Which leader in Civilization 4 are you?

What is your typical playing style, and what leader(s) in the game best represent you?

Nominating "Whip till your hands bleed and then whip some more to get the blood off" Seraiel as either Montezuma, Stalin or Mao.

Leader for sure - William.. all around guy that can be nice for 5000 yrs and than go into neverending 500 yrs war until win is got..
Funny thing - as long as i'm building/expanding empire, my mind think about peaceful side of game.. As soon as 1st city is taken, my mind is looking for AI weak spots and calculating diplo situation for best target..

I actually really like Montezuma, but have never played Stalin or Mao. Montezuma is great because he's SPI and AGG can be amazingly good if i. e. going for a 2XP from Barracks + Theocracy draft strategy, because then they have Cover making them a lot stronger, being able to switch to Nationalism also harmonizes very well with being SPI.

But my absolute favourite leader is definitely Huyana Capac. I don't play him often but when I do, I love how suddenly everything is possible, borderpops from Granaries, conquering 3 civs 'til 2000 BC and having 10+ cities, building all World Wonders on oneself, hard to find anything that makes so much fun as to dominate a game from T0 .

2nd choice is Frederick because I love PHI, the combination with ORG is amazing for Spaceraces and then even the UB is great, I also am german and appreciate that both their leaders are the best choices for certain types of victories (AP + Space, except Huayna Capac or Darius again ofc. ) .

I also love Hatty and Augustus, nothing better than to have "almost HAs that only cost half as much" or the strongest UU in the game.

I wished Darius had War Chariots or Augustus would be IND + FIN, then they'd not stand so much behind Huyana in every discipline and would make terrific choices for Space Races. As it is, Darius suffers from normal STR4 Chariots being too weak and Augustus is subpar in almost every discipline, he may have the best UU but he techs badly and the IMP-bonus is in contrary to having such a strong UU because GGs past the 1st mostly don't matter.

Lizzy and Mansa I like aswell, basically nothing RP-like as Imp. Knoedel suggests but a list of the strongest leaders in CIV. I have a weak point for Izzy, because of Dom- / Conquest games on Quick speed.

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I just noticed that this thread doesn't has the title which leader in Civilization is 4 you but which leader in Civilization 4 are you...

Well, I play unrestricted leaders - recently been on a Hannibal binge playing him with every civilization, but I also like Lincoln and Cyrus for warring.

I like Charismatic trait the best.

Seraiel said:

As it is, Darius suffers from normal STR4 Chariots being too weak

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But Darius gets Immortals no?

Lexicus said:

But Darius gets Immortals no?

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Yes, but the Immortal is a unique "normal" Chariot, it's not a +1 base-STR amazing War Chariot that is even able to beat Spears, it's a slightly stronger Chariot against Archers. The Chariot itself and the formula with which CIV calculates the battles is the problem, the 50% against Archers are deducted from the Archer and that one has an even lower base-STR of 3, so only 1.5 get deducted. The Archer has insane bonuses in cities and especially on Hills and Walls + Spears are even too much for Horse Archers, and as kovacsflo once formulated: "The 3rd city of the AI at latest will capture Iron or Bronze" . The +1 base-STR of the War Chariot is massive, if you ever played Rome and had Praets you'll understand this. The Immortal has a very small time-window because once an AI has metal, that period ends, War Chariots however often have better odds than Immortals (even against Archers! ) because small differences in base-STR are huge differences because of the formula. I'd like to describe this like "against an Archer, even a normal Chariot can do given 2 against 1, an Immortal is only merely better. Against Spears and Walls however a normal Chariot is useless, the War Chariot, being better than a HA, may still succeed though and thereby has an era that can last until Pikes so Engineering (if adding Siege-support later) " . I know that this sounds a little weird, but a Longbow after 2-3 Catapults is beaten by a War Chariot because it's 5 against 3 in terms of base-STR (after Siege) , I don't know the odds by heart but I'd suspect that that'd be 70%+ odds, that's amazing given the cost of those units and the time at which one can have them. With all multipliers, Chariots may even get a 30-50% win chance after Catapults and Spears again would go down aswell, but exactly that is what an Immortal can't do because of the "little" difference of 1 base-STR. If this is not understandeable, see how normal Swords are crap-units against Axes while Praets get 80%+ , beat Longbows and last until Infantry with Cannons. Noone would think about doing Swords + Cannons against Rifles but with Praets that's possible, it's the same for the War Chariot, it exceeds the era of Spears and even can do against Longbows, it's not just 1 more STR, it's an era that is at least 3-5 times as long gamewise.

Sry if this is too off-topic and too confused . I basically learned that the power of a unit comes by its base-STR because the formula weights small differences too large, because some bonuses that are written to be added towards the attacker unit are subtracted from the defender which changes a lot, and I have experienced that certain units greatly exceed their era because cost-efficiency is all that matters and because the upgrade-formula is a complete fail aswell.

[EDIT]

Try to see it like this: 5 against 6 is possible, 4 against 6 however isn't efficient anymore. It's simply that 5 against 6 is still 30-40%, 4 against 6 is already 10% and 3 against 6 is below 1%.

