Civ 4 BTS Who is the best Leader to play?

ShengWuLien said:

Haven't played BtS, but in Warlords:

Hattie is right up there. Spiritual and Creative are killer traits, and she starts with The Wheel and Agriculture so your first worker is never bored. I heard some people think her UU is ok, too...

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I think her UU is quite a bit more than ok. XD Egypt+ horses= fun.

There is no single best Civ / Leader, but over my time playing I have enjoyed the following ones the most (in no particular order):

Early game powercivs:

Sumeria - Cheap Ziggurats at Priesthood and Vultures are massively powerful in the early game, and will give you a huge head start if you use them well.

Suryavarman - The Khmer Civ has a very weak UU and UB, however a lot of people overlook how powerful sury's EXP / CRE combination is. You get cheap workers, granaries and libraries! Your ancient age cities will be built up faster than anyone else can manage.

Long term Civs:

Inca - Already mentioned lots and easily the most well rounded leader for difficulties up to Monarch / Emperor. You get more gold with Fin, 50% cheaper wonders, +2 from your granaries, and a beefed up warrior which is a massive help against barbs, even if you dont use them to rush the AI.

Darius - The powergamers Civ of choice in Civ IV. Fin + Org gives you the best possible economy in the game, and the UB gives +2 which is almost the same as having Expansive on top.

Pacal / Mehmed - Not often mentioned as much as Darius because their bonuses are easily overlooked. Each has EXP for +2 health and cheap granaries, plus either FIN (Pacal), or ORG (Mehmed). The biggest thing that makes these Civs stand out however are the early +2 buildings. As people would say that Inca gets Creative for free, and Darius gets Expansive for free, The Ottomans and Mayans get the economical side of CHA for free, and on much more useful buildings than monuments which also dont go obsolete.

Hannibal / Willem - Not as versatile as the Civs mentioned above, but both completely rock Archipelago maps. I like to use Willem on lower difficulties (Emperor and below) where maintenance costs are managable with just FIN, and Creative is always nice to have for free border pops and cheap libraries. On an Immortal Archipelago map, Hannibal is hands down the strongest economical Civ you can play - Combining the GLH with Cothons and rexing coastal cities is just hugely powerful. If you also manage to build the stonehenge, which isnt too hard when you start with mining and get a good productive start, all your coastal cities will have +2 trade routes from GLH and +2 from CHA + Stonehenge as soon as they are founded, plus an extra route and +50% bonus once the cothon is built (Tech for Currency > Compas ASAP, build Cothons first in every city thereafter).

* Mayans + Ottomans get the economic side of Charismatic, not Creative for free, I made a typo

Suryavarman is great for rushing, like him a lot.
Protective and Aggresive are kinda weak traits imo, so all the leaders without these are good
Especially PRO is a joke.

Regas said:

Suryavarman is great for rushing, like him a lot.
Protective and Aggresive are kinda weak traits imo, so all the leaders without these are good
Especially PRO is a joke.

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I agree for the most part, but why is Sury so good for rushing? He has good traits and is an OK leader (UU very poor, UB is so-so). For me the best rushers are Egypt and Sumeria. If you consider Prats a rush, include Rome. An oddball good rusher is Asoka (quick to BW with Mining at start and FW chops better).

For unrestricted leaders, almost anybody else of Sumeria is great. bhavv is right, Sumeria is very strong early game. Gilgamesh's problem is that Creative is poor late-game and Protective is the worst trait and he gets no synergy from it either. Actually, that's not quite true - he can run a pretty good Espionage Economy.

For unrestricted leaders as I mentioned in the other thread - Sury of Sumeria is just insane - Vultures, Ziggurats, half cost Libraries and Granaries, cheap workers and free border pops. You get all the best bonuses possible in the Ancient era.

For a long term game though I want to play Inca, Darius, Mehmed, Pacal, Hannibal or Willem.

On Immortal I tend to only play as Hannibal, Mehmed or Pacal for the happiness bonuses, I can handle most other Civs up to Emperor.

Ataxerxes said:

I agree for the most part, but why is Sury so good for rushing? He has good traits and is an OK leader (UU very poor, UB is so-so). For me the best rushers are Egypt and Sumeria. If you consider Prats a rush, include Rome. An oddball good rusher is Asoka (quick to BW with Mining at start and FW chops better).

