funny/clever unrestricted combos?

[jokulmorder]

a forum search on unrestricted leaders turned up a post from 3 years ago. i remember a recent topic bringing up churchill of the native americans and i thought that was pretty hysterical. what kind of clever combinations (not obvious stuff like boudica of rome or protective of mali) can you guys come up with?

for example, napoleon of aztecs gets a discount on sac altar and gets a minimum +1 happiness which lets him whip to extreme levels.

washington of ottomans will get some gigantic cities.

huayna capac of portugal: get a fast colossus and then feitorias for moneybag coast/sea tiles in non-GA.

joao of india. fastest city pumper in the game.

what are some other clever combos? the more that seem "surprisingly effective" can be just as funny as the ones that have really clear synergy.

i think i'm gonna play a game as moneybag portugese...

[lymond]

Probably a lot of rehash with this topic and most of the ones mention above have be mentioned before. I belted out a few in that last thread. However, here's one that is somewhat interesting I think without being glaringly powerful:

Sury of Maya - Keep the health bonus of Pacal, but cheap Ball courts for some very large early cities.

Church of Spain - Cheap Citadels and more room to use all that seige XP with Char

Lizzie of Korea - Silly really but self-explanatory

Frank of Mali - Although not FIN, the lower maintenance will allow a lot of gold to funnel through those cheap Mints

Pacal of Carthage - On the right maps and with enough happies, cheap Cothons for major coastal trade route abuse. (Actually, Wash of Carthage would be even better come to think of it, plus more XP for NCs) However, Pacal's FIN trait with GLH and Colossus with Cothons would be unreal on watery maps


You know, someone started an Unrestricted Club not long ago. Too bad it stopped.

[Seraiel]

The Corps Civ: Darius of the HRE or Zulu .

[joanne]

Freddy of Sumeria for super cheap and early zigs=CHs and GSpy spam. Madscientist used this combo in one of his espionage-themed RPCs.

[UnforcedError]

Any Financial with Agriculture + Wheel starting techs for immediate Pottery. As long as you have a grain in the BFC plus a few unforested riversides you'll get a real head start.
OR
Any Charismatic with Mongolia for well promoted mounted units.

[TheMulattoMaker]

Tokugawa of Ottoman, if all you want out of your game is ridiculously overpowered musketmen.

[plasmacannon]

Frederick Bismark of India for fast built fast workers to build Wonders faster.

Hammurabi of Sumeria, fast built ziggurats and vultures with Combat1.

Pericles of Arabia for fast built Madrassas with +100% GP growth.

Cyrus of Inca or Egypt. Oh the experience those troops would have.

Boudica of Dutch. Because, well, No one would expect it. LOL! Like Cyrus of America, sometimes the right Leader in the right hands can make a poor empire a pain the neck.

My friend just played a game where he randomally got Toku of England. His Redcoats were sick.

My game of Genghis Khan of Native America was great. The other empires couldn't defeat my stacks in the field. I pillaged their improvements, sat on Rome's Iron and just teched past them. 7 GGs before Philosophy.

[TheMeInTeam]

Tokugawa of Germany.

It's the most cherry tapping you can do without xml edits.

[lymond]

Originally Posted by plasmacannon

Frederick of India for fast built fast workers to build Wonders faster.

I think you meant Bizmark, no?

Tokugawa of Germany.

I'm confused on this one

[plasmacannon]

Originally Posted by lymond

I think you meant Bizmark, no?

I'm confused on this one

Yes. EXP/IND Bismark.

[TheMeInTeam]

I'm confused on this one

If you look up the trope on cherry tapping, you'll be less confused.

[lymond]

Originally Posted by TheMeInTeam

If you look up the trope on cherry tapping, you'll be less confused.

ok...makes full sense now

[fyermind]

Darius of Egypt. Should be able to capture a holy city with his war chariots early, and use great priests from the Obelisk to afford his massive empire due to ORG. With FIN he can tech everyone out of the water with early cottages from starting techs.

Napoleon of the Inca. Cha quechas for snowballing wars. Org to lower terrible early game maintenance and crank out faster courthouses.

[MCan]

Monty/Shaka of Mali. God forbid either grabs BW first. Ive never seen the AI axe rush (or make shock axes), but if any AI would they would probly be the culprit. That just seems like a combo that the AI could use to get on a real war mongering start, and keep the human of its back for a while.

[GA econ FTW]

On TMIT's "cherry tapping": (just to keep the joke alive)

I dunno, TMIT, you might need those Panzers and Assembly plants to really stick it to the one surviving holdout civ left in your game when you reached Assembly Line & Industrialism that's managed to hide on an one-tile hill island holdout or some frozen tundra-hell....watch out, the latter might still have iron.

I've only played against or observed a few AI combos (some attempting to be semi-based on real life...some based on fictional characters which I believe have similar personalities): sadly, not a lot to report on how awesome any of them turned out to be.

Spoiler:

Churchill/Zulu: Nothing special if you aren't a warmonger, tough nut to crack if you need him out of the game quickly.

Victoria/India: An early warmonger's paradise. Great for worker stealin'

Elizabeth/Dutch or Portugese (an attempt at "honor harrington"): Attempted to truly make a respectable naval power out of an AI. Just doesn't work. Navies can be important, but Civ is more about the land, and no UU really deal with "big ships blowing each other up a lot".

