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All Leader Challenger
All Leaders Challenge Pre-Game Show:
Game #23 - America/Lincoln
Game #23 - America/Lincoln
In the next ALC game, I'll be playing as Abraham Lincoln, leader of the United States of America--one of the new/old leaders added in the Beyond the Sword expansion pack. (Old because for us Civ veterans, Lincoln was included as a leader of American in previous versions.) The purpose of this thread is to discuss, before the game, how to best exploit this particular leader's characteristics, which is the main feature and purpose of the ALC series. Just so we're clear, I'm playing with the Beyond the Sword expansion pack with its most recent official patch (3.17).
Here's the fact sheet:
- Traits: Philosophical (Great People birth rate increased 100 percent, double production speed of University.) and Charismatic (+1 happiness per city, -25% XP needed for unit promotions, +1 happiness from Monument, Broadcast Tower).
- Starting Techs: Fishing and Agriculture
- Unique Unit: Navy SEAL (Replaces Marine; Strength: 24, Movement: 1, Cost: 160; Unique Characteristics: 1-2 first strikes, starts with March)
- Unique Building: Mall (Replaces Supermarket; Cost: 150; Unique Characteristics: +10% wealth, +1 happiness from hit musical, hit single, hit movie)
Many are recommending using Lincoln for the move to Immortal because he has such awesome traits. Philosophical means I'll be running a specialist economy; that's a no-brainer. Cheap universities are nice too. I'll want to make sure I have all the necessary libraries built before Education; since I'll be running a SE, that shouldn't be too hard. Then I'll want to roll out the universities quickly. The chief benefit there is to be able to build Oxford faster, just because I have the prerequisite buildings in place.
Charismatic helps ease the move to Immortal because of the +1 happy citizen in each city. (Not that the base happiness changes from Emperor--it doesn't--but it's helpful nonetheless, and the fact that monuments also add happiness doesn't hurt either.) I usually like to build monuments rather than building Stonehenge just because they keep producing culture all game (and 2 culture after 1000 years). In the late game with a Charismatic leader, however, I like to build the Eiffel tower to quickly leverage the broadcast tower's benefits.
The other benefit of Charismatic, of course, is that the units get promoted more rapidly and after winning fewer battles. The best way to leverage the trait is to keep warring. As a result, you may see a ALC game in the grand old tradition where I spend the early game conquering my land mass and then set my sights on others later on. We haven't seen a conquest victory in an ALC in a long time--Lincoln may be the leader to try that with. Then again, if I go to Immortal level, is that realistic?
Also, I don't want this to turn into a single-minded slugfest like the Shaka game. As many of you have pointed out, Lincoln's traits are quite flexible. And since I'm considering playing at a higher difficulty level, I shouldn't go counting chickens. We'll take things as they come, as always.
(Sidebar: I have, in fact, played with this trait combination before. Michelle Jean, in Wyz_sub10's Canada Mod, has the same traits. In fact, Canada and America are strikingly similar. Both start with Fishing (Canada has Hunting instead of Agriculture), and both have a late UU/UB combination. Canada's UB is also a variation on the Broadcast Tower, which is a pseudo-UB for Charismatic leaders. So this game should feel eerily familiar to me.)
The starting techs, Agriculture and Fishing, allow for the quick, early growth that the Charismatic trait supports. I'll be hoping for a coastal start with a seafood and a grain resource; if I get it, Washington may end up becoming the GP farm. The palace may be moved to a better location for cottaging to leverage the Bureaucracy civic. But we'll see what the map has in store, of course.
Now it's your turn...