Best civ-trait combinations?

[monkspider]

While much has been said over how the Civ traits should be ranked according to their effectiveness, there is no denying that a greater synergy exists between some civ traits than others. So to this forum I ask, what trait combinations do you think are the strongest?

For starters, I'll try to share a couple that I have found highly effective.

Scientific-Religious- These two traits work wonderfully together, while Scientific on it's own may only be a second-tier trait, when it is combined with Religious it makes a Culture-creating machine that is unmatched.

Expansionist-Industrious - The Americans may have gotten a raw deal when it comes to their UU, but their civ traits form a very powerful synergy. Expansionist inevitably gives the civ that possesses it a head start of sorts and combining this head start with Indusrious' ability to quickly build a solid infastructure can make that head start even more potent. All in all, one of my favorite combinations.

[frostycreep]

I think for a warmonger milituristic and religious are a leathal combination. You can build cheap temples early on, inbetween building warriors and settlers. This combination is the only one to be shared by two civs in the game, the aztecs and japanese.

[Arrian]

militaristic works well with either religious or industrious. The latter combo (China) can be used to attack incredibly early with a couple of archers (not Sir Ralph's slightly later archer rush). The former is my favorite, because I love those cheap temples and easy government switches.

Expansionist can also be a valueable partner for militaristic (Zulu). Though I've never used them myself, Aeson can tell you all about the wonders of scouts and impis for resource denial and continental domination.

Rel/Industrious is the best builder combo. You can expand quickly, both in cities and culture. Industriousness retains its value better if you play as a builder. Warmongers will quickly take tons of slaves, which can render the industrious bonus irrelevent.

Rel/Sci is indeed the Mother of All Culture Bombs. The Babs are just cool.

-Arrian

[Lawrence of Arabia]

I have to agree with MonkSpider about Ind/Exp. Indusitrious means a better infrastrucutre and means more rsources conneected. Expansionist great on continenents (scouts and lotta huts to pop) and is good on archipelago (you can research map making immediatly.)

[Solver]

My two favorite combinations:

Scientific/Religious. This is why I am still to beat the score I achieved with Babylon, and of course, Babylon is what gives you the culture victory. As discussed in many threads already, Religious is an excellent trait for less disorders and the ability to switch governments nicely. Scientific, though, isn't that bad of a trait, either, but combined these are very powerful. All the culture at half price. With Babylon I usually found my culture beating that of the others by the Middle Ages, and I can also get those AI bordercities due to flips.

Industrious/Religious. Industrious is a great trait both for builders (faster terraforming) and warmongers (workers captured and from razed cities actually useful), and, as Vel suggests, is the trait of the game. This coupled with Religious makes for a very efficient empire, and also combines the two traits over whom people argue they are the best.

[Dimension]

I gotta agree with Arrian on all his points here. Most people would say that Religious & Industrious are the best traits, but no matter how you justify it, much of the reason is because once you've played a civ like Egypt, you REALLY miss those fast workers and fast temples. If you look at things objectively, Militaristic is obviously better for warmongers. Maybe they should change the description to "Militaristic Civilizations get several free Great Wonders per game."

So Egypt has a great synergy just from fast building/expansion, giving you a good early foundation, which is the primary concern for all but the hardest hardcore warmongers.

I played the hell out of SMAC/SMAX, but I haven't really played that many games of Civ3... When the game was released, I played a game of the Greeks on Warlord and a couple games of Egypt on Regent. I have a problem with always thinking in the back of my mind, "You know, I'd be doing a lot better if I had expanded just one turn quicker in the early game," so I replayed the first 40 turns over and over to get the feel of it. The problem is, I used Egypt, so now every game I start I feel like things are horribly slow if I'm not using Egypt.

The Zulus seem to have incredible synergy, though. When you're running around in the early game with 2-move scouts and 2-move Impis, you forget that your workers and temples are slow.

Obviously, playstyle is important. If your style has developed around a specific civ, you'll probably think those traits are the best and the other civs suck.

[FrustratedPoet]

To be honest any combination of Mil/Rel/Ind is going to be very powerful.

I agree with Dimension, if you play too much as Egypt it is very hard to quit. Everything else is just SO slow!

Mil + Rel is awesome! I love Japan - the cheap Temples give you culture and happiness early and the cheap Barracks give you a vital extra hit point per unit for your early rush attacks. Being able to change quickly into and out of a war-time government (Monarchy, Communism) and peace-time (Republic, Democracy) is excellent at letting you optimise your Civ's performance.

[phunny_pharmer]

Yes, Egypt is my personal two favorites! I like industrious in the regular game, but I find it a relatively 'slow' trait- after all, workers with only 1 movement are not incredibly great.

If you have played the DYP mod, though, trait-specific units are included. If you thought industrious was good in Civ3, then you will be astounded in DYP- 2 move workers that are already industrious...you get the idea.

When I returned to Civ3 after DYP, I REALLY missed that!

[Dimension]

Along the lines of what FrustratedPoet said, I think you can take every combination of Militaristic/Religious/Industrious and they'll give you the best civ for a specific level of aggressiveness. You have to leave room for Scientific in the more builder-oriented games, though, and Expansionist in very fast games.
I suppose you could make a scale of traits that work best for specific playstyles.

