Age of Wonders 4 Tier List - Society Traits

[@ymirtheprimordial5453]

I would very much hold prolific swarmers as S tier. Unit upkeep is going to by far the largest use of your gold income, and this makes that go 20% further. Combined with the first trait, it might as well say 10% extra food AND 20% extra gold all game. That is insanely good.

[@Groblinmode]

Also because chaos is incredibly strong as a whole, the abilities and spellsbooks are amazing

[@noahmaas1670]

Just used it in a scenario; with only two fully developed cities I was already pumping out over 500 gold per turn while maintaining several full stacks. Easy mode

[@hugo3627]

it's actually better than 10% more food, because you need 10% less. Lets say you get 100 food per turn and you need 1000 to grow, that is 10 turns to grow. If you get 10% more food you will grow in 9.009 turns which gets rounded up to 10 turns because there is no such thing as 0.009 of a turn. If you need 10% less then you only need 900 food to grow, so that is a round 9 turns that you need to grow. This means that needing 10% less saves you 1 turn over getting 10% more in this example. Overal in these types of games discounts are usualy better than yield boosts.

[@ymirtheprimordial5453]

@@thetaomegatheta Yes, well I wasn't breaking it down specifically in the math, just as a general point. In fact, I think it is actually much more powerful than even that, because this should stack additively with other upkeep reduction effects, such as faithful, hero upkeep reductions, etc. Which makes it massively more than 1.25 gold. If you have for instance 30% reduction already, and this drops it to 50%, that is a much larger savings then from 100% to 80%.

[@thejackscraft3472]

the flip side is that gold and food are both super easy to get in large amounts. so even though the percentages are good, they're on bad things, so are meh at best.

[@robmarney]

Runesmiths is underrated. It's basically +15% mana, +5% knowledge, and +1 Rank to the unit types that need it the most (shield and polearm). You don't need to put your cities anywhere, you don't need to stop at Tier 1 units, and mana is a lot harder to come by than gold.

[@JorenMathews]

What does a "rank" mean in this game? Is it more effective HP?

[@flyingdutchman9053]

Depending on strategy its much more than 5%

[@chengarqordath]

@@flyingdutchman9053 Anyone running with the runesmiths is probably going to lean in on researching unit enchantment spells, considering the discounted research time and upkeep.

[@dmipgoz]

Absolutely agree, Runesmiths is great.

[@flyingdutchman9053]

@@chengarqordath yeah thats my point. Furthermore racial transformation is also reduced in cost.

[@SickLiq]

Played with fabled hunters last night. I thought it was SUPER strong early game. Getting food as a reward for clearing things and doubling that up was popping me like crazy.

[@JumboPixel]

I give it an honorary A tier here in the comments section

[@theslayer5978]

It is a strong trate on wider maps where you can farm infestations and landmarks + really good on low resources and high infestation landmarks but otherwise really not that usefull. Some of AoW 4 traits are just straight up better.

[@ozisponas1593]

Silver Tongued is easily S tier with lots of free cities map. The trade deals rise in amount of resources you receive depending on vassalage rank and city size 15 pop free city with full vasslage can easily provide 100 knowledge for 0 resources trade deal Or mana Or gold Or production Its incredibly strong in certain situations

[@wickeddrac7489]

That one blew my mind when he put it in D tier.....easily S with a free city map

[@thejackscraft3472]

it starts cutting out once the midgame hits and the AI starts vassalizing the ones close to it. and at the mid game 100 knowledge isn't huge, it's not small, but the other traits will have given you at least as much if not more. plus, having a lot of free cities means choosing to add them at game start, which then means your tailoring the game to make the trait better, and not evaluating it in a standard environment.

[@ozisponas1593]

@@thejackscraft3472 there is gonna be a lot of free cities regardless. late game with certain empire developments its better to also vassalize conquered cities to increase your imperium gain and have far larger tier 4-5 army you really don t need more then 4 cities for your resource income and imperium income is the main thing that starts to hurt late game due to late game units costing imperium upkeep On top of that the free trade deals are from game start getting extra 24 or 30 knowledge depending on cities at start of game is really powerful or any other resource you need you can even trade for magic materials until the city is vassalized Don t forget you can trade with pact of cooperation with any city even cities that other players have vassalized So if you pick certain traits that boost allegiance with all city states and you get pact of cooperation you can trade with everyone and make insane income Honestly the trait is straight up Its D tier if you are playing maps without city states Its S tier in any other map

[@thejackscraft3472]

@@ozisponas1593 so, you're only saving what, 100 gold max lategame? most of these traits give you that much, or more, early to mid game. the trades are useful, but since early game they're only costing you 20-40 gold total, it's really not that great. lets take wonder architects as an example, with that one you're getting 20 resources AND 5 imperium, plus a 20% boost to production (not even counting the early T2 or T3 units). an extra scout unit, whispering stone, and ~30 gold fall pretty far behind that, especially when that 20 resources has a 25% chance to be research.

[@ozisponas1593]

@@thejackscraft3472 You do realize that it scaled depending on how many vassals you have. In big maps you can have dozens of vassals giving you thousands of knowledge mana and gold income Along with hundred of imperium income when paired with empire developments that give imperium per vassal and tomes and etc its about stacking bonuses This social trait scales from game start any social trait that scales is going to be great You are making it sound like 100 gold per city state is bad late game and it can be more depending on free city size and your relationship with it This is the total economic dominance policy that allows you to spam endless stacks of T5 armies and crush everyone and everything all while personally having only 2-3 cities

[@baerchenkiller1012]

I dont think Runesmiths deserves C tier. I find Enchantments to be the key of most strategies and they get expensive! When u have 4+ Stacks with multiple enchants their upkeep starts to get very high. Artisan Weapons, Seeker missiles, Fire Blades/arrows would only be 2 tomes and allready 4 enchantments! Its not for every Strategy i give u that. Order-Tomes are not very Enchantment heavy but anything that utilizes enchantments gets decent to supreme value out of this. I think its defenitly B tier and Enchantments are not that uncommon that i personally would even rate it A.

[@teambellavsteamalice]

I think it's S tier! Did you know it reduces all (2,3,4,5) by 1 due to rounding? So -50% or -33% on the lowest tier ones! And it stacks with upkeep reduction too😊.

[@Haunterthe1st]

I feel like not factoring in the specific affinities of each bonus is a major oversight. +1 nature or chaos affinity from the beginning is way stronger then let’s say +1 materium or order affinity. I would also add then I think you massively undervalued Imperialist, Fabled Hunters, and prolific swarmers. Fabled hunters can give you a MASSIVE head start to the game (potentially saving you turns worth of all resources) if you focus on clearing early. Prolific swarmers -20% upkeep costs is actually insane, considering how high upkeep gets in the late game. Lastly, imperialist can also give you a massive head start if you are smart about city planning. +80-100 gold per turn can basically allow you to steamroll neighbors in the early game.

[@johnhobbes2268]

Imperialist has a very strong combo with the high culture and ruthless raiders. Every city starts with 20 food production and gold and plus 10% on everything.

[@zentonil]

I think another thing underestimated about Imperialists is that the +20 gold essentially covers the cost of a 1 turn building rush which cumulatively becomes quite a few free turns of production.

[@JumboPixel]

That’s right, there are a lot of strong combos here. I’ve stayed away from ranking combo potential

[@deatscart]

Yeah Imperialist is being really judged unfairly here, it allows for very quick expansion.

[@bartoszjanas999]

If you have 2 cities bordering a capitol that's 60 gold per turn. That's a lot without any other combos. Imperialists are a high B at least.

[@iamdopeasfcuk]

imperialists makes it easy to have all your cities in the max stability tier too which increases all your yields making cities grow fast af. it combos well with the materium tree that increases yields from cities that border each other as well. and you can get that early since it's like the 3rd branch

[@GreenSkinGentleman]

Finally, a tier list video. I'm less interested in the tiers themselves because I still keep picking meme choices, but the analysis that comes with them are super helpful on how to work around with those traits. Perfectionist Artisans do well with cultures with mount racial traits because their T3 units start mounted. While it's not a massive game changer, like let's say a unicorn-mounted Awakener that can awaken two units at a time and stay safe with teleportation, can turn the tide or even help you beat early enemy armies in manual combat. Bannerlords+Wondrous Architects is also pretty fun and lets you ignore draft and just rely on gold for troops. Really good if you need quick recruits to defend yourself, like magic victories.

[@noneofyourbusiness3288]

A lot of these very much depend on the world map. I think the extra whispering stone from Chosen Uniters is very strong on a map with many free cities, but becomes significantly worse on a map with no or very few free cities. Also a thing to consider is what type of affinity the traits give you, since they are most certainly not created equal (I value Nature affinity very highly and most people seem to agree that Chaos affinity is the strongest in the game). ps: Prolific Swarmers feels like it is THE strongest perk out there. 20% Upkeep reduction by itself would already be crazy good. 10% less food per pop and +1 rank for tier 1 units is just the cherry on top. It even gives chaos affinity, the best affinity in the game. Absolutely busted, in terms of min-maxing I would take this every single time.

[@lmaokai392]

I just played a game with a lot of the free cities bonuses and even with the whispering stone debuffs but chosen uniters was amazing... that's why I don't like the tier list they are tiered at face value

[@uncledrake6606]

I wouldn't call chaos the strongest in the game. It's strongest vs AI but against players you will have problems, as chaos works mostly with insanity and morale busting, which players will easily tech against. Damage wise it falls behind mystic in a big way, and it doesn't have much more going for it except burn maybe.