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Creative-- conquered cities get border pops. It doesn't seem like much, but you really get cities them being productive so much faster. Also, it's much easier to place cities, especially if you need to access a strategic resource. Overall, I think creative is just great for early conquests.

Expansive-- Faster workers are always desirable to get your chopping and improving done. The extra health helps when you start to consolidate your conquests. Granaries build faster.

Basically the combo makes for minimal early infrastructure problems. No monuments needed and granaries, the other most important building goes faster. And you can spend those hammers on more workers or troops.

UU is definitely crap though. :/ I think I end up preferring Hatty. But Sury is very good and all around strong.

Creative is very very good, early game you can skip mysticism.
Archon_Wing explained why Sury is good for rushes
And I personally like UB a lot. +1 food is always nice.

Regas said:

And I personally like UB a lot. +1 food is always nice.

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Its only half as good as all the +2 UBs that you can get. It should really be +2 to be equal to other more powerful UBs.

Best way to make use of the baray is to also build Hanging Gardens and obviously run a specialist economy.

Sury can make some really uber large cities:

I am not too fond of CRE, you can play around the need for culture too easily most of the time. The bonus of the Baray is ok, but the building it comes on is awkward. You already have a health bonus and may not need it otherwise, +1 food on its own is not enough to make it a stellar investment. Suryavarman is definitely one of my weaker leaders.

Iranon said:

I am not too fond of CRE, you can play around the need for culture too easily most of the time. The bonus of the Baray is ok, but the building it comes on is awkward. You already have a health bonus and may not need it otherwise, +1 food on its own is not enough to make it a stellar investment. Suryavarman is definitely one of my weaker leaders.

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Dont you have BTS that gives -50% library costs with CRE?

Suryavarman starts just one tech away from writing, if you get a start that allows it you research AH > Writing, 50% cheaper library in your first three cities, get them worked with lots of food and start running two scientist speacialists ASAP in each.

You blitz through the Ancient and most of the early renaissance tech tree. Half price libs and free border pops is very powerful on any difficulty, and combined with cheaper workers and half cost granaries it becomes insane for getting all your cities up and running since the Library and Granary are the two most important buildings you are going to want in every city as well as a courthouse (You can build a Library > Granary easilly while the city is still growing to 3 pop, and then a courthouse and whip it ASAP). The baray is always needed if you want to build large SE cities, you hit the health cap in no time even with an EXP leader, though if you try playing them with sumeria instead, you will get everything you need to rex an entire continent in the BCs.

The only other combination that is better for a SE is Pericles with CRE / PHI for half price libs and universities. You get more GPs born over a full game, but your cities will have 2 less health and 1 less food than Suryavarman gets, meaning that they will nly have the capacity to run two less specialists each.

Heres a recent Sury of Sumeria game I played on Monarch difficulty, since then I've been playing him without unrestricted leaders on Emperor and he is easily the strongest early game leader with CRE / EXP for a SE strategy:



I still make far too many mistakes in my games, hence why I'll never be any good at Deity level - I forget to switch to Slavery, I forget to whip Courthouses ASAP as soon as I've teched Col, I forget to switch over to Caste System to use Merchants to support my rex, I forget to build National Epic as I have too many other things to build after the Glib

Iranon said:

I am not too fond of CRE, you can play around the need for culture too easily most of the time. The bonus of the Baray is ok, but the building it comes on is awkward. You already have a health bonus and may not need it otherwise, +1 food on its own is not enough to make it a stellar investment. Suryavarman is definitely one of my weaker leaders.

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Opening is really cheap. Fast growth curve. He was banned in realms beyond pitboss #4 for a reason, along with most FIN leaders.

City ----> fast granary -----> fast library = <10 turns to set up a city often. It then grows and you can run specs or hammer tiles or cottages as appropriate.

TheMeInTeam said:

City ----> fast granary -----> fast library = <10 turns to set up a city often.

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Even with a single population point, you can do it in 13 turns

Anything I say is meant for BtS, I hardly played Vanilla and Warlords.

CRE already has a little anti-synergy with itself: discounts are on culture buildings which become less important. An expansion-friendly hammer saver makes this worse: Building many libraries doesn't mesh very well with fast expansion because too much of one's output has to go towards paying the bills. Scientists don't allow us to magically get around that: if we can afford to run a good number we aren't pushing our economy.

