weakest triats

[Antilogic]

I really think this thread needs to be remade post the 2.08 patch.

Creative, for example, now gets cheap libraries. That is insanely useful, especially because libraries are good "culture-growing" buildings early in the game (I build them in my cities to expand borders before I get theatres).

Imperialistic isn't all that bad, overall. The extra GGs, not twice as many but more like 50% or so more because the points required for each GG increase, are nice to have on hand. Having two settled GG's in military production cities gives you an incredible advantage in training over your enemies, and having a Military Academy, settled GG, and Heroic Epic is awesome in the mid-game. However, you aren't going to have enough GG's to do this more than once unless you warmonger often or use the Imperialistic bonus.

 

[salty mud]

I don't have Warlords yet, so I think Spiritual and Aggressive are the worst trait. The anarchy benefit doesn't really excite me, and the combat promotion isn't to great either. Which is to say I hate Montezuma as a leader.

 

[Antilogic]

Hmm...

Really? Is this well-disguised sarcasm that I am detecting?

The Spiritual trait is simply awesome, especially for quick switches. You have to micromanage your empire like a crazed weasel, but it works great. Just set it on Organized Religion and Bureaucracy and build buildings, then switch all your cities to military unit production, and for 5 turns run Theology and Vassalage to get the best possible military units. Then switch back to your "building" civics. Or, switch to Slavery to whip in a couple cities, then switch back to Serfdom for the worker production boost 5 turns later. Just abuse the no anarchy ability, and there's no end to what you can do.

Aggressive's free 10% strength not attractive? I know it gets overrated at times, but it strikes me as a decent trait altogether.

 

[Mat777]

Yes spiritual is good. Not the best for sure, but I like it too. It's fun to swicht without any anarchy.

I voted for protective even if it made me win a good game once. But it's pretty useless most of the time, archer are not that good, you can't defend a civ with archer only. Maybe city are nearly untakeable with tons of archer in it, but you can't defend your tile so you starv.

 

[Roxlimn]

Personally, I think that it's not really the free Combat I promotion that makes Aggressive civs so darned strong in war. It's the promotions that come after that that they can get from their cheap Barracks.

Using Theocracy and Vassalage with Barracks, you can get a Combat II Formation Spearman or Knight right out of the gate. Or what about a Combat I, Cover, City Raider Swordsman? Dang. That's hardcore.

Anyways, I've just finished a Julius Ceasar game on Noble in Warlords. Imperialistic + Organized = lots of settlers, small new city upkeep. The pressure for early expansion is incredible!

It's the combo that counts. Now, Aggressive and Imperilaistic may sound good, but in practice, it's not. Yes, you get much better units. Yes, you kick ass. No, you can't really benefit from the cities you take. You can raze them to the ground, I suppose, but all that creates is a weaker tech trade partner, assuming he'll forgive you the war.

For the weakest trait, I would have to agree that Protective is the most situational. The Civ that benefits the most from it is probably Japanese, since it can use its powerful archers to defend the cities its powerful Swordsmen just took. And, of course, they both promote Musketmen and Riflemen, so Japanese in the Gunpowder age will usually have very formidable infantry.

 

[Withouthatred]

Some of you are really underestimating the strength of expansive.

it is in fact one of my favorite traits.

It allows you to have larger cities than other civs in combination with hereditary rule up until late in the game where there is so many things to help with health that it no longer helps.

 

[Antilogic]

My stance now is that the traits are remarkably well balanced, all things considered. Ironically, I'm in the planning stages of writing a little article after I get some BtS experience, whose working title is "The Obvious and the Underappreciated: Leader Traits".

I'm waiting for BtS to come out to create a new poll based on the latest changes. I think now that Creative, with half-priced libraries and the culture production, is a great trait to have (who doesn't build libraries in most of their cities early on for culture and science?), and the Expansive worker bonus completely changes the tone for that trait, given this thread was created when Expansive only had +3 health and half-price buildings.

@Roxlimn: It always seems that in a thread about traits, somebody makes the inevitable mistake about how the Organized trait works. Organized only reduces the upkeep due to your civics, allowing you to run high cost civics without the high upkeep. It does nothing to your city maintenance, whether from distance to palace or from number of cities. Therefore, your new city upkeep with an Organized leader is the same as the new city upkeep with any other leader.

 

[kristopherb]

My stance now is that the traits are remarkably well balanced, all things considered. Ironically, I'm in the planning stages of writing a little article after I get some BtS experience, whose working title is "The Obvious and the Underappreciated: Leader Traits".

