Which traits the civ SHOULD have ?

Originally posted by thestonesfan


Yes, but I don't know why people give them three. Two is plenty.

I think two is perfect -- since the whole idea is to make each Civ more unique. Three might be good for a scenario, but not for the Epic game.
 
I've already made a slight change -- I made the Incans Religious and Industrious instead of Agricultural and Industrious. Why?

Because although the Incas did astounding things with Agriculture (my original rationale for assigning that trait to them) the main effect of the Agriculture trait is to enhance population growth. The New World civs may have been densely populated within their urban areas, but they did not compare to the vast populations of the Old World. In an Epic game, New World culture population growth should be smaller relative to Old World culture population growth.

Plus the Incas were extremely religious, and their strong central government is better reflected by the gov't enhancing Religious trait than the population growth enhancing Agricultural trait.
 
Here's the chart I created to make the assignments. All trait combinations are represented. The three duplicates are assigned to Civs that exist(ed) in different geographic regions of the real world:

civtraits1.JPG


a, b and c designate the civs that share cultural traits.
 
Originally posted by thestonesfan
I like your list, mojo, except that Turkey is probably the least religious of the middle eastern civs, as far as I know. I made them Commercial and Expansionist. Cause you know, I bought an Ottoman once. :)

Thanks! I can see why you chose those traits --

I chose to make the Ottomans Militaristic and Religious because the Turks had their origin as the Middle Eastern annex of the Militaristic Mongolian empire, and contemporary Turkey is highly Militaristic. It's one aspect of their culture that has endured.

I would not tend to make them Expansionist because their Militaristic trait implies enough expansionistic tendencies to account for their once sprawling empire. And they were not colonizers so much as they were conquerers. In gameplay the Expansionist trait works better for colonizer Civs.

For their second trait, I could see the Turks as any of Commercial, Scientific or Religious. I chose to make them Religious because they have typically a strong central gov't and it has been relatively stable for most of their history. The game effect of a religious gov't is to minimize periods of Anarchy. That they have been consistantly Moslem, while some of the other Civs represented are basically secular or have gone through shifts in the dominant religion, clinches it for me.
 
ENGLAND sea / com
FRANCE ind / com
Russia exp / sci
GERMANY mil /sci
SCANDINAVIA sea / mil
SPAIN sea / rel
PORTUGAL sea / exp
CELTS rel / com
NETHERLANDS agr / sea

ROME mil /com
GREECE sci / com
EGYPT rel / ind
CARTHAGE sea / ind
BYZANT sea / sci

ZULU agr / exp
BABYLON sci / rel
PERSIA sci / ind
OTTOMAN ind / mil
ARABIA exp / rel
HITTI ind / exp
SUMERIA sci / agr

CHINA agr / ind
INDIA agr / rel
JAPAN mil / rel (sci)
MONGOLIA exp / mil
Korea agr /com

AMERICA ind / exp
IROQUOIS com /exp
AZTEC mil / agr
MAYA agr / sci
INCA exp / rel
 
Three more changes --

Noting that the Celtic combination of Industrious and Seafaring is weird for them, I thought about what that combination would imply -- and thought it could work better for the Dutch. After all, the Dutch are incredible engineers, and have a fine tradition of ship-building.

This left the Dutch combo of Commercial and Seafaring open, so I assigned it to the Portuguese. Their motivation to trade with the Indies and Asia is implied by this ability.

That leaves the Portuguese combo of Religious and Seafaring for the Celts. I justify the Religious aspect of it with Ireland's strong contemporary religious culture, and by assuming that the ancient Celts pagan faith was a dominant part of their culture as well. I like giving the Celts Seafaring to account for their historical migration across the English channel and Irish Sea from the Alps. And in modern times this could justify the Irish migrations all over the world.

It's a stretch, I know.
 
To continue the trend, here's my version of all civs with two traits:

Agricultural, Industrious - French
Agricultural, Commercial - Korean, Iroquois
Agricultural, Religious - Indian
Agricultural, Militaristic - Zulu
Agricultural, Expansionist - Incan
Agricultural, Seafaring - Celtic
Agricultural, Scientific - Sumerian
Industrious, Commercial - Roman
Industrious, Militaristic - German
Industrious, Expansionist - American
Industrious, Seafaring - Carthaginian
Industrious, Scientific - Chinese
Industrious, Religious - Egyptian
Commercial, Religious - Persia
Commercial, Militaristic - Ottoman
Commercial, Expansionist - English
Commercial, Seafaring - Dutch
Commercial, Scientific - Japanese
Religious, Militaristic - Aztec
Religious, Expansionist - Arabian
Religious, Seafaring - Spanish, Byzantine
Religious, Scientific - Babylonian, Mayan
Militaristic, Expansionist - Mongolian
Militaristic, Seafaring - Viking
Militaristic, Scientific - Hittites
Expansionist, Seafaring - Portuguese
Expansionist, Scientific - Russian
Seafaring, Scientific - Greek

