Traits or Starting Techs?

[dankok8]

Which are more important?

I was solidly on the side of traits but not so sure anymore after more experience on Immortal level where efficient early development becomes king.

For instance played an offline game with Qin Shi Huang and had a bunch of warlike neighbours (Khan, Toku, Shaka) each with a different religion so couldn't afford to build any early wonders making the Industrious trait moot. Then realized how much faster of a start China has compared to most other civs. Starting with Agri + Mining is very strong. Got BW 15 turns in and soon after improving food Worker started chopping right away and my development was super fast! Had four strong cities by 2000 BC plus 4 Workers to improve the tiles. I honestly feel like having Agri + Mining instead of say Fishing + Mysticism on an inland start can be as strong of an edge as having Financial + Industrious instead of Protective + Imperialistic.

 

[coanda]

The Industrious trait isn't necessarily about "building early wonders." That's the nice bonus when you happen to get a good map for it, but not the biggest benefit. The biggest benefit is failgold. Put a handful of turns into some wonder you never plan on finishing, collect 2 gold per hammer when an AI finishes that wonder shortly thereafter. Use that to expand faster, earlier without crashing your economy too hard. And you can absolutely get some value out of that even in games where you are surrounded by warlike neighbors.

I think having bad techs for a start hurts more than having bad traits. But traits are more reliable value. If you go into a game as Catherine, you know you'll have cheaper settlers and free border pops. And unless you're running a really weird map script, you know that combination will be useful. If you go into a game with Agriculture, maybe that will be useful. Or maybe you'll end up getting a start with no farmable resources in sight, and the only real value you get is saving the beaker cost of its research a few dozen turns down the line. That's even more pronounced with Fishing. Most games, starting with Fishing does nothing for you. But when you need Fishing at the start, you probably really need Fishing; having it can make things vastly easier.

 

[sampsa]

I would say traits are more important, but not by a huge amount. Yeah, not great to start inland with fishing or ever to start with myst, but also PRO is often close to useless. So I guess I'm saying I prefer myst starters to PRO leaders.

 

[dankok8]

The Industrious trait isn't necessarily about "building early wonders." That's the nice bonus when you happen to get a good map for it, but not the biggest benefit. The biggest benefit is failgold. Put a handful of turns into some wonder you never plan on finishing, collect 2 gold per hammer when an AI finishes that wonder shortly thereafter. Use that to expand faster, earlier without crashing your economy too hard. And you can absolutely get some value out of that even in games where you are surrounded by warlike neighbors.

I think having bad techs for a start hurts more than having bad traits. But traits are more reliable value. If you go into a game as Catherine, you know you'll have cheaper settlers and free border pops. And unless you're running a really weird map script, you know that combination will be useful. If you go into a game with Agriculture, maybe that will be useful. Or maybe you'll end up getting a start with no farmable resources in sight, and the only real value you get is saving the beaker cost of its research a few dozen turns down the line. That's even more pronounced with Fishing. Most games, starting with Fishing does nothing for you. But when you need Fishing at the start, you probably really need Fishing; having it can make things vastly easier.

I'm aware of the benefits of failgold. And that game was kind of an extreme example but I don't think I put a single turn into wonder building early on so I got nothing from Industrious. I think I agree about traits being more reliable in terms of value but bad techs hurting more. Then again, many traits are also very situational.

 

[Fippy]

Agri makes all the difference imo, mining isn't that expensive.
Starting techs are more important for early rushes (really early like Axes), while traits like PHI should easily be superior if we have nice land anyways.

 

[pi-r8]

Agri makes all the difference imo, mining isn't that expensive.
Starting techs are more important for early rushes (really early like Axes), while traits like PHI should easily be superior if we have nice land anyways.

I agree, agriculture is really the critical early tech. It's more expensive (tied with Wheel for most expensive), and you almost always need it first, either for farming or to go for Animal Husbandry.
The only exception is if you're on a fishing-only start

 

[Tobiyogi]

Afaik, only China starts with Agri/Mining. When you happen to have wheat, corn, etc, you can afford to go straight away for BW w/o neglecting growth. This can make your early game very fast. I love to know where copper is before I settle the 2nd city, and in case of China, you will know.
Your question in general.... I don't mind bad starting techs, if you can still work with the land. So some (strong) Isabella with mines or farms to build can still work. I think traits are far more important because they last big parts of the game (some of them all game long). IND/PRO is imo a strong combo for culture victories (with unstable neighbours).