[@arcanumelite4853]

@@uncledrake6606 chaos is the strongest because of the affinity bonuses... not the tomes... gaining free soldiers after every battle and getting gold boosts after every battle... and unit upkeep cost reductions are the most powerful things in the game no matter what your strategy is.

[@chengarqordath]

Same for terrain traits like Experienced Seafarers. I definitely wouldn't want it on most maps, but if you're on an ocean-heavy island map where half your city tiles are going to be fisheries, it's pretty nice.

[@lattekahvi1298]

@@chengarqordath especially when you consider that the draft will turn into food while not building units, and that draft is not that easy to get from provinces

[@WardOfSouls]

One thing not mentioned in the video regarding Chosen Destroyers: choosing this culture trait locks you into a domination victory only, as you need to have three cities under your control to achieve either the magic victory or the expansion victory. It's still quite powerful at what it does, but the fact that all other victory conditions are simply not options makes it even more of a narrow focus than Pixel pointed out.

[@shadowmage661]

Is it even that good? Like any crappy city should have more effect than that trait. You go from being able to make 3 cities by default and another pretty easily for 100 imperium to increase the cap to a single city. I mean it is probably great on a super packed close map, but terrible if not super agro.

[@WardOfSouls]

@@shadowmage661 Spiffing Brit put out a video on how to exploit the trait. Basically, once you raze a city the space is freed up to be settled once again. So you can easily exploit the AI to rinse and repeat razing cities, stacking the bonus every time, until you build enough resource base in your single city to support capitol crushing armies.

[@thejackscraft3472]

@@WardOfSouls yes, but even doing that he didn't get particularly crazy numbers until around turn 170, well after most games would have ended through some other victory condition, such as the 150 turn timer. it does work, but WAY too slowly to be significant compared to being able to build cities.

[@hoangdinhvan5646]

@@thejackscraft3472 yes i agree, its way to slow. i mean the exploit is obvious and the only thing which would temp me would be easy access to knowledge and mana if you can raze a city very early. else something like seafarer snowballing your economy to straight up spam tier 3 armies would be way more usfull and way faster to achieve (basicaly once you get the seafarer guild, no one will keep up with your economy anymore)

[@thejackscraft3472]

@@hoangdinhvan5646 seafarer isn't even close to the best economy. when you have all the ocean bonuses you get tiles that are on par with other guild buffed tiles, but are way too spread out to really make the city powerful. if you're looking for army, go with the gold guild, and if you're looking for food go for the farmers, but the seafarers take too much investment to match up.

[@michaelbose5685]

Perfectionist artisans is godly with 3 things in combination: 1. shadow walkers 2. the first maeterium empire upgrade on the empire tree (outposts require -50% gold and start with a structure already built) 3. Barbarian culture Why? Perfectionist artisans adds +5 gold for each structure. Now, with shadow walkers and materium, your outposts automatically build 2 structures. This means your outposts MAKE YOU 7 GOLD PER TURN instead of draining 10 gold. Don't forget, outposts can annex tiles like ancient wonders or magic materials, allowing you to snowball quickly. Build mines, research posts, and conduits by annexing a tile for free benefits. But why barbarian? Well, barbarian is the only culture in the game that allows your scouts to build outposts. This allows you to spam scouts (scouts are disgusting with spider mount racial trait, btw, web is broken) putting up outposts every single turn and snowballing for thousands of gold income insanely fast. Additonally, the barbarian trait allows your outposts to refresh army movement, allowing you to zip around the map faster than anyone. Perfectionist artisans is S tier with the right combo, easily the best feature in the game. No other trait allows you to ramp up gold and expansion so quickly. Don't overlook it because of the 100% production increase. You can spam buy structures with this build anyways.

[@johnhobbes2268]

If you expand Ancient wonder focused you can get easily 4 wonders often up to 6. You can annex tiles up to 7 provinces from your city if you pick up the nature improvement. Further more it doesn't increase the number of pops, so you get the yield for free. This is huge since it takes far more food to grow bigger cities. It is S tear in my opinion.

[@WRanger87]

It’s absolutely S-tier. Getting the rally units let’s you snowball into more ancient wonders.

[@deatscart]

Agreed it's a very easy S tier, just a poor take from Jumbo here.

[@Pilvenuga]

it has an RNG to it, since you cant know what wonder you get. some are ridiculously good for early game (like the 30hp per turn healing fountain, which also increases food income from farms) while others scale well at the mid/late stages. at its basic it just guarantees an extra +5 imperium income from it.

[@thejackscraft3472]

@@Pilvenuga it does have a little RNG, but all four of the bronze wonders are super useful, the food one (which is the healing one) is amazing, there's one that gives research which is also crazy good, and both of the other two give mana, one is pure mana and the other adds mana to quarries, both of which are great. so while it does have RNG, it's RNG between two great options and two amazing ones.

[@unfairlive2]

Also good to note, this makes outposts (Which are already super strong) even better, it is fairly common to see an ancient wonder and a handy resource node sit in a configuration where you can now pick it up with the work camp.

[@Duckman1616]

I feel like this video would have been far better as a "My favourite traits" over the tier list setup, as he seems to have a few favourite ones and has either not tried the others or just assumes they're all worse than his favourite ones.

[@Mebsuta]

Sure... And with all due respect, have you played with all of them? And are you able to rank them on their efficiency better than someone with early access who collaborated with the developers to make guides? What would you have made differently, exactly?

[@Duckman1616]

@@Mebsuta First, you don't have to be able to do something better than someone to criticise them. And second, any trait that gives you an early advantage is extremely strong for an aggressive player, which he doesn't seem to be. So Imperialists, Prolific Swarmers and Adept Settlers are all S tier for anyone who who plays aggressively and focuses on either domination or expansion victories.

[@Can_O_Crayola]

@@Mebsuta Just because he worked with the developers and got some early access in, doesn't make him the default, end-all authority on the game. Nobody knows *everything* about a strategy game. If they were that smart, they wouldn't be playing a strategy video game, they'd be ruling the world. The dude can be wrong based on personal preferences and bias.

[@MattM284]

100%

[@JB-xl2jc]

Can't wait to watch this, I've typed in "AOW4 tier lists" several times since release and rushed through all that content, love me a good tier list on a fun new game. Thanks!!

[@flyingdutchman9053]

I think you are sleeping on the hunter (100%increase) one. It doesnt say in the tooltip but it also increases the level of items you get. (So I get a lot more tier 3/4 items) Also the early boost usually translates in taking of massively early game. (If u calculate it it yields a lot more than for example swarmers do) Therefore its a/s in my book.

[@willemverheij3412]

Combined with swarmers it's very powerful.

[@flyingdutchman9053]

@@willemverheij3412 True, tho personally I like to buff my units and enchant them so I go for runesmiths quite often especially since it also decreases research cost for racial transformations.

[@lucasterrasemnomezuado3785]

@@flyingdutchman9053 swarmers+runesmiths+spawnkin so your trash tier 1 units do well in late game

[@flyingdutchman9053]

@@lucasterrasemnomezuado3785 Yes thats my gameplan, except I transition into tier 3 nature affinity archers together with the defenders asap. Tier one is a nice stepping stone but not more. Buffed up those T3 can kill t4 and t5 dungeons quite easily and I get enough of them into the army around turn 30.

[@zentonil]

How did you come across the trait giving higher tier items?

[@daral9217]

I think you are under valuing the Rally time cut, you can pay money but that starts at far more than 1000 at a full fifteen turns. Considering that count doesn't start until you have a vassal the starting bonus is actually really good for getting you the mechanic change into play early. The time cut only has one similar pick deep in the order tree so it is a pretty powerful effect.

[@shadowmage661]

I think we have been playing 2 completely different games when he gets to runesmith. Mana addicts - I almost never cast spells in battle, only on hard ones, but all my units are encjanted to the point where My mana pwr turn is always in tje double digits and I still have other enchantments to add. They make every attack hit harder or crit more often, give frenzy or luck. Also very easy for the auto battler to use so your army can resolve and save you time.

[@shadowmage661]

Silver tongue is bad, but not as bad as one might think. Sure the trades are minor individually, but you can spawn vassals that act as free cities and also get immediate free trade from them. Had some trades be higher into like 40 of an output for 20 mana or something so you could get some milage out of it, but even so not worth a slot in comparison to any of the good traits. Around 50-80 random resources a turn is not worth a trait, and requires 5 or so free cities/vassals What we really need os a trait buy system, keep the really good traits at 3 points with 6 points max then something like this could be 1 point. Cool and thematic, but not good enough on its own.

[@shawnwhite4908]

Shadow walker defender here. I agree for general empires it is rather lame. However, if your race has spider mounts the calculus changes and I’d argue for A tier. Spider mounts are crazy strong due to the web ability; this makes scouts one of the strongest tier 1 units; starting with an extra will let you snowball quick. You can bring a mounted hero and 5 scouts and you can take down wonders very early. Also the free tech removes it from the pool; letting you get a more relevant tier 1 research. It also provides shadow affinity which is good for a militarist campaign and a nice add to a barbarian faction.

