And The Worst of the Worst

[DMOC]

As I said, I figure in Multi player games into my analysis.
He doesn't have the Traits or Empire to beat an early rush.
1 on 1 vs another skilled Human player, on a tiny map, marathon speed.
He's dead.

Gandhi, while admittedly not the best in terms of beating an early rush, does have the spiritual trait which saves him 1 turn of anarchy when switching to slavery, starts with mining so he can go BW first, and has a top tier UU which helps chop faster by being able to go on some forests and hills and chop/mine on the first turn. Of course, I still take Sitting Bull and Huayna Capac over him if I'm playing 1 on 1 but Gandhi would not be a bad choice.

 

[obsolete]

Mmm, at first I thought your intitial Ghandi post was a joke, but a very good one. But now, I'm not so sure...

 

[Eerdna]

Survayarman!! i didnt know first if it was a he or she
and
isabella... i just hate her!!

 

[lymond]

Gandhi, while admittedly not the best in terms of beating an early rush, does have the spiritual trait which saves him 1 turn of anarchy when switching to slavery, starts with mining so he can go BW first, and has a top tier UU which helps chop faster by being able to go on some forests and hills and chop/mine on the first turn. Of course, I still take Sitting Bull and Huayna Capac over him if I'm playing 1 on 1 but Gandhi would not be a bad choice.

I think SPI and PHIL go quite nicely together as well

 

[Bandobras Took]

I voted for Mao and Saladin.

Both are because of a lack of something vital. Synergy.

Mao's traits are Expansive and Protective. These suggest something of an expand-defend pattern to me.

Expansive is misnamed. It has little to do with expanding.

However, his UB is a modified theater that gives more culture. So... cultural? His UU is a modified crossbowman with an extra first strike and collateral. Suggesting attack. So... what is he again?

Drill-promoted Cho-Ko-Nus -- all you need is siege/spies to bring down city walls. It's unconventional, but workable. Protective is a great trait for cultural victories, since you aren't particularly worried about aggressive action, except for being on the receiving end.

Saladin is similar in all respects.

Saladin's not too similar. He's much more of a "Great when you're down" leader with a resourceless knight and guaranteed Great Prophet generation to potentially bulb later religious techs (Theology for AP is high on my list).

I still maintain that Isabella sucks far more than either of them.

 

[IdiotsOpposite]

Expansive is misnamed. It has little to do with expanding.



Drill-promoted Cho-Ko-Nus -- all you need is siege/spies to bring down city walls. It's unconventional, but workable. Protective is a great trait for cultural victories, since you aren't particularly worried about aggressive action, except for being on the receiving end.



Saladin's not too similar. He's much more of a "Great when you're down" leader with a resourceless knight and guaranteed Great Prophet generation to potentially bulb later religious techs (Theology for AP is high on my list).

I still maintain that Isabella sucks far more than either of them.

I don't know about that. I actually like Isabella. Maybe it's just the CR3 Siege that gets me, but she's one of my favorite people to wage medieval war with.

 

[Bandobras Took]

Protective shines in Medieval war anyway. Isabella has precious little to get her there.

 

[IdiotsOpposite]

Protective shines in Medieval war anyway. Isabella has precious little to get her there.

Ever heard of Spain on a Lake?

Of course, that's Vanilla. But she hasn't changed much in the meantime.

Or has she? I'm really not all that certain how much changed with Isabella in particular

 

[Bandobras Took]

At high levels, founding your own religion can backfire.

Isabella's Expansive, but so is Mao. That cancels out, and we're left with protective vs. spiritual, the UUs, and the UBs.

Protective applies in the period leading up to Medieval war. Isabella's only saving grace is not wasting a turn to switch to her neighbor's religion to prevent getting attacked. If it's an offensive war pre-engineering, the edge goes to Mao since he needs to devote fewer troops to defending his lands in the first place. Granted that Isabella might have highly promoted siege, Mao's UU does collateral damage anyway. She's really got no edge over him as far as surviving to use the strong points goes.

 

[IdiotsOpposite]

At high levels, founding your own religion can backfire.

This is true.

Isabella's Expansive, but so is Mao. That cancels out, and we're left with protective vs. spiritual, the UUs, and the UBs.

This, I can't say that they cancel out. After all, if you just get rid of them, you can't look at how well expansive works with spiritual and how well it works with protective, and the like. Synergy is one of the most important aspects of the game.

Protective applies in the period leading up to Medieval war. Isabella's only saving grace is not wasting a turn to switch to her neighbor's religion to prevent getting attacked. If it's an offensive war pre-engineering, the edge goes to Mao since he needs to devote fewer troops to defending his lands in the first place. Granted that Isabella might have highly promoted siege, Mao's UU does collateral damage anyway. She's really got no edge over him as far as surviving to use the strong points goes.