 

[migalhone]

I'm in the traits>techs team as well. From my last game, NC 242 Charlie, which is kinda of the worst leaders, i managed to pull of 9 cities in the first 100 turns, in no small part due to IMP settler production bonus and chops. Even without chops, the trait helps you getting your empire setup quicker, regardless of map or food sources.

Same with Creative: not having to worry about monuments/libraries/specialists to pop borders and cheaper libraries? Yes please.

Financial? More commerce doing things you were going to do anyway if you were playing a non-financial leader? Nice.

Expansive? You can ignore potencial unealthy settling spots: floodplains, not being near fresh water, and chop away forests without a care in the world because you have bonus health and cheaper granaries from turn 0.

Yeah, traits are more influencial than starting techs. Ofc, Mining/Agriculture are very, very helpful starting on.

 

[lymond]

While certain traits like Philo are really powerful, I tend to lean on the side of good starting techs. A faster start is a faster start

 

[Tobiyogi]

The biggest benefit is failgold. Put a handful of turns into some wonder you never plan on finishing, collect 2 gold per hammer when an AI finishes that wonder shortly thereafter.

I have other calculations here. Everyone gets 2 failgold per if he was building a wonder with helper resource (stone, ivory, etc...) = +100%. Being IND means +50%, so you get basically 1,5 failgold per / respecitvely 2,5 failgold the special resource assumed. Maybe I am wrong?

And one question to the community. Let's assume we have already Currency, we are not IND and we don't have ivory (for example). Is it better to failgold into Zeus or to build straightaway wealth? Failgold comes only later and is not more, so maybe even a loss due to inflation and depreciation of money?

 

[Fippy]

Biggest benefit of IND is building early key wonders, not sure where failgold being more important comes from.

 

[migalhone]

And one question to the community. Let's assume we have already Currency, we are not IND and we don't have ivory (for example). Is it better to failgold into Zeus or to build straightaway wealth? Failgold comes only later and is not more, so maybe even a loss due to inflation and depreciation of money?

Building wealth is instant and doesn't depend on the AI. Failgold depends on the AI building the wonder, which can take some time. I guess it depends on whether you need the extra gold NOW to keep slider at 100%, or you're planning ahead?

 

[6K Man]

Biggest benefit of IND is building early key wonders, not sure where failgold being more important comes from.

I have other calculations here. Everyone gets 2 failgold per if he was building a wonder with helper resource (stone, ivory, etc...) = +100%. Being IND means +50%, so you get basically 1,5 failgold per / respecitvely 2,5 failgold the special resource assumed. Maybe I am wrong?

And one question to the community. Let's assume we have already Currency, we are not IND and we don't have ivory (for example). Is it better to failgold into Zeus or to build straightaway wealth? Failgold comes only later and is not more, so maybe even a loss due to inflation and depreciation of money?

Wonders without the resource and without IND are definitely worse than building Wealth. Time value of money.

One thing that has always confused me about failgold is the way it is a delayed benefit (you only get the when someone else finishes the wonder, or you finish the national wonder) that is valued highly, when so much other advice touts early benefits as being much more important than later ones? You obviously chop all the forests to get hammers long before Lumbermills, and you build Wealth instead of Courthouses, even if the latter may pay off better in the long run. Failgold seems to fly in the face of that principle.

If you have the resource, I can see how failgold can be huge, particularly on Immortal/Deity when wonders get built fast. But if you're IND and building something without the resource on, say, Monarch, do you really want to wait 50 turns for the payoff, for only 50% more gold?

 

[AcaMetis]

Depends on what you're going to need and get within those 50 turns. If you're aiming for an early(-ish) rush and are mainly building units, not worth it. If you're playing the long game and expect to build multiple libraries and an Academy in the near future, could be worth the wait.

 

[sampsa]

If you have the resource, I can see how failgold can be huge, particularly on Immortal/Deity when wonders get built fast. But if you're IND and building something without the resource on, say, Monarch, do you really want to wait 50 turns for the payoff, for only 50% more gold?

I think on monarch you need to failgold more of the wonders you are building yourself (Mids, Oracle).

 

[Tobiyogi]

Another perspective:
It is a bit like putting money on a savings books. If you have no bonus at all (no resource, no IND), you get the same money back after 200 years which you invested, so you could have taken the money straight away and spend it right now (building wealth). Being IND means you get the money with +50% bonus, which sounds nice, but getting +100% bonus from a resource is even nicer. So there is nothing wrong with failgolding even w/o resources, the question is, if it is really so very efficient.
I would agree that the strong part of IND trait is to get wonders earlier, and maybe even in a safer way, also 2-pop forges are nice.