[@DrTekTo]

You could also add Mystics and their Mystic Projections as a great Scout to use Shadow Walker on, since they can use Floating to get around very quickly and out of reach if necessary (while leaving the Body trait free for another choice)

[@stronggye4]

Adept settlers and wonder architects are easily S tier. City cap is king in this game and with the reduced imperium cost you can easily get 4 cities within the first ten turns of the game. Wonder architects starts you off with a cleared wonder allowing you to use rally of the lieges for powerful units right at the beginning of the game and starts you off with that extra production and imperium and a free population its so strong.

[@Sharkfinish]

Yeah agreed, I think a lot of these are 'meh' if you're looking at them from a flat value but the *momentum* some of these give is insane, and early power translates into faster late game power very quickly in a 4x game. Wonder Architects, Talented Collectors, Imperialists, and Adept Settlers all give a pretty immense starting bonus that very quickly can spiral you into a powerful build in any situation. With Wonder Architects and Talented Collectors, we must also not forget the tile bonus itself, and all of the tile bonuses for those wonders/luxuries are pretty powerful.

[@Artosk]

@@Sharkfinish One thing i really struggle with in the game is expansion, i always find myself holding it too long, or else putting cities too close together and getting stuck. Not to mention that vassals are pretty good in the game, especially since you dont need to deal with having multiple races

[@mercb3ast]

Any combination of 2 Chaos or 2 Nature is also S-tier. The value of plowing up the Chaos or Nature affinity trees is so far beyond anything you can get from any one of these individual perks.

[@JumboPixel]

Many people have queries about those two. I’d give adept settlers an honourable A tier here in the comments, though the opportunity cost of its function is usually only a couple of hundred imperium. I’m a little less convinced on wonder architects (though if I’m not spawning near a bronze tier wonder like I’d typically do anyways, I could see that).

[@WRanger87]

@@JumboPixel you’re not considering the income that the wonder itself gives you. Wonder architects is absolutely S-tier. All three things it does are individually better than half the traits on the list.

[@kcw1879]

I have played "Paladins" all 3 of my games so far in AoW4, and for my playstyle, Chosen Uniters and Devotees of Good worked perfectly. On a normal sized map I have gotten 4 additional cities, and that is a LOT of additional income; resources; and units, especially when you have a city cap of 4 also (for 8 total). Of course, you have to be good most the time to keep those allies and bonuses.

[@ks4471]

Wonder architects - one thing you did not consider is the +5 imperium you get from the starting cleared wonder & any additional benetfit eg +20, production, researach, etc that comes with it Personally, I think that move ths to higher tier

[@darylfindley7551]

An open letter to any dev from a huge fan of the game here. I'm a retired game designer, now an avid player, with over 550 hours played so far in AOW4, and over 1500 hours played in AOW3, and 2000 hours played in Planetfall. In my opinion you have made one of the best games of all time. I love how you've combined the best from your two previous games with a number of great innovations in AOW4. Here are just a few suggestions to consider as possible tweaks/additions to this already wonderful game. First, I think the main issue currently with sea play is treating sea combat like Master and Commander style 1700/1800's naval warfare with the focus on naval maneuvering of ships. In the current version of tactical combat, each unit becomes a single generic looking ship, otherwise retaining most of its abilities. This is a bit awkward both visually and thematically. AOW is a fantasy series, based loosely on medieval tech. During medieval times, naval warfare was largely about closing to within grappling/boarding range, and then fighting across the decks. You could simulate this by making the ships the BATTLEGROUND, with each ARMY contributing a single stationary ship in the battle (battlegrounds rendered with your ships on one side, enemy ships on the other, 1v1 up to 3v3 ships), all locked in grappling range with boarding planks allowing access to enemy ships (great choke points), water surrounding them, and channels between the ships for swimming units (of course flying/floating units would also be very useful). This would result in beautiful battlegrounds detailing the decks of the ships (with all the amazing, possibly faction related, artwork, features, obstacles, and even perhaps researchable ship upgrades like ballista that could exist on those decks, using a game mechanic similar to how siege upgrades work with cities ). This would make the battleground much more interesting both visually and tactically, while also unifying the way the game works across sea and land warfare. Second idea to make sea play more interesting is to create underwater realms using a similar mechanism to the underground world. Units that have a dive/surface ability could access this realm (in place of cavern entrances). This underwater realm could have kelp forests, beds of seagrass, undersea mountains, coral reefs, merfolk cities, domed cities, underwater dungeons like haunted shipwrecks, kraken dens, and sunken cities, etc. Some units would be bottom dwellers similar to non flying/non floating units on land (say crab units) that would only have the dive/surface ability when adjacent to a coast, while swimming units would work both visually and game mechanics wise like flying/floating units on land (with the addition of always having the dive/surface ability). This change could be accompanied by introducing a Merfolk faction with units like the Triton, Siren, Sea Witch, and Drowned Sailor, crab and/or turtle mounts, and animal units like sharks, baby kraken, giant crabs, etc (The dlc could be called something like March of the Merfolk). By making both surface water play and underwater play both strategically and tactically more like the land game, I think it would make investing in naval/sea/swimming units and research, as well as exploring this part of the game, much more unified, comprehensive, and exciting. On a related note, AOW3 had amazing underground play. It was one of my favorite tactics to take an army early and just spend the entire game exploring the underworld with that army, leveling it up, and exploring the beautiful and wondrous subterranean world. It felt like a D&D dungeon dive. Much of that beauty and wonder, as well as the D&D feel, is lost in the current version of underground. This version of the underworld is mostly all brown/dirt colored (aside from lava). Cavern systems can be made more visually appealing by adding areas of colored minerals, crystal features, glow worms, fluttering bats, phosphorescent or strangely colored fungal forests, etc. Also, exploring the underworld is now nearly impossible as it is almost completely filled in until 'excavated' one province at a time. Adding to the frustration is that there is WAY too much impassable rock. If they are meant to mimic above ground mountains, it should be noted that units can still move over mountains (just slowly). Trying to play underground is literally impossible in many ways, as you usually have to go above ground to both explore AND to engage even other underground cities, players, etc. AOW3 had a nice balance between already existing and interconnected caverns and tunnels to explore, and areas to excavate. The current version of the underworld is visually plain and painfully slow to build within or even just explore. Finally, faction traits and minor transformations focused on granting advantages in a certain terrain are, on average, very weak (if for no other reason than because their advantages are only applicable in that terrain). Because of this, I think they should actually grant, on average, much more advantage in that terrain (making up for the absence of any advantage outside that terrain, which might be most of the time). One example would be leafskin. Currently it only grants faster movement and concealment in forests. This transformation could be stronger by adding strategic advantages like allowing farms to be placed in any province with forest, and tactical advantages like removing ranged penalties for obstruction from obstacles (but only trees, bushes, etc) whilst also increasing the ranged penalties to enemies firing at you in plant cover). Similar additions to the frostling transformation (allowing farms on frozen, and maybe giving all attacks a small chance to slow/freeze when in frozen terrain) and rock transformation (allowing improved prospecting chances and perhaps giving units the rock walk ability - slow passage through impassable rock), and likewise similar additions to the terrain based faction traits. This suddenly makes trying to focus on fighting and building in your chosen terrain a massive benefit, whilst still being useless outside that terrain. This would make forest elves try to stay and grow their forests, likewise for subterranean molekin, frostlings in their icy realms, etc. Suddenly playing to your faction's theme is both advantageous and thematically very satisfying. I hope these ideas inspire some minor tweaks and/or amazing new dlc (like improved and exciting sea play) to what is perhaps one of the greatest games ever made. Keep up the amazing work and thank you.

[@bhagwanbill]

While I'm not gonna defend Seafarers I am gonna defend sea tiles. You don't really want a ton of them but grabbing 2 fisheries will get you access to all the important buildings in the fish building line and bump up the overall growth of the city.

[@sotmh]

On the Enchanted Archipelago where you can have limited farmland, I found Fisheries to be reliable replacements as Seafarers. Outside of maps with a lot of ocean tiles it is of limited use though.

[@JT-yl9yt]

Seafarers guild is actually pretty bonkers with enough fisheries.

[@TymberJ]

I think you undervalue any of the things that give you +1 to a cap (city cap, whispering stones, etc.). Yes, you can unlock +1 City Cap through the empire tree -- but it increases in cost every time you buy it, not based on the size of your current cap. So an Adept Settler can buy their 5th city cap for the same 200 imperium, everyone else gets their 4th, and so on. You keep your edge in that category all game, as you'll always be able to do more of that than anyone else. How much one more city, or one more free city you can build relations simultaneously is worth will vary, but it's better than just saving you 200 Imperium.

[@Tigereye085]

Keep in mind that Mana Addicts' Life Steal will trigger when ANY Ruler, including allies and enemies cast, so you won't necessarily have to cast a spell yourself every round.

[@ObiwanNekody]

The "Wonderful Architects" trait seems to cause a wonder to spawn near you, not just clear a nearby one. 10 out of 10 tests there was a wonder 2 tiles away from my city (so I could claim it after I hit 2 pop). If this is the case, it is a nice steady 5 Imp bonus, in addition to whatever the wonder gives you. Every wonder that spawned was a bronze one, and it seemed to really like the hidden pool (got that one 4 times).

[@JumboPixel]

Yup it’ll always be close by - I’m not sure how far it’s limited, but I’ve never seen it further than three territories away personally.

