I'm looking for tips on how best to maximize the benefit of Charismatic, both military and non-military.

For instance, it seems one would want to build Monuments in the early cities to get the permanent Happy bonus, but that's incompatible with an Early Rush which would best use the military benefits of the trait. (For that matter, building Stonehenge is often incompatible with an early rush.)

So, how do you maximize the benefits of Charismatic?

I don't really think of charismatic as lending itself to early rushes anyway. If I have a charasmatic leader (which is very often, as I like washington of america), I usually hold off until I've settled some land peacefully and teched catapults (unless I'm being stifled...I had a successful monarch game over this past weekend where after building 3 cities ragnar had me kind of boxed in...so I rushed him with one swordsman and...13 archers or so!). Charismatic lends itself to promotions, which early on means keeping units ALIVE so they can actually get them...hard before siege.

Definitely take advantage of monuments or stonehenge (I generally hate taking time to make wonders, but w/e). Happiness is the early inhibitor to city size and charismatic gets a boost here that (early on) can match financial or philo (only for the early early turns, but take advantage of it while you can) using the extra pop.

IMO charismatic, after that, is pretty useless outside of warring, where it has a lot of potential. If you use units well and minimize losses, the promos start to add up. Once you get GG's and xp civic techs, it's not long before you can get 2 cities giving any unit they make 3 promotions out of the gate (laughably easy with a stable for mounted units).

Charismatic is probably a little weaker than aggressive for pure warmongering, however its early boost to economy does help offset that. I wouldn't recommend squandering either benefit, unless the map or your playstyle dictates doing so. In particular, this means avoiding an early rush unless the benefits to it outweigh the costs. If you hold off juuuuust a little while, you can get the economic AND warmonger benefits of charasmatic :).

Well you don't necessarily have to rush in the sense of taking cities, you can also keep up a constant stream of skirmish wars just stealing workers off people and pillaging them, while you continue on with a more normal REX type strategy. And I wouldn't say its impossible to build a cheap wonder like Stonehenge, or even put monuments in your cities, while still building troops. Basically if you want to use it for uber troops you just want to keep some kind of fighting going on constantly... Low intensity fighting is fine, just keep that XP flowing. There is a lot to be said for crippling a dangerous AI by keeping his tiles pillaged and killing off his settlers to keep space for your own civ to continue with a REX, especially early game when you can't really afford a bunch of cities, particularly if they're far away. Just declare war and keep your troops spread out so you can observe what he's doing, and you'll keep him from getting any settlers out or any stacks of doom towards your capital. Pretty typical MP strategy that works pretty good in SP too, particularly against those backstabbing AIs like Shaka, Monty etc where there's no point playing nice with them anyways cause they're just waiting to turn around and screw you over.

For instance, it seems one would want to build Monuments in the early cities to get the permanent Happy bonus, but that's incompatible with an Early Rush which would best use the military benefits of the trait.

30 hammers only. It's a quick one pop whip for monuments (which you'll probably want early anyways). Very cheap +1 :) which you can get quickly after the rush if you want to wait.


Read ABigCivFan's first clash of the warmongers for awesome use of charismatic:
http://forums.civfanatics.com/showthread.php?t=226970

Ways to leverage charismatic

1) Stonehenge. This get's you +2 happy in all cities until Atronomy.
2) Military production from a city with settled GGs. Charismatic screams for a High production HE city with alot of settled GGs.
3) Make sure your troops win battles! Toss away the weak, make sur ethe experienced go in for the kill.
4) Grow cities to a high population early.
5) A Drydocks will generate naval units with 2 promotions. Once reason the barracks went from 4 Xp to 3 was because of charismatic, but they never adjuisted the Drydocks.
6) Get the Pentagon. By the modern era you should be producing more highly promoted units than any other AI.

One reason the barracks went from 4 Xp to 3 was because of charismatic, but they never adjuisted the Drydocks.

