Leaders: How to play them and how to play against them!

I will start continuing this tomorrow. Your list Almighty dF is as good as any to start.

Heh, saying Saladin is bad, I won my first deity AP cheese win with him

ParadigmShifter said:

Heh, saying Saladin is bad, I won my first deity AP cheese win with him

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Thanks to good starting techs?

My second Monarch win was as Saladin. Two of the AIs had a blocked start though.

As for overpowered leaders - does anyone feel Pericles is very strong on Monarch? Chop pyramids, use great engineer for Great Library, kill Toku (surprisingly in all of my Pericles games Tokugawa is next to me), kill everyone else. Shaka with his super-barracks feels a bit overpowered. I never played Capac, should I try him for my first Emperor game?

Surprisingly Catherine never back-stabbed me. Not sure what's wrong with my games but she is usually signing a defensive pact with me and trying to get a space race win, sometimes even successfully. As for REXing I find AI Gandhi much more REXy, he may get half a map of almost unprotected cities in no time.

Napolean (Charismatic, Organized), starts with agriculture and Wheel
Unique Unit : Musketeer (A Musket with 2 moves), A UU that does not scale well with game spped, a great UU for normal speed and disappointing at marathon. Best used to support mounted units while relying on spies rather than seige to take cities.:
Salon (Observatory that grants a free artist), a deceptively strong UB but you should be runnign reprentation to properly leverage it.
Mad's Opinion: A great war-monger for any age, with a UB suited for an SE game!
Mad's Successful The Arrogant French http://forums.civfanatics.com/showthread.php?t=282849

How to play with: (Military expansion with a SE game)
Napolean's startign techs are great and you are one tech away from chariots (if you got the horses) so be prepared to chariot rush someone and possibly pop out an early Great General to supplement the Charismatic trait. Also he is 1 tech away cottages so an early CE game is possible (I still prefer the SE with Napolean). The Pyramids are a grand prize for the French here allowing you an early representation game giving you extra beakers per specialist and that extra happiness to , go with his charismatic trait. His organized trait means you should be continually expanding via the military getting better promoted units while being able to afford that new land with cheap cottages and still teching with the SE play style. Beeline anyway to get astronomy early (most likely liberalism) and spam Salons. With representation your adding a +25% building that get's you an extra +4 culture and +4 beakers plus extra GP points. Speaking of which, the downside of the Salon is Great Artist pollution which I could care littel about. With Napolean I am expanding militarily and will use Great Artists as culture bombs or settle them for +3 gold, +3 beakers, +12 culture! Come later in the game Napolean is well equipped for intercontinental invasions since he is charismatic and the drydocks will provide each naval unit 2 free promotions while ORG allows easier absorbtion of the newly conquered continent.

What to expect from AI Napolean (favorite civic is Representation): Napolean is a war-mongering snake that you can never trust. If you are near him he will eventually attack, and he is an efficient warrior as far as number of military and using them properly. He is not much of a religious person, his favorite civic is late, and he makes ALOT of demands! Very rarely have I been able to stay at peace with him an entire game, he will almost always backstab you late if you try.

Gilgamesh (Creative, Protective), starts with agriculture and Wheel
Unique Unit : Vulture (An axeman with 6 strength but only +25% versus melee), An axe with added strength against archery/mounted/seige units but effectiveness versus melee varies. :
Ziggarat (Cheaper Courthouse available at priesthood), a decent UB no different from courthouses except cheaper and earlier.
Mad's Opinion: Very early REX. The strongest leader at the beginning.
Mad's Semi-Successful Nature-Boy Gilgamesh http://forums.civfanatics.com/showthread.php?t=312841

