Great Leaders: Everything you always wanted to know

[sumthinelse]

(UNDER CONSTRUCTION)
Contents

• 
  * If you have not heard of a Great Leader
  * How it all started
  * Main section: Facts about leader creation
  * Unresolved Issues
  * Ideas for future changes in the game with repect to leaders
  * Customization and file hacking

Special thanks to:

• 
  
  * Lt. Killer M. who believed me when almost everyone else didn't
  
  * etj4Eagle
  
  * TheNiceOne
  
  * Palehorse76
  
  * Mike B. Firaxis
  

 

[sumthinelse]

It is possible to play CIV3 for thousands of years without a Great Leader appearing, so some of you may not have heard of a "Great Leader" yet.

Unfortunately, the game docs call the heads of state, Like Caesar, Cleopatra, etc. that you talk to in the diplomatic screen "leaders" but that is not what we are discussing in this thread. A "Great Leader" is a unit which may get created as a result of one of your elite units winning in combat. A "Great Leader" can go to a city and complete a city improvement, including a Wonder, in a single turn. It can also create an army unit but you must have 4 cities for every army you create . If it does either of these things, it gets "used up" and disappears from the game. Your opponenents, the computer civs, can also get a "Great Leader" via an elite unit victory.

If you do create a leader, be careful. They have no defense and can be killed. It would be a shame to wait for so long and then have your prize destroyed.

 

[sumthinelse]

I read that the odds of an elite unit victory creating a leader was 1/16 (see Facts section). That seemed to be the case for the first 6 leaders. But after that, no matter how many elite victories I had, no leaders appeared. I had about 150 elite victories in a row without generating a leader.

Then a leader appeared. OK, I thought, maybe that was a game bug, and now everything is OK. But, unfortunately, after that I had almost 300 elite victories in a row and no leader appeared. If the odds of a leader appearing was really 1/16, then the odds of no leader appearing in 280 tries would be 1 chance in 70,000,000. Maybe sometimes the odds of creating a leader are zero, I thought, and I was right . For an explanation why the odds of creating a leader were zero, see "Main section: Facts about leader creation".

 

[sumthinelse]

There are some situations in which the odds of your elite unit's victory creating a leader are zero:

• 
  
  * If you already have one
  * If your elite unit has ever created a unit before. Before patch 1.29f this created problems for the human player because elites that had created a leader looked exactly like elites that had not. If you install patch 1.29, every elite that creates a leader will display a * to the right of its name. This allows you to increase the odds of generating a leader in 3 ways:
  
  - First, you can use elites with the * (which can't create a leader) in "risky" attacks and save your "good" elites (which can create a leader) for "safer" attacks.
  
  - Second, if most of your elites have a * you will know that you need to create new veteran units via barracks or combat or upgrade elite units with the * (upgrading elites this makes them veterans but they can create a leader again after they are promoted to elite via combat), and attack with veteran units to create elites. One effective way to create elites is to win twice with a veteran tank in the same turn. Winning with the same unit twice in the same turn always promotes the unit to the next level (regular->vet, or vet->elite).
  
  - Third, you can put elite units with a * in armies, and keep the other elite units out of armies, since elites in armies can't create leaders.
  
  * If your elite unit is in an army
  * If your elite unit defeated a barbarian instead of a "normal" combat unit
  * If your elite unit is not a ground unit. So naval units, and air units, even if they are elite, can not create Great Leaders. Think about it: If your elite battleship kills an enemy galley in the middle of the ocean, would the leader appear out in the middle of the ocean? Elite catapults, cannon, artillery, radar artillery: if you have changed the unit in the editor to have lethal bombard and it destroys a unit it can create a leader but if you do not have lethal bombard, land-based bombard units can not create a leader. Note that for these bombard units, the promotion level is invisible, so you have to remember the little message that says it was promoted to elite if you are curious.
  * If your elite ground unit enters an undefended city and destroys/captures enemy naval units and artillery, and captures enemy workers, you won't get a leader unless you killed a ground unit (warrior, tank, etc.) in the same move.
  

