I'm sure there will be an arguement on which leader is the BEST. But now I"m thinking we can come to a consensus on which leader is the WORST.

I think John Adams pretty much sums it up.

+25% liberty bells.

Hmmmmm.

With how the current system of bells works, is that wise? So the Kings forces ramp up on you that much faster... that's smart? Now, lets assume you avoid your townhall for ages, and decide to only produce bells at the last minute. That means, you still played most the game with basically a missing trait. At least you could have picked someone like the French to get a militaristic trait which starts from the get-go, and lasts indefinitely, which NO increase to the REF, despite it actually can help combat vs the REF(and other bad buys).

The more liberty bells you get, the faster you get to the revolution. The faster you get to the revolution, the less time the king has to build up troops.

Agree with Coral, true is that system is flawed and you must start revolution on 50%, but there is not dissadvantage that you get there faster. You can start acumulating bells whenever you want and you will need less statesman which is most expenive specialist and you get FF faster, so I would say quite opposite, it is not best (that belongs to Samual del Champlain), but is ok.
Worst is Simon Bolivar, +25% against native is minor and is much better to cooperate with them. Full bonus for rebel sentimen sounds good, until you realize that you need start revolution at 50%, bonus counts only on city defense and royal artirely have power 4 and +150% bonus on city attack (= 10), so your city defense with poor 3 power canons is always worse even with all defensive bonuses. You really need cavalry and attack, not sit and defend.

Bolivar, worst? What have you been smoking?
The bonus does *not* only count on defence, that is a flaw in the Civilopedia.
And it's certainly not better to cooperate with them, as small empires have an easier time killing the REF. Well it can be, but it depends on how you play the game. Besides, that is a Spain bonus, and not strictly a leader bonus.

Edit: One the other hand, the number of liberty bells you require to become a rebel is the same, but it's marginally better to produce a lot each turn, then a little each turn, so John Adams' bonus is useful, but not very.
I'd rate him as one of the weakest leaders.

My vote goes to Arian Van der Donck.
However I think they are all pretty close.

Donck for me as well. Not because he is weak, but because the other Dutch leader is so much better.

Bolivar, worst? What have you been smoking?
The bonus does *not* only count on defence, that is a flaw in the Civilopedia.
And it's certainly not better to cooperate with them, as small empires have an easier time killing the REF. Well it can be, but it depends on how you play the game. Besides, that is a Spain bonus, and not strictly a leader bonus.


Unfortunately I did not smoke anything, I run out of my weed, but authors of this game cleary did, because Civilopedia is misleading or completly wrong on so many things. I checked my games and yes you are right, problem is I played with other leaders and you get bonus for actual sentiment -50%. So when I started revolution on 50% I did not saw any bonuses and after that did not pay so much atention and just believed to civpedia, my bad. With attack bonus is of course quiet opposite and Bolivar is probably best.

Unfortunately I did not smoke anything, I run out of my weed, but authors of this game cleary did, because Civilopedia is misleading or completly wrong on so many things. I checked my games and yes you are right, problem is I played with other leaders and you get bonus for actual sentiment -50%. So when I started revolution on 50% I did not saw any bonuses and after that did not pay so much atention and just believed to civpedia, my bad. With attack bonus is of course quiet opposite and Bolivar is probably best.

:D
Yeah, between the rebel sentiment and the artillery, it's better not to read the civilopedia in most cases.

Currently: Any colonial leaders the AI is playing... :D

Honestly, the game is winnable by any leader just the same without huge differences. On Paper they all whould have their uses i guess. If and when the game will be balanced. (Which might also very well change the value of bells.)

Do we count everything for each leader?
By that I mean french leaders get a hardy pioneer besides their traits. Spanish leaders get a veteran soldier and dutch leaders get a merchantman.

I think the worst leader is probably George Washington with the current system. You want to build bells only late and then fast which Adams help you with. Soldiers are mainly good for being defensive in cities but I'd rather attack the AI before they attack me, be it on sea or land, or let them take a settlement then retake it.
With horses being dirt cheap and dragoons having +1 str I'd rather have an army with no soldiers so in that case both GWs traits are largely irrelevant (crosses being weak imo) and england gets no special starting unit.
Ironically I played GW in my first game thinking he would be the best. :p

Infantry are not TOO bad if you can grab both Dom Pedro and Paul Chomeday.

...which you should, since AI is incompetent. :)

The French leader with Grenadier promotion, how often would you assault a settlement? Native settlement you say? The Cannons with 100% assault bonus already owns them with little trouble.

If you fight against the Europeans late, or if you let the REF take a city before you take it back, then he is quite good. It's just that the AI is so poor that his bonus is poor.

