My Favorite Leader is George Washington because he starts out with Agriculture and Fishing. (the best developing picks early on for food) unless you need Animal Husbandry or something because of your starting out area.

Also, Financial and Organized are the best picks, I believe because Financial gives you free free resources (coins) and the Bank costs half of 200 to produce, much more savings than savings of other buildings. Organized because of costs of buildings (low maintaince) just adds to the coinage and also its great for coastal cities as the lighthouse cost is cut in half, goes well with Financial.

And I was thinking that in comparison to other traits -- I can get around Spirtual (Temples) and Creative (Colloseum and Threatre) bonuses by picking Hereditory Rule! (Monarchy) and building up Military for happiness, for example. Also, I usually build settlers before i build granaries (for growth) which takes out Expansive from the picture. And Industrious seems like a cool pick, except, its gambling because if they beat you to the wonder, all that production is wasted (turned into gold). Philosophical is nice, but simply put I like Financial and Organized better! Creative is like getting a free Stonehenge and is useful early on, but I wood rather expand my wallet $ over my borders, but early on, this is a useful trait. And then, Aggressive is well to put it nicely (Barracks are cheap to build anyway!)

So, in short, I like Washington, I think he is the best leader. What is your favorite leader? Please explain why.

I have a preference for two leaders: Elizabeth (English) and Julius Caesar (Roman).

Caesar is fun for early warring, of course. His UU just rocks. Though many contend it's overpowered, do remember that it takes longer than other early UUs to get it, and it depends on availablity of one resource (iron). Though the fact that Caesar starts with Mining certainly helps with that tech path. Fishing, though, is more situational-dependent.

His Expansive trait allows you to build cities near lots of floodplains and jungles, both good for eventual cottage spam, which makes up for the fact that he's not Financial. Many people claim Organized is underpowered; its chief advantage is not immediately obvious, however: cheap courthouses. That's how you bring down the costs of the early empire the Praetorians can grab. When I play as Caesar, I usually bee-line to Iron Working, then go back to grab Priesthood and use the Oracle to get Code of Laws.

Elizabeth is Financial. Need I say more? On top of that, Philosophical means she gets more Great People. GPs are not only fun, they're key to some slingshot game tactics--especially Great Prophets. As a result, when I play as Elizabeth, I'm a bit more of a builder than with Caesar. I like to build more of the early Wonders (Stonehenge, Oracle, Pyramids if I have Stone, Parthenon if I have Marble, Colossus if I have coastal cities with seafood), but combine that with an Axe rush to take out at least one opponent.

And later in the game, the English UU shows up, and you can really go to town. Redcoats just kick AI butt. And with all those mature cottages and financial multipliers, you can easily afford to war, unlike those leaders with an early UU.

I like trying out the other leaders (which is why I started the ALC series and kept it going), but I love coming back to these two leaders for the games I don't post here.