Genghis Kahn/Korea or Russia (mongolian expansionism): Nothing special I'm guessing with Genghis, the only civ combo that might get him to really become an early era terror is Inca

Kublai Kahn/China (Kublai's claim to fame, sticking it to china): Now this one gets a little more interesting when you give Kublai a civ that synergizes better with his creativity. However, the only time I've seen real impressiveness is when genghis/Mongolia is team-linked with Kublai/China.

Hatshepsut/Maya: When I saw the city "Debra Bernham", I was like, Hey, that sounds like a name for a fake leader....so I tried this. Again, nothing special should you want to war against her, but Hat/Maya will beat Hat/egypt most days in isolation to a culture victory.

Tokugawa/Korea (when the japanese weren't warring with China, they were conquering (or trying to conquer) Korea: Since Tokes is AGG/PRO, find him a civ with a UU that actually gets promotions should he build it, perhaps, but korea was nothing special for Tokes.

Lincoln/Celts (based on a fictional character named "ballard"): Dunno if Lincoln is programmed to rush rifling, but he had them fairly quickly once on a fractal map. Doubt the programmers were this good, but most of his land was very hilly, so that would have been a very tought nut to crack

Brennus/America: Starting in ancient times, well, since America's UU and UB are both late game which is talked about, I'm guessing that with a military AI personality, this is one of the worst mixes to give an AI....Never did well in any games I in which I watched him slog along.

Frederick/Holy Rome: This one is actually a better fit for Frederick than Germany, but even so it really doesn't augment Frederick's personality much.

Celtic Leaders of France: The gauls were celts, right? Didn't seem to make much of a change. as has been pointed out by many before me, the celt UU adn UB shine based on odds of terrain, and typically the odds are not kind to the AI. So France, with a slightly better UB, (But the AI rarely uses 2-move units to their best advantage unless in pillage-harassment-mode), and nothing Bootycall can use for an interesting UU, doesn't seem to make much of a difference.

Ragnar/Celts. The vikings seriously DID culture spawn both in London and Ireland, right? (heck, the English have a dynasty of Danish Kings.) Even though it has been debated that the programmers have improved AI amphibious assaults from earlier versions of civilization, it is argued it still leaves a lot to be desired, so most of the time the UU is wasted on the AI ragnar. If Ragnar is playing in a DEFENSIVE posture (which sadly he's forced to with his weak start on earth maps, specifically 1000AD) giving him the celt civ on hilly terrain is useful. However, in the end, the loss of the UB of the vikings to trade for the stuff of the celts only helps ragnar if his civilization is again mostly inland on rocky terrain.

Isabella/Portugal. It must have just been a fluke, because random personalities weren't on, but giving isabella 2 civs teamed together one Izzy/spain, and one Izzy/portugal, the portugese was hugely expansive. It was like even though izzy wasn't ever MEANT to channel Joao, but she had. Its interesting that Izzy seems to be programmed to win by teching/spreading religion and more cultural-economic means, but her UU/UB combos of spain are more bent on military conquests. So I think Izzy of Portugal, if she DOES REX more, seems to fit her AI personality better. Though why that happened in the one game I observed is beyond me.

Pacal/Inca: Only did this one on an unmodified AD1000 map. I think to get out of that chilean hell, would take either Portugal or some expansive leader that is programmed to prefer sailing. No hope there.

I think in the end perhaps for an open random map any agressive leader would be best teamed with the incan civ. (they are going to spam warrior types, right? put that combat 1 promo to use and maybe give them a UU that they can become very scary in early war.)

Late game?: Since Elizabeth's personality seems to be programmed to tech well to a late game, and defend herself better than gandhi, I'd claim maybe Elizabeth could mix with America. Even though the Navy seal is a sucky UU, it's mostly because it appears late in the game, not because of it's very limited use, such as the Panzer. I can't think of any other late game unique-blooming civ other than america and Germany at the moment

[GA econ FTW]

oh, something I've found when you choose/allow the "barbarian" leader (Sid Meyer, no traits) with ...any civ (I dunno, I used him once with Mali)....As soon as you make contact, and can trade, the dude is pretty much on the red phone every turn. As a vassal, as a vassal to some other civ, he's always asking you to break contracts or trade or declare, etc.
Every turn.

Makes me wanna wipe every city and unit of his civ off the map sometimes....

even more than Pacal II.

[Iranon]

Mehmed of Inca would be fairly monstrous for the head start he gets in new cities.
For the price of a monument, get 2 that never obsolete and a granary.
ORG to pay the bills from the breakneck expansion or Quechua rampage. Too obivous?

Darius of Aztec for economic overkill and a guaranteed defender if needed. Stronger on most water maps than dedicated watery combinations.

[bhavv]

Churchill of Native America. Because Drill IV Crossbows are better than Drill III Crossbows

Tokugawa of the Celts, because absolutely nothing could get even gimpier.

Catherine of Sumeria - Cheap settlers, libraries, and Zigurats, rex champion.

Sury of Sumeria - Cheap workers, granaries, libraries and zigurats .... oh my god!

Mehmed or Zara of any Civ that gets a discounted UB with their traits, because all those cheap buildings are awesome.

E.G. Mehmed of Carthage - cheap Lighthouse, Granary, Cothon, Courthouse, Factory, go ahead and abuse GLH.

[Dr.Null]

Cyrus of Ethiopia: good UU/UB synergy, a huge number of promotions for your Oromos.

Montezuma of Ethiopia: draft yourself some sweet Oromos.

HC of Ethiopia: ... okay, fine, I am partial to Oromos.

[skyclad]

I had fun drafting with Tokugawa of England (ps the advantage of being Toku is that you don't have to meet the bastard in the game.)