By contrast, an economy trait would make early scientists more affordable without ugly compromises. And while I don't like military traits, CRE offers defensive benefits in an early war and makes it much easier to expand the borders of conquered cities even if we don't manage to wipe out our target.

As I see it, Suryavarman's trait combination offers convenience rather than power; I'd much rather have something more focused and am somewhat surprised that stronger players than myself would favour him.

It is focused?

With the speed at which your cities are setup, you have a lot more time to spend on growing your economy. Workers are all you initially need for that which you get 25% more production towards - plant loads of farms and cottages initially, and after you have CoL and whip as many courthouses as you initially can, you swap over to Caste System and run a + economy to blitz through anything else that needs building. In the early game you rex until broke and use Scientists and fail gold to get you to CoL + Currency. After that you use specialists under caste system, farms + workshops and wealth / research in all those cities you have already built up in the ancient era which rapidly recovers your Rex.

The +1 you get from the baray helps you better manage a SE, normally being enough of a boost for your cities to support an extra specialist each which is a very good bonus for an EXP leader. The Khmer is the single most focused SE Civ you can play!

Iranon said:

By contrast, an economy trait would make early scientists more affordable without ugly compromises.

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With financial you run a cottage economy, without it any other civ can run a workshop economy. Having played both Mehmed and Sury many times, both are equally very powerful in their own ways - Mehmed gets discounted civic upkeeps and half price Courthouses and Factories, but Sury can still get off to a much faster and more powerful start with CRE instead of ORG, and simply whip those Courthouses once CoL is researched.

bhavv said:

Sury can make some really uber large cities:

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You haven't seen large cities until you play Earth 2010. Size 70 delhi.

Iranon said:

Anything I say is meant for BtS, I hardly played Vanilla and Warlords.

CRE already has a little anti-synergy with itself: discounts are on culture buildings which become less important. An expansion-friendly hammer saver makes this worse: Building many libraries doesn't mesh very well with fast expansion because too much of one's output has to go towards paying the bills. Scientists don't allow us to magically get around that: if we can afford to run a good number we aren't pushing our economy.

By contrast, an economy trait would make early scientists more affordable without ugly compromises. And while I don't like military traits, CRE offers defensive benefits in an early war and makes it much easier to expand the borders of conquered cities even if we don't manage to wipe out our target.

As I see it, Suryavarman's trait combination offers convenience rather than power; I'd much rather have something more focused and am somewhat surprised that stronger players than myself would favour him.

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The thing is that those libraries are going to be built in most cities eventually anyway (oxford pre-req, which you'll get unless you go early military attacks), often sooner rather than later. The strength is in the rate at which CORE cities can develop. You talk about paying the bills, but sury's trait combo actually helps there; settled cities contribute research more rapidly, allowing him faster access to the technologies that allow additional expansion. The hammer savings don't HAVE to be put into additional cities immediately; they can instead be used to set up the core faster.

Faster first GS than other traits, faster 2nd GS than anybody but PHI, and faster vertical expansion via the speed granary getting onto more tiles is a big lift to econ. The benefits taper off, but the boost to early strength is very powerful...

I think you discount the culture buildings a little too much. An advantage in this regard can have tactical considerations even in MP, let alone SP.

GGracchus said:

You haven't seen large cities until you play Earth 2010. Size 70 delhi.

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Sury would still have +2 and +1 over any non EXP leader, and +1 over any other EXP leader in any such situation.

I only play on maps made with the random generator, not on any user created mods or scenarios (Only mods I like to use are HoF mod and FFH2).

I like creative, it really helps early game, when speed is very important. you can setup cities faster, in better spots, also can skip mysticism and research something else instead. of course in the long term there are much better traits, but early game is the most important part imo, and if you screw up in building your empire you are doomed. CRE/EXP = strong early game. I especially like Sury for HA rushes

Iranon said:

I am not too fond of CRE, you can play around the need for culture too easily most of the time.

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The free +2 culture per city is hugely powerful, and easily overlooked at how good it is on higher difficulties for the single purpose of border blocking any nearby AI civs.

On my last two Emperor games (as Gilgamesh and Pericles), Creative was the single biggest help allowing me to border block and snag lots off land off the AI:

it saves so many turns.
research mysticism, build monument and then wait 10 turns.
its 20-25 turns of early game which is huge. can build granary instead.