Civ 4 BTS Who is the best Leader to play?

Zara Yaqob has that fantastic white and gold jacket and a winning smile. No wonder chicks dug him. Good choice of icons, Naruto.

-g

i like augustus best overpowered UU ind trait which suits his UB I find he can
adapt although I like playing random leader to have fun I have found most leaders have their strengths if you play them they really have done a great job of balancing them.

NarutoAvatarDBZ said:

I'm stunned. No one has mentioned the close-to-overpowered Mehmed of the Ottomans! UB gives plus happiness and health, Janissaries roll over anything before them, and he starts with the two worker techs! Plus his traits allow for early Organized Religon qithout running much debt. and workers to spawn faster. He is definitely 4th, if not 3rd, on the closest to Over-powered tier.

Click to expand...

Mehmed is very strong, so is Suleiman. Ottomans are 1 of the stronger civs but not overpowered, maybe close to overpowere as u say.
Janissaries are really awesome if you succeed to research Gunpowder before yoru neighbours. I like them more than most. Because once you beeline gunpowder, janissaries remain the strongest of that era for a long time. however, -let's say- Redcoats are strong for a short period until machine gun.

In my gameplay, research is boosted very rapidly especially after representation/liberalism time. So every UU coming after that time lives for a pretty short time. Janissary seems to be the last long-term UU in BTS.

well, depends on playstyle in fact.
France, England, Russia, Germany, America, Inca, Persia, Rome, Ottoman seem powerful civs with most of their leaders being good. Egypt and India is also fine.

Sobsob said:

i like augustus best overpowered UU ind trait which suits his UB I find he can
adapt although I like playing random leader to have fun I have found most leaders have their strengths if you play them they really have done a great job of balancing them.

Click to expand...

Augustus is rather a wonder-spammer, more than a warmonger. About warring Julius seems better.
Roman UB seems to suit Augustus more. But I still believe a +25% on GPP birth rate would have a very little effect. 2 more GP for allover the game at most. Shortly, I believe forum is useless although I like SE. Even the French Salon is better than Forum. although most guys hate great artists, still they give you 3beakers at least. +25% rate doesn't give anything nearly.

On the otehr hand Praet is better than Muskeeters. Well, BTS tries to balance things really. France and Roman leaders are really similar about traits as well.

The forum is a fairly weak UB (1/4 of a trait rather than a full trait as some others... but then, PHI is strong and the primary effect is what makes it strong, not the discount).

OtoH, it synergises extremely well with Augustus and somewhat with Julius (ORG to me favours a SE - civics aren't any more expensive, but higher total population mean bigger savings. Also, straight CEs would rather be Financial). I like both trait combinations and the UU is excellent, so an 'ok' UB is good enough.

***

Re Janissaries: I'd much rather have Oromos. They are almost as good straight away, and building Oromos and upgrading to Rifles is awesome (just avoid Military Science...). I far prefer the Ottoman's leaders and UB though.

Gandhi of Rome. Spiritual for quick switches between civics (great for SE), praetorians, Philosophical with pacifism, NE, Parthenon, and Forum yields +375% GPP in a strong specialist city (ie at least 8 specialists and 2 wonders) yields 20 GPP +375% = 95 GPP/turn. Also yields +275% in non-NE city (or if you choose to forgo NE to have a number of cities popping GP).

Not the best Unrestricted combo, but worth trying IMO

I believe Mansa Musa is the best leader
Spiritual and Financial, starts with Mining and the wheel

flexible, rich, and fast access to Bronze working and pottery

UB needs only Metalcasting to give +10% wealth (unlike Stockexchange needs Banking)
best defensive UU early game

^^^I don't like that he doesn't start with Mysticism, though. A spiritual leader that won't get one of the first religions is less than desireable. But I guess there's a reason that he's one of the upper tech leaders in most of my games

Iranon said:

The forum is a fairly weak UB (1/4 of a trait rather than a full trait as some others... but then, PHI is strong and the primary effect is what makes it strong, not the discount).

OtoH, it synergises extremely well with Augustus and somewhat with Julius (ORG to me favours a SE - civics aren't any more expensive, but higher total population mean bigger savings. Also, straight CEs would rather be Financial). I like both trait combinations and the UU is excellent, so an 'ok' UB is good enough.

***

Re Janissaries: I'd much rather have Oromos. They are almost as good straight away, and building Oromos and upgrading to Rifles is awesome (just avoid Military Science...). I far prefer the Ottoman's leaders and UB though.

Click to expand...

oromo/janissary: oromos are very good for defense and not bad for attack. especially if you have 1 barracks and 1 settled GG or a civic, then that makes spamming drill4 oromos. it will be strong for attack as well.

but still +25% against old unit types is also very fine. so i can shortly say "if you succeed to research gunpowder earlier than your neighbours, then janissaries are better than oromos. but if you fail with that, then oromos are better for attacking gunpwder units".