[@MogFlintlock]

So, there's an important thing to note with Perfectionist Artisans, and it's the fact that it also benefits from upgrades purchased on Outposts. And also upgrades that AREN'T purchased on Outposts; if you have the tier 1 Materium empire upgrade, the free palisades give you +5 gold. If you have Shadow Walkers, the free Watch Tower gives you +5 gold. The outpost itself counts as another +5 gold. And the Work Camp upgrade you usually purchase to get a free extra province also counts as another +5 gold. And unlike other buildings, Outposts don't cost production. It's especially nice if you can get underground and just make a neat little vault of money generators. Especially if you're a barbarian (and thus can make Outposts using scouts) Speaking of Shadow Walkers, I think there's potential for it to be a pretty decent (maybe even 'strong') trait by itself if you pair it with exactly Spider mounts in PvP. The spider mount web ability is very strong for what it is in the early game and running around with a squad of invisible nukers could probably mess someone up.

[@ObiwanNekody]

I've been considering trying the Shadow Artisan Barbarian setup for funz in PvP.

[@johnnythedark3090]

Few things you forgot to mention - the whole order/diplomatic line of skills depends on your map setting - If there are no free cities they really sucks.

[@zentonil]

I would have liked to see you mention the synergy between cultural and society traits. For example, Feudal cultures receive additional benefits from society traits which boost Polearm ranks since they upgrade to T2 Defenders once they reach Champion rank; for the same reason this makes Prolific Swarmers less valuable since you will be fielding less T1 units over time.

[@WRanger87]

Upgrading polearms to defenders is the equivalent of woking tediously for 40 turns just to get 40 gold worth of unit improvements and a worse unit type.

[@zentonil]

@@WRanger87 While that’s a fair point it’s also a means to access T2 units earlier than you might otherwise be able to have them.

[@MGShadow1989]

I'm quite fond of these +1 rank traits - currently playing with a full on Mystic faction, with Mana Addicts and Powerful Evokers, so not only do my Arcanists, Soothers and Spellbreakers start at +2, it also counts for the Watcher summon since it's a Battle Mage. I'm assuming the +3 from Astral Binding will also add on, so any Support or Battle Mages I summon will start at Legend.

[@zoltanszabo4350]

@@MGShadow1989 nice theory crafting but those bonuses doesn't stack (on v 1.002.004.78464), you start on lvl2 max

[@candidedreaming2766]

Reconsider the wonder trait. You also get the really good benefits of the (random) wonder very early on too. Which includes an early (random) tier three unit in your first rally.

[@Tar_Mair0n]

You also get much more than just +20% production on one city. Unless you have just one wonder through entire game, but that means you're doing something wrong...

[@thejackscraft3472]

I very much agree, a possible T3 unit early, +5 Imperium income, and +20 income of a random resource is a HUGE benefit. the unique powers are definitely a roll of the dice as to whether they'll be useful or not, but even without those it's still amazing and definitely A-Tier at least.

[@flyingdutchman9053]

@@thejackscraft3472 B because of the random aspect imo. Also there is simply better traits that boost early. On maps with increased nr of wonders probably A.

[@thejackscraft3472]

@@flyingdutchman9053 you're still guaranteed at least a T2 unit in your rally, and 5 imperium income per turn, which at minimum is A tier, and with a 25% chance of getting the resource you're going to spec your starting city into, and a decent chance for T3 units, with a medium chance at a good unique, those all add up to high A into S, especially since you're getting all that in a slot that's usually +1 starting unit.

[@flyingdutchman9053]

@@thejackscraft3472 I think you overvalue the 5 imperium. You get the rally turn 15ish which is too late for T2 (some of them being straight useless) to make a meningful impact imo. The few T3 ones usually cost way too much mana considering its early game. At turn 20-22 I usually unlock T3 tome units. Additionally you do not get any extra starting unit depending on map difficulty thats a factor too, because ur earlygame is slower. So yeah for singleplayer if you reroll untill it fits maybe S tier. In MP just B at most low A-tier if your strategy allows multiple ressources.

[@mercb3ast]

One thing to point out here, is the affinity each trait gives. Chaos and Nature are S-tier affinities currently. Astral is like A/B. High is like B. Material is like B/C and Dark is D. All of these borderline Chaos and Nature perks, if it's on the border of B/A, then it's an A tier perk. With the current path argue that 2 chaos perks is S-tier. Period. The end. Likewise with two nature perks. These affinity trees are so much better than any other affinity tree, that any 2, or any combination of the two, makes the whole orders of magnitude better than any other sum. He is also undervaluing the nature perks on their own. Sea-farer is situationally, potentially an S-tier perk. Hunters is no lower than A tier, and adept settlers is also no lower than A tier. Aggressive node clearing with hunters snowballs you incredibly hard. The imperium savings from settlers is also a massive snowball advantage, and presents serious opportunity cost dilemma. Saying it's just "some free" imperium. Is kind of wild. The cost of the extra city repeatable doubles every time you purchase it. Effectively saving you the cost relative to anyone else each time you buy it. 250 I think for the first time, 500 the second, 1000 the third I think. So, you get city 6 for 250, everyone else pays 500.

[@thejackscraft3472]

compared to tomes it's negligible. if swapping out one trait gets you tomes faster, then that actually gets you the affinity faster than keeping the trait, since tomes give you more affinity than the traits.

[@vondoandantin6573]

Wild, it's like you haven't played the game and just read the descriptions

[@dsinemoi1mouton]

Runesmiths, when you think about it, is almost as powerful as the Ancient Wise Ones. Generally speaking, you want to unlock enchantments in your tomes, as it's this type of spell is one of the most useful in any situations. So having a 30% reduction for 1 out of 3 mandatory unlocks every tome, is kinda powerful. It almost guarantees that the reduction will be useful. Not to mention the -30% upkeep, which can get huge if you heavily play around mass enchantments. So I would have placed it at a solid B tier personally.

[@flyingdutchman9053]

Even more so as runesmiths also reduce knowledge needed for racial transformation and 3 of the starting spells (feudal) are also unit buffs letting you reach tier 2 very fast.

[@dsinemoi1mouton]

@@flyingdutchman9053 I'll definitely give it a try with ancient wise ones + astral perk that reduces random spell cost every research done. Sounds like the best way to rush t5

[@vgalis]

A 30% upkeep off the spells you will definitely research is better than a 60% off a random one even before the upkeep reduction. I mean a lot of tomes have multiple unit enchantments.

[@shadowmage661]

Adept settlers is better than just 100 imperium of unlocking another city. It is another city point by itself so its cost is actually 1 higher than what you would be willing tk pay for a city. That is for most games 500 imperium or perhaps even 1000 for a long game/huge map. Upkeep reductions are probably better than it most of the time, but again os something you can use to steam roll to economic superiority.

[@imblackmagic1209]

you can view the extra city cap as a rolling discount on the dev tree perk, a normal empire would need to spend 200 imperium for the first extra, 500 imperium for the second extra, you get to spend 0 for the first one, and 200 for the second, that's 500 imperium right there, then you get 25% discount on each city settle, for 5 cities that's 250 imperium for free, we are talking about 750 imperium you can spend on other stuff, that's not to mention the extra pop you get, it's basically a ton of free food compared to other empires that don't get that free pop (mostly when having high pop counts, going from 16 to 17 is pretty costly in food)

[@vgalis]

It's 300 imperium. That seems to be how much the cost goes up each time.

[@shadowmage661]

@@imblackmagic1209 not quite that good. 1 more pop os the dofference in food between 1 and 2 and the extra production you would get. Since nature gives an extra pop it would most times be the dofference of food between 2 and that 3rd pop

[@JustinFike]

Great video! My only critique is that you seem a little too dismissive of traits that have a higher value in the early game but less impact later. At one level I understand that perspective, but 4x games tend to be extremely "snowball" focused. Getting a strong early start leads to cumulative advantages with lots of indirect effects as you start to outpace your rivals. So something like Fabled Hunters or Talented Collectors might be a bit better than you give them credit for because those smaller numbers make a bigger impact early on, allowing you to establish yourself in a better position and get out ahead of everyone else. Not saying their S tier or anything, but generally I value early game bonuses a bit higher than late game bonuses for that reason.

[@JumboPixel]

That’s right, early decisions have more turns to repeat or exponentially grow. Perhaps I’ll weight that higher in future, though I tend to stay away from assuming what the player will decide to do, as that has me focusing more on possible potential than reality. I will think about that more for my next one

[@brutalusgaming8809]

Dang it. I made an almost identical comment before I read this one.

[@AnonSeacat]

Gonna agree with others that I think Prolific Swarmers should be S tier. Upkeep and growth are incredibly important statistics, and swarmers get a game-long bonus to both. Plus, it's Chaos, which is definitely a strong affinity (possibly/probably the strongest).

[@gavinxm]

To get those pantheon perks you dont need to go down each path, just go all the way down to the bottom and then work up.

[@Dan-vo7vc]

You can go up!?

[@lmaokai392]

​@@Dan-vo7vc YOU CAN GO UP!!!??

[@brocksamson3282]

yes, you can go up. you can also use a cheat mod to unlock _Everything_ after one victory.

[@Evershifting]

@@lmaokai392 and right-left too)

[@jon8167]

Prolific Swarmers is S tier due to the speed at which it catapults you into the game. A strong start leads to a strong finish. Ancient Wise Ones isn't as good as it seems. 60% discount early on is 2 turns cheaper than 4 and due to tome cycles you only research 2-3 things within a tome of 5. It's better to grab multiple tomes for the 1-2 overpowered abilities than one tome with 5 decent ones. B tier at best.