It really depends on how you play. Some are good, no matter how you play (Bolivar and Stuyvesant), some are great for one style of play (Champlain, huge empire style, San Martin for a large standing army, Frontenac as mentioned already).
I'd put Bolivar, Stuyvesant and Champlain in tier one (perhaps only Bolivar, he just just that strong), San Martina and Washington in tier two, and Frontenac and Adams in tier three. Adams is stronger with a large empire (still crap though), and almost completely useless with a small one. Champlain is also useless in a one or two city game, a bit the same with Washington, his bonus is only valuable for larger empires, more so because you will always want to have at least one production city, and producing enough weapons two times over for a small empire is easy.
Stuyvesant I think is great, but I haven't played around with him to say if I could feel the difference, or to what extent that would be (more cannons, for sure).
Bolivar is bloody great, a potential of giving you, in effect, a third more soldiers for the same price is fantastic (a third, because you'd already be at 150% for his full potential to work), and making your SOLs on par with the Man-O-Wars can also do wonders.

I think the worst leader is probably George Washington with the current system.


Absolutely not, get all defensiv upgrades and FFs for defense like +25% and free Minuteman promotion and then his bonus is pretty damn strong.

My vote goes to Arian Van der Donck.

I won my first game with Donck so am biased. He gives 100% time between tax increases. That's pretty powerful for a trading game, especially when you are sending a full galleon to europe every turn. I declared with $75,000 available to buy more troops if needed.

I think Arian Van der Donck has a great potential for very high scores since your game score is directly based on your tax rate. A rate of 50% means you score is half what it should be. (I think the formula is (FF points + Land points) * tax rate and then normalized at the end) I had a game on Conq difficulty with him and my tax rate was a tiny 28% when I did my declaration around turn 200. Not to mention the thousands you save on taxes over the whole game.

Hmm didnt know that, of course that changes some things :P
I guess no leader is really weak and the balance here is pretty good.

I think Arian Van der Donck has a great potential for very high scores since your game score is directly based on your tax rate. A rate of 50% means you score is half what it should be. (I think the formula is (FF points + Land points) * tax rate and then normalized at the end) I had a game on Conq difficulty with him and my tax rate was a tiny 28% when I did my declaration around turn 200. Not to mention the thousands you save on taxes over the whole game.

If that is true, one could sell everything over the warehouse and end with a tax in the 2-8% range (or less).

I was wondering why I'm always back with score when I have clear lead in other graphs and have bigger land mass. So in game that is from half about trade with Europe, you score is subsrtacted for it, bright idea, lol.

I was wondering why I'm always back with score when I have clear lead in other graphs and have bigger land mass. So in game that is from half about trade with Europe, you score is subsrtacted for it, bright idea, lol.
Maybe they think trading with Europe is 'too easy'.

Shouldn't the "tax-rate" be deemed void/irrelevant after DoI? ...hence not show up at all on a scorecard where ind. has been gained/won.

Is it really true that a high tax rate lowers your score? Tax rate increases when you sell many goods to europe, so I get punishesed for farming/producing lots of goods and selling them to europe? Wasn't trade the whole reasons many colonies where created in the first place?

So I get a low score for making myself and my mother country rich :lol:

Boliver is defenetly the worst. Second would probably be Louis de Frontenac as his bonuses are contradictory to each other and all together not that good.

And those who think Van der Donck is the worst leader is crazy. he is the best commercial leader in the game.

Boliver is defenetly the worst. And those who think Van der Donck is the worst leader is crazy. he is the best commercial leader in the game.
I agree with you about Van de Donck but Bolivar's military bonus is devastating in the WoI. He's among the most powerful leaders (though personally I prefer Jose).

I guess I dislike Boliver because I rarely ever play with winning via independence in mind, I usualy end up with an easy time victory. I also don't like the Spanish in general as the natives are so much more useful keeping alive. Jose, however, can be pretty fun to play as.

Time victory? I thought you could only get a time DEFEAT. In vanilla you must defeat the King (destroy all ships or all land units) or you lose, sometimes because the King doesn't ship the units over before time runs out.

Cyrus McCormick is not the worst in that he is not harmful...but among the most usless...who needs all that cotton?

Re this: "With horses being dirt cheap and dragoons having +1 str I'd rather have an army with no soldiers so in that case both GWs traits are largely irrelevant (crosses being weak imo) and england gets no special starting unit."

With the right FFs, infantry are stronger than cavalry in forests and on hills, while cavalry are stronger on flat unwooded squares. So depending on the mix of coastal squares next to the cities most subject to attack, you might want mostly dragoons or mostly soldiers or (usually) a mix of both.

In any event, you need guns for both types of units.

With the right FFs, infantry are stronger than cavalry in forests and on hills, while cavalry are stronger on flat unwooded squares. So depending on the mix of coastal squares next to the cities most subject to attack, you might want mostly dragoons or mostly soldiers or (usually) a mix of both.

In any event, you need guns for both types of units.
Yes, but it's very aggravating the time(s) you discover that you can't convert the infantry to cavalry because the soldier only has half the guns required for the dragoon! (Fixed or to be fixed in AoD II.)

