Discussion of civ traits in 1 on 1 games

[anarres]

I think that the traits in 1 on 1 games have different strengths and weaknesses than in single player.

So, what are your favourites and why? How does this differ from single player?

[Aggie]

Trading is often no option at a certain point in the game. So you need money for faster research or tech stealing. Therefore 'commercial' -good for your income- is a very nice trait to have vs a human.

[anarres]

I wrote out what I thought about the traits and tried to put them in order of prefence for me. I have obviously not got a clear oder in my head, since I gave 3 traits joint second, and 2 joint fifth.

I guess for me the combination is more important, along with the UU.

If I had Scientific I would never choose Commercial (since you are getting cheap culture buildings twice). If I have a decent early UU then Ind/Mil is nice, to power away from early on in the game. There are many more caveats to add, but hey, lunchtime is over...

1) Industrious is still the best trait IMO, strengthened even more than in SP. If you are industrious you will have better early expansion and a much better time when RR comes around and you can fully terraform your land in half the time. The step up in power at Steam Power can be harnessed much quicker, with devastating results.

=2) Scientific is worth more to me than in SP. The extra tech if and when you get to Modern Age may well tip your hand in favour of the space race. In the industrial era you have even chances of Nationalism, Steam Power and Medicine. The first two can be game killers. The cheaper buildings are extremely useful since most of these games turn out to be late tech races, and provide your cheap culture improvement.

=2) Militaristic seems to be a strong trait in MP games. I always undervalued it in SP, and I can't work out why. Barracks are only 20 shields, and harbours 40. Cheap harbours can be a life saver before you chance to Republic and save up enough money to rush them. Cheap barracks I have found invaluable in games where I have been under very early attack (much more likely in 1 on 1 than SP). Quicker promotions is nice, but since the GL generation odds remain at 1/16 until Herioc Epic, it seems to less useful than it could be.

=2) Commercial is more useful if you intend to play a modern age game. The increased money and reduced corruption and increased OCN will really help in the industrial and modern age, but not before. Since most PBEM's appear to make it that far this could be a good 'sleeper'.

=5) Religous is worth less in 1 on 1's, or so it seems to me. I have not yet bothered to change to Democracy in a PBEM, although with Religous as a trait I would do so. Temples are usually not needed, except for the *very* occasional need for a cheap culture building, for which Scientific is better IMO. What do others think? Maybe I am being a little harsh.

=5) Expansionist is OK, even on standard (not large) pangeas. The bonus techs pay off and allow you to get a very good head start against your opponent. I don't rate this as highly as when I first played PBEM's with 1 turn a week (since then the 'action' factor was a big plus), but still, a good trait.

[DrAlimentado]

I would agree that industrious is far and away the strongest trait in mp (or sp).

As for the others I am pretty undecided, although I think expansionist should possibly be rated higher than joint 5th - espeically if played on a large pangea with raging barbs. Even on a continent if you get good luck (check Meli's luck in our game ) scouts can be a massive boost in the early game.

A lot of it relates to play style and map type. Militaristic is obviously most useful if your going to be warmongering from the start, whilst if each civ has an isolated start perhaps commercial would be more useful for uninterrupted empire building.

[Kemal]

I'd put religious in a little bit higher, with the threat of war being so much higher in MP games, the last thing you need is a 7 turn anarchy while your opponent bribes neighbours, or even starts an attack on his own. Furthermore, it seems to me the 1 turn government switch could come in very handy late in the game, to change to democracy (as I did in my game against PP) which helps out non-industrious civs, or to do some high-probability tech stealing by using the "veteran" spies granted by Communism. Save some cash, change your gov to communism, steal the techs, change back to whatever you were.
Could be a valid technique on deity PBEMs, where the price difference between stealing and researching yourself is extraordinary large.

As for expansionistic, the benefits it gives may not be crucial as it seems to be fairly easy for another human to get back from an early lag in techs or gold, however I feel its real benefit is what it doesn't give, early hut barbs, which can be devastating with some bad dice rolls and puts you behind in development compared to AI civs, which can be very dangerous in the early game.

Personally I'd rate commercial as weakest, the lesser corruption won't be that great in the early stages of the game, as you probably won't build the FP manually anyways. Even though I personally find the immense increase in GNP in the later stages of the game very useful in SP games, IMHO the impact will be less in multiplayer, as it will be difficult to gain a tech lead due to the lessened costs for reseacrhing known techs for other players, and rushing armies/improvements using gold in the later stages of the game won't be very influential to the outcome of the game.

[WildFire]

Is your name from the general Mustafa Kemal, Kemal?

[ProPain]

1) I'd rate industrious, scientific as best traits, they share no1 position.
3) Militaristic follows.
5) In SP I find commercial to be a totally useless trait, but in my game against Anarres I drew the French and the little extra gold is nice. It shares 4th with expansionist.Expansionist, I think it's a very good trait for the early game. I rate this higher in SP where I try to avoid long games
6) religious. Nearly useless because war weariness is not an issue in MP. Saw this in my game against Kemal and in a LAN game I played. The last one was hilarious, continious war for 1000+ years in republic, no sign of WW. So skip monarchy (that's my most important lesson from my game against Kemal)and go republic. Maybe democracy later if necessary. Cheap temples aren't that important, I'd rather have scientific with cheap libraries.

[Kemal]

@Wildfire: Yes, my username comes from the founder of the Republic of Turkey, I think it fits well on a civilization site.

Just to be complete, my own list of the traits, as reflecting my current opinions of their usefulness in PBEMs:

1. Industrious
2. Scientific
3. Expansionistic (heavily depends on map parameters though, on archipelago this is near to worthless)
4. Religious/Militaristic
6. Commercial (Though I have to add that getting Alphabet at the start does help a lot to keep up with the AI in techs at high levels).

[anarres]

1: Industrious (no question)
2: Scientific (you *really* want those tech and cheap sci buildings)
=3: Commercial (reduced corruption, extra money late game, and alphabet!)
=3: Militaristic (good for early fighting when 40 shields is a lot for barracks)
=5: Expansionistic (overrated still I think, early tech leads are easily lost)
=5: Religious (next to useless, very useless if also Scientific)

I have though a lot about this, and I can't see this changing too much for me anymore.

Kemal, you really need to consider the value of late game economics. Unless you are running tech at 100% and have a surplus, the gold is *very* useful late game in the tech race. The 25% increase to OCN is like a free courthous in every city, *and* of course you can build another courthouse...

[Kemal]

Maybe, but I've thought about it too, and from what I have experienced and seen so far, it seems the best thing to do in the late game (after espionage, that is) is not do any scientific research at all. With the immense gap between the costs of researching a late game tech on deity and stealing it from your opponent using a spy (for example, in my game against PP I researched Steam Power, which isn't really a late-game tech, at a cost of 6400 light bulbs, while PP could have stolen it for a mere 2300-2600 gold, at safest setting) it seems to me you don't need that extra cash for research since researching techs yourself isn't economical at all.

After all, you don't have to research techs to make progress in the game. I say let others do the research for you, instead of trying to do that yourself.