[@fendelphi]

I agree. The issue with Ancient Wise Ones is that you have no control of which research gets a discount. If you are unlucky, it is something you dont want/need or maybe it wont pop up until a few cycles in. It can be a decent benefit at times in terms of research(better than none, at least), but it does very little else. I can see it being useful for Magic Victory condition, where going through the tomes as fast as possible is a strategy.

[@thejackscraft3472]

most of these give you a start at least as strong as swarmers, if not stronger.

[@konstantinshevchuk160]

Yah, Jambo, can not agree with you on many things. Disregarding early game bonuses is unwise. Extra 100 gold from Natural hunters in the early game can mean 2-3 turns early 2 tier unit, mean 5-6 turns earlier wonder clear, 10-15 turns earlier town.... Some of the combinations are also do not deserve to be in D. For example combine 2 early scouts fully invisible with barbarian culture (scouts can setup outposts), can mean everything for setting up you empire. Or having 2 scouts in beggining for materialist can easily be worth thousands of uncollected gold and tons of items from prospecting. I think you ranked them poorly, simply by yields and scaling into late game (though late game I actually do not need any of the bonuses, I usually have all that I need or I dont)

[@feykro222]

29:22 The trait is pretty bad but if you are on an island or near the coast, you can build fisherman guild. It gives +3 to production, gold, draft and food for every fishing tile. My starting city had pretty bad location but I got like +40 from fishing tiles alone with fisherman guild.

[@WRanger87]

The ability to keep raising your gold and draft income through the late game makes this seem very viable.

[@theyux1]

Id argue imperealist is actually S tier. If you pick it you are logically going to rush to 3 cities then to 4. 60 per turn very early game is huge, and more importantly really needed to properly supply 3 cities early. While gold is not a rare resources it never stops being useful. It can be converted into production, which effectively means anything at that point. Need food buy a granary with gold.

[@Turnil321]

combine it with the neutral High culture alignment policy (10 food and 10 productions for each positive control, so 30 max) it becomes a very powerful combo.

[@Mechalibur]

It's definitely better than Devotees of Good, which requires you to make a lot of suboptimal choices to stay at high levels of good (losing event rewards, letting prisoners go, not raiding provinces)

[@fendelphi]

Your Imperium income will not allow you to "rush" 3 cities in the early game. At least not if you also intend to use it for province annexation(which is required to "bind" the cities together) and various Imperium upgrades. Having several weak cities early game is also a potential problem(hard to defend). If you intend to upgrade them all, that extra money income all goes to develope 1 city at a time. That being said, it can still give off some decent benefit in the early game(since that is still +20 gold for the Throne city and a lot of extra stability that you can "use" for expanding without taking a penalty). I would probably put it on C as a "generalist" trait, and potentially a bit higher if it fits the realm and a specific strategy/playstyle.

[@JumboPixel]

I think that’s reasonable

[@theyux1]

@fendelphi thats the thing: it's enough gold that you can have 3 strong cities. Assuming you still plan properly. Granted, it really helps to have 2 industries and 2 foods. To get the 50 imperium build cities faster and build outposts faster. Thats my problem with the settlers option. The extra city is gonna turn into a bunch of weak cities as you can afford to build everywhere at once unless you hit a bunch of goldmines.

[@veevoir]

41:33 I think you undervalue the fact that Wonderful Architects give a wonder at the start - it not only gives +20% production to your capital right away, not only gives extra yields - it also gives extra Imperium yield straight from turn 0. And that is a big thing as sources of Imperium are more rare and often take longer to obtain (like.. wonders). Which pretty much pushes it into A-/B+ tier at least. Then add to that an opportunity to hire higher tier wonder units through Rally straight from turn 0. And then add to that the fact that wonders being free province = 1 extra pop bonus for each city with wonder, effectively. All of that - I'd say it is a solid A.

[@JumboPixel]

Fair, and I’d accept that!

[@imblackmagic1209]

the imperialist 20 gold is pretty significant early game, the same with stability as that gives you % extra yields as well, 20 is a lot, the same as a tavern (3 to 4 turns of production) you can see the extra starting pop like a pop cost reduction as well (as it doesn't increase the cost of the subsequent ones, view the first as free, the seconds cost the same as what normally the first would cost and so on), the same goes for the free annex wonder of wonder builders, it's a free pop or two (usually 1) mana channelers + prolific swarmers + tome of the horde, that summon irregulars becomes pretty juicy (30mana per cast... crazy!) remember that 4X games are snowballing games, the earlier you get your advantages the better, most bonuses fall off mid game unless it's a % (prolific swarmers plz) trades with free cities depends on the map, no free cities, no trades, but they can be pretty good

[@justinfritz4817]

IMO probably underestimating +1 starting pop here. You're starting 3 turns ahead, and since early pop gets you food which gets you more pop, the earlier you get the snowball rolling, the faster your city will grow by a significant margin. You'd have to do the math but your city starting on 2 pop is likely reaching certain income breakpoints MANY turns before a city starting on 1 pop.

[@willemverheij3412]

Fabled Hunters with prolific swarmers is very much S tier combined, I am currently using that with a barbarian culture and the first ten turns I claimed a new province every turn. Prolific swarmers remains a good benefit through the whole game, fabled hunters might not be as impressive anymore when you no longer can find new spots to clear but it will help your early economy and growth a lot.

[@MGShadow1989]

Just a thought on Experienced Seafarers - the Seafarers Guild gives +3 Draft, Gold, Food and Production per fishery. I'm currently playing through the 2nd story map which starts near a coast and I'm getting +48 of those 4 resources just from that building. The society trait should basically be the same thing in my opinion, potentially stronger like make it +5 per fishery encouraging a coastal city, going up to +8 with the guild.

[@Estoph11]

Honestly I really like ES just because it makes those Seafarers Guild cities all that much better. While I do think the trait could easily be +3 instead of +2; I think the combination of the two is really what makes either one worthwhile.

[@MGShadow1989]

@@Estoph11 - there is definitely clear synergy, ES should just be better because it's a main trait. Like I'm currently playing the 3rd story map as Chosen Destroyers and I have +280 gold and +180 mana just from 7 raised cities - ES doesn't come close, especially with it being coastal specific. If ES was +5 and also had production it'd be really good, and I'd rather see things buffed before anything gets nerfed.

[@brutalusgaming8809]

I am playing it also and damn it would have been great. Free city next to me expanded right at me taking a lot of key provinces and there is that whole giant ocean just sitting there......

[@Zathurious]

Mana addicts had one major flaw. If there is a spell jammer present where you're fighting, you can't cast spells. If you can't cast, you will lose as you units will begin routing by turn 5. In some situations, the spell jamming effect cannot be removed, so you must be very careful.

[@voxkine9385]

In defense of great builders: It scales. The more special buildings constructed, it always activates. However, starting bonus is where I actually wuite like it. I don’t see “just” a workshop, I see multiple turns I don’t have to spend building it, I see the gold I save on not having to “rush” it effectively, and I see the extra push I get from the start. Quarries bonus is okay and the wall is okay too (good early defensive buff I guess), but the turns I’m saving building something else and the gold I’m saving not rushing it is too big of a buff to discount imo. Same with Wonder Architects: it scales so well! 20% bonus means it’s not just a flat 5 construction, it means when I start the game, I’m likely only getting 2-3 bonus production, but as we get to the end game, I’m sitting there with an extra workshop or three effectively. Saving in population also means I’m investing in even more resources elsewhere AND expanding more territory.

[@Mebsuta]

Just watched the first one, and there's almost no nuance in the decision-making process as far as I can see. Chosen uniters is OP for Industrial, because your T2 Polearms and your T1 and T3 Shield units all get more ranks. But it sucks for Dark and Barbarian, since they have only a T2 Polearm and a T1 Shield respectively. And anyone can play the vassal game if they're planning to play on good alignment, so you really just focus on the military aspect of it to determine which culture can use it better IMO.

[@Cobra6x6]

Some combinations to consider : Prolific Swarmers + Great Builders = easier to get population, and you can use that population to make a beautiful city full of amped up quarries. (Also swarmers is just good all around) Ancient Wise Ones + Mana Channelers + Shadow culture or spellbook for affinity : Research summons faster, cast them cheaper, and access the shadow skill that reduces upkeep of summons. Wonder Architects + Bannerlords = while bannerlords might seem underwhelming, ancient wonders do add monsters to the Rally of the Lieges. Want to play monsters? This is the way. Powerful Evokers + Mana Addicts or Combat Casters = Combat casting focus. Not my cup of tea but combat casting is very powerful if you do a lot of manual battles. Chosen Unifiers + Silver Tongued = Diplomacy focus. Needs a map with Free Cities. Start with extra 2 whispering stones, if it stacks. Not a big deal if it doesn't since that's a lot of talking rocks. Note that both light and shadow have useful skills for diplomacy. Trade can be very powerful with vassals. My favorite yet : Prolific Swarmers + Runesmith = reduced upkeep on non-magic units, and reduced upkeep on magic enchantments. Just grab the enchantment or pyromancy spellbook and boost those +1 rank Tier 1 units for early game! If you're not sure about all this, just grab Adept Settlers and Ritual Cannibals, they're just good for all maps.

[@JDuel100]

I think the bonuses highly depend on how you intend to play. I made a faction once with Underground Adaption and Master Seafarers, along with Adept Settlers... didn't do well, stopped playing after 40 turns. Faction shows up next game and wins an expansion victory. I guess I just suck. o.o Still was proud of them, though.