If your elite unit has created a leader but then you upgrade that unit, it then becomes a veteran via the upgrade, and if it gets promoted to elite again, after the upgrade and promotion they can create a leader again.

Probabilities of creating a leader in an elite victory if none of the above restrictions apply

• 
  
  * If your elite is attacking and you do not have the Heroic Epic wonder, 1/16
  * If your elite is attacking and you have the Heroic Epic wonder, 1/12
  * If your elite is defending and you do not have the Heroic Epic wonder, 1/32
  * If your elite is defending and you have the Heroic Epic wonder, 1/24
  

The militaristic civilization attribute does not affect the chance of getting a leader directly, but it gives you a better chance of your units being promoted to elite, so in an indirect way it has an affect.

The following numbers from Mike B. Firaxis:

Odds of promotion are based on whether the civ has the Militaristic trait or not and whether the victory was against barbarians or not. Basically, chances of promotion are halved for victories over Barbarians and doubled for Militaristic civs.

non-militaristic civ vs. non-barbarians:
conscript to regular: 1 in 2
regular to veteran: 1 in 4
veteran to elite: 1 in 8

non-militaristic civ vs. barbarians:
conscript to regular: 1 in 4
regular to veteran: 1 in 8
veteran to elite: 1 in 16

militaristic civ vs. non-barbarians:
conscript to regular: 1 in 1
regular to veteran: 1 in 2
veteran to elite: 1 in 4

militaristic civ vs. barbarians:
conscript to regular: 1 in 2
regular to veteran: 1 in 4
veteran to elite: 1 in 8

<<< end of quote from Mike B. >>>

In addition, if a unit wins more than 2 victories on a single turn (including both attack and defense), it always gets promoted multiple times (if promotion is possible -- obviously an elite cannot be promoted). If a unit wins 3 victories on a single turn it gets promoted 2 times, unless the 1st promotion made it elite or it was elite already. If a unit has 4 or more victories on a single turn (with non-modded units possible only on defense) it gets promoted 3 times unless the 1st or 2nd promotion makes it elite or unless it was already elite.

Example: my conscipt modern armor attacks and kills 2 barbs. The 1st attack yields no promotion, the 2nd attack promotes it to regular. I end my turn. 2 barbs attack the same unit and both die. The unit gets promoted twice more, to vet and then elite.



Some units, like tanks, can attack multiple times on one turn. Each of these attacks can promote the attacking unit or create a leader (if none of the restrictions above apply). So it is possible to start with a veteran tank that has not yet attacked, and on the 1st attack it gets promoted to elite and on the 2nd it creates a leader. This should not happen very often, though.

 

[sumthinelse]

Lt. Killer M. suspects that the first leader you create in a game takes a lot longer than the others. I don't know if this is true. How many elite victories does it take you to create your first leader in a game?

I have heard a story about an elite marine attacking from a transport, the leader was created in the transport, and the leader floated around there for several turns before the player moved a transport to the same coast square, loaded the leader in the transport, and then moved the leader to land!

And here is proof (screenshot of the day#74):

 

[sumthinelse]

In the main section I stated that an elite unit can create onle one leader, and after that the probability is zero for that unit, no matter how many victories it gets. Before patch 1.29f, since elite units that have created leaders and will not be able to create one in the future looked exactly like elite unites that have not created leaders and can create one , it was very difficult to manage elite units. In patch 1.29f, thanks to Mike B. (and probably others), Firaxis changed an elite unit which had created a leader to display a * to the right of its name!

I believe that historical "Great Leaders" do not always arise from military triumphs, and so the current mechanism of generating leaders is not convincing. Indeed, Sid Meier wanted to have artists, scientists, etc. but somehow those leaders never made it into the shipped product.


(Ideas for changing the leader generating mechanism - UNDER CONSTRUCTION)

(Ideas for changing the capabilities of Great leaders- UNDER CONSTRUCTION)

 

[sumthinelse]

I have tried to change a saved file so that the unit displays differently (so that I could visually determine if an elite unit had already created a leader) but the only thing I have accomplished so far is to make CIV3 crash when it tries to load the altered file.