Pangaea said:

What is your typical playing style, and what leader(s) in the game best represent you?

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I'd rather build research than units, even when I've turned off all victories except conquest; what leader(s) represent that?
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Robo-Star said:

I'd rather build research than units, even when I've turned off all victories except conquest; what leader(s) represent that?
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Gandhi.

Seraiel said:

Gandhi.

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Oh yeah.
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Robo-Star said:

Oh yeah.
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Forgot about Gandhi. He's #1 leader for any traditional cultural victories because PHI and SPI. Fast Workers are also a nice UU though I don't value them even remotely as high as other players do, though on Quick speed they really change the game completely .

The leader that mostly represents me btw. is Catherine . Cute, one is not even safe as a friend ( ) and I also like Russia because I like the people there and how they think and talk. I also have some similarities with Mansa though, like trading techs without restraint and I still have to lol at how he vassaled to me peacefully in Replay #5 and then screwed me by shutting off his research and going for a cultural victory, I'd so do the last in a CIV-PvP-game . I have have a little Tokuawa in me, so isolationist and convincing me to adopt a certain, specific religion is also impossible (or almost impossible as in CIV) .

For Huge maps with Agressive AI turned on, Cyrus Imperialistic+Charismatic looks interesting because you can get units with 5 promotions early including 3 medic promotions, imperialistic = x2 times more great generals (when they join city they have +2 exp each)

Combined with Charismatic trait that req -25% exp for unit promotions, combined with vassalage+Theocracy = +4 extra exp points, combined with conquering other imperialist leaders that stack Great Generals in their capitals like Justinian.

Combined with War Academy = +50% unit production and Heroic Epic +100 unit production.

So as Cyrus you can have 2-4 citys focused on units production with alot unit promotions. (Not overpowered but fun)

Also

Montezuma have one of best UB (Compared to the Courthouse which it replaces, the Altar costs 30 fewer hammers and cuts in half the duration of anger caused by whipping) combined with Spi Trait which makes his UB even more powerful and useful.

Also Gandhi,Pericles and Elizabeth (farming great people is fun)

Also i like to play Civs that considered Average or Under powered because of nice city names/colour/unit/Different units looking i.e. i like how Chinese/Korean workers look (Asian style) i like Incan Swordsman look (American style), i like how Roman/Carthage Horse Archers look (Med style) and England/France Knights look (old european style)

i.e. i like European knights models more than Persian knight models. And i like Native American swordsman models more than European Swordsman models. (Im not talking about unique units like Jaguar Warrior i mean different civs have different unit and city art)

I'm Mansa. Solid player but too nice

Needed to cross my 1st post because I mis-read the thread-title.

I see some slightly misunderstood the intention of the topic, but that's fine. Hard to find good representative leaders of your playstyle anyway I reckon, and besides, our styles will differ depending on the goals for each specific game.

Myself, I quite like going to space. But Kennedy isn't in the game (nor Khrushchev), so none are truly good representatives there.

In the early game, maybe Mansa would be best. Get up some cities and get cracking on research and trading techs with the AIs. Later on... maybe Montezuma Crack skulls until none are left, and whip slaves till your hands bleed

Then there are those usually peaceful periods in Golden Ages, where somebody like Gandhi might be a good representative.

Overall the choice would have to be Mansa I think. A common theme in all my games is to trade techs and try to get up an empire that researches well, and that is Mansa to a tee. Reckon he would have been an excellent leader for a space race if he was born, oh, a few years later

I was gonna say I was Cathy cause I'm so pretty, but Cereal beat me to that one. So I'm gonna say I'm Cathy cause I declare at Friendly (although really Shulec beat to that one as well in his sig, but it is true)

I would actually have to say, I'm Stalin. And the reason is that Stalin carried on the most implacable, unstoppable military campaign in history in the form of the Soviet end of the Eastern Front of WW2.

Virtually any other leader would have caved in to the Nazi invasion, but Stalin refused even to contemplate the possibility that the Soviet Union might be defeated.

I play the game of Civ IV similarly. Always with Aggressive AI on, and always to annoy the AI (purposefully ignoring diplomacy).

And if an AI surprises me with an invasion, and causes any serious annoyance, I won't stop the war until that AI capitulates.

So in that sense, like Stalin, I play for keeps. I also mercilessly sacrifice my people to get buildings and units faster: in fact, I kind of roleplay Stalin as I usually whip factories and Coal Plants out, generally aiming to finish them all on the same turn (except in the capital which typically hardbuilds).

Stalin's ruthless program of industrialization, costing the lives of millions of peasants, is what allowed the USSR to successfully fend off the German invasion.

I play on random. This could be taken to mean I have no personality.

I'm probably more like Monty.
It's not if I'll attack you, it's a matter of when. And I really don't care how much I like you.

Timsup2nothin said:

I play on random. This could be taken to mean I have no personality.

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Or multiple personalities.
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Probably Frederick as I build far too many Wonders and like to launch lots of simi-welltimed
limited wars when I have thee tech edge