getting what are, in reality, huge boons for a long time to come.

As for the worst civic... I will have to think on it. Personally, I think they're all pretty damned useful

 

[dh_epic]

Someone should pop this poll again for warlords.

 

[DigitalBoy]

Being a Louis man, I'm going to throw in my two cents for creative. Think Pyramids for a minute people (or Oracle, or temple of Artemis, or any of the other very good but "long haul" wonders in the early game). In order to get these *EXTREMLY* useful wonders, you need more than just the techs required to build them - you need a very solid spot and the right resources to increase the shields you're bringing in on them over the long haul.

Now, ask yourself - what is the best possible way to get these things early game? Have solid early game city growth to give you population to work those resources, a road system to connect your stone and all that jazz early, and culture borders. Getting these things fast is what makes the difference between obtaining these wonders or not. With a 600+ shielder like the pyramids, a guy who isn't industrious, has less stone, and fewer forests in borders is not going to beat you by getting the techs a bit sooner if you have these things.

Enter Louis. The guy gets roads, farming, and free culture right off the bat... And he's industrious. This combo makes him, in my opinion, the best early wonder grabber in the game. I can place cities, work them up, their culture expands on its own to grab vital resourcse, and I have optimal pyramid/oracle cities sooner than anyone else in the game - and even on emperor level, I get them all the time because of this.

Absolutely 100% true. Creative + Industrious has some mad synergy for building early wonders.

 

[yavoon]

if organized surpasses creative I'm gna cry.

 

[toll_booth]

Bump.

I agree with the majority here, last place comes down to a contest between Creative and Expansive. Creative does have one genuine benefit, though: no need to build culture-making buildings in new or conquered cities not already making . Other than that, all you need are two temples OR a monastery to get the per-turn benefit of an *entire trait*. I think that if all the benefits of a trait are this easy to match or beat, then there are better options out there.

IMO, speaking from personal experience, Expansive is a noob trait, but a good noob trait. It was great for me while still learning how to balance everything, but once I learned some of the other traits, the benefits of this one don't even come close. Example: Hook up corn and wheat, and a granary will already give you +2 that Expansive would have, not to mention the additional +2 that just having those resources would contribute. So that's +4 total--double the per-turn benefit of an *entire trait*.

In short, once you have an even modest knowledge of the game, there are far better options than EXP or CRE. Take your pick among the other traits, but I think many of them can whip Expansive any day of the week as long as you know how to use them. Oh and FYI, for those who think that Organized is worthless, come play Monarch or higher. Once you start getting cities that run upwards of 15-20 /turn (or more) without the courthouse, Organized is gonna start looking awfully nice.

 

[oyzar]

Bump.

I agree with the majority here, last place comes down to a contest between Creative and Expansive. Creative does have one genuine benefit, though: no need to build culture-making buildings in new or conquered cities not already making . Other than that, all you need are two temples OR a monastery to get the per-turn benefit of an *entire trait*. I think that if all the benefits of a trait are this easy to match or beat, then there are better options out there.

IMO, speaking from personal experience, Expansive is a noob trait, but a good noob trait. It was great for me while still learning how to balance everything, but once I learned some of the other traits, the benefits of this one don't even come close. Example: Hook up corn and wheat, and a granary will already give you +2 that Expansive would have, not to mention the additional +2 that just having those resources would contribute. So that's +4 total--double the per-turn benefit of an *entire trait*.

In short, once you have an even modest knowledge of the game, there are far better options than EXP or CRE. Take your pick among the other traits, but I think many of them can whip Expansive any day of the week as long as you know how to use them. Oh and FYI, for those who think that Organized is worthless, come play Monarch or higher. Once you start getting cities that run upwards of 15-20 /turn (or more) without the courthouse, Organized is gonna start looking awfully nice.

Why are you reviewing a 3 year old thread? That said this thread is definatly ment for vanilla... It is interesting to see how opinions have changed since then... Of the mentioned traits for the gametypes i play industrious is the worst followed by organized and agressive...

 

[PieceOfMind]

lol That's some major thread necromancy right there, if I ever did say. Almost two and a half years.

It's nice to see a "Worst trait" thread where the response is not almost unanimously PRO!
In vanilla, EXP was weaker than it is now in Bts right?

 

[Levgre]

I would like to note that obelisks are quite poor at getting to your 2nd border pop. Creative does this with ease, either by waiting 50 turns with no buildings (versus even 100 with obelisk), or easily whip a library to get the 2nd border pop very fast.

 

[QuixotesGhost]

Yeah, I think EXP got boosted to +3 health and got the worker discount.

 

[Andvare]

lol That's some major thread necromancy right there, if I ever did say. Almost two and a half years.

It's nice to see a "Worst trait" thread where the response is not almost unanimously PRO!
In vanilla, EXP was weaker than it is now in Bts right?

Yes, IIRC, and financial was stronger.

You can't really use this discussion for much, since it doesn't apply to now or BTS.

 

[Joshua368]

Organized is third -- Ouch!

According to the original and very outdated section of the info center here, these were the initial benefits of the traits:

Aggressive
Free Combat I to Melee, Gunpowder; double production speed of Barracks, Drydock
(unchanged)

Creative
+2 culture per city; double production speed of Theatre, Colloseum
(no cheap library)

Expansive
+2 health per city; double production speed of Granary, Harbor
(no cheap worker... that's all? Doesn't seem so bad.)

Financial
+1 commerce on tiles with 2 commerce; double production speed of Bank
(yay, cheap banks would've been fun)

Industrious
+50% wonder production; double production speed of Forge
(unchanged)

Organized
-50% civic upkeep; double production speed of Courthouse, Lighthouse
(no cheap factory... still seems like a good trait!)

Philosophical
+100% Great People birthrate; double production speed of University
(unchanged)

Spiritual
No anarchy; double production speed of Temple
(unchanged, but back then no anarchy was bigger because there was no Cristo Redentor or anarchy-free golden ages to avoid it)

 

[nanomage]

imperialistic is not included in the poll, why?
not to say it's the worst, but still...
as for me - i do not know, honestly, they are all great, perhaps Pro is something i'm not good at leveraging.
EDIT: hehe, Pro didn't get included, too)
i guess it's about warlords?

 

[PieceOfMind]

imperialistic is not included in the poll, why?
not to say it's the worst, but still...
as for me - i do not know, honestly, they are all great, perhaps Pro is something i'm not good at leveraging.
EDIT: hehe, Pro didn't get included, too)
i guess it's about warlords?

FYI, this thread was necro'd - it's years old and was in fact for vanilla Civ4, if the posters above you are correct.

 

[nanomage]

dark arts of necromancy flourish )
however, i guess it's good Pro is not included, otherwise PieceOfMind would quickly prove us how wrong are we considering it the worst...

Spoiler :

no offense meant!

 

[PieceOfMind]

Spoiler :

no offense meant!

none taken! I'm flattered actually.

On another note, thanks Joshua for the nice summary of the old traits. I was wondering what they were but couldn't be bothered finding the detail myself.

But I had a feeling that EXP gave 3 at some stage of its life, though I may be getting this wrong from another poster.

The cheap libraries was IMO a pretty big boost for Creative. It just helps Creative leaders get even more culture out even earlier. With ancient buildings, getting the buildings sooner is a very big advantage because of the doubling of culture output after 1000 years.