I'm waiting for BtS to come out to create a new poll based on the latest changes. I think now that Creative, with half-priced libraries and the culture production, is a great trait to have (who doesn't build libraries in most of their cities early on for culture and science?), and the Expansive worker bonus completely changes the tone for that trait, given this thread was created when Expansive only had +3 health and half-price buildings.

@Roxlimn: It always seems that in a thread about traits, somebody makes the inevitable mistake about how the Organized trait works. Organized only reduces the upkeep due to your civics, allowing you to run high cost civics without the high upkeep. It does nothing to your city maintenance, whether from distance to palace or from number of cities. Therefore, your new city upkeep with an Organized leader is the same as the new city upkeep with any other leader.

But you get half priced courthouses.

 

[Mat777]

My stance now is that the traits are remarkably well balanced, all things considered.

Yes
We tend to forget the other minor things that come from a trait like the library for creative. building shelter +50% faster is a good advantage.

 

[Phoenician]

OK, my two cents:

IMO, Imperialistic is by far the most worthless trait. It's effects are weak and very short lived. Great Generals are cool, but they don't win wars-strategy win wars. Protective is another completely useless trait, those extra promotions will not save anyone's ass from an aggressive rival, maybe it will help a bit in the ancient age but that's about it.

I see some people think that spiritual is a bad trait. I highly disagree, it is by far one of the absolute best traits for a civ. Being spiritual means you can possibly found a religion and even most importantly switch religions and civics with no anarchy...Now that can seriously save your ass in a war emergency BIG time by switching to slavery and popping out a unit instantly or constantly switching from slavery and caste system instantly (As I like to do)
when your economy is falling behind and switching back when you got a couple flood plain cities being choked to death by unhealthiness. If you build the Pyramids it becomes even more valuable, switching to monarchy or representation when you are not building an army in an instant and switching to police state instantly when you want to build your army. No anarchy saves you a sh*t load of time. Spiritual is easier to win a cultural victory with than industrious any day. When I played as Saladin in vanilla, I always ended up founding 4 religions- Hinduism, Judaism, Christianity, and Islam. That is 4 religious wonders right there on top of the promised Divine right culture bomb and the wonders you have already grabbed, and the numerous diverse temples, monasteries, and cathedrals you build in your 3 cultural cities. With Saladin I would have had a cultural victory by the late Industrial age on Marathon mode.

Creative, if used effectively can be quite beneficial and is a strong trait.
That 2 culture accumulating from the very beginning of a cities birth is immensely powerful towards a cultural victory, do the math, not as powerful as spiritual in the long run, but still powerful. It is also a city saver - as in you don't have to build on a crappy spot in order to obtain a resource or to effectively control the terrain *quickly* in the early game and when you have conquered cities in the late game as well. And you can use the specialists in that conquered city to focus on commerce instead of culture.

The benefits of Charismatic are immensely powerful for the obvious reasons and make it the most powerful civ trait with Spiritual IMO. Financial is awesome but not as powerful as people portray it as.

I would rank aggressive low, but not nearly as low as imperialistic and protective.
Charismatic gives you what aggressive can give you in the short run plus a whole lot more.

 

[Roxlimn]

Antilogic:

I don't really know HOW it works. I just know that it does. I run Organized Religion with Slavery when I want to bulk up my cities with buildings. The Romans can create more cities before they have to stop because they're in danger of imploding. The half priced courthouses help a lot, too.

In fairness, I've also found the Ikhanda and the Sacrifical Alter to be fantastic replacements for a cheap courthouse.

 

[LunaticSlave]

Isn't there still a limit to civic switches for Spiritual civs? You can't, say switch to vassalage for 1 turn, and then switch out?

You have to wait 5 turns every time you switch civics even been Spi leader

 

[eoc]

Remember, Protective also boosts your gunpowder units. Gunpowder units with first strikes give you an advantage, and having all your gunpowder units being able to defend better in cities is great on the offense. Funny I said that, right? Not really--after you take a city from your enemy, you need to leave troops in the field to cover your artillery, and you also need to defend that new city against counterattacks. Having a free +20% can do much for you there.

the question is how long you can use gunpowder units? it so fast outdated when grenadiers or cavalries come out.

I vote for protective trait.

 

[Antilogic]

the question is how long you can use gunpowder units? it so fast outdated when grenadiers or cavalries come out.

I vote for protective trait.

Grenadiers are gunpowder units, so they get the bonus as well. So do riflemen, infantry, marines, and mechanized infantry, as well as all the new anti-tank infantry. Taking a Protective Civ's cities in the modern age is a pain.