 

[dankok8]

Getting key early wonders like the Pyramids and GLH is the biggest strength of Industrious IMO.

 

[drewisfat]

@Fippy I might disagree on an average game. Certainly if you build GLH because of it that's going to overcome failgold. But in general I'd say whether failgold or early wonders is more powerful (or important to you winning) depends on what kind of win/loss ratio the person has. Failgold is a get ahead stay ahead mechanic, because if you're too far behind then you can't failgold. Someone with a 30% win rate should find the most value in IND from failgold, because with a good start they can easily stay ahead of the curve enough to access failgold for a bunch of wonders, which keeps them ahead of the curve, and so they win. Someone with a 95% win rate, is going to win with an average or better start regardless. There the value comes from winning those difficult maps, where you're going to be behind and therefore not get a lot of failgold opportunities. A lot of those difficult maps though can be turned into easy wins with the appropriate wonder (coast/islands -> GLH; barb hell -> TGW; iso -> mids).

On the time value of money: yeah things snowball but you still have to do something with it. Hammers tend to snowball quicker than money. Once you've built X you benefit from X (for the most part, military units complicated). Money doesn't give you any snowball effect on its own. It's only when converting to beakers, and even then only when beakers have added up to a full technology. This delay means there's a chance for failgold to come in before you would have finished a tech without it, at which point you've lost absolutely nothing. There's also a chance that failgold takes a while, and the person who built wealth grabs Tech #1 a few turns faster than the failgolder. One way that "snowballs" is by enabling infrastructure or something to improve your economy. But this is going to be a relatively minor effect over such a short timescale compared to a +50% return. The real issue is if Tech #1 is good trade bait, and getting it a few turns later risks the AI acquiring the tech during that time. However, the failgolder will get their failgold eventually. There are more techs to consider. They'll be getting all subsequent techs earlier, meaning it's the wealth builder who is taking the extra risk on missing out on tradebait. And this is assuming they don't get failgold quickly! in which case the wealth builder is slower to even the first tech.

If failgold comes in before the first tech is completed, failgolder is ahead on all fronts. If failgold comes in after mattering for the first tech but before the 2nd tech (most likely), failgolder will be behind on the first tech, but ahead on tech 2, tech 3, tech 4, etc. If failgold is suuuuper late (worst case scenario) failgolder will be behind on both tech 1 and tech 2 before overtaking the wealthbuilder at tech 3+.
Failgolding is better long-term, but may be slightly worse as far as the immediate next tech is concerned. If failgold was a 10%-20% bonus, this might lead to interesting choices. But at +50% the only time I'd considering hedging my bets by building wealth is on teching Liberalism itself. And that would of course only be if you thought Liberalism was at risk. By monitoring the tech chart carefully, much of the time there's no risk in losing the techbait, or the flip side: you've already lost the techbait. Or you've got no one you could trade to! Or no one can trade you anything!
Wealth building is a certain loser over a long enough timespan. It would only make sense over failgold if you thought getting to the next tech first was both at risk, and going to determine all on its own whether you win or lose the game. Maybe you can concoct an example, but all I've got is Liberalism.

This sidesteps the real power of failgolding though, which is we can turn forests and whips into money. You can't do that by building wealth. You can also failgold before Currency, which is important because being able to get to currency before your economy stagnates is important.

 

[Lennier]

One thing that has always confused me about failgold is the way it is a delayed benefit (you only get the when someone else finishes the wonder, or you finish the national wonder) that is valued highly, when so much other advice touts early benefits as being much more important than later ones?

I think on monarch you need to failgold more of the wonders you are building yourself (Mids, Oracle).

Just to be clear, you get fail gold when you finish a world wonder as well as when the AI finishes a world wonder. (The city that completes the wonder doesn't generate any fail gold, but any other city with s into it will generate failed, as sampsa states.

 

[migalhone]

Just to be clear, you get fail gold when you finish a world wonder as well as when the AI finishes a world wonder. (The city that completes the wonder doesn't generate any fail gold, but any other city with s into it will generate failed, as sampsa states.

If i may ask, does this means its possible for the same Civ to be building the same world wonder on multiple cities at the same time?

Or i can only order the building of a specific world wonder at 1 city, and to order another city to build that same world wonder i have to cancel the build order on the previous city?