ROME: well, whatever economy type i use (WE or SE), a 25% GP rate UB is less then average for me. for me, the main advantage comes with assigned specialists. advantage from super specialists (great people settled) is secondary.

I can clearly say that while playing with SE, even a FINANCIAL leader would have much better effect on that forum building. At least you would have 1 more commerce from sea tiles

I strongly believe that forum is a ROMAN nerf. Starting with fishing is also a roman nerf. For a SE, starting with 2 of 3 techs "Wheel/Agriculture/Mining" is far away the best than otehr starts.
Except starting techs and UB, Rome is really great. Both leaders are very strong and UU is awesome.

ROME starts with mining (which is synergystic with Rome's Praetorians that come with ironworking). So I can't say that this isn't a good starting tech for Rome.

However, the fishing is questionable. Because of this, I'll reload a Roman start until I get a coastal start with 3 or more seafood resources. It's not that rare and I can usually get it before reloading 4 times. It ends up making my capital an early production city followed by a GP farm/science city when getting CoL and then a production city again later in the game... not the best way to go, but it seems to work well for me.

I believe if they made the forum give +50% GPP, then it would be much more useful. I have no problem with giving ROME a GPP building as the SE seems to make the most sense for Rome. Since you'll be building the market for anyway, it seems like a no brainer to have a forum in your GP Farms / gold / science cities. I'll take 3 - 4 more GPP in a game from UB. That doesn't seem too bad to me. That's another 4 settled GM (+18 gpt each in your Wall Street city) makes another 72 GPT that I wouldn't have had without the Forum. Those extra ones would be seen earlier on since the forum is built after getting Currency which is usually one of the first 10 techs I research... but that all rides on the +50% GPP from Forum

Along with Julius's (ORG/IMP) lowered civic maintenance makes for a powerhouse of an economy along with a powerful army and large land mass.

blitzkrieg1980 said:

ROME starts with mining (which is synergystic with Rome's Praetorians that come with ironworking). So I can't say that this isn't a good starting tech for Rome.

However, the fishing is questionable. Because of this, I'll reload a Roman start until I get a coastal start with 3 or more seafood resources. It's not that rare and I can usually get it before reloading 4 times. It ends up making my capital an early production city followed by a GP farm/science city when getting CoL and then a production city again later in the game... not the best way to go, but it seems to work well for me.

I believe if they made the forum give +50% GPP, then it would be much more useful. I have no problem with giving ROME a GPP building as the SE seems to make the most sense for Rome. Since you'll be building the market for anyway, it seems like a no brainer to have a forum in your GP Farms / gold / science cities. I'll take 3 - 4 more GPP in a game from UB. That doesn't seem too bad to me. That's another 4 settled GM (+18 gpt each in your Wall Street city) makes another 72 GPT that I wouldn't have had without the Forum. Those extra ones would be seen earlier on since the forum is built after getting Currency which is usually one of the first 10 techs I research... but that all rides on the +50% GPP from Forum

Along with Julius's (ORG/IMP) lowered civic maintenance makes for a powerhouse of an economy along with a powerful army and large land mass.

Click to expand...

fishing: yes fishing is veeery much questionable. barb galleys would attack your boats. so fishing requires early sailing. i would prefer starting inland and not research sailing until late.

plus, building a few triremes to defends boats is a waste of hammers.
also, as i build a few of the early wonders most of the times, then i don't have the time to build so many fishing boats and triremes. building a few wonders and an initial army, and expanding is already hard. so a few extra navy is waste of my time in initial game.

i can accept that coastal starts are very good for rather isolated/pecaful games. but except those rare games, i need to be fast for expanding and building an army. so starting inland is better for me. also as i like the capital to be a very high production center, i don't like coastal capital much.
for a true SE, i like starting inland.

forum: I don't say it is useless. 2/3 GP more is not that bad. But as you say that it should be +50%, then this means you agree with me. but still, i can understand why it is 25, because leaders and UB of Rome is already very good. If at least Rome started with "the wheel+mining" then the rest would be very good for me.

still, if i compare +25% GP with otehr UBs, most of them beats forum. Now I will try to compare each UB with forum, shortly. I will do the comparison by considering the synergies with the leaders.

*Mall is better although it comes late
*Madrassa is worse. with caste system, there would be no pop to work priests.
*sacrificial altar is worse
*garden is better
*hippodrome? comparison would be foolish. hippo is awesome
*cothon is much better
*dun is not so good but still better, me being a warmonger
*pavilion is worse
*dike. i never compare
*obelisk is better. it gives earliest possible assigned specialists
*stock exchange. i never compare
*stele is worse
*salon is better (3beakers with repr not so bad)
*assembly plant is better
*odeon is much better
*rathaus. i never compare
*terrace is much better
*mausoleum is worse. late extra happiness is not that much helpful.
*shale plant is much better
*baray is much better
*seowon is much better
*mint is much better
*ball court is better
*ger is worse
*totem pole is worse
*hammam is better
*apothecary is better
*feitoria. i never compare
*research inst is much better. although it comes late, it would help much for space win. you can easily score a last minute goal with it.
*citadel is better
*ziggurat is much better. not much extra but gives early and cheap courthouse. that's good enough!
*trading post is worse
*ikhanda. i never compare

So, as a result, for me;

6/31 is worse than forum
10/31 is better
9/31 is much better
6/31 is "i never compare" meaning much, much better

It seems in the downmost 20% for me. Me being a warmonger SE player.