[@Baldthazar]

3:53 Presumably they're referring to the throne and capital city in two different ways because your capital city is specifically the one you start the game with. You can later change your throne city from your capital city to a different one which might be relevant if you founded cities in a way where your capital city doesn't border all of them.

[@OGKNZ]

Amazing content brother, my new favorite creator, great to see some easy to listen content coming from NZ! Too much.

[@tuskular]

I think mana-addicts very dependent on if you are going to go undead or not, because if you are then it is literally useless otherwise its extremely good, its just that becoming undead is probably the best major transformation in the game, since it gives life-steal. As for perfectionist artisans, its basically a gold mine for every building so if you pair it with other methods of getting gold in the early game it can be incredibly powerful in the mid to late game.

[@nordos]

so Lifesteal no longer stacks in 4? I remember that having it multiple times in 3 turned it into Greater Lifesteal, which was damn good.

[@mordekaiser2026]

mana-addicts is op for mage build focused on golems. It's like recreating an Academy faction from Heroes 5. First of all, you don't lose morale on golems, secondly, it's one of the few ways to buf gold golem. You cast a spell, move the gold golem to the enemy lines, put it in defense mode and you basically activate an unkillable terminator with decent damage and survivability through the unlimited retaliation. Moreover, it will also make you money :)

[@iamdopeasfcuk]

mana addicts steers you into spamming combat spells, so it's good with anything that benefits from that. i haven't tried an undead faction yet, but with mystics focusing on astral alignment, it was pretty damn good. your battlemages will be strong af.

[@mordekaiser2026]

@@iamdopeasfcuk how about fights when enemy has a Spell Jammer building in their province and you simply can't cast spells?

[@xKinjax]

@@mordekaiser2026 depends who you're playing against and what stage of the game it is. I don't think the AI builds Spell Jammers that much, at least not until late game. Worst case scenario you just do what you're probably already doing anyway in mid/late game, bait out the enemy and then overwhelm with superior units.

[@stellamariaholeklyve2781]

I'm new to your channel, but I can tell you play civ as well by your terminology, like when you call the independent cities(I forgot what they're called too lol) city states. Loved the video! Just got the game last week and I loved the detailed overview for some tips for my second game!

[@lattekahvi1298]

shadow walkers are actually pretty good for single player, hostile ai seems rather passive and does almost nothing until they find you and then they get hellbent on making your life miserable, so being able to scout and meet them at your own terms is rather useful

[@brutalusgaming8809]

I love this video. I have been reading comments and so far they are also VERY awesome and FULL of great info. Better then the reddit! I will say overall I feel @JumboPixel this tier list has a fundamental flaw. These games are about the snowball. The comment section agrees. :) Bonuses the take effect on turn one are vastly more important then late game because they let you snowball ahead and have plenty of everything. Or. conversely. in the hardest games snowball early so you can actually keep up in the late game. This tier list under values early game and over values the long term.

[@Artofruin]

One thing to mention, while gold is relatively easy to get, it's also the most useful resource as it is used to make almost everything. It can also be used to outright purchase buildings & units. And, if diplomatically inclined, traded for anything. Making gold increases pretty valuable at all stages of the game

[@Nyrufa]

Perfectionist Artisans does have a slow burn at the start with that reduced city cap. However, by the mid to late game, it ramps up very quickly with how fast you're raking in gold. Which you can use to speed up production, and thus rake in even more gold. After a certain point, the speed up production option starts paying for itself! And if you combine it with Great Builders, you get two extra city structures right off the bat.

[@chadraybon4822]

Played this combo last night. Turn 70 I had 6 six stack armies of tier 4 and mythical units and was still making more than 1K per turn. It felt very strong.

[@stronggye4]

Perfectionist artisans is easily the worst trait in the game, 4X games are all about snowballing from early game bonuses and this completely fucks your early game and +1 stability and +5 gold is barely anything

[@vinncentuntiedt5851]

@@stronggye4 Seen it like this: Your Snowball moves slower, but the hill its rolling from is way higher.

[@WRanger87]

@@stronggye4 going to return to this bad take once the trait gets nerfed

[@wickeddrac7489]

So the outpost start generating cash once you make the wall improvements on them?

[@spyfire242]

I don't really agree with lowering the ranking based on it being "too specific" Obviously if you are taking these traits you are leaning into them, most people don't just randomly choose their traits without a specific strategy in mind.

[@Kuaqe]

Ancient Wise Ones is okay, but not great. With an average of 5 techs inside each tome, it's a 12% increase in research, with the potential to get real lucky or unlucky where it hits.

[@Kammereer]

But you don't need to research 5 techs per tome - you only need 3 before you move on to the next tome

[@darkfireslide]

@@Kammereer it's 4 per tome, not 3

[@uncledrake6606]

Ancient wise ones is way worse than you think btw. It's because a random skill gets the -60% cost. you might not even see it unless you keep rerolling for it, and you won't know which one it is until you see it. Quick yes, but unreliable. It might not be something you're likely to ever make use of in which case it's quick research, but 100% wasted time. Low B tier at best

[@aegd]

One thing you failed to notice with the shadow walkers trait is that it will grant you extra resources, and you will steal resources from other players, since your scouts will be moving faster and you have more scouts at the start of the game. It will also lead you to wasting less time running blindly around with your army stack, using it more efficiently. Another thing you didn't really put much thought into is trait synergy, some traits will obviously be stronger if you stack them with other synergistic traits, since they will benefit from one another, making it easier to snowball. I think that could be particularly true for great builders in combination with wonder architects or perfectionist artisans.

[@fendelphi]

I will say it is a very powerful PvP trait, as it gives a lot of map control. But vs AI, it is far less strong. Of course, you can increase the power of the trait by picking a race/culture with good scouts and use it aggressively as well(Barbarian, Dark and Industrious have very good special abilities for scouts, and then there is the option of special mounts).

[@bluecoffe1989]

I find my armies need time to heal between battles anyway so they tend to not need to move around super quickly. I normally just do auto battle to save time.i think the last point in the dark tree reveals everything on the map so it kinda feels bad to invest in scouts . I think i rather just take something that give extra gold or production and just make extra scouts if you feel they are needed.

[@JayIngemar]

Great builders is so underrated. Focusing on production to get your city built and upgraded as fast as possible while also getting the gold to do it is insanely strong if you know what you are doing. Gets you miles ahead of the competition with no way for them to catch up because of the strong late game advantages of the perk.

[@theCybertier]

I think you've underrated Gold in general. Gold being "easy to come by", kinda ignores that you have infinity use for having more gold. I am always short on gold since there is always something that's worth rushing or units that need drafting.

[@boomknight1015]

I wish banner lord also gave 25 off rally the lieges as well as lowing upkeep by the same. Letting you get a lot of good troops for cheap.

[@iconoclastic23]

I really gotta fight you on Experienced Seafarers. Ocean tiles come into their own if you specialize in them by going Sailor's Guild. That building provides 3 food, 3 gold, 3 production, 3 draft PER FISHERY OR HARBOR. That's practically enough to make an unresourced ocean tile as enticing as a pasture or gold mine tile. Throw experienced seafarers and that nature perk that makes ocean tiles yield more food, and the sea could easily be a city's best option for every resource besides mana and knowledge. Particularly if you have some fish or oysters nearby.

[@thejackscraft3472]

the issue there is that that just brings them up to matching what other tiles do without having to take a social trait, and the other tiles get started much faster, and go higher.

[@ronabitz5156]

One point about the traits that save you mana is that it does not lower that casting point cost so it does not increase the number of spell you can cast a turn or during combat.

[@cheato1163]

Im a big fan of perfectionist as a barbarian as you can pump out scouts and spam outposts, each outpost will generate gold after the palisade walls on construct from materium affinity 50 imperium, add on to that a regular king, not a wizard, and the outposts get +5 gold per structure and the +10% i believe gold from having a regular king. Can really up an economy into the stratosphere mid to late game.

[@2fat4airborne44]

Had to do such ranking, as it mostly depends on what you need to achieve and with what you combine the traits. Still nice ranking and good move with the explanation on the rules in how you apply the weight.

[@thejackscraft3472]

I believe "Capitol City" means your starting city in this case, but "Throne City" can be moved. also, city cap is not directly hero cap, though they are very close. hero cap is number of cities you have, so if you're under cap for cities your hero cap is lower than your city cap. for Wonder Builders, the starting bonus is larger than I think you're giving it credit for, as it means you basically start with bonus income for a random resource and Imperium, as well as giving you the ability to rally some units from it at the first possibly opportunity, likely giving you extra t2 units super early, with a chance that you'll get lucky and get access to t3 units. you also get a unique ability from the wonder, but those are significantly harder to judge.

[@Doombot221]

I think ruthless raiders should actually be rated a bit more highly. In my experience the trait, when combined with the chaos empire skill for extra cash after battles, is a massive source of income that otherwise I have not been able to replicate. Also, adept settlers means you only have to boost once to get up to 5 cities, which therefore saves you up to 500 imperium on that alone--not even with the savings from founding, integrating, etc. I think that should put it firmly in A tier. Because it isn't a very strong early game mechanic and doesnt affect combat I struggle to put it into S-tier, but I think it's value is underestimated a bit.

