Civ 4 BTS Who is the best Leader to play?

Actually, if I have stone and marble nearby I'd much rather have PHI than IND. Heavy wonderspam in 1 city is possible anyway, and might as well reap all the rewards I can get.

I do disagree that Industrious relies more heavily on starting location than others. There are wonders throughout the game, and you're asking for trouble if you have your capital building wonders instead of Settlers, Workers, etc. Stone/Marble are good for many wonders in the game, not just the obvious early ones. Also, as I realized in a non-Industrious game last night, half-priced National Wonders is nothing to sneeze at, either. That's production saved in cities where you might not have good production but still want to put a National Wonder (I doubt anybody puts Oxford University in a city generating no commerce/scientist specialists).

Bandobras Took said:

I do disagree that Industrious relies more heavily on starting location than others. There are wonders throughout the game, and you're asking for trouble if you have your capital building wonders instead of Settlers, Workers, etc. Stone/Marble are good for many wonders in the game, not just the obvious early ones. Also, as I realized in a non-Industrious game last night, half-priced National Wonders is nothing to sneeze at, either. That's production saved in cities where you might not have good production but still want to put a National Wonder (I doubt anybody puts Oxford University in a city generating no commerce/scientist specialists).

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Ok, this conversation is off-topic [and the other way i wanted it to go, I wanted to know which leaders everybody avoids playing with].
But you don't give an argument why you disagree with my point that industrious relies heavier than other traits on your starting location.
What you tell may be sort of correct, except i don't think it's half-priced wonders but more 75% priced. [It's +50% if im not mistaken]

So let's split my point into 2 parts:
1) The effect of the Industrious trait is influenced by your starting location [and quite heavy]
2) Other traits [except maybe phil. but for the same reason], are almost equally powerfull on any place.

• Agressive - don't matter where you at, you're gonna build your units / barracks anyhow, just find someone to battle with
• Protective, same thing. [stone has some influence for the walls]
• Creative, you're gonna border somebody somehow, borderpops etc, cultural victory, it doesn't really matter where you at for it to work. [Different maps change the idea but thats not the point].
• Financial - you can build cottages just about everywhere
• Expansive - this one i also prefer to start near some floodplains and with a happy resource nearby, but health is going to be a problem later almost for sure and cheap granaries and harbors (?) are always good.
• Imperialistic - find someone to battle with and you'll be all right
• Charismatic - same thing [stone has some influence cause if you can build stonehenge you really exploit this trait]
• Spiritual - location doesn't matter a thing.
• Organized - "" ""
• And last philosophical - it also relies somewhat on wonders but specialist do the trick as well.

Industrious gives you a shot at wonders without resources sure, but someone with the right resource has double that bonus.

So you remain with halfpriced forges, thats nice, but not more.
I rather have half priced courthouses, factories and lighthouses.
Or even granaries. Or theathers and libraries.

I don't mind you disagreeing but i'd like to see you prove me wrong.
Like i said in some other thread i have the theory that starting position is of an incredible influence on the rest of the game. When you look at the replay you can see that all the civs that did well had a good starting point. Industrial near marble for instance. And lot's of fertile space is always good of course, but you can set the barbarians on raging to counter this advantage a little.

rosynelson said:

Hi,

That was great information. Just what I'm looking for. Thank you. I've been playing Civ IV and Warlords for several months, but I don't seem to be improving my game much. I'm always a Dan Quayle. Now that I've started playing BTS, I thought I'd ask advice from all of you experts. I have to play BTS on my husbands Windows XP system on our full screen (8' x 10' estimate) home theater system. I have a MacBookPro and don't want to hassle with bootcamp or partitioning my hard drive. It's kind of cool on the big screen. tee hee Keep the advice coming. Thank you, Rosy

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Hi Rosy,

Don't let the end game score bother you much. It is not really that good an indicator of how well you played. It has a very heavy bias towards finishing the game very quickly. As a result, many players who play simply to "milk" their score (get it as high as they can) simply play games like tiny pangaea maps where they can rush the enemies with jaguar warriors or quechas for example. If you ever try this you'll find you hit a huge score. lol It only takes about 15 minutes.

So unless you want to play to get into the official hall of fame you needn't worry about score. Just have fun!

Maybe I misunderstand, sanarchy, but to my mind stone makes creative LESS valuable (because you could just build stonehenge) rather than MORE. Creative is mostly useful for getting those borders popped quickly in the early game, and then somewhat for allowing cheap culture buildings. Stonehenge pretty much provides the early benefit itself.

You haven't actually justified your stance that starting position matters more. To me it doesn't matter very much at all... if you're industrious, you can pretty much have whatever wonder you want, if you prioritize it. Whether it's worth building is up to you, but you don't "need" stone to make industrious a powerful trait. Indeed, as others have said, it's not all that hard to win a race to a wonder without stone if you're industrious.

Really it's not even that big a deal to have stone after the Pyramids, and Stonehenge/The Great Wall are both really easy to make for an industrious leader already.

