Traits

[FoxTrot12]

What are your favorites? I like Agressive and Charismatic. Also, Creative and Financial are good alternates.
How about your least favorites? Spiritual is my immediate answer.

 

[King_21]

Uhh...Creative and Organized are my favorites

Charsimatic would have to be my third, and Financial my fourth.

 

[Lockesdonkey]

I actually like Spiritual, though it's not my favorite.

When I plan for a Cultural victory, I go for Industrious. Charismatic is nice; Protective means that I don't have to invest too much in my military to be solid.

 

[FoxTrot12]

Financial is pretty good.

 

[Mr. Civtastic]

I think financial and philo are the best, with spiritual and charismatic not far behind. My favorites, though, are Charismatic and Philo. Though in all honesty I really like all of them a lot. Protective is my least favorite by a considerable margin.

 

[Kushluk]

I like creative even though it's not the strongest. Financial is what the winner in me wants to play as.

 

[Antilogic]

No love for the new expansive? Come on--workers are vital to your growth, and saving dozens of turns building them is a great bonus. The traits seem a lot more competitive now...I can't single one out as being incredibly weak.

 

[Idiodyssey]

Why do people like charismatic so much? I tend to disregard that one. +1 happy is negligible, especially since my first civic is usually hereditary rule. Is it the -25% promotion point requirements?

Creative is cool, your borders pop without having to worry about building monuments/stonehenge/libraries. Too bad it's not much more useful besides that. Pairing that with imperialistic is great though.

 

[Thedrin]

It's easy to get +2 happiness per city early in the game with charismatic. Whip a single unit of population to build a monument. The monument will give you a happy face to cancel out the unhappiness due to whipping one population and in 5/10/15/30 turns you'll have +2 happiness per turn due to charismatic. However, the -25% promotion point requirement is the reason I enjoy the charismatic trait. I find it easy to get armies that are unusually powerful for their size.

But charismatic isn't among my favourite.

 

[SuperBeaverInc.]

I'm a big fan of Spiritual, as I like to change civics a fair bit. Outside of that, it really goes on a game to game basis. I like to mix it up.

 

[Tavenier]

What are your favorites? I like Agressive and Charismatic. Also, Creative and Financial are good alternates.
How about your least favorites? Spiritual is my immediate answer.

I like the spiritual trait, but I don't like the Civs that have it. I like to role play and build a colonial empire. So mostly I play Britain of France. I know I could play Spain, but I don't like their UU.

I like Charismatic the most, I think. Fast promotions are great. I also like Financial, because of the great economic/tech boost it creates. I do like Protective too. I dislike expansionist, because it is not so powerful. I hate philosofical. Never use it. I never base a strategy on GP's. It limits your game so much and gets you very pissed if you don't get that prophet, and stuff like that. So I see the GP's as a nice bonus to boost something, nothing more.

 

[TM Moot]

Industrious is my fav, and have recently started to play Inca so get Financial as well (which helps as I was always skint when I paired Industrious with Spiritual (Egypt)).

 

[kristopherb]

protective
charismatic

with redcoats there cool

 

[Antilogic]

Why do people like charismatic so much? I tend to disregard that one. +1 happy is negligible, especially since my first civic is usually hereditary rule. Is it the -25% promotion point requirements?

Creative is cool, your borders pop without having to worry about building monuments/stonehenge/libraries. Too bad it's not much more useful besides that. Pairing that with imperialistic is great though.

The happiness is icing on the cake (although +2 early on is nothing to laugh at). The real boost of charismatic is the experience points for promotions. To get a level 3 unit, you only need 4 XP. Level 4? 8 XP? Level 5? 13 XP, if I recall correctly. For a non-charismatic leader, you would be looking at numbers like 5 XP, 10 XP, 17 XP...a lot higher. That's a few less battles you have to live through to get the big promotions.

EDIT: @kristopherb: Somebody looks like a Churchill player...

 

[synthboy]

Creative is cool, your borders pop without having to worry about building monuments/stonehenge/libraries. Too bad it's not much more useful besides that.

I like the cheap libraries. It means you can run scientists earlier without having to switch to Caste System and getting them ealry means you don't have to wait as long for that +2 to become +4 ensuring your borders stay nice and safe.

As to my favourite trait? Hard to say. All have great bonuses, but you have to alter your strategy to take advantage of them. For instance, there's no point in having a philisophical leader if you refuse to run specialists. Similarly if you don't cottage spam then you won't reap the benefits of the financial trait.

 

[Antilogic]

I'd have to cast my vote for the Charismatic trait. Having a more skilled army is always a great benefit (especially when the AI outnumber you), and the extra happiness is a great secondary ability. Although other traits come close, I'm going with Charismatic as my favorite.

 

[kristopherb]

EDIT: @kristopherb: Somebody looks like a Churchill player...

oh yeah

 

[KMadCandy]

so far philosophical, creative, and spiritual, although i'm still learning how to best take advantage of the civic change advantages with that one.

as you can likely guess, i'm a builder much more than a warmonger. i bought civ4 the first day, and played it a lot, but then got hooked by the MMO bug and set it aside until a month ago or so. i'm learning it fresh, which is fun, and going for victories i never did before (cultural, about to try out my first ever OCC).

i got warlords only this weekend and am having a heck of a time!!! i can't figure out who to be! part of why my CFC addiction is filling in for my civ4 addiction hours and hours. the best way to learn about the traits is to use them and see which fit my style, and to try others to see how i like them and learn to use them, but i'm indecisive! and that whole 'crush 'em early' concept ... that is so hard for me, you have NO idea.

these boards are soooooooo helpful.

 

[fugazi]

I'm a sucker for organised, expansive and industrious. I'm one of those sad people who sometimes CS slingshots to Metal Casting instead of CoL odd fetish of mine.

Leaders? I play with lots and lately I've been trying out philosophical leaders, Alexander is really good with his phalanx, odeons and agg/phi traits.

 

[Tavenier]

I'm a sucker for organised, expansive and industrious. I'm one of those sad people who sometimes CS slingshots to Metal Casting instead of CoL odd fetish of mine.

Leaders? I play with lots and lately I've been trying out philosophical leaders, Alexander is really good with his phalanx, odeons and agg/phi traits.

I also take Metal Casting instead of CoL. You get there pretty fast, so it is available without leaving a lot of other techs unresearched. And early forges and Colossus can be a real advantage!