Many of them are similar to the ones already seen in this thread, but they do say that great minds think alike. :D
 
Mmh, people, I thank you for sharing your opinions, but I need help on what THREE traits I need to give to the civilizations I selected, ad why :)

Two traits help only partially, and traits for civ outside my selection don't help ^^
(though, if you really consider a civ should be in and I left it out, then you can explain why, that can make me change my mind after all)

And yes, I think that three traits are much better than two :)
 
* Vikings should be SEA/MIL/COM, definetely. Ever heard of the huge Scandinavian Kingdom (=EXP)? Me neither.
Your other 'final choices' look fine to me.

* Celts: REL/AGR/SEA. Curragh! Irish monks most likely settled on Iceland before the Vikings. COM? Are you joking? How can a Civ without an alphabet be good in trading?
* Persia: IND definetely - they managed to build and maintain a very advanced road net. COM maybe (superior administration = low corruption). But not MIL. IMHO, any Civ that employed mainly mercennaries doesn't qualify here.
* Russia: EXP (=huge empire), AGR (=grow food under hostile conditions), SCI (Mendeljew, Tsiolkovski- the original, not me ;) , the Sputnik)
* Mali: COM. MIL - they had a powerful heavy cavalry. REL or SCI, both based on the mosque in Timbuktu - I'd prefer SCI, sicne the influence of the mosque school was more important than the religious influence.

Drop Korea. You don't have to pick Civs for market reasons.
 
Originally posted by Akka

(though, if you really consider a civ should be in and I left it out, then you can explain why, that can make me change my mind after all)

I'd say it depends on the type of game you're playing. If I want to set up a mod to play on a world map, I'm not going to put in the Americans because that doesn't make a whole lot of sense. But on a random map, I like them because I give them an Infantry UU, instead of the F-15, which is fun to play with.
 
would some care to explain to me the reasoning behind making Rome commercial?
 
Originally posted by Xen
would some care to explain to me the reasoning behind making Rome commercial?

I don't really get that either. They are a near perfect fit for Militaristic and Industrious - the only better civ for that might be Germany.
 
Yes, if given three traits, the roman should be militaristic, industrious and religious.
Commercial makes no sense, they had such a crappy numeric system :lol:
 
Originally posted by Masquerouge
Yes, if given three traits, the roman should be militaristic, industrious and religious.
Commercial makes no sense, they had such a crappy numeric system :lol:

They were not religious, either. Nor were government transition particularly smooth.

Italians could be religious, yes, but not the Romans. The Romans were much more inclined to worship themselves than any gods. ;)
 
Originally posted by thestonesfan
They were not religious, either. Nor were government transition particularly smooth.

Are you serious ? The romans were so religious they adopted the gods of the people they conquered, so they would not risk angering them !
One of the most important and powerful figure of Rome was the Pontifex Maximus, head of religion... They built soooo many temples... In every domus there was an altar to the house gods. Months, days were named after gods (March = Mars, January = Janus for instance). They did not wage a war without first consulting the augures, the signs of the gods...
Rome was much more religious than expansionnist, IMHO.
 
I'm guilty of making Romans commercial and believe me, I wanted to make them Ind&Mil, but I didn't come up with a good candidate to the Ind&Com combo. All the good ones would have created even bigger problems with the combo they'd leave open.

Romans did value wealth highly, so making them commercial isn't in my opinion false. It's simply questionable whether there would have been better traits. Also, there is the can of worms about whether Italy is a descendant of Rome or not. In my opinion the civ in the game is Romans, not Romans AND Venetian, Genovan... and its traits should be picked accordingly. However, if you do consider the merchant cities of North Italy to be part of the game's Roman civilization, the commercial fits just fine.

Also, militarism can be achieved in the editor by adjusting aggressiveness and Romans have 4 out of 5 in that category.
 