Let none ignorant of hex editors enter here. I can use a hex editor to find the unit structures of a saved file and look at the "created leader" flag in that unit's structure. To find a unit structure and its "leader created" flag in a saved game:

• 
  
  * Copy your saved game to a different file so you won't corrupt your original save file
  * Use the Gramphos saved game editor, version .92 or newer. Load the saved game copy in the editor and save it using the same tool. This will uncompress the file.
  * Use the Gramphos unit filter to find the elite unit you are interested in. Write down the unit number, which is the number with the colon after it in the first field, and write down the coordinates of the unit (the 2 numbers under "position").
  * Load the same file (uncompressed now) in a hex editor. Search for the ASCII string UNIT in the file. 8 bytes after the start of the UNIT string is the unit ID number (displays in hex of course so you want to convert the unit number from decimal to hex). If the ID number matches, that is your elite unit's record in the saved file. Look at the flags at offset 0x30 past the start of the UNIT string. If the flag 0x20 at that location is on, it has already created a leader. You could turn that flag OFF to make the unit capable of generating a leader again, but I just use it so I can determine which kind of elite unit it is. This is going to take a while when you have a lot of units in the game. A faster way is to find the coordinates (after you convert them to hex). The first coordinate is at 0x0c from the start of the UNIT string and the second coordinate is at offset 0x10. Be careful, though. The unit number is unique but there might be several units at the same location.
  

Warning: Firaxis can change these structures in any new patch. Use this information at your own risk.

 

[Lt. 'Killer' M.]

To clarify:

I *think* that if I start Civ3 fresh and begin a new game, the first leader will take longer.
If I play for a while, then start a new game, it will appear at the normal ratios mentioned by sumthinelse.

 

[sumthinelse]

Thanks Killer, I fixed the part about creating an army.

 

[eg577]

I noticed that you said *defending* elite units have a 50% less chance of making great leaders. Are you sure that it wasn't *fortified* elite units have the 50% less chance? Thought I heard that somewhere.

 

[Lt. 'Killer' M.]

eg577: the wording comes from Mike B. @ Firaxis, so I guess *defending* is correct

 

[kring]

What about artillery with lethal bombardment land active? I suspect it wouldn't, but didn't want to assume either way.

 

[kring]

I may have an update on this later tonight.

 

[sumthinelse]

Originally posted by kring
What about artillery with lethal bombardment land active? I suspect it wouldn't, but didn't want to assume either way.

I corrected the main section, which was incorrect before,

 

[kring]

I was amazed when someone else pointed that out to me. I didn't think it was possible, but I don't do much with artillery to begin.

 

[Lucky Dragon]

On a related subject...

You can easily tell how many units are in an army at a glance, even if it's not YOUR army. Just look at the flag or standard their general is carrying:

[U]Era[/U]          [U]Symbol[/U]
Ancient      Number of vertical stripes on the standard
Medieval     Number of squares on the standard
Industrial   Number of marks on the flag
Modern       Number of diagonal stripes on the flag

The number of stripes, dots or squares corresponds to the number of units in the army.

 

[joespaniel]

Good thread sumthinelse!

I played many games before ever getting my first GL (great leader). And I am an aggressive player.

Usually, it takes knights and cavalry (as stated earlier) for non-militaristic civs. However, I have gotten GLs with swordsmen and even archers on rare occasions. I got one or two with warriors, and one with a spearman in defense.

There are ways to improve your odds...

I'm not going to give up my best secrets that easy, but I will say this:
Pick your fight. I reserve my elite units until I'm fairly sure they will win.

Good luck!

 

[sumthinelse]

1.29f changes: In 1.29f, it is easy to see if an elite has created a leader. If it has created a leader, its name will have a * to the right. I apologize, I need to update this thread when I get a chance.....

 

[thefrenchzulu]

I find the smaller the odds of success, the better the change of getting a leader.

When I play the Persians, running around with immortals, I get my first leaders with a few archers!

I also find certain events and buildings increase your change of producing a leader.

When desperate in the early game, I start my FB! That normally results in one.

There more strats, by they are mine...

 

[Lt. 'Killer' M.]

thefrenchzulu: that is all just chance.