Why Elizabeth is definitely the best leader (save attached)

Ok the title is inflammatory. I just wanted to generate some attention so I can show off what was a good win for me lol. This game does really show the power of Elizabeth quite well though. Map obviously helped a lot too.

The win was setup by good early commerce leveraging FIN into a strong tech lead and buying friends with techs. An elepult -> trebamace war with Ragnor for territory which I continued onto HC (and Ghandi somehow, I assume he was bribed). HC probably turned out to be a diversion, especially after Zara vassalized Ghandi and I had to cut and run to defend myself.

I tried to get the conquest happening with Cuirs -> Cavs but really it was the Redcoats which made it happen. It is not just Lizzies traits which make her good, an effective draftable UU that lands a nice time for winning games is her strongest feature imho. As this game illustrates.

PHI was not really utilized much in this game. It's always good to get those early great people out a bit sooner and I built 2 early academies which certainly boosted beakers. Although it probably counted for one, maybe 2, extra great people overall I was left with 2 useless scientists late game anyway. I don't think anybody can argue against PHI though in most situations and I am probably undervaluing getting my first few great people earlier.

Anyway save attached, 1 turn before I vassalize Luis ftw. I also put the 4000BC save in because its a good map and others may want to try it. (2 corn, 1 gold, 1 gem start). It also is a good example of relocating for a better bureau cap as discussed in other threads. Thanks for reading and all feedback on my gameplay is most appreciated.

PHI was not really utilized so how did you find her to be the best leader?

FIN is over rated, and she has a junk UB. Pericles, Frederick, Gandhi have much better trait combos for PHI, as you usually want more food for that trait, if you rely on FIN, Darius, Pacal, Hannibal, Mansa Musa, Hauyna Caupac all have much more desirable traits / UBs.

Well I took a look and played the start a couple of turns.

I see no real point removing the cap with a start like this. I don't think it's worth it if you go for dom, maybe for space. Also I don't like the multiple academies, again for domination short term uses like bulbing would make for faster finish.

Your early techpath seems sensible enough, but you settled your first cities without first ring food which must have slowed you down a bit. In the east there is nice corn spot on plainhill, in west first ring cows.

I also think that this game shows more what a good start can do rather than good leader.

Anyway congrats for the win!

Well.. She is very nice for isolated starts (faster bulbs + better basic economy + UU not to far after Astro).. Ofcourse, with tech trading ON Isolated starts pretty often = game lost.. but I play (last few months for sure.. and I love this way) without tech trading and that change some things in this game..

Yea I'm beginning to turn tech trading off in my games at higher difficulties now. The AI steamrolling tech rate and trading with each other just isn't fun. I cant even keep up with Pacal going full cottage spam & GLH with half cost harbors built asap.

sinimusta said:

Well I took a look and played the start a couple of turns.

I see no real point removing the cap with a start like this. I don't think it's worth it if you go for dom, maybe for space. Also I don't like the multiple academies, again for domination short term uses like bulbing would make for faster finish.

Your early techpath seems sensible enough, but you settled your first cities without first ring food which must have slowed you down a bit. In the east there is nice corn spot on plainhill, in west first ring cows.

I also think that this game shows more what a good start can do rather than good leader.

Anyway congrats for the win!

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Thanks heaps for looking at my game. I think they are fair points you raise.

Perhaps moving the cap was unneccesary. I don't target specific victory conditions from turn 1 on IMM, I really just aim to win. Moving the cap to Nottingham and building a very strong 3 city commerce core became my strategy very early and a space win was a potential target at that point.

This was the reason why York was placed where it was, so as to be a helper city to grow cottages for Nottingham. London was used as alternatively as a whip factory and GP farm. Early food in York was provided by farming the silk and spices pre-Calendar. The eastern expansion plans were interrupted by Hannibal. I'm not arguing that settling differently might not have been better though.

I also don't usually like multiple acadamys (or even one sometimes). In this game, I held a solid tech lead from the start and I had no trade options for bulbed techs, I was struggling to sell all my self teched techs. I am pretty comfortable that the decisions to build those acadamys were my best option at that time.

Lol and I defintely agree that this game shows the value of a good start rather than the leader. Out of interest, what leader would you pick for this start if you could pick any except HC?

Thanks again for your comments though, I will definitely take them onboard.

Deciding just based on the start, not map knowledge, right? Obviously someone with a strong uu would do well anyway, like Rome, but I'll consider this more regarding peaceful expansion.

Good question. Agri/min would be optimal start techs but only China has them and with the shinies, tech isn't such a constraint.

I think I'd want exp here. PH start means you get the bonus for the first worker and with good resources like these, every worker turn earlier makes a difference. Also expansion trait is valuable here as you can see you can get away with harder expansion with the early commerce.