I thought it was because of GG's. (Barracks 4 + Stable 2 + Vassalage/Theocracy 2 + GG 2 = 10 for lvl4 ... or Barracks 4 + Vassalage 2 + Theocracy 2 + GG 2 = lvl4).

Anyhow ... @ everything madscientist said: QFT.

I'm looking for tips on how best to maximize the benefit of Charismatic, both military and non-military.

For instance, it seems one would want to build Monuments in the early cities to get the permanent Happy bonus, but that's incompatible with an Early Rush which would best use the military benefits of the trait. (For that matter, building Stonehenge is often incompatible with an early rush.)

So, how do you maximize the benefits of Charismatic?

Hello...Charismatic is definitely a military trait, not an economic one.

You can go for either high quality or high quantity.

High quality is where you put all your GGs into one city...having Charismatic allows you to get the most promotions out of those GGs.

High quantity is where you spread out your GGs between several cities. Since the 2nd promotion (or 3rd) requires less XP than normal, you will need fewer GGs per city to get that extra promotion.

I like to go for a balance...I achieve high quantity by building a Military Academy in my HE city, thus increasing the bonus from 100% to 150%. But I also achieve high quality by settling at least 1 GG in that city. In some cases, this leaves your units 1 XP short of the next promotion, but you can almost always get that next promotion if you choose your battles properly.

I find being able to grow your cities that much larger early in the game to be a big help. A size 7 city with no unhappiness can get a whole lot more done than a size 5. This helps in terms of science output I find, for having the larger cities early (with a high science rate) can get you out to an early tech and/or production lead.

Personally I think the +1:) is a boost to slavery, at least that's how I use it. Instead of growing 1 more pop to stay, grow 1 more pop to kill off for another unit. The extra happiness helps for the slavery penalty and allows me to whip one extra time each 15 turns. I think the 2 parts of the trait go well together for the early war. I just finished a game with Lincoln where I was producing Paratroopers with 29 exp and cavalry with 31 exp. I kind of went overboard, but it was worth it just once to watch units come out after studying with 8 GG's at west point, with the pentagon, vassalage and theocracy. Its amazing how much murdering is necessary to win a cultural victory. Also another note about leveraging Char. Get West Point. Its the trait that makes this n.wonder the easiest to attain because its easier to get to level 6 exp. If you don't get West Point you are not making the most of Charismatic.(Assuming you havent destroyed everyone already using the trait's power)

Thank you for your replies: they have given me things to consider. Of particular interest was the use of low-intensity warfare and the use of the +1 Happy for more frequent whipping. (Since I don't have BtS, I can still run Slavery without fear of the Slave Revolt random event.)

What prompted this thread was my recent attempt at Immortal Rush with Cyrus. It went fairly well, destroying Hatty, capturing four cities (two of them Holy cities), but then the economy went into the tank, even though I had been cottaging the floodplains around Persepolis anticipating that disaster. So while my tech rate plummeted, I stopped rushing since I did not want any more cities. Yes, I could raze cities but my usual attitude towards war is it is for capturing cities, land being worthless without slaves ... err ... "loyal citizens" to work it. So the low-intensity warfare would have allowed me to keep the Immortal SoD busy and crippled the neighbors until I was ready to "rationalize the borders." (It has just occurred to me that capturing barb cities is easier than conquering a developed AI civ. I should have kept going as long sacking cities was feasible, and destroyed AIs whenever possible. Then with cheap settlers, fill territory when the economy was healthy.)
So basically, it seemed that the rush could of gone better, and that I was not using Charismatic to the fullest.

(When I normally warmonger, it is with Aggressive since I like the cheap Barracks, Stables, and Drydocks. At the moment, I still like Agg better, but it seems like Cha has good points too, since it helps with all classes of units, not just Melee and Gunpowder.)

Again, thanks for the tips. Now I'm going to read the Clash of the Warmongers.