How to play with: (REX, very early stable economy, play the map)
Gilgamesh has it all at the beginning of the game and you have to be able to read the map! Early on he can go for vultures (mining/Bronze Working), the early UB (mysticism/meditation/priesthood), early defense (hunting/archery for protective archers), writing (fast libraries from creative), cottages (1 turns from pottery), many settlers to REX using the creative trait; the sky is the limit here which is why care is needed. Hell, he is even the fastest to getting an espionage economy going with early Ziggarats and getting a fast Great Scientist to bulb alphabet for spies! It's too easy to try it all without a plan and become frustrated. Look at the neighborhood (and neighbors!) and decide what is best to do, as he can do anything you want early on. Floodplains? Pottery sooner than later and CE. Lot's of food? writing and fast libraries. Room to expand? Settlers and beeline priesthood. Thugs nearby? VULTURES and ARCHERS! Really, you should have exploited his abilities well by 1 AD, and if the early game is your weakness, well this Summerian is your man! Later in the game Creative wanes a bit and you will need to rely on your well established empire and if warring is in the future remember that protective leaders can draft gunpowder units with 2 free promotions and get pinch if you got 4 XP from the city (theocracy, vassalage, pentagon, settled GG)



What to expect from AI Gilgamesh (favorite civic is Heriditary Rule): Gilgamesh is a dangerous early leader. The creative and protective traits as well as the UU make him very difficult to rush unless done VERY early. And for the reasons mentioned above in playing him, the AI plays him very well. He is not timid and will attack militarily yet he can peacefully expand and be a tech threat, and for a kicker he also shoots for culture on occasion. Never ignore him! On the bright side he is not unreasonable and can be fairly easily befriended by sharing a religion and adopting Heritary Rule his favored civic. He also is a fair trader and makes few if any demands. My view is I take him out ASAP if very nearby and keep him as a friend if he is a distance away.

Nice summary of Gilgamesh!

Just a minor clarification: The vulture isn't necessarily a liability against axes or other melee units. While weak against axes on level terrain, vultures are actually stronger than axes if whoever defends is also heavily fortified.

Example: When attacking axemen with external +25% over the attacker (e.g. promotions cancel out, defending axeman is on a hill), the Vulture will do just as well as a regular axeman; any more bonuses for the defender and the Vulture does better.

Example: When attacking axemen with external +25% over the attacker (e.g. promotions cancel out, defending axeman is on a hill), the Vulture will do just as well as a regular axeman; any more bonuses for the defender and the Vulture does better.

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Vultures are already better at 25%. Barring all other promotions, the 25+vulture's 25 will allow the two 50%'s to cancel out.

But vultures have higher base strength.

TheMeInTeam said:

Vultures are already better at 25%. Barring all other promotions, the 25+vulture's 25 will allow the two 50%'s to cancel out.

But vultures have higher base strength.

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Iranon is correct.

You probably recall this post:

PieceOfMind said:

One slightly strange way you could think about the difference between vultures and axemen, is that a vulture is like an axeman that has been given an inherent combat 1 and 2 but had a Shock promotion subtracted from it.

On defense against melee units, a vulture is equal to an axeman when the total defense modifier is 50%, ignoring the inherent melee bonii. Note this defense modifier includes all attack modifiers except for combat promos. Above 50% the vulture does better, below 50% the axeman does better. So out in the field, vulture will often be weaker defending against axemen than regular axemen because it would be difficult for a vulture to gain 50% of defense other than its melee bonus. But a forest would be enough to ensure it's at least as strong as an axeman defending. Defending a forest, both an axeman and vulture would be 7.5 against a melee unit. Against anything other than melee, the vulture fares better for obvious reasons.

On the attack it's a bit more complicated, but not by much. Obviously the vulture will be better when attacking anything other than melee units, and this is something to strongly consider.
When attacking a melee unit however, an axeman would be better when the sum of defense modifiers is less than 25%, and the vulture better if the defense modifiers are greater than 25%. So already we can say that if you are attacking a hill city, a vulture is no worse attacking that city than an axeman.

So actually it's pretty rare for vultures to perform worse than axes. I think people are misunderstanding things a bit if they think Gilgamesh would get ripped to pieces by enemy axes. The vulture is no dog soldier. If you are being attacked by axes, putting your vultures on good defensive terrain (like a forest) instantly removes its disadvantage of having the weaker melee boost.

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But it's quite possible there's a slight interpretation confusion here. Did you think Iranon meant the vulture had +25% in addition to its anti-melee bonus?

If you attack an axeman on a hill with either a vulture or axeman, I would call that a 25% external defense if we ignore the melee modifiers. At 25% of defense, both the axeman and vulture should be identical (5:6.25 or 6:7.5).