On a scale of 0-6 in terms of military aggressiveness:

Builder
0 - Industrious/Expansionist (America)
1 - Scientific/Industrious (Persia)
2 - Scientific/Religious (Babylon)
3 - Industrious/Religious (Egypt)
4 - Religious/Militaristic (Aztecs,Japan)
5 - Militaristic/Industrious (China)
6 - Militaristic/Expansionist (Zululand)
Warmonger

So, for example, Zululand is a really bad builder civ that counts on building almost nothing and getting free stuff from huts, then wiping everybody out with horse/Impi stacks and having the world mostly conquered before Knights show up. They're great for that, and awful for a slow game. The Iroquois work well for the same style, and everybody loves Religious and 3/1 horses, but with that style you'd much rather have the speed boost of settlers & techs from huts and quick barracks. Try to back off to more of a middle-ground playstyle and you'll find that Expansionist isn't very important thing, but the Iroquois still don't have as much synergy. Oddly, Expansionist does fit an all-out builder game, because you need to find the ideal city sites, build roads (hopefully to a couple luxuries), and get your basic infrastucture up fast before you worry about improving your cities with much more than granaries. Most people who consider themselves builders would never play a completely one-sided game like that, and then they'd find it fits their style better to build up a few cities with the Babylonians or Persians, then fight a little to expand, then build up a few more cities.

While Religious is always great, it's not the most useful thing for players focused on always building or always fighting, because they're not taking advantage of dynamic government. I've played a couple games with the Aztecs where I found myself fighting constantly, and I really made very little use of Religious because I stayed in Monarchy almost the entire game. I would've been much happier with China, because my hordes of captured workers would've built my railroads twice as fast, and I would've had a tiny bit more production from that extra shield.

Every game is a combination of expansion, building, and fighting, and there are certainly ideal traits for each of those aspects, such as Expansionist (expansion, duh), Scientific (building) and Militaristic (fighting). Religious (building/fighting) and Industrious (expansion/building) are the best overall traits because they help multiple essential aspects of the game, but if you have a radical playstyle (such as doing almost nothing but expanding and fighting), then there are better traits than either of them.

Of course, I could be completely wrong... I haven't even played this game very much

[The_Hawk]

I am surprised I haven't heard more talk about the Commercial Civ trait, especially among the warmongers!

Personally I love the Ind/Rel combo. All the cheap temples and industrial might usually gains you a big treasury as you trade non-military techs.

I'd love to try an Ind/Mil combo, like China, because I generally play without many GLs and I hear from others that its so much fun (rughing GWs and all).

But I cannot see a combination that can be as appealing as the Ind/Com combination. Heres why:

If you want a cultural victory, or a militaristic victory, you will almost always be managing a large nation with many cities. Even with building FP, as you start to conquer new cities, the corruption almost renders these cities useless for production. You pretty much have to buy them an infrastructure. When I played with Egypt, the cheap temples were cool during military campaigns, but the new cities were pretty much useless, even after building/buying a temple, cathedral, colleseum, and a police station. These cities just became science and banking centers, while my original base of cities were more worthwhile for production.

When I play France (Ind/Comm) Even these new cities ultimately become very productive. So, once I build/buy their infrastructure and get a courthouse, they pretty much can start to produce. I love to play a numbers game and production is key, especially when you're producing more units, more often. These newly conquered cities can then produce Cavalry units in 2 turns, or later, MA and MIs in 3-5 turns. That makes for much better military campaigns and defenses. Plus, the commercial trait makes for better treasury and therefore, I was able to crack the 100,000 treasury mark with France and France only.

So, Ind/Comm rocks and deserves more mention I think.

After that, I think you can make work any combination with the Industrious trait. The only other I think i'd ever try is the Babs, with their Sci/Rel combination. All that culture and cheap improvements is intriguing....

[Transcend]

I like any combo of the following three traits: Militaristic, Indusrious, and Religous.

Militaristic makes war-fighting far more easier. Wars will get you rooms for expansion,
free workers, great leaders, accesses to resources, and opportunities to screw up
your closest rivals easily. Especially at higher difficulty levels when the AI has so
many advantages, wars are the best way to get even or overtake AI Civs.

Industrious's faster workers can save so much time in long runs that I consider it a
better deal than cheap religious buildings. However, the production bonus in cities
are so insignificant that Religious makes for a better overall choice.

So in conclusion, Militaristic/Religious is my favorite trait, and Japanese my favorite
Civ since I absolutely hate Aztecs and love Samurais.

[Arrian]

Hawk,

Most of us here agree that Commercial is a weak trait. Very weak, in fact. Firaxis has indicated that it will be getting a boost, however, which should be interesting.

Commercial's corruption reduction is minimal, and the extra gold, while nice, isn't as valueable as the things the other traits give you.

As for useless cities... well, yeah, you're gonna have some of those. But you would be surprised, I think, to find that the same thing would happen if you're playing France (like I said, the corruption reduction of commercial doesn't do much).

-Arrian

[monkspider]

I have high hopes for the forthcoming improvement to Commercial, I am quite optimistic that it will put it on the same tier as Sci/Mil/Exp.