Sid Meier's Civilization III/Civilization traits

We cannot tell you what are the best or worst traits to have, because everybody is different. Some people may even like "weak" traits because they make the game interesting, or they feel they can really take advantages the trait does offer. There is also no consensus: some experts feel that Commercial is weakest, while others feel it is the strongest! Therefore, what traits are desirable to you must be decided yourself. What we can do, however, is help you decide.

Each Civilization has two traits (except in scenarios, where this is usually but not always true). In the epic game, the civs have been carefully designed so that every possible combination of traits is held by at least one civ.

Commercial
If you are constantly spending money to rush-build, and maybe you need to research just a tiny bit faster, this trait may be just what you need. While you will experience less corruption throughout the game, the real effects of the trait will not be pronounced until the middle-game, when you also have cities beyond size 6, which will have an extra commerce per turn. Your advantages will be most pronounced at the endgame, where such considerations are very often irrelevant.

Expansionist
In contrast to the Commercial trait, the Expansionist trait has its strongest benefits early in the game and virtually no benefits by the endgame. That means your advantage will not last and it is vital that it be played correctly, lest you waste one of your two traits. All civilizations need to be aggressive in the early game, and that goes double for you. But the rewards! You begin with a Scout unit (and the ability to build more), whose two-tile movement rate is a huge boon for the first few turns and helpful for many more. These scouts will likely stumble upon a good number of goodie huts, leading to your other advantage: you will never encounter goodie huts with barbarians. Not only do you not have to treat every goodie hut as though it were "loaded", but that means that the more desirable results, such as a new Settler or city, or a free tech, are more likely.

Industrious
The benefits of this trait will last you the entire game. Your workers (except enslaved workers) will work faster. You also build stuff faster: you get a free shield per turn in every city. Of course, you won't have as many shields knocked off as you would for, say, a temple if you were Religious. (If you're Scientific or Religious and Industrious, then you can really build!)

Militaristic
If you want to kick butt, you might like this trait. Buildings like barracks are cheaper, but you gotta build 'em to take advantage of 'em. Military Great Leaders are more likely to appear, too. In pre-Conquests games, this means you'll likely have more Wonders; in post-Conquests games, more Armies.

Religious
If you want to wage a culture war, you definitely want this. This gives you temples and other religious structures at half price, effectively meaning they will be constructed twice as fast and they can be rush-built sooner. It also effectively makes your citizens happier if, as you should, build Temples and Cathedrals sooner than you normally would.

Scientific
You get a free tech at the dawn of each Age except the first. That means three free techs if you last to the end of the game, with two of them benefiting you in the middlegame. Scientific buildings are at half price, making this also a good choice for culture wars. (Babylon, being Religious and Scientific, is infamous for its cultural power.) In Conquests, acquiring Scientific Great Leaders is also marginally easier.

Conquests traits
These traits did not exist in the game until the Conquests expansion pack.

Agricultural
Cities will have +1 food. However, in Despotism this only occurs on cities sited directly on rivers. Therefore, agricultural civilizations highly value rivers and will invariably build on them when possible. This can be used by rival civilizations to predict expansion &mdash; it is usually wise to build on rivers anyway, but they will have much higher priority for agricultural civs.

Seafaring
Your civilization is more likely to start near the coast of an island or continent. The capital also has a commerce bonus, which will likely keep you on par or better against the AI even on higher difficulty settings below Demigod.