(American) Washington - Financial, Organized, Navy Seal
(Chinese) Qin Shi Huang - Financial, Industrious, Cho-Ko-Nu
(English) Elizabeth - Financial, Philosphical, Redcoat
(English) Victoria - Financial, Expansive, Redcoat
(Incan) Huayna Capac - Financial, Aggressive, Quecua
(Malinese) Mansa Musa - Financial, Spirtual, Skirmisher
(Russian) Catherine - Financial, Creative, Cossack

I voted for HC because he starts fase and keeps the heat on all game long. Financial helps him keep some research with the war machine running over a neighbour.

I voted for Catherine simply becuase everything about Russians and Russia is pure awesomeness.

The blue-blooded capitalist in me demands I vote for Washington.

Mansa Musa is the only one of those I've played. Tried him once in a random leader game, and I've played him many times since.

(EDIT: In fact, I'm playing him in my current game, coincidentally)

Mansa. Spiritual + Financial is just the ultimate. He also has an early UU that's good for early war.


Waldo

Both Catherine and Elizabeth offer a great opportunity at the late mid-game to take over the world or at least dominate it with their UUs. I prefer Cossacks to Recoats (they are fast and it's easier to beeline to MT), but Liz has the beauty of being Philosophical.

Poll pretty much came out as I expected, Liz, Cath, and HC, although Mansa suprised me. I'll have to try playing with him more often, he seems pretty popular. I'll go look for a thread on him.

I'm actually surprised that nobody has voted for Vicky. Fast growing, larger cities with boosted cottage spam? That's not bad, and they do get redcoats...

By far its Mansa he is the best leader so far.

Mansa is too weak in the early game. Late game he's the best, but it's much better to have a leader who can put you in a position where you've won before the late game even comes in.

Huayna Capac is the best. Great traits, great UU, only problem is starting with mysticism instead of mining.

I really dont like the early game anyway.I dont get into a major war untill I get gunpowder and by that time cottages have matured.When I do get gunpowder I murder the weakest civ thereby increasing my score and giving me a great push.

Not going to war until gunpowder would get you killed at immortal or deity. Early warmongering is still the best way to go in this incarnation of the Civ series.

Tossup between Elizabeth, Catherine, Huayna Capac, and Mansa Musa for me.

I like the others too except Victoria. Expansive is simply too weak for me to be worth bothering with.

Not going to war until gunpowder would get you killed at immortal or deity. Early warmongering is still the best way to go in this incarnation of the Civ series.

I said major war like destroying a civ completely.I get into small petty wars and end up taking a few cities but its not a major war. I understand that if you dont get into an early war in those difficulty levels you get killed thats why I dont play those levels.

I play with random leaders, and Mansa is the best represented Financial leader in my high score list. He's actually second only to Julius overall. This metric is biased toward early conquest and doesn't measure which one is the most fun to play.

Washington is probably the most fun for me.

I'm actually surprised that nobody has voted for Vicky. Fast growing, larger cities with boosted cottage spam? That's not bad, and they do get redcoats...

If she was a different civ than Elizabeth, she'd probably get more votes.

Catherine is my second favorite leader, (Ceaser is my favorite) creative is very effective in the early game for just getting huge cultural borders and choking off your opponents early access to resources. I know a lot of people say creative is almost worhless because you could just get stonehenge, but I say the time spent on getting stonehenge could really just be put to better use for getting a bunch of axemen.
Later in the game the +2 culture doesn't feel as useful, except for right after you take over cities and the resistors in it are put down. The half-price theaters are pretty nice though for mid to late game culture buildup of course. Cossaks are a pretty sweet UU in my opinoin, much better than what they were in Civ3.
And of course, I also like Cathy 'cause... she's hot. :mischief:

I'm actually surprised that nobody has voted for Vicky. Fast growing, larger cities with boosted cottage spam? That's not bad, and they do get redcoats...

Expansive doesn't make your cities actually grow faster or larger. You save half the cost on a granary initially, which isn't bad but is also pretty short-lived. The +3 health would be nice except that the limiting factor on city size is almost always happiness, not health. It just doesn't stack up to 'ol Beth.

Qin Shi Huang rules !!!

Not going to war until gunpowder would get you killed at immortal or deity.

Not true, and I have won with peaceful starts. You only HAVE to go to war early if the AI grabs all the good city sites. Unfortunately this is pretty common especially on deity.

Cossaks are a pretty sweet UU in my opinoin, much better than what they were in Civ3.

Odd. I would say that while they're really good in this game, they're not as good as they were in Civ3 where they were by far the best UU.

Not true, and I have won with peaceful starts. You only HAVE to go to war early if the AI grabs all the good city sites. Unfortunately this is pretty common especially on deity.

Thank you, thats what im saying

Expansive doesn't make your cities actually grow faster or larger. You save half the cost on a granary initially, which isn't bad but is also pretty short-lived. The +3 health would be nice except that the limiting factor on city size is almost always happiness, not health. It just doesn't stack up to 'ol Beth.

I'm learning to love the Granary when working in concert with Slavery. Why "short-lived"? A nice synergy here is the ability to cottage several floodplains comfortably enough if you happen to get one of those 'winding rivers with lots of floodplains and hills' starts.

With that said, I ummed-and-arred and went with Mansa. I'm just finding the Spiritual trait (at the moment, until my preferences change for the two hundredth time) allows that extra bit of responsiveness and flexibility.

I'm learning to love the Granary when working in concert with Slavery. Why "short-lived"?

Because you build a granary once in a city. Expansive lets you get it in place a bit quicker, but after you've got it built your city grows at the same rate. It's not completely useless, but it's not that huge of a boost compared to doubled GPP output, which Elizabeth gets.

I voted for Mansa too, I love the ability to switch civics on a whim. I think Washington is the most financial of the financial leaders though, organized+financial means you can have a huge empire all raking in that financial bonus. He's just absurd on water maps, even without lighthouse+collossus he can pretty much spam cities and not lose money, and if he gets them both it's just crazy.

I voted for Catherine. Creative is incredibly powerful in the land-grab phase, getting you the best city sites with which to leverage Financial...and leverage it straight to Cossacks, which are on par with Praetorians when it comes to ability to utterly dominate a battlefield.

In a couple of recent games, I've made so much money from multiple holy cities and spreading their religions to all and sundry, that I have to vote for Saladin (and yes I know, I know)..just that his combo of traits just lends itself to religion founding.. a triple holy city on a huge map (yes I was v v lucky but it happened) with around 50 worldwide cities with each religion (obviously nowhere near all mine) and wall st in it..is so sick as to be silly...

So yeah, Saladin :)