[@billhendrixson6234]

Let's talk about Devotees of Good and Scions of Evil. At a glance they are very similar. The standout difference being that SoE gains +1 rank to all units. Which if we are being honest, is really just "decent," at best? On one hand, getting to "Pure Evil" is significantly easier than getting to "Pure Good," but... the critically important detail is that being good is significantly more advantageous than being evil, because of the effect alignment has on events and diplomacy, including Free Cities / Vassalizing. I suppose my argument is that the two are kind of the same tier, and are determined by, rather than determining, the player's intent on playing as good or evil. Single player, objectively speaking, DoG is better because "good" is better. In multiplayer, I can see a strong argument for SoE being objectively superior. Nice insights overall though, and I appreciate the nature of lists like this (both for the utility and "clickbait" :p )

[@aldaron1021]

I fell in love with this game because it offers you the possibility to create the civilization that you have in mind and want to play no matter how broken is. It reminds me of creating a Hero for a Role Playing Game ( example is DnD). As a DM myself I loooove seeing my players choose skills/abilities/traits for their characters that are bases on what their PC is and now what is the best, most optimal combination. Even if I play with the absolute weakest of the cultures, societies and using the worse tomes I will absolutely enjoy myself and be thrilled playing an absurd society. I have not played another game like this ever and I have been playing strategy games since Caesar 3 came out in 99 ( I was a teen back then).

[@lordgoogler6380]

On seafarers, you can get a seafarers guild building that gives all sea tiles +3 gold/draft/food/production so it even though water cities are boring they can be strong but are slow to start and the lack of boosts and other districts actually locks you out of alot of buildings.

[@waylanddavick9459]

The Seafarers guild is the best guild unless you have a lot of mana nodes and only if you have the water provinces to exploit. The trait is an easy S tier on island maps imho, A or B on maps with moderate water, like the continental maps, but a flat D on maps with little or no water.

[@thejackscraft3472]

@@waylanddavick9459 seafarers guild is definitely not the best guild, especially since to make really good use of it you have to give up on a lot of land resources.

[@waylanddavick9459]

@@thejackscraft3472 What land resources? Tell me another guild that offers draft, production, food and gold at the same time. The only two resources missing here are Mana and Knowledge - I definitely think both of those are good if you have enough mana nodes or specialist districts to get value from the guild. I can easily get 10 water provinces in a size 15 settlement if the map has water. That gives me 30 draft, 30 production, 30 gold and 30 food from the guild alone - let alone the oysters and fish for gold and food. I can usually get no more than 4 conduits, maybe 6 if I'm Mystic. 40 - 60 Mana and nothing else from the guild itself. No growth from that. No draft. No production. Same for Gold and Knowledge - but Knowledge only has production value at the expense of Conduits. As soon as I have my t-5 tome, knowledge has less value than almost any other resource. As soon as all the buildings are complete in the settlement, production/4 = gold income - which is still true if I don't go for the production guild - but it also tells me that the Gold guild definitely better as soon as all buildings are complete. The Draft guild is gated by the need for new units and Gold - if I don't need new units, then the draft/4 = food. The Food guild offers me more food - but unless the provinces I'm getting with growth are high value it is meaningless. Food has a diminishing value for every pop the city has. So. Give me a good argument for the other guilds my guy. Don't just tell me the Seafarer's guild isn't good - tell me what is better and why. I'm happy to disagree and leave it at that.

[@thejackscraft3472]

@@waylanddavick9459 I've shown the calculations on a couple other threads here, but I'll do them again for you. if you're looking for gold/draft then you go with the merchant guild. you can reasonably expect to have 7 mines in a single city if you look for them, so lets start with that, with the merchant guild and the warsmithing materium node your start point for 7 mines is 175, the same total as 7 your fisheries, then lets add the nodes, we'll be lenient and add 3 nodes in the ocean, it's not the easiest to find 3 nodes close enough together, but it's definitely possible, bringing the totals for 7 fisheries to 205 and the total for the mines to 245. next we add the special province improvements, there are none for fisheries, but for mines we add the great foundry, making the total number of mines 8, but one is producing 5 less (30 instead of 35, since it doesn't have to go on a node, but has a higher base yield), and we'll assume you can only put it next to two other mines, it's adjacency bonus is 8, 5 draft and 3 gold, so that's another 16, making our total for 8 mines 291 (131 gold, 90 draft, and the remaining 70 is split in 10s between gold and production), while 8 fisheries produce 230 total (96 food, 24 production, 40 draft, and 40 gold). to match the total output of the mines you need to have another 3 fisheries. the mines and miners guild are WAY more efficient, especially since you'd want this to be a military production city, so you'd mostly be looking at the gold and draft incomes. the farmers guild similarly provides more total resources, and lets you expand significantly faster, getting you more resources overall on any given turn before super late game, plus the larger number of nodes on land, especially when you include magic mats and wonders, and once you've grown your city you just dismantle it and swap to merchant's guild, miners guild, or research guild depending on what the city has. and yes, magic mats and wonders to count against the seafarers guild since they drop its total effect by being tiles that other guilds can use, but are useless to the seafarers guild. the seafarers guild does give you the highest output from the guild itself, but since it's giving that bonus to bad tiles it doesn't make it the best, it just makes it not terrible. I don't think it's the worst, I think the foresters guild is the worst (that I've seen), but it's definitely not the best.

[@waylanddavick9459]

@@thejackscraft3472 Good discussion. I think we're on the same page for the most part, but we're just shy of having the same perspective on when we make the decision to place a guild. The Seafarer's Guild is the best Guild output (per tile improvement) agnostic of the quality of the tiles. The value of any guild is situational - but, as it is with all guilds - I already have close to a 15 size city, minimum. I should know something about the number of tile improvements I have. If I have one more fishery than I have of any other province improvement - the Seafarer's guild should become a consideration as its output per tile improvement is superior but it isn't specialized. If I have more of some other province improvement - then the Seafarer's guild is irrelevant - this is true for most guilds. The Seafarer's guild is the best guild output in any given case where I've more fisheries than any other tile improvement regardless of other factors. We have a size 15 city - we should know what is available at that size and what our needs are - this isn't a decision made in a vacuum. We can't say the same for any other guild except Mana and Gold which will compete because we need those specific resources - the difficulty is that we also need to have the conduits and mines which despite your perspective - will not be available in good numbers in the case that we've already committed half our provinces to fisheries. It is clear to me that if I have access to seven goldmines - I already have five or six goldmines - perhaps a couple quarries I can convert - and the choice becomes very simple because I probably don't have five or six fisheries in that city if I have that many goldmines - exceptions aside. We can say that the Seafarers Guild is a rare case - that it is only sometimes the right choice. We can also say - per province improvement - it is the best guild. I'm quite sure we actually agree - but I'm coming from the perspective that I have a size 15 city already and I can see that I have plenty of fisheries and plenty more that I can build into the future and you're thinking about where you would optimally place a settlement with a plan to select a specific guild already in mind. However, I think the farmer's guild is a suboptimal choice. Always. Food does not warrant a guild slot over even a two goldmine gold guild. Gold can be used for many things - food does one thing. Thanks for offering a good faith argument. In conclusion -I think that if I have seven goldmines - I don't have seven fisheries. These are completely different settlement locations and I think that is a different discussion. If I can find a settlement location with seven possible goldmines then I'm pretty sure I'm not next to the water and won't have any reason to place more than two fisheries (if I have access to any water provinces at all). Cheers :)

[@Rex-xp8jy]

Silver Tongued on a larger map with a lot of city states can get extremely broken. Some city states do deals for like 40 knowledge or 50 production per turn, and once you have a few of them vassalized you can spiral out of control from there. Not S tier but definitely more powerful than the rest of the stuff in D tier.

[@thejackscraft3472]

but unless you're turning down the number of other countries, you're still not actually going to get more than maybe one extra free city by making the map larger, and once you start changing more than that you're tailoring your game to make it work, which you'd then have to do for all of the traits and the rankings wouldn't change.

[@necronia]

The settler bonus should be understood as the imperium cost of your last city. In a large scale game this can easily be a free 1k imperium The hunter bonus is insanely good if and only if you have regenerating infestations. Otherwise definitely D tier. Also fast starting bonuses should be understood as a long term and constant gain because you are always X turns farther ahead than normal and the delta in income from that is always experienced

[@DeanRasmussen]

Hey dum dum shadow walkers is poggers

[@portalrunner5580]

Shadow walkers is busted if youre trying to get quick pantheon xp though. A free scout at the start to go and find the opponent, become their vassal and "win" via military to get 500 xp every few minutes

[@turmuus753]

Ritual cannibals feels like it gives more than mana addicts without any real drawbacks.

[@frankfrankfrankfrankfrank]

Expert Seafarers turns coastal provinces into the best tiles because once you get Seafarer's Guild and Expert Sailors the average coastal tile gives you +12 food, +3 production, +5 draft, and +5 gold. Add another 10 food for a fish resource and another 10 gold for an oyster resource. Overall just the best tiles in the game (except for special province improvements maybe) at that point and its not close

[@thejackscraft3472]

you're not going to get more than 2-3 of the ocean resource nodes within the range of one city, whereas you'll get significantly more nodes on land. and 25 production is the norm for guild tiles, so they fall behind given that there are no special improvements that work with fisheries.

[@patinho5589]

@@thejackscraft3472 you can get loads of ocean tiles 4-5 easily

[@thejackscraft3472]

@@patinho5589 I have never seen a placement what would give you 5. I've only seen a couple placements that get you 4, and I've checked over a dozen islands maps.