To be precise, when attacking a melee unit, vultures and axes are identical when the defender has 25% total defense for the attacking axe, and +50% for the attacking vulture. On either side of 25% is where they'll differ.

Because of this discrepency regarding the vulture is why I headged the UU description. As I am not convinced yet one way or the other whether vultures are equal, better, weaker against enemy axes under certain conditions I am changing the section to say

"Vultures may be slightly poorer against melee"

As the article is to help people not familair with these leaders, I think this is fair enough. Agree?

One other point for discussion about Vultures,

Seeing the math versus other melee, spears and swords.

Unpromoted, no defenses, bonus to defender

Axes vs spears = 5:2 or 2.5:1
Axes vs Swords = 5:3 or 1.67:1
Vulture vs spear = 6:3 or 2:1
Vulture vs Sword = 6:4.5 or 1.33

Never really looked at non-axe melee but looks like the vulture does alot worse versus spear and swords. Am I missing something here???

madscientist said:

Because of this discrepency regarding the vulture is why I headged the UU description. As I am not convinced yet one way or the other whether vultures are equal, better, weaker against enemy axes under certain conditions I am changing the section to say

"Vultures may be slightly poorer against melee"

As the article is to help people not familair with these leaders, I think this is fair enough. Agree?

One other point for discussion about Vultures,

Seeing the math versus other melee, spears and swords.

Unpromoted, no defenses, bonus to defender

Axes vs spears = 5:2 or 2.5:1
Axes vs Swords = 5:3 or 1.67:1
Vulture vs spear = 6:3 or 2:1
Vulture vs Sword = 6:4.5 or 1.33

Never really looked at non-axe melee but looks like the vulture does alot worse versus spear and swords. Am I missing something here???

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The reason you are finding vultures seem weaker is because you are not including any defense modifiers. This is a bit unrealistic and biases the comparison in favour of the axeman.

PieceOfMind said:

To be precise, when attacking a melee unit, vultures and axes are identical when the defender has 25% total defense for the attacking axe, and +50% for the attacking vulture.

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If the defender is melee...

If the defender has less than 25% of defense when attacked by the axe, the axe attacker will be better. If the defender has more than 25% of defense against the axe, the vulture attacker will be better. If the defender has exactly 25% defense when attacked by the axe, both the axe and vulture will have the same odds.

Example: An axe and vulture both attacking a pike on a forested hill will have the same odds.

If the attacker is melee...

If the defending axe has more than 50% of defense when attacked by the melee unit, the vulture defender will be better. If the defending axe has less than 50% of defense when attacked by the melee unit, the axe defender will be better. If the defending axe has exactly 50% of defense when attacked by the melee unit, both vulture and axe will again be the same

Example: A sword attacking an axe or vulture on flat ground will have the same odds in each case. Same as if it were a spear - not a sword.

All in all, Iranon summarised it nicely. Vultures tend to do better than axes in combat when the defender (whether it is you or the enemy) is well fortified. The only real exception to this is when being attacked by melee units like spears and swords on flat ground, where all the defense bonus you need is made up by the anti-melee bonus. In these cases the vulture is rarely weaker than an axeman.

OK, so vultures are generally equal or slightly better to axes in attacking other melee with a defensive bonus (promotions/terrain/city/etc...) but more succeptible to other melee counterattacks in the open than axes. Also, when vulture attack other melee in the open (rouge enemies, barb axes/spears/swords) they are at a disadvantage compared with axes.

Fair enough?

madscientist said:

OK, so vultures are generally equal or slightly better to axes in attacking other melee with a defensive bonus (promotions/terrain/city/etc...) but more succeptible to other melee counterattacks in the open than axes. Also, when vulture attack other melee in the open (rouge enemies, barb axes/spears/swords) they are at a disadvantage compared with axes.

Fair enough?

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Yes. Very well put, IMO.

Just started my first Gilgamesh game.

Gilgamesh is great for espionage game (at least on monarch). With early spy specialists you can steal fast and soon and protective archers behind the awesome wall give you many great generals.