I'm usually an SE / military player too. I'm still cool with the Forum as UB. I get enough military out of IMP trait and Praetorians. Julius is ORG so that's the economy portion of the civ/leader bonuses and for the GP end of things, the Forum is okay. Not great, but it's not terrible either.

I strongly disagree with some of the UB assessments.

Sacrificial Altars are awesome. Cheaper (many seem to miss this) courthouses and the ability to use flatland cities for anything (under normal slavery rules, they can become decent science/production hybrids but not all-out production monsters).

The Assembly Plant and Mall aren't worth waiting more than 5000 years for; together with late and mostly inconsequential UUs I'd say Germany and America are the weakest civs. Fortunately both have some decent leaders.
Also, Obelisks are very meh in my opinion; Priests are the weakest specialists there are and rarely worth running without Angkor Wat. If you want Great Prophets, there's always Stonehenge and the Oracle.

Incidentally, Salon with Rep would be 4 beakers - artists produce one naturally.

You'll find that you are a rare case indeed, Iranon as many people on these forums believe Priests to be the best specialists as they are so versatile (hammers, gold, AND science [with representation]).

Now I'm confused. A mix of Merchants and Engineers would result in higher total outputs, and all 3 seem equally good for settling (I'd say the conversion rate in terms of usefulness is generally 1 = 1.5 = 3 = 3, leaving them all worth 9 each).

After the first Prophet for a Shrine - easily obtainable from the Oracle or Stonehenge - there is no real need for additional Great Prophets; Merchants and Engineers might be needed for their special abilities or starting corporations...

Also, versatility? The output of each specialist is fixed, and having it split all over the place actually makes them less efficient since you can't get the most out of them with incomplete infrastructure. Hmm.

negative, brosef.

Those who like priests go for Angkor Wat in their games which gives all priest specialists an extra hammer.

Great Priests in representation with Angkor Wat gives

2 , 5 , 4

Engineers don't give gold and have the same amount of hammers

I specifically claimed priests were usually not worth running without Angkor Wat. And for a UB that's possibly useful between Philosophy and Astronomy if I build 2 specific wonders, I want something a lot better than 2 (admittedly excellent) specialist slots.

Incidentally, where are you getting the 4th for the Great Prophets from?

Maybe because of the way I like to play the early game, I found the Madrassa and Obelisk both really useful, but only for a short time. Their use comes in with the question of building an early wonder and founding a religion.

Most of the time, I can only realistically build one early wonder. Almost always, what I build is the Oracle, because that gives me a guaranteed religion founding (Confucianism), and because it gives me a GP in a reasonable time to build a shrine with. Which is cool . . . but I also really like the Great Wall.

The great thing about Madrassas and Obelisks is that both of them let you have priests without a religion. Everyone else needs at least a Temple, and you have to have a religion for that. So: playing either Egypt or Arabia, I shoot for the GW, and to get my GPs which I want early in the game I build a Madrassa or an Obelisk in the capital and run priests. Then if I get a religion researching the normal way I can use the resulting GP to build a shrine, and if not then I can bulb Theology/Christianity. And meanwhile I get no barb attacks and points towards Great Spies.

After doing these things the Madrassa is just a Library and the Obelisk is just a Monument, but it's very nice for the early game.

Iranon said:

I specifically claimed priests were usually not worth running without Angkor Wat. And for a UB that's possibly useful between Philosophy and Astronomy if I build 2 specific wonders, I want something a lot better than 2 (admittedly excellent) specialist slots.

Incidentally, where are you getting the 4th for the Great Prophets from?

Click to expand...

well, eng>priest

but great eng is near to great prophet. so about GP, they are similar

the issue about obselisk is that it's the earlist possible permission for SE.

german UU is not good. but UB is not bad. it's generally underestimated but still it is not bad. gives assignment for eng (would be better if it gave free eng) and also cheaper factory.
america; navy seal is weak bec very late but mall is fine although late.

about leaders of USA and germany, they are VERY good

especially frederick, roosevelt and lincoln

moreover, sacrifical altar is not bad (if it is cheap, i really didn't know) but i don't whip much. so not so great for me

1great scientist for academy, 1 great spy for SY, 1 great prop for shrine is a must. about the rest of the GPs, i would like to have as much great merchants as i can
why? because food is always the most important parameter in the game.

anyway, both are fine. eng, scie and merch really shine. but still early great proph is very fine

you can have a few GP and then continue with library assignments after writing

1 early GP gives 2hammers and 5 gold. 5 early gold is really fine