Trait Rankings

[Elliot_Ness]

I'm nowhere near to a Deity level but I think traits should be divided between those that work in all maps and those that are more or less powerful depending on the map.
For instance, FIN is the best of all because in every map commerce is key. SPI always work too as you'll always need to switch civics. While on the other hand, CRE might come in very handy if you need your borders to expand quickly but isolated is much less useful.

I find creative very useful in iso. Keeping barbs from spawning with fewer warriors saves hammers and commerce early. And it allows for better long term planning for city placement.

Plus cheaper libraries let's you get some early scientists.

 

[coanda]

The single biggest value of CRE's culture to me is definitely city placement, the ability to drop down cities that will catch second-ring tiles 5 turns later. Help with barb busting and culture battles against other civs are both nice, but secondary.

Although that "cities get their second ring early and free" bonus is also map-dependent/situational. It's just not particularly tied to any map script or anything. Some games being able to pop borders like that is huge, other games it's not a factor at all, depends on where the resource tiles happen to be placed.

 

[Orion Pax]

Big CRE fan myself for all those reasons - lots of quality of life. 100% on city placement.

Small add: not taking forever to pop the 3rd ring also impacts city placement, for securing resources that would otherwise only be obtainable via an awkward extra city.

 

[civac]

Since we strayed from original premise a bit CRE is a pretty strong MP war trait. On tight maps it will give you additional settling spots because people can't settle near you while you can settle close to others. On big maps that effect largely vanishes though. The cheap library is fairly strong as well.

 

[R82]

My fairly uninformed take as a guy who's played the game for years but seems to be permanently stuck at noob-level competence is that, if you switch from playing as one leader to playing as another leader, you almost always miss the one or two traits that your previous leader had and your current leader doesn't have. (OK, except perhaps if it's PRO.) So the best one or two traits are always the ones that your previous leader had which your current leader doesn't have .

Somewhat more seriously, I'm a bit surprised that so many people are down on AGG and ORG. Most of you probably know a lot more about this than I do, so I can't really argue with you, but isn't an additional start promotion for barracks-trained melee and gunpowder units pretty useful? Cheap barracks at a stage where they'd otherwise take forever to built and at least some of your cities absolutely must have barracks sound pretty good, too. As for ORG, you could argue that it loses less power later in the game than most other traits. Even FIN and PHI get less powerful over time, when a smaller share of your total income comes from worked tiles and new GPs take forever to emerge even if you're PHI. But ORG is arguably more powerful the more cities you have.

From a somewhat different angle, I'd say the traits I least want to see in my neighbors are AGG, CRE, and PRO. AGG and PRO because they make them more difficult to fight against, and CRE because it makes them more annoying during peacetime (and even, to some extent, during war). The weird thing about PRO is that, while most people, myself included, seem to agree that it's a weak trait for human players, it can be a very annoying trait in AIs. That is, it can make them a lot more annoying than they would be without it.

 

[coanda]

ORG is arguably more powerful the more cities you have.

That's exactly why a lot of players rate it poorly. The other way to phrase that is "ORG is weaker the fewer cities you have." Which means it's weaker early-game, and stronger late-game. But early-game advantages are the most crucial ones; you get those little edges in the opening turns and they snowball into a bigger empire that is hitting key technologies earlier and able to conquer enemies before they gear up to defend.

 

[Pedro78]

My list:

- PHI
- FIN (sometimes even stronger than PHI, but a clear #2 if we're talking about win%)
- CRE
- EXP, CHA, ORG, SPI
- IMP, IND
- AGG, PRO

A few things:
- I'm surprised people don't rate CRE higher, the extra culture is a huge boost early game: better city placement, earlier access to resources, fogbusting, better control over tiles in culture wars, all those ocean fish etc.
- I think ORG is hugely undervalued. On any start, it saves 1-2gpt once the second city is founded and 3-5 gpt once you have 3-4 cities. On low commerce starts this is a game changer since it allows you to both reach critical techs earlier and to expand a little without killing your economy.
- EXP is insanely strong on high-commerce starts since it gives you the production boost to get the cities growing sooner. Not quite as good on low-commerce starts although the production boost sometimes allows you to work worse tiles (i.e. pre-lighthouse coast) to get the required commerce.
- SPI gets a bonus point for the fun factor, even though it's probably objectively a bit weaker than EXP, CHA and ORG (cuz no early boosts except for the 1T saved on switching to slavery)
- In my experience, IND is rarely useful early on on Deity. In some rare cases it allows for some weird strategies like building TGW or the Oracle (without marble). It'll also save you some hammers on the Mids in the 1 game in 50 where you end up building them. But this is all very situational. In most games the best aspect of playing an IND leader is the cheap forges.