I only use infantry as garrison troops, (almost) never in the field. In my games facing an REF of only double-digit size I don't defend, I attack and destroy all the King's units as soon as they land. Presumably that approach won't work facing triple-digit REFs, in which case some forested strong points would be in order. [I have had to use combined arms once or twice when approaching Pirate strongholds that can sprout a Stack of Doom.]

Re this: "Yes, but it's very aggravating the time(s) you discover that you can't convert the infantry to cavalry because the soldier only has half the guns required for the dragoon!"

You open the city screen, turn the soldier into a colonist working inside the city, then immediately turn that colonist back into a dragoon. Does this not work with the Spanish leader?

Re this: "I only use infantry as garrison troops, (almost) never in the field. In my games facing an REF of only double-digit size I don't defend, I attack and destroy all the King's units as soon as they land."

As I noted above, infantry with the right FFs can be more successful at attacking the REF than dragoons IF the REF lands on a wooded/hill/woodedhill square right next to your city. So why would you risk a weaker unit equipped with horses when you can attack with a stronger unit without horses?

Time victory? I thought you could only get a time DEFEAT. In vanilla you must defeat the King (destroy all ships or all land units) or you lose, sometimes because the King doesn't ship the units over before time runs out.

You have to go into the Custom Game options, turn off the European victory, and turn on the Time victory.

I think they are all fairly balanced, a welcome change from the extremes of Huayna Capac and Saladin in Civ4.

Van der Donck is very subtly powerful. The tax bonus and less of a price drop from flooding the market with a good make trade with europe very profitable. I actually prefer him to Stuyvessant because I will often end up using extra cash more than the 25% bonus Stuyvessant gets from carpenters. With heavy city specialization and lots of gold you don't even need to run carpenters.

I think Washington is ironically the worst leader because producing crosses has depreciating value and guns are cheap to buy anyway. Adams on the other hand is marginally more useful for attempting quick victories.

Re this: "Yes, but it's very aggravating the time(s) you discover that you can't convert the infantry to cavalry because the soldier only has half the guns required for the dragoon!"

You open the city screen, turn the soldier into a colonist working inside the city, then immediately turn that colonist back into a dragoon. Does this not work with the Spanish leader?
No problems with the Spanish, I was talking about Washington, and the *really* aggravating time is when you can't convert TWO soldiers into one dragoon. At Epic each dragoon requires 75 guns (and 75 horses), but the soldiers require 37 guns. You turn the soldier into a colonist, putting 37 guns in inventory. Turn a second soldier into a colonist and now you have 74 guns, and you can't turn even one colonist into a dragoon.

p.s. to Antilogic, thanks for the info, I didn't know there was such a thing, or rather I didn't know what it meant. Actually, I still don't, what's the point of a time victory? Is it a matter of avoiding being conquered until time runs out?

Ya, Washington and dragoons just don't mix well together. And its hard to use primarily soldiers and cannons in your fighting force.

p.s. to Antilogic, thanks for the info, I didn't know there was such a thing, or rather I didn't know what it meant. Actually, I still don't, what's the point of a time victory? Is it a matter of avoiding being conquered until time runs out?

The point of a Time victory, if you turn it on, is to have the highest score when time runs out (be at the top of the list). You don't have to declare a revolution and beat the King to win (that's the Independence victory). However, by default, the King wins when time elapses unless you turn off the "Europe" victory condition.

The point of a Time victory, if you turn it on, is to have the highest score when time runs out (be at the top of the list). You don't have to declare a revolution and beat the King to win (that's the Independence victory). However, by default, the King wins when time elapses unless you turn off the "Europe" victory condition.
Thanks for the explanation. Mostly useful for multi-player, I presume.

Maybe. I've never played with it, but I know some guys want to try for the "Canada" victory, where you just become a decent state without declaring war on the King. It affords some flexibility in the gameplay.

I like the Industrialization and Economic victories in AoD II (and the theory of the Pirate Plunder victory), but for the first two I raised the thresholds.

Donck is the best, not the worst! 100% tax rate increases means that you have tons more gold than you do with any other leader...

Donck isn't all that necessary once you start producing your own tools and guns and if you take the opportunity to sell to the natives. You can mitigate the effect of tax increases by selling to the natives (avoiding the king) as well as only purchasing a handful of tools and guns to start, and then building up your horse supply later.

I don't think I've ever built a ranch--just not worth the money.

My vote goes to Arian Van der Donck.
However I think they are all pretty close.
Agreed. Vander Donck has the worst trait in the game. It doesn't reduce the taxes. It merely increases the time. So instead of getting two 5% tax increases you get one big 10% tax increase on your favorite trade good. Better to go for Stuyvesant.

Dale's AoD fixes the issue with Washington and dragoons.