Just got dogpiled by Shaka, Alex, Kublai and Toku (well only saw stacks of first two) and now I have 3 great generals. Vultures are good for fighting archers in cities and can even fight longbows if significantly damaged.

The overall Sumerian strategy is:
Move Zig! For Great Justice!

Wow that was a horrid patch of luck.
I start on a somewhat large (I was able to wedge six cities onto it) peninsula, as Gilgamesh, without iron or copper. Lot of gold, though.
I had to play peacefully till I managed to find a barb island with iron on it, but by then it was practically pointless. With the help of a small bit of late game warfare (only had to take one civ) I ended up getting a diplomatic victory.

Thankfully, Gilgamesh seems really good at espionage and religion. If he started off with Mysticism, he'd almost be overpowered.

Hammurabi (Organized, Agressive), starts with agriculture and Wheel
Unique Unit : Bowman (An archer with +50% versus melee), A powerful early defensive unit. :
Garden (Colleseum + 2 health), An unglamerous yet useful UB
Mad's Opinion: A large empire war-Monger.
Mad's Semi-Successful Lawless Hammurabi http://forums.civfanatics.com/showthread.php?t=296626

How to play with: (REX, very early stable economy, play the map)
Hammurabi has the trait combo of Vanilla Toku without the great UU. A very efficient war-monger as the Organized trait fits well with military expansion. Get to Code of Laws, build an agressive Military, capture your land mass, whip out courthouses in the new cities, and you have a very strong early start. Hammurabi's not much of a builder, so don't select him unless your ready to sharpen your swords. The UU is a pretty good early defender so peaceful REXing while relying on Bowmen for defense is OK, just do not get too confident as a large stack of AI swords/axes will eventually shred Bowmen, plus they are just as susceptible to mounted units as regular archers. The main advantage I found for Bowmen is very effective fogbusters against Barbs, espeically if promoted early from the cheap baracks. The UB is cheap enough to build and can be useful especially later during teh factory/power plant era.



What to expect from AI Hammurabi (favorite civic is Bureacracy): Without a doubt Hammurabi is the most peaceful of the agressive leaders. In fact he is easy to befriend, makes few demands, and can be a valuable allie. Generally, he is not a backstabber. His Bowmen make an early rush near impossible unless you happen to get early chariots, otherwise wait until construction or bring overwhelming forces. He tends to favor wonders, and beelines the electricity/radio/mass media route for the wonders. He is a good techer and both a SpaceShip and Culture threat later in the game, so you have to look out for that.

I am not sure I remember what the Babylonia UB Garden actually does. I am at work so I cannot double check. Also am I correct about his starting techs? Thanks

The UU is a pretty good early defender so peaceful REXing while relying on Bowmen for defense is OK, just do not get too confident as a stack of AI swords/axes will shred Bowmen

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Hey, MAD, this statement confuses me. If the bowman gets +50% vs. melee, wouldn't that stack of Axes/Swords get shredded by the bowmen? As it is, CG1 archers on a hill with 20% culture defense are a beeotch to beat let alone another +50% vs. melee. Can you elaborate?

EDIT: Edited for bad maths!

madscientist said:

I am not sure I remember what the Babylonia UB Garden actually does. I am at work so I cannot double check. Also am I correct about his starting techs? Thanks

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It's correct. Ag and the Wheel, and UB is just a colosseum with 2 (not a granary)

PieceOfMind said:

It's correct. Ag and the Wheel, and UB is just a colosseum with 2 (not a granary)

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Thanks! I'll correct the post.

blitzkrieg1980 said:

Hey, MAD, this statement confuses me. If the bowman gets +50% vs. melee, wouldn't that stack of Axes/Swords get shredded by the bowmen? As it is, CG1 archers on a hill with 20% culture defense are a beeotch to beat let alone another +50% vs. melee. Can you elaborate?

EDIT: Edited for bad maths!

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This goes back to my first Hammurabi RPC where my mighty Bowmen got shredded by agressive promoted melee. Don't get me worng, they are good, but determined Zulu and Aztec stacks of melee with eventually defeat your Bowmen. I just wanted to point out NOT to take defense for granted with these units.