 

[sampsa]

No luv for the fail gold, Pedro?

 

[Fippy]

- SPI gets a bonus point for the fun factor, even though it's probably objectively a bit weaker than EXP, CHA and ORG (cuz no early boosts except for the 1T saved on switching to slavery)
- In my experience, IND is rarely useful early on on Deity. In some rare cases it allows for some weird strategies like building TGW or the Oracle (without marble). It'll also save you some hammers on the Mids in the 1 game in 50 where you end up building them. But this is all very situational. In most games the best aspect of playing an IND leader is the cheap forges.

Small beans but you can also switch out of slavery again with SPI and save 1gpt (sometimes more later) if there are no whip plans for at least 5t.

I am really not sure why IND often gets so little love when we talk about win % on the hardest maps.
Sure you need masonry, but chopping into Pyras and maybe building some TGW if it's going late can really fill up reserves. Not as good as having stone..but that's why they are hard maps.

 

[R82]

I think I remember a comment by someone that IND is most useful at Noble difficulty. At the lower levels, you don't need it, and at the higher ones, it won't do much good. Well, I'm playing at Noble at the moment, so...

 

[pigswill]

Trouble with wonder failgold at Noble is that it can take AIs ages to complete the wonder and for you to cash in the failgold. One of the things I occasionally read is that one gold now is better than 2 gold in a hundred turns and investing hammers in wonder failgold is clearly a delayed return on investment.

 

[Pedro78]

No luv for the fail gold, Pedro?

Lotsa luv but I rarely get to use it before T100 soo...

Small beans but you can also switch out of slavery again with SPI and save 1gpt (sometimes more later) if there are no whip plans for at least 5t.

Good point.

Sure you need masonry, but chopping into Pyras and maybe building some TGW if it's going late can really fill up reserves

I hadn't considered the situation where you're going for Construction & can justify going for Masonry early to get some failgold. Still, I don't think early Masonry happens often enough for IND to compete against more universally useful traits (on a random start).

 

[drewisfat]

I think you only going for the mids 2% of the time spells out the philosophical difference right there. When IND, it's the go-to choice for me when isolated or with early stone, and possibly neither if I had 0 happiness and I wasn't racing for a city spot. It's so rough to play capped at 4 happiness. Functionally you're either playing without cottages or without whipping. It's just so much better to turn a bunch of forests into 3 happiness + early beaker power than to tech myst, medit, priest, monarchy, build a dozen extra warriors and then just eat that upkeep forever.

With IND I can justify going for an early wonder a majority of the time, and if isolated, pretty much every time. The risk/reward changes dramatically with IND because you're more likely to win the wonder race and the cost of failure is much less.

 

[Pedro78]

I think you only going for the mids 2% of the time spells out the philosophical difference right there

Could be 3%. Referring to the maps where you have stone + enough production / commerce / land to build them without sacrificing every other aspect of the game (which is sometimes best, but is pretty darn rare). I'm a big fan of the Pyramids, but they usually come with a very high price tag unless you build them very late.

When IND, it's the go-to choice for me when isolated or with early stone, and possibly neither if I had 0 happiness and I wasn't racing for a city spot. It's so rough to play capped at 4 happiness. Functionally you're either playing without cottages or without whipping. It's just so much better to turn a bunch of forests into 3 happiness + early beaker power than to tech myst, medit, priest, monarchy, build a dozen extra warriors and then just eat that upkeep forever.

If you've got no stone and still have enough commerce & production to build the Mids before the AI does, then you're probably better off spending these 333 on settlers & workers. Mids don't beat developed cities when you've got really good land. A good example of such a situation is the following Mansa map https://forums.civfanatics.com/threads/deity-peaceful-space-fractal-standard-normal.682547/ (even with an IND leader, going for the Mids there would be suboptimal). I agree that the whole Monarchy + build warriors thingy is ugly, but it can be very effective in some cases and is often the only viable path.

 

[floydmcw]

From a somewhat different angle, I'd say the traits I least want to see in my neighbors are AGG, CRE, and PRO. AGG and PRO because they make them more difficult to fight against, and CRE because it makes them more annoying during peacetime (and even, to some extent, during war). The weird thing about PRO is that, while most people, myself included, seem to agree that it's a weak trait for human players, it can be a very annoying trait in AIs. That is, it can make them a lot more annoying than they would be without it.

Your neighbors are *dumb* and don't know how to leverage traits properly. Traits like AGG and PRO and CRE that require no thought will be stronger in AI hands.