Here are some good "training" leaders, that are easy to exploit while you are learning the game:

Darius (Persia): Organized + Financial makes it easy as pie to manage your economy (build lots of cottages!), and Immortals are a fantastic UU.

Willem von Orange (Dutch): Creative + Financial is probably the easiest trait combination if you're new to the game (again, build lots of cottages). UU is marginal, but UB is terrific.

Hannibal (Carthage): Financial + Charismatic is another easy-as-pie trait combination, with a very useful UU.

Julius Caesar (Rome): Praetorians for the win. His traits (Organized + Imperialistic) are also pretty straightforward - (1) build army, (2) conquer world.

Huayna Capac (Inca): Industrious for Wonder-Spam, Financial for an easy cottage economy, and the possibility of a Quechua rush make for a solid all-around leader.

Kublai Khan (Mongolia): Creative + Aggressive is a fine combination, and Keshiks are a nightmare.

Pericles (Greece): When you're ready to venture into the so-called "Specialist Economy," where you build lots of farms instead of cottages, Pericles is a great first choice, with Philosophical + Creative, and a useful early UU.

Gandhi (India): Another favorite for the "Specialist Economy", Philosophical + Spiritual + a UU that never goes obsolete makes a powerhouse leader, but you will have to pay attention to take the most advantage of the Spiritual trait.

Edit: Replaced Ramesses with Huayna Capac, since I believe HC is better for learning than Ramesses

sanarchy said:

I don't mind you disagreeing but i'd like to see you prove me wrong. Like i said in some other thread i have the theory that starting position is of an incredible influence on the rest of the game. When you look at the replay you can see that all the civs that did well had a good starting point. Industrial near marble for instance. And lot's of fertile space is always good of course, but you can set the barbarians on raging to counter this advantage a little.

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Perhaps we're working with different definitions of "Starting Position." For me, it's where my capital is. Within the bounds where you expand, if there's a resource that gives you cheaper wonders along the line (this can also include Gold, Bronze, Iron, Ivory), then there's no problem. You simply adapt what wonders you're going to do. If you have a coastal start, you can do the Great Lighthouse. You're being a bit simplistic in your analysis of some of those other traits, too. What does Aggressive do for you if you don't have Bronze or Iron in whatever starting position you're thinking of? Your Combat I Warriors might wipe the floor with somebody, but it won't be your neighbors. Likwise, what if you're Financial and start surrounded by plains and hills? Organized on a small island? Philosophical with no good food for specialists? Imperialistic and isolated? Many of these things depend largely on map settings and not on the trait itself. There are maps in which Industrious is better, just as there are maps in which Aggressive is better. But the starting position only makes a difference for grabbing early wonders. For the rest, it's simply a matter of deciding what wonders are viable. Without the Industrious trait, I don't even ask the question; I ignore wonders completely.

OK, some decent comments. Don't agree with all of em, but some are ok.
But if you're on a small island i would also restart.
Hell i even restarted about 7 times trying to get horse nearby to try and make CYrus pay off.
Call it cheating if you want but don't call it backwards.
I don't like playing financial for instance cause it feels too easy to make it a succes. Try imperialistic, you'll be more or less forced to wage a continues war or the trait is pretty worthless.
And i say, if i play a game on immortal without the proper resources in my first little civ [you can't expand fast cause you'll be bankrupt] i am not going to try and build a world wonder cause the ai gets there first.
Also if you have stone or marble [which are maybe 3 each per map?], the other probably haven't.
But i must say that maybe im too much a perfectionist with trying too make the traits pay off. I almost never try and build a wonder without the resuorce, it just feels so inefficient.
Ok, back on topic.

My favourite leader is Huayna Capac of Inca and I'm glad to see many people like to play as him too. Usually I choose him. Only sometimes I decide on Elizabeth because I like philosophical trait too and English city names are easier to remember and localise on the map for me ^^. It can't be said about Inca's though.

If I prefered victories by conquest or domination maybe I would choose other leaders with agressive or expansive traits but I'm a kind of long-term player who preferes having not huge in range but very populated empire with fixed number of well developed metropolies, capable of maintaining a very strong and state-of-the-art army with powerful navy (I play on hemispheres map). With that I don't make conquest far from my mainland but wage wars to collect vassals and/or raze important cities to criple my rivals. Thus I play as long as it's not boring for me, even after I won with sparerace, cultural domination or the UN vote.
I usually win with Huayna Capac because I play only on noble as it means equal conditions for me and AIs.

There are a nice amount of combinations I like.

Creative/Imperialistic - Lets you pump out lots of settlers, gobble up land due to the +2 culture and take a nice lead, Catherine has this

Philosophical/Industious - I don't think any leaders have this combination so I have to edit around a civ I like and take these. This works out well since you can build a good chunk of wonders (unless you play past Monarch) and the bonus to great people points ensures lots of free specialists.

Financial/Charismatic - Hannibal has these, financial lets you keep up or even have better unit then the AI and charismatic means that your units get more promotions and your cities stay happier.