[@thejackscraft3472]

@@patinho5589 just realized you said "Tiles" not "Nodes", I was talking about the +10 of a resource things. you can definitely get more than 5 ocean tiles on the maps that have any significant amount of water, but they don't really stack up well against what you can do with most land tiles.

[@patinho5589]

@@thejackscraft3472 ahh yes you’re talking about nodes. But those ocean tiles do get strong with that building and this trait.

[@poilk91]

scouts are OP when they are on spiders, shadow walkers makes my stacks of spider riders invisible. In pvp this is going to be hilarious

[@Barl3000]

Experienced Searfeares is worth taking on an Islands map, where there are much less good land provinces to claim and each city will be forced to get sea provinces. But that is also pretty much the only place where it is viable. If it gave free embark and disembark it could be useful on other water maps, like coast or continents. I would also switch the position of GIfted Casters and Mana Channelers. The initial mana cost of summoning units almost doesn't matter, but the extra rank is really nice. Still, I consider it slightly more narrow in focus and most useful to Astral of Nature builds focused on summoning. As JumboPixel himself says under Mana Addicts, you will be casting a combat spell almost every single combat turn, they are simply one of the most powerful tools in you tool belt. So long term, I think you get a lot more out of the 20% discount on every combat spell than the 50% from summoning. The other bonuses aren't worth that much, although the extra combat spell is a nice little boost to your early research.

[@shadowmage661]

Experienced seafarers is broken on an island map. Sea tiles can have about as many special tiles as land and when they don't your tile is still better than a default logging camp or farm. The fishing guild is one of the strongest guilds because on an island map you can have 9 or more fisheries that it improves. It is not the kind of thing to do often because water maps are not fun to play, but if you do, it will make your economy dominate

[@Vimdraa]

I am sure everyone is chiming in with their opinion, so I will to. :) I think you are undervaluing the fisheries boost from Experienced Seafarers a lot. This skill encourages you to pick up as many generic sea tiles as possible, which when combined with the Maritime Guild building will make those sea tiles absolutely ridiculously strong.

[@thejackscraft3472]

while it does make you prioritize them, they don't actually become stronger than almost any other tile (the smiths guild falls short), and it flat does nothing on the majority of map types. combining that with the lower density of nodes in the ocean and the lack of any special improvements that boost off of fisheries and they just generally fall short unless you're on the islands map type. that's not to say that you shouldn't have your opinion, you're entirely entitled to that, I'm just trying to provide perspective on the factors in play.

[@Alorand]

From my experience I think you under-rated Hunters, Swarmers, Imperialists, and Rune Smiths. Also Shadow Walkers are amazing for Spider Mounts spam.

[@thechamp012]

As someone who has 150+ hours in the game already, I would say I agree with the majority of your rankings. The only notable one I think is misjudged is Talented Collectors. I think it’s sleeper OP especially if you like expansion and capturing more territories on the map.

[@brocksamson3282]

Runesmith gives -50% to unit enchantment upkeep (the 30% may be a typo), when you look at the in-game effect. for example, it reduces a 2 mana upkeep per unit, to a 1 mana upkeep per unit. I like unit enchantments, (and lots of units), so this saves a lot of mana. I'd rate it "A" tier. Say you have 20 units with 3 enchantments each, that's 20 (2+2+2) = 120 mana. With Runesmith that becomes 20 (1+1+1) = 60 mana, a savings of 60 mana. Best of all, it scales in power as you get more units and more enchantments.

[@justinfenton9983]

So the only thing i feel that is important to add is the society traits affinity. Everyone might feel different but nature and chaos play very strongly right now so a society trait of theirs that might be a C would imo be a rank or two higher because you are getting much better affinity. People might disagree as to what is stronger or not but i think the traits affinity should definitely be taken into consideration

[@thejackscraft3472]

the issue is that it's just 1 point of affinity, it gets you your first unlock maybe a turn faster, but once you get your second tome, any given society trait is negligible at best for affinities.

[@nurilnuril4372]

An idea for future video: Layout these traits again at the start of a new video & come pre-prepared with any traits you would like to update and move around on the list. Elaborate on why based on game updates & your experience. Would be interesting to see if any changes with time.

[@Disappointed_Philosoraptor]

many of the traits you set pretty low give a huge poost earlygame but fall off later on. The thing is that snowballing is a big thing in this game, do not underestimate how valuable a headstart is. Fabled hunters, talented collectors and great builders deserve low B or high C rank. they do wonders in the right setup.

[@waylanddavick9459]

Ancient Wise Ones translates to a 10-12% research speed increase depending on how many research items are in your tomes. I don't think this is strong. Astral Affinity has an empire skill that offers another 25% off a random research item every cycle - I think that is a more reliable increase to research. I think that the most important element in research speed is the direct production of knowledge - it is infinitely more reliable. In my opinion Great Builders is therefore better given that it simply gives you a workshop and reduces the cost of special province improvements. Both of those things can lead directly to getting more knowledge earlier in the game. I think Ancient Wise Ones should simply give you a flat bonus to research speed - or it should give you the first tier Knowledge and Mana production buildings for your culture. I don't think the random nature of it makes it valuable, because there may be tomes through which I will never gain the benefit from that 60% discount.

[@JumboPixel]

I suppose the RNG element is used to balance that whopping 60% one time reduction per tome. It’s arguably one of those ones that gets stronger throughout the game, as later tomes can have as few as three options. Like most things on my list, I’d be agreeable if it moved up or down one - in this case certainly down.

[@jots083]

Think of Perfectionist Artisans as the Mansa Musa (civ 6) playthrough for AoW4. That 5g per building plus stability really adds up quickly and you will be swimming in gold. Get your cities to 80+ stability for the sweet 15% gold increase. With that said, I had enough gold income to regularly hurry production and field multiple army stacks. You still want to focus on production since it reduces the purchase cost for every turn you don't hurry production. With the gold increase, I had a much higher than usual gold income trajectory. It's the best materium build i've found so far and by pairing it with adept settlers and aggressively settling outposts on any unclaimed gold mines, you can really ramp super quickly. Getting to 3 cities isn't too rough since it's just 200 imperium to unlock your 3rd city cap. This load out is probably the best pairing for trying to win a Materium magic victory and you'll want to focus into a lot of Materium empire traits as they have many stability increases and cost reductions built in. Since you're focusing on just 3 cities, you should have a lot of imperium available to unlock most of the materium tree. TLDR; Perfectionist artisans is great if you want to just swim in gold

[@ARedOcean]

Chosen Destroyers is darn near F tier in a multiplayer lobby that knows how to play. Everyone just gangs up on you early on and destroys your throne city very early on. Afterwards, you're just running for your life in the wilderness until they find you and you're dead.

[@brutalusgaming8809]

How is the MP scene? There is so little talk of it among content creators.

[@ObiwanNekody]

Interesting that something is F tier because of how the meta works, not on its own. Do they do this because it is strong if left untouched, or do they do this because it is such an exploitable weakness?

[@2fat4airborne44]

Capitol and throne city - its different because you can change youre throne city. So Imperialist for example is regarded to your start city (Capital) as it is a important distinction as the bonus wont move with the switch of youre throne city.

[@JumboPixel]

Nice info! Thanks

[@brutalusgaming8809]

Great info!

[@jamesschmames6416]

D trait should mean you would virtually never take it. Most of them you have ranked there have a use in one build or another.

[@danielsgamerprofile4067]

I had 3 ancient wonders on one of my cities so that’s 60% extra production 🤷‍♂️😂 scout seen them close to eachother so I went to go claim the spot got in a war over it but I build my city in range of them all even paired up nice that it was a bronze, a silver and a gold 😌

[@nowayurgonnagetthis]

There is a lot of negative sentiment about industry in this game, but industry can be extremely strong if you play its synergies correctly. Industry synergy is HUGE. Standalone Great Builders, Wonder Architects, and the Tome of Rock are all pretty bad. But put together, you have an extremely potent combination. Super reliably, you take these three together, you will hit 180-250 production by turn 20, depending on spawn. You don't even have to play it well. You can do this just pressing end turn without moving your army. The power in this build is twofold. Builder's Quarters next to Central Quarry can give 40 production just by itself; two extra quarries adjacent to them can yield another 30 production on top. That's 70 production right there. With the 20% bonus from the wonder, you're looking at 84 production. That's super easily achievable by turn 20. With your production buildings in your settlement, you're all but guaranteed to have a minimum of 150 production if you did a half-decent job of managing your build, and up to 250 if you get lucky with spawns and positioning. Most other civilization build paths literally can't even accomplish 150 production by turn 50. All those extra buildings really do add up FAST, and the extra gold you get from great builders will help you build all those settlements. I can agree with putting Great Builders somewhere down in B or C tier, but I have to agree with some other people here that Wonder Architects should be at least A tier if not S tier. Great Builders is really only conditionally good if you know how to rush for Unique Improvements; that said, Wonder Architects is just good in almost all situations. You're getting a free pop that doesn't count towards the total number of pops (which is actually really strong if you think about it), an additional 20 of a random resource plus +5 imperium plus probably another 10-20 or so random resource production depending upon what the bronze wonder is AND the extra 20% production bonus. That's a lot.

[@sigurd154]

Can you please include a link to the tierlist in a high res image? KZbin really compresses it a lot.