And even then I disagree with your list. The traits I don't want my neighbors to have:
- IMP, very likely will result in me settling less land
- IND, fiercer competition for wonders

SPI is also good for the AI, when they get some random idiotic desire to switch civics it doesn't stall their development. And I don't know if SPI AIs are more likely to change religion, but if so, that's the single most damaging thing they can do to the player. "I don't have to worry about Justy, we're both Jewish and he has a huge shared religion bonus ... um ... where's that Star of David next to 'Byzantium' ... um ... oh dear."

 

[coanda]

I don't like it when I have IND other leaders who are distant. But I kind of like it when I have an IND neighbor .

 

[drewisfat]

Could be 3%. Referring to the maps where you have stone + enough production / commerce / land to build them without sacrificing every other aspect of the game (which is sometimes best, but is pretty darn rare). I'm a big fan of the Pyramids, but they usually come with a very high price tag unless you build them very late.


If you've got no stone and still have enough commerce & production to build the Mids before the AI does, then you're probably better off spending these 333 on settlers & workers. Mids don't beat developed cities when you've got really good land. A good example of such a situation is the following Mansa map https://forums.civfanatics.com/threads/deity-peaceful-space-fractal-standard-normal.682547/ (even with an IND leader, going for the Mids there would be suboptimal). I agree that the whole Monarchy + build warriors thingy is ugly, but it can be very effective in some cases and is often the only viable path.

That map has FIVE wines, so yeah it screams monarchy.

 

[Quoth the Raven]

A - FIN, CHA
B - IND, IMP, CRE
C - EXP, AGG, PHI
D - ORG, PRO, SPI

I do think Hannibal of Carthage is the best leader/civ combination.

 

[Izuul]

1.) EXP and SPI are the most consistently overrated traits

SPI is probably the most difficult to value because nothing that it does is easy to quantify. The ability to run Slavery and CS virtually at the same time is very difficult to value as is the amount of output saved from not having any turns of anarchy, the ability to use golden ages whenever you want rather than timed around civic swaps, the ability to temporarily boost relations with certain AI to make trades or start wars or garner votes, etc. I'm not sure where i would have SPI ranked, but it's certainly above at least a few other traits for me.

 

[pi-r8]

Somewhat more seriously, I'm a bit surprised that so many people are down on AGG and ORG. Most of you probably know a lot more about this than I do, so I can't really argue with you, but isn't an additional start promotion for barracks-trained melee and gunpowder units pretty useful? Cheap barracks at a stage where they'd otherwise take forever to built and at least some of your cities absolutely must have barracks sound pretty good, too.

I agree that in the right circumstances, AGG can be very powerful. Early in the game, 60 hammers for a barracks is kind of a lot, so saving 30 hammers there is a nice boost. It's basically enough to give you one extra axeman per city. And then those double-promoted axes can really dominate any non-AGG axe in open terrain. march over to their copper, pillage/take the city, and you're well on your way to winning an early war.

The problem is that it's so specific. It feels like a trait designed for just one strategy: the axe rush. And you can't always axe rush. You need at the minimum:
-copper (or *maybe* iron)
-a nearby neighbor
-that neighbor can't build too many units
-a little bit of luck with the combat dice rolls, or at least not too much bad luck
Without all that, the axe rush doesn't work, and then what does AGG give you? Later in the game a 30 hammer savings is not worth much, and I don't think a combat 1 promo on gunpowder units really helps much either (by that point it's more about tech advantage/numbers/collateral more than promos). And of course some units, like mounted, don't benefit from AGG at all...

Overall playing AGG feels like I have 50% chance of getting a good trait, and 50% chance of it being worthless. Plus, axe-rushing just isn't fun for me anymore. That's why I just can't rate it too highly. I guess it does give you a little help early on against barbs, but not as much as just... building an extra warrior with the help from an economic trait.

From a somewhat different angle, I'd say the traits I least want to see in my neighbors are AGG, CRE, and PRO. AGG and PRO because they make them more difficult to fight against, and CRE because it makes them more annoying during peacetime (and even, to some extent, during war). The weird thing about PRO is that, while most people, myself included, seem to agree that it's a weak trait for human players, it can be a very annoying trait in AIs. That is, it can make them a lot more annoying than they would be without it.

Totally agree with this. PRO is not designed for humans, it's for the AI. It perfectly synchronizes with their main strategy of "pile up longbows in every city, sit passively and do nothing while my insane AI bonuses carry the game for me." If you watch Sullla's AI survivor games, you can really see how much the AI gains from being able to defend their cities with PRO, instead of randomly losing them to barbs or a sudden surprise attack. It almost feels like it should be in a special category where it only benefits the AI.