For me:

1. Roosevelt, always so nice and forgiving and usually sets up quite an empire for himself*
2. Elizabeth, great techer and a great rival
3. Victoria, same as Elizabeth
4. Gandhi, great techer and very forgiving
5. Isabella, sure, I'll convert....lalala hail Buddha, hey can you go to war with Catherine, the leader who controls most of the continent that we and her are on? :lol:

*in an interesting OCC hemispheres game, he protected me (Pericles) from three psychos on the other continent, Saladin, Survayarman and Montezuma (The French civ got destroyed by Barbs super early)...I was land locked in the middle of his empire and even though the psychos DoW'd on me and him (as well as Mao who was also on the continent...) through the AP, Roosevelt protected me perfectly...not one unit made it to Athens!

Those who build weak military, which are the peaceful ones.

Some examples:

-Hatshepsut
-Gandhi
-Elizabeth
-Darius I
-Mansa Musa (well actually he does tech very well so I don't really enjoy seeing him)

Sure Gandhi, Hatty and Liz are nice pushovers to see in your game, but really you need a Shaka or Monty as well as a Zealot or two to really make things spicy! I honestly think that having at least one war monger and one zealot in the game makes the whole game much more interesting to play through. Although I would prefer not drawing someone like hannibal who can tech and war monger, now thats truly scary...

genghis or izzy, a punching bag for everyone and an easy ally respectably

I don't love such leaders as gandhi, they are very nice with other AI-s too and they get usually diplo/culture easily. Once Gandhi had 2 one city 75000 and the others were 59000.- and quickly nearing to 75k... I started to sabotage these cities as much as I could and then he got diplo win :S They are good when the are vassals.

I don't love such leaders as gandhi, they are very nice with other AI-s too and they get usually diplo/culture easily. Once Gandhi had 2 one city 75000 and the others were 59000.- and quickly nearing to 75k... I started to sabotage these cities as much as I could and then he got diplo win :S They are good when the are vassals.

Gandhi, he's cool when everyone else hates me and i need some techs really bad....but if he becomes a vassal, which he is prone to do.....then he becomes deadly dangerous...
in my last game, which i just ahem 'retired' from...monty vassalized gandhi....
now normally i can out-tech monty by the late medieval period and well..get some vengence on him for being such a right royal pain in the ass....
but this time....i just KNOW, gandhi, that little prissy coward was feeding monty techs so he could take over the world....
honestly speaking, its really strange seeing monty with better weapons than me..and kinda humiliating lol!

*****

My favourite leader--- i agree roosevelt is pretty cool..once i and him had become the top two civs in the game.... i on one continent (sharing with 3), he on another (sharing with 4)....
now at one stage, since he's such an all round cool guy, we were on friendly terms...
now looking around the map, i knew he was the only possible civ who could possibly beat me in this game.....
so i had to think of a 'master' plan..
so what do i do? i gift roosevelt 2 techs and make him attack the other four civs on his continent.....their combined armies are twice the size of his.....
would could POSSIBLY go wrong.......right??

100 turns later.....3 of those civs are his vassals...including mohandas 'vassalise me' gandhi of course....and i am way behind on points......

eventually i had to win the dirty way....go in and obliterate the 4th civ on his continent to serve as a beachead to take roosevelt down..
but when that war came.....WOW....i must have lost about 4 million soldiers (about 40percent of my troops) to his 5 million (60percent of his).....in the space of about 20 turns, this wasnt city warfare either, this was bombing, dying, out in the dusty plains of the equator warfare..bloody as hell.....and his vassals were crazy on me...they must have been hit for another 2 million as well...probably my biggest civ war ever....
now that left me with a lot of respect for roosevelt...thats the last time, i'll ever become friendly with him, i know how powerful he can get now!

*apologies for the random tangents!*

The likes of Alexander, Genghis Khan and Montezuma...

... on the other continent. :D

And Egypt next door. Ramesses always builds nice wonders instead of troops, so extra incentive to attack him.

Also, Izzy is nice to have around. Simply convert to Buddhism and you have an ally for quite some time.

Zara Yakob and Mansa Musa both are awesome as vassals ;)

Sure Gandhi, Hatty and Liz are nice pushovers to see in your game, but really you need a Shaka or Monty as well as a Zealot or two to really make things spicy! I honestly think that having at least one war monger and one zealot in the game makes the whole game much more interesting to play through. Although I would prefer not drawing someone like hannibal who can tech and war monger, now thats truly scary...

If you want someone who can tech and warmonger, try some of the creative civs. Zara Yaqob, Louis XIV, Suryavarmann II, and Catherine are generally the best creative AI's. Willem is also great but he lacks a lot of military compared to the previous four.

-Gandhi. You demand stuff from him, he doesn't even get mad.
-Bismarck. In my recent game, he was nice enough to put 7 Wonders in Berlin before I conquered him.

I like it when Gandhi is in my games. He always builds a nice little empire and barely bothers to defend it.

Boudica... for a couple of obvious reasons.
Sitting Bull, because he makes a good punching-bag by mid-game.

Hatsheput and Mansa.

:lol:Suppose I'm a bit of a spoiled warmonger, but absolutely LOVE those Fast Workers...
But wait, Gandhi and Asoka are wusses...
What to do?

Boudecia of India. THAT's what to do. :lol:

Everytime I play a game with Justinian he always seems to start out close to me and is too busy founding early religions and building wonders to notice that I have a horde of axemen coming his way.

1. Ghandi

always put him in. i love him and he loves me. i think.
i usually kill him anyway. love it how he founds a religion , just for me!
hindoeism FTW!

2: isabella

sure ill convert. *hugs*

3: shaka.

awesome opponent, especially as early neighbour. he doesnt tend to matter late game in my experience.
best way to level my prets is to start next to this guy.

4: Mansu
I see a lot of ppl in the forums hating him, i kinda like him. he dpoes not only like to trade techs, he doesnt mind giving them all away when you reduce him to one city. most of the other AI's are way more stubborn.

5: Ramesses

best neighbour if yr lazy or more into building units.
he will build all the wonders for you. he's a nice guy. really.

The Inca Guy....Bloody annoying, good AI player. Always gives me tonn of grieves and usually someone who whoopes my ass, or in multi our asses. Gives great kick taking him down.

Any AI who will declare war on another. Things can get quite boring without them, you know.

I like to take the peaceful AIs as vassals. More often than not though the warmongers take them before I do, and that's bloody annoying because now I get to fight a huge war to beat the big guy enough so the vassals begin to leave him.
That's why I pretty much always take BW and send axes to the nearest warmonger.
Liz, Vicky, Hatty, Sitting Bull, both Indians, are all good to take as vassals, as I'm lazy to get all the land to myself. They don't complain when I demand resources. Since they don't try funny ideas like breaking vassalage, I actually demand everything then resupply them as needed.
Izzy is nice because she is easy to please, and builds lots of missionaries.
The agressive AIs are useful too, they make obvious targets.

I just love it when my future vassal pops up and greets me. Of course I'm talking about Gandhi. You don't even have to go to war with him to get a nice vassal state. Hatsheput is good for that too. The two of them make for nice partners in a domination game cause they spread out to cover lots of land and then volunteer to be your vassal as soon as you roll someone like Lincoln (who also is an easy target for a stack of axe, sword, mace ...)