I think charismatic is becoming my new favorite trait. A lot of people have commented so far on how to use the extra happiness, and that's certainly huge. What I like to do with it though, is attack with a large force of mounted units, especially war elephants. With stables plus the lowered cost of promotions your units will have a HUGE amount of promotions VERY early on.

The happiness can be so powerful early on. Cities basically get to work 2 more tile per city. If even one of those is a cottage, this trait starts competing with financial for the early goings. Of course, as time goes on and you have more cities/other sources of happiness/tiles worked, financial overtakes it easily, but that's when you have its military aspect to fall back on. I really, really like this trait. I didn't realize I'd been using it as a crutch until I played ghengis, but I certainly had been. A strong earlygame translates into a strong game pretty easily...

Chm is less useful than Agg for an early rush, but Chm does lend itself to a continual war from an early start (which itself is useful for pre-occupying your neighbor that you know will become very competitive later on).

The keys are:
1. Always attack in a stack, preferably 3 or more to keep one unit continually gaining experience.
2. Always heal/retreat the wounded victor with a stack, and pay attention to defensive terrain bonuses.
3. Be willing to risk an unpromoted unit to wound an enemy enough for an experienced unit to get a kill; And always be able to turtle up a stack on that victor.
4. Never throw away an experienced unit on risky odds (<90%). Not even for the last defender of a city you want.

Plus when you get the early GG, a GG+barracks+horse equals a fast medic to keep the stack alive.

The main weakness is it sucks up hammers, but the faster Drill Instructors are worth the risk. At worst, the AI ignores you and turtles, and you raze his lands while your cities build economy. At best, 3 Drill instructors in your top production city (+ Heroic epic later) gives you a serious edge until longbows, or if you goof and promote his defenders.

Chm+ Cre/Ind (i.e. Big Culture sphere) + Great wall lends itself well to an always war strategy on your home turf.

I don't really think of charismatic as lending itself to early rushes anyway. Charismatic lends itself to promotions, which early on means keeping units ALIVE so they can actually get them...hard before siege.

So on immortal and deity (maybe emperor as well), your happy cap is 3. With a monument, that's 5, so if you're running 1 food resource, you can run 4 mines/whatever instead of 2. What more explanation do you need?

Oh, you can delay monarchy or have a higher cap under representation. For early warring one less tech is a big deal.

charismatic is a great trait. The early bonus is very handy, build SH and free happiness around your empire. I find the XP bonus better in the long run than the agg trait. It effects more units and you can build up a superior core army. Just take care of your men, use inexperienced troops as cannon fodder and mop up with the high XP units. Fairly soon you will have an army that out ranks anything else and you need less men, and get more cash in your account!

I have just recently fallen in love with CHA. I have a game going right now with Washington, and it's 1850 and I am clobbering everyone. I have three main production cities in my mainland, one has IW, one has HE and two GGs, and another has WP, Red Cross, and two GGs. I have the pentagon, so without theocracy or vassalage, I get 13xp Navy SEALs with Combat I, II, III, Pinch, March, Amphibious, and Medic I!

I am a late game warmonger, myself, so the ability to crank out super-elite, 7 promo units for the experience needed for a 3 promo soldier in normal conditions is amazing. I have a lone SEAL right now who is level 10, my personal best, with Combat I, II, III, IV, V, Ambush, Pinch, Commando, March, Amphibious, and Medic I. This trait is awesome.

CHA is great thats for sure.
+2 pop in cities is the best early economic trait around, whatever the use you make of this extra hapiness (whip or grow & work tiles).
Cheap promotions means that the more the game advance and the more +xp you got for new units, the more the trait will become powerfull. That's why rushing is not particularly fitted to CHA leaders : the military aspect of your trait will become stronger with time, so why dont just you wait ?

another point : bigger cities => higher maintenance, so maybe settling only 2 or 3 supercities and tech like a mad until you can leverage fully the cheap promotions (with vasselage and theocracy) might be a good solution.

Chop monuments (or Stonehenge). Grow large. Build Army. Conquer.