Then something economical. Fin seems to be strong here, with the riverside tiles and shinies you get the profit from it early. So maybe Pacal, Maya isn't too bad anyway. Then again India is always strong with the uu, fast worker could make up for the loss of expansive.

Lizzy is the strongest leader economical-wise with PHI and FIN. She gets chosen often in the HoF for Culture through Espionage and Diplomatical victories because of that.

If it comes to pure expansion through Conquest, Egypt and Persia have the advantage of a Chariot-UU that really kicks ass.

On Marathon and maybe also Epic, Rome is the strongest CIV apart from Incans which have a league on their own.

Drafting is super-powerful btw.. I remember Sun Tzu Wu's statement, that drafting Rifles has an efficiency that's unmatched in any era and by any unit. Redcoats are definately strong, but Rifles are strong in general. I've won several games with Rifles only, so no siege. It get's really funny, when one still has some CR3-Maces which one can upgrade. CR3-Rifles vs. 60% cultural cities Longbows is something like 96% chance, and as Rifles can be libbed with good play, Rifles vs. Longbows is a common scenario.

Seraiel said:

Lizzy is the strongest leader economical-wise with PHI and FIN. She gets chosen often in the HoF for Culture through Espionage and Diplomatical victories because of that.

If it comes to pure expansion through Conquest, Egypt and Persia have the advantage of a Chariot-UU that really kicks ass.

On Marathon and maybe also Epic, Rome is the strongest CIV apart from Incans which have a league on their own.

Drafting is super-powerful btw.. I remember Sun Tzu Wu's statement, that drafting Rifles has an efficiency that's unmatched in any era and by any unit. Redcoats are definately strong, but Rifles are strong in general. I've won several games with Rifles only, so no siege. It get's really funny, when one still has some CR3-Maces which one can upgrade. CR3-Rifles vs. 60% cultural cities Longbows is something like 96% chance, and as Rifles can be libbed with good play, Rifles vs. Longbows is a common scenario.

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I shy away from pure rifle attacks because many AI's rush for military science. Once he got even a couple of those grenadiers in a city with full cultural defense it's practically impossible to take down without unreasonable losses. You need some cannons for that. It might be effective if the defender is slow on tech though.

Rifles have very good chances against Grenadiers as long as they're attacking and got Spies for revolts. Take some Cavalries with Pinch with them so AI doesn't attack your stack due to courage-mechanics and you're good.

Seraiel said:

Rifles have very good chances against Grenadiers as long as they're attacking and got Spies for revolts. Take some Cavalries with Pinch with them so AI doesn't attack your stack due to courage-mechanics and you're good.

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Forgot about the spy revolt.. that's smart. What is courage-mechanics?

Courage-mechanic describes that most AIs won't attack when they got below 50% winning chances. A cavalry with Pinch against a Grenadier is very low chance for the Gren, so even most Warmongers won't attack.

Add to that, that AI sees stacks as a whole, so they "judge" there are xy strength on that tile, I will attack, I will not attack.
Last leads to AIs not attacking an SoD if it's large enough.

I thought Darius was better economy wise. Fin / Org allows the largest empries, powerful early unit to secure as many extra AI caps as you can get, and even wipe one or two out in the BCs, plus half of the Expansive trait on the UB.

bhavv said:

I thought Darius was better economy wise. Fin / Org allows the largest empries, powerful early unit to secure as many extra AI caps as you can get, and even wipe one or two out in the BCs, plus half of the Expansive trait on the UB.

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Economy-wise, Lizzy is stronger than Darius because PHI is a lot stronger than ORG.

Regarding the "complete package" , Darius is tough to beat though.

Immortals are overrated btw.. They are very powerful sometimes, but lots of times, they'll fail to hills-cities, Spears or no BFC-Horses.
If Lizzy is given enough good land, her economical power really shines. Darius can sometimes conquer complete maps with little more than Immortals otoh.
In espionage-assisted-cultural-victories the number of Great Spies which one can generate is more important than the number of Capital-cities one has, as is the number of Great Persons when it comes to Diplomatic Victories.

I still rate ORG better than PHI or SPI, and PHI is better with just about any other trait than FIN because a food based SE works better for it.

Considering you'll only have/need 1-2 GP farms, there is no reason why you couldn't build farms there and cottage the rest of your empire. So, leveraging PHI does not mean that you'll have to pass on the goodness that comes with FIN.

Although it is true that FIN and PHI are sometimes at cross-purposes they by no means exclude each other and the significant bonus from each can be enjoyed simultaneously as well as be synergised into super strong teching.

I also think too much emphasis is put onto cottages when evaluating the strength of FIN. I want to make a list of all the tiles which enjoy the FIN bonus to illustrate this point but I am too lazy. However the underlying message would be that many of them are high food/hammer yield tiles one looks to work early, particularly while building settlers and workers thus giving FIN it's significant early commerce boost that I like to bang on about.