 

[hgthechinese]

This poll result is funny....protective/imperialistic combo has been my fav. Apparently I'm in love w/the weak.

 

[Mupetti]

Erm.. Imperialistic seems to be quite underrated, it's actually very good trait, if played right. Just try a one game playing as Catherine, and you will very probably gather your top 1 highscore. Those highly promoted Cossacks just kicks ass, and they can do a respectable job even against infantry.

Also, especially when playing higher levels (monarch+), the imperialistic trait rocks even more. It gives you some chance to compete against AIs bonuses so that you can choose better places for your cities. 2-3 very strong cities will make rest of your game a lot easier.

 

[mudphud]

I voted for protective. I don't think it is a terrible trait - just finished a game as Mao and used some nice drill IV UU to take Egypt's lovely wonders for myself. The problem with protective is that I never build castle or walls so I don't care that they are half priced. It is also difficult to use much early on as in general I don't use many archery units so the promotions don't help too much until gunpowder. Part of this is probably a side effect of the AI's poor war wagging abilities. If I actually had to worry about defending my cities very often I would probably value protective.

I am surprised the number of people that bash on creative. Like everything it depends on the situation but on higher levels if you turn on ragging barbs it is nice to be able to get the fat cross border pop quickly so that you don't have to compromise your city placement to get copper or horses within the initial city radius. I also had a very close call a couple games ago with a creative leader placing a city near mine and I think building a quick library which left me struggling not to have it be flipped (lost control of most of the good tiles so building anything to make culture was hard even with the whip - had to place almost all my units there to stop revolt)!

 

[gettingfat]

I am surprised the number of people that bash on creative. Like everything it depends on the situation but on higher levels if you turn on ragging barbs it is nice to be able to get the fat cross border pop quickly so that you don't have to compromise your city placement to get copper or horses within the initial city radius. I also had a very close call a couple games ago with a creative leader placing a city near mine and I think building a quick library which left me struggling not to have it be flipped (lost control of most of the good tiles so building anything to make culture was hard even with the whip - had to place almost all my units there to stop revolt)!

I don't understand either. What's so bad about getting a free double-powered obelik that never expires + a library that can be had by whipping just 2 pop? If there is only 1 building that you want to be cheap to me that will be the library, as you want library to build in your research city early, which usually does not have lot of production to allow a library to be built quickly.

Creative also has a lot of synergy with other traits. In Augustus it allows higher chance of getting iron, then better recovery of the conquered city together with cheap courthouses (well, no longer in BtS). In Louis (cre/ind) means you claim your marbles/stones fast, which a lot of time in some odd locations, for further speeding up wonder building. In BtS you will see fin/creative (the Dutch), when the cottage money will be better translated into beakers by earlier libraries. Pericle, who has cre/phi is likely a SE frexk who can win a lot of cultural victories.

And creative is particularly good for lazy players like me. It's automatically in effect, no need to do too much micromanagement (e.g. spiritual) to fully take advantage of it.

 

[Zhahz]

I think the traits are generally well balanced. A lot of preference comes down to play style or even your goals or intended path for a particular game (for ex, I may predetermine that I'm going to be a builder in this game, or a war monger in this game, etc).

Personally I feel the least value out of philosophical (my vote).

Imperialistic seems rather lacking too.

I don't get much out of spiritual either, but I still think it's a strong trait. Anarchy is bad, m'kay? I don't micro that much or switch traits as much as one could, but I still hate the havoc of anarchy. I also see the strong potential for spiritual, even if I suck at getting the most out of it. I like this trait more for lengthier (epic) games where its effect is stronger.

I don't think the traits that are strongest early are all that bad - anything you gain via those early advantages can have impact that lasts the whole game. I also find the criticism of such traits to be interesting considering that a lot of better players (I'm not one of them) seem to go for early and often violent victories - so you'd think they'd not care that some traits are less useful later in the game.

 

[Roxlimn]

Actually, it's a royal pain to attack a Protective Civ's cities in pretty much any age. In the premodern ages, you get Archers, Crossows, or Longbows sitting on walls or castles. A real hassle. Attacking China or Arabia is not the most fun thing to do in the game.

It would probably be more desireable to players if their style was more defensive. The problem is that you don't really win more easily by having large walls. This is why I think Japan is the best Protective Civ. It can support its elite Swordsmen and Catas with cheap but tough Archers, then follow it up with holy hell when the gunpowder units arrive.