This is true, however, which of them will do better economically? I would say that Isabella and Mao are about equal in pre-Engineering war, with maybe a slight tilt towards Mao. So, what we can look at is the economy.

Isabella has Spiritual, so the no anarchy allows her to switch civics to whatever suits her, such as running castes and switching to slavery when needed. However, her UB is useless economically.

Mao is protective, which gives not as much of an economic bonus, but since as you said, he needs less units to defend, he can spend more time and hammers building up an economy. So, I'd call his trait slightly less economically powerful than Isabella's. His UB is more useful economically than Isabella's though.

So... hard to say really.

 

[plasmacannon]

Mao has PRO Cho-Ko-Nus that start with 2 first strikes instead of 1, and Drill 1 plus collateral.
It's like a seige catapult that can be promoted to Riflemen later, and gets terrain/city/fortify defense.
With your 1st 10 xp, you can get it up to Drill4, then, run up the Combat 1-5 list with its next promotions.
Very Effective.

 

[Higher Game]

Charlemagne and Boudica are very easily the worst here, no contest. Charlie has very weak non-economic traits, a worthless UU, bad starting techs, and an average to good UB that gets so much love because everything else is so bad. Boudica likewise has horrible starting techs, weak uniques, and a bad one-dimensional trait combination.

Tokugawa at the very least can war as well as Boudica, and he has respectable uniques and no mysticism tech. He's better.

Sitting Bull is very low for a reason, but at least he has an economics trait and uber archers.

Mao and Saladin are bad, but Mao has a decent UU and Saladin's is very nice if you lack a resource; the madrassa can also pick up border tiles well due to its cultural muscle, and it makes Angkor Wat a decent wonder to pick up. I don't know how these two are on the bottom.

 

[itg]

Sal and Boudica. Terrible starting techs, bad traits (moreso for Saladin than Boudica), and uniques that can't make up for it. Mao's bad, too, but at least he has Ag + Mining. Cho-ko-nus always seemed like a ton of fun, but they come at a really awkward time.

 

[CHEESE!]

Oh God.... I clicked them all as a joke, and accidentally pressed 'vote'...

 

[The Almighty dF]

Sal and Boudica. Terrible starting techs, bad traits (moreso for Saladin than Boudica), and uniques that can't make up for it. Mao's bad, too, but at least he has Ag + Mining. Cho-ko-nus always seemed like a ton of fun, but they come at a really awkward time.

Yea... Cho's usefulness depends on gamespeed.
I'm a marathon player where they're more useful, but crossbows are pretty pointless on normal.
That's why I never play below Epic, I want some balance to my eras. I hate when there's only a tiny, tiny window of use for something.

 

[lymond]

Oh God.... I clicked them all as a joke, and accidentally pressed 'vote'...

I believe everything you said except the "accidentally" part

 

[shyuhe]

There is no way Izzy is even in the same group as Mao. Her traits are better, her UU is better, and her UB is better. Spiritual is way better than protective in almost every situation. The conquistador is a great unit with no hammer efficient counter during its era except war elephants. The citadel is a great UB - citadel + theocracy lets you build CR3 cannons which will chew through anything up through (and possibly including) infantry. The only thing Mao has on her are starting techs.

 

[Liquidated]

Toku needs to be on that list for truth! A leader with absolutely no economic traits might work great on prince or less which is probably why so many people like him. Just a waste of a fine mustache on any difficulty where the AIs can out produce/tech you.

He's no dreamboat as an AI either, gotta gift the loser a town just to get open borders. I dread ever seeing the guy nearby, while Toku and Shaka as close neighbors is just the RNG beating on you senselessly

Cheers!
-Liq

 

[Gwynnja]

Two words Re: why toku isn't in the poll: Rifle draft.

 

[FaceUnderMask]

Sitting Bull. While he certainly have some potential with combos like totem pole + barracks + theo + vassalage = 10 exp xbows, his UU makes me feel like asking for normal axes. The only two times i got him on random i get Mansa as closest neighboor, usually blocking me out.
It's not like everything is bad about him, PHI and PRO combine pretty well (like you can run specs and pacifism, with PRO and totem pole you can keep a necessary minimum of archers, therefore minimum of losses from pacifism). Still he is worst leader for early rush, thats why i vote for him.

Brennus, Sala and Izabella are also questionable. Maybe because i never tryed religious game. Out of them, i vote for Brennus. Izabella can do pretty well, although she is EXP, which i consider very bad trait, on the edge with PRO (surely there are a lot of people who consider EXP being one of the top traits, but i never felt difference between EXP and non-EXP), and Sala have better UB, UU and starting teches.

Others are fine by me.
Sorry for the typos/mistakes, still learning.