Originally posted by Doc Tsiolkovski
* Vikings should be SEA/MIL/COM, definetely. Ever heard of the huge Scandinavian Kingdom (=EXP)? Me neither.
Your other 'final choices' look fine to me.
Vikings were not united, but they DID expand like mad. They had kingdoms/fiefs in basically whole Europe, from Lithuania to south Italy, from the Volga to England and France. They were like Arabs, speading in many direction but creating several different subnations rather than expanding a unified empire.
Vikings fit much better expansionist than commercial :)
* Celts: REL/AGR/SEA. Curragh! Irish monks most likely settled on Iceland before the Vikings. COM? Are you joking? How can a Civ without an alphabet be good in trading?
I don't really know about the Celt, in fact :)
I used the traits I saw the most for them. To be true, I don't see them fitting any traits but religious and, perhaps, militaristic.
* Persia: IND definetely - they managed to build and maintain a very advanced road net. COM maybe (superior administration = low corruption). But not MIL. IMHO, any Civ that employed mainly mercennaries doesn't qualify here.
I have to refresh my memories about Persia, but it seems to me that they did not used mercenary, but huge "conscript" armies, and that their main power was based on their military.
But I don't know much on Persia, so well, I could be quite wrong ^^
* Russia: EXP (=huge empire), AGR (=grow food under hostile conditions), SCI (Mendeljew, Tsiolkovski- the original, not me ;) , the Sputnik)
Agricultural COULD fit them, but the main food production was in Ukraine, precisely because the condition were not hostile. I don't see anything particularly impressive here.

And scientific or industrious are a definitive "no". Russia in the game is more the tsarist Russia than USSR. And tsarist Russia was famous for being a backward place with no or very frail industrialisation. Hardly a good definition for a scientific or industrious civ :)
* Mali: COM. MIL - they had a powerful heavy cavalry. REL or SCI, both based on the mosque in Timbuktu - I'd prefer SCI, sicne the influence of the mosque school was more important than the religious influence.
Advise noted :)
Drop Korea. You don't have to pick Civs for market reasons.
Well, I never take a civ for marketting reason, but I just don't know a lot about Korea, so I was wondering if they were indeed a great civilization in Asia, or were just added for marketting, in fact.
Originally posted by thestonesfan
I'd say it depends on the type of game you're playing.
Epic games.
I wish to put the great civs that had famous/important achievement/influence/culture/history.

About Rome : there can be no discussion about them being militaristic (their military organisation was simply the best of the time, and was the very reason they became so powerful) and industrious (do I really need to remind all the awesome works and buildings they did, how they made roads that were still used one thousand years after the fall of Rome, and so on ?).
After thinking about it, it's also true that they were famous for their propension to expand (generals gaining fame by conquests, and nearly each and every emperor trying to conquer some land when things weren't good at home, just to become popular), and not particularly for their trade...
 
Well I think romans are the good ol' toga-guys speaking latin. And I think they should be religious.
But hey, after all, if it's a question of balance, and if they needed a civ to be commercial and militaristic, and if they had to pick the roman, that's fine by me... :)
 
Originally posted by Masquerouge


Are you serious ? The romans were so religious they adopted the gods of the people they conquered, so they would not risk angering them !
One of the most important and powerful figure of Rome was the Pontifex Maximus, head of religion... They built soooo many temples... In every domus there was an altar to the house gods. Months, days were named after gods (March = Mars, January = Janus for instance). They did not wage a war without first consulting the augures, the signs of the gods...
Rome was much more religious than expansionnist, IMHO.

Although Rome did have powerful religious figures, they weren't religious. Although the state religion was adopted from Greece, in reality, most common people did not worship these gods, but continued with a previous religion for fear of punishment if they stopped. It has been speculated that the reason Christianity spread so quickly throughout the Roman Empire was because it was filling a void that the old Polytheism never filled.

BTW, Rome didn't adopt other religions out of fear, they adopted them so the native peoples could adapt. This wasn't uncommon. The Assyrians allowed anyone to worship pretty much any god they chose (They considered Ashur to be the top god, so any other god was not a threat to them). The only religion Rome did not tollerate was the Monotheist Christian and Jewish religions. The reason was only because they wanted the emperor to be seen as a god, and Christianity had only one god (and it wasn't him).
 
Louis XXIV :

Edit : here's someone saying things much better than me (maybe english being his native language helps ;) ) :
"If anything, the Romans had a practical attitude to religion, as to most things, which perhaps explains why they themselves had difficulty in taking to the idea of a single, all-seeing, all-powerful god.
In so far as the Romans had a religion of their own, it was not based on any central belief, but on a mixture of fragmented rituals, taboos, superstitions, and traditions which they collected over the years from a number of sources.
To the Romans, religion was less a spiritual experience than a contractual relationship between mankind and the forces which were believed to control people's existence and well-being.
The result of such religious attitudes were two things: a state cult, the significant influence on political and military events of which outlasted the republic, and a private concern, in which the head of the family oversaw the domestic rituals and prayers in the same way as the representatives of the people performed the public ceremonials."

I advise you to check the following adress :)
http://www.roman-empire.net/religion/religion.html


So IMHO, Romans were more religious than commercial. However, as I stated before, if it's a question of balance, and if they needed a civ to be commercial and militaristic, and if they had to pick the roman, that's fine by me... :)
 
Back
Top Bottom