Financial/Aggresive - My dad likes this one, pretty much same as Hannibal except Ragnar gets beserkers which are better then Hannibal's special unit

Philospohical/Financial - Good if you want alot of technologies, either Victoria or Elisabeth have these traits (don't remember who) and financial works well with stock exchange and with red coats you don't really have to worry about defense (that much)

Traits I don't like are spiritual (played around with a mod to make them produces monasteries/missionaries 50% faster), organized (changed it so there's no anarchy and produces workers 15% faster), expansive (settlers 15% faster, some extra buildings built faster, +1 happiness and +1 health) and protective (happiness bonus from walls/castle, +1 health bonus, +1 happiness, 20% faster archers/longbow men)

MrAdam said:

Creative/Imperialistic - Lets you pump out lots of settlers, gobble up land due to the +2 culture and take a nice lead, Catherine has this

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Yep, and when you run out of room to expand, you declare war and pop out GG's

Philosophical/Industious - I don't think any leaders have this combination so I have to edit around a civ I like and take these. This works out well since you can build a good chunk of wonders (unless you play past Monarch) and the bonus to great people points ensures lots of free specialists.

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One word: PYRAMIDS

Philospohical/Financial - Good if you want alot of technologies, either Victoria or Elisabeth have these traits (don't remember who) and financial works well with stock exchange and with red coats you don't really have to worry about defense (that much)

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That would be Elizabeth. Victoria is Financial/Imperialistic, and isn't half bad.

Traits I don't like are spiritual (played around with a mod to make them produces monasteries/missionaries 50% faster), organized (changed it so there's no anarchy and produces workers 15% faster), expansive (settlers 15% faster, some extra buildings built faster, +1 happiness and +1 health) and protective (happiness bonus from walls/castle, +1 health bonus, +1 happiness, 20% faster archers/longbow men)

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Spiritual is a favorite among many experienced players, because it lets you tweak out your civics and temporarily switch religions during trade negotiations. Personally, I'm too lazy to get the most out of Spiritual.

Organized is top-notch, though it favors the more expensive civics (Nationhood and Pacifism are somewhat wasted under this trait).

I definitely agree that Expansive and Protective are not top tier.

bardolph said:

<snip>
That would be Elizabeth. Victoria is Financial/Imperialistic, and isn't half bad.
<snip>

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Umh, with "unrestricted leaders" Victoria of the Zulus. Scary. Pump out settlers, build Ikanda barracks at once to cut maintenance. Chop rush Stonehenge ASAP if possible so no need to worry about culture. Cottages and sea squares all provide bonus commerce so financial helps pay for all this. A bit later, attack and pump out great generals.

MrFelony said:

If you're not new to civ, i'd suggest lincoln. I love his chm/phi trait combination so much i dont mind losing out on early UUs or UBs. I agree with the earlier poster that charismatic is one of the strongest new traits. bonuses to happiness early are huge and the reduction in xp, when combined with GGs (settled or attached to units), means that you can pump out mass amounts of high level troops and decimate your opponents. it's normal in my games that i eventually produce level 5 or 6 guys off the bat.

another great one is suileman (sp?). his combination of Imp/Phi and his UU whihc gives +2 to health and happiness allow for faster expansion, more GGs, more GPs, etc. ragnar and Hannibal are both also very powerful leaders

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Call me Mr Stupidy Trousers, but what are UU and UB?

Unique Unit and Unique Building.

Check the "leaders you cant go wrong with" thread.

rosynelson said:

Hi,

I just installed Beyond the Sword, who is the best Leader to play?

Thank you,
Rosy

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Pick a map type you like. Play several different leaders on the same map type and keep notes on how they do for you. You will get a feel for the leaders/traits that work for you.

I think Gilgamesh can be a pretty good leader to try.

I'm playing Gilgamesh right now... I'd say there are three reasons that I'm enjoying the experience (it's actually my first time with him I think): 1) Vultures are very nice Unique Units, 2) the UB is very handy in that it's cheap and early, and 3) Gilgamesh isn't in the game to fight against... easily my least favorite neighboring AI.

The UB is good but what can you do with vultures?
They have to be about the least usefull UU in my opinion.
Against melee they're thesame as axemen, against mounted or archery units they're only a little bit stronger, if they're in the field that is, else you're better of with swordsmen.

sanarchy said:

The UB is good but what can you do with vultures?
They have to be about the least usefull UU in my opinion.
Against melee they're thesame as axemen, against mounted or archery units they're only a little bit stronger, if they're in the field that is, else you're better of with swordsmen.

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It's precisely because they are "a little bit stronger" against archery and mounted units that Vultures are a great UU. A Vulture rush is stronger than an Axeman rush.

Yes, Swordsmen have a 10% edge over Vultures when attacking cities, but remember that Swordsmen: (A) require Iron, and (B) get shredded by defensive Axemen.

why waste time to restart ?
i found a simple solution by open World builder and add some stone nearby if I play SE