Best Creative Leader

[auagxa]

They moved phalanxes to replace admen in BTS, so a men don't counter them in BTS. (Vanilla and Warlords have Phalanx as a spear replacement, but they don't have Periclese as a leader.)

Uhh axemen counter axemen though only when defending in defensive terrain or promoted with Combat X. Since Phalanxes don't have any boost fighting other axemen compared to vanilla axemen, it's just a regular axemen when fighting axemen.

 

[Sun Tzu Wu]

I voted for Zara Yaqob mainly due to his unique unit, the Oromo Warrior, a musketman with free Drill I and Drill II promotions; with just 5 XP such as with barracks and theocracy, no can build Oromo Warriors with Drill IV, an awesome promotion that can easily decimate any AI city defenders up to riflemen with catapult/trebuchet or spy support; with drill iv + pinch, the oromo warrior is an even match to a lightly promoted rifleman. The creative trait helps with early border pops and cheap libraries to help get to gunpowder quickly. Bulbing chemistry and possibly liberalizing Steel can seal the victory with Cannon support before the AIs reach rifling.

It was a close call with Hatshepsut and War Chariots, but it serious sucks when after finishing Animal Hubandry, the only Horse plots on the map are already in AI culture or worse (no Horse at all). I have played many pangaea maps with no horse. Hatshepsut is great on a great plains map which always has several horse plots and often numerous plains and plains hill cows for food/hammers plus PH Gems for commerce, but the winner of this poll should be great on any map. Hatshepsut is my third choice.

I also like Gilgamesh for his Vultures and -25% courthouses at priesthood. He can easily use an espionage economy very early on as a result. His vultures need copper, though iron would work too though delay the rush. He would be my 2nd choice.

Sun Tzu Wu

 

[Sun Tzu Wu]

In my opinion, Willem should be near last place, since his UB is too late and provides too few extra base hammers to be worthwhile. UU needs maps that require astronomy. It really isn't that much better than a normal levee as TMIT's math as demonstrated.

Sun Tzu Wu

 

[Strickl3r]

Hmmm, I'm not sure, if it's even worth mentioning, but even without any UU and UB the trait combo of Dutchmaster, would beat Giggles(he is nice though) and Zara.

And yes of course you need Horses for Hatty so she is the most powerfull, but her trait combo is also by far better than CRE/PRO and CRE/ORG and she starts with AG/TW just like Giggles.

 

[TheMeInTeam]

I don't think FIN is strong enough to be > than ORG *and* a draftable strong UU. CRE/FIN is nice, but most maps with Willem that's all the utility you get during meaningful parts of the game. That's nice, to be certain, but not enough to be near #1.

 

[Fippy]

I would take Willy over Zara, why..cos i rarely use Muskets, and if i'd have to pick they would be French
Willy starts fast, you get good commerce and you get cheap libraries to increase that further + culture for free,
resulting in strong early teching.
This often works together so well, that Org cannot keep up with the early benefits.

 

[Sun Tzu Wu]

I would take Willy over Zara, why..cos i rarely use Muskets, and if i'd have to pick they would be French
Willy starts fast, you get good commerce and you get cheap libraries to increase that further + culture for free,
resulting in strong early teching.
This often works together so well, that Org cannot keep up with the early benefits.

Zara Yaqob can't have musketmen. Oromo Warriors are far better. You will go far when you learn the difference and use oromo warriors effectively. As TMIT has noted more than once, oromo warriors are draftable. With barracks and either vassalage or theocracy and the state religion, drafted oromo warriors have 2 XP; add Drill III to the free Drill I and Drill II; now they are only 3 XP from Drill IV. An Oromo Warrior Drill IV is nearly unbeatable by any unit prior to riflemen and even a lightly promoted rifleman may have trouble beating an Oromo Warrior Drill IV Pinch. Have you even tried playing with Oromo Warrior Drill IV units versus any units of the Gunpowder era and earlier?

Build up a modest 8 city empire of about 10P with Zara Yaqob while beelining Gunpowder and Nationalism, adopt Nationhood and draft up to four times in each city. You now have up to 32 Oromo Warrior Drill III units that need only 3XPs to become Drill IV. Go conquer the pre-rifleman world; just add a few accuracy catapults and maybe some spies and a Medic III healer for the rare occasions when they take significant damage.

All the leaders with the creative trait get cheap libraries and free border pops. Willem van Oranje is nothing special without a water map. Both his UU and UB require a water map to be effective.

This thread is about leaders with the creative trait. What distinguishes them is not just their second trait. It is also their unique unit, unique building and even their starting technologies. Please reread post #1.

Sun Tzu Wu

 

[Sun Tzu Wu]

I'd rather have knights than two move musketeers.

Sun Tzu Wu

 

[Fippy]

I would rather have Cuirs than Oromos, that's every Muskets weakness..they are close to better units, esp if you also want Nationalism for drafting. Otherwise i do not think that i need your help for learning game basics, but thanks for explaining what an Oromo is (funny that you mention knights, your Oromos will do great versus them too).

 

[Strickl3r]

I don't get all the love for ORG and Oromos. Double speed couthouses are nice after the first target is captured, but how does it help you with capturing it in the first place? The reduced civic upkeep is like trading away 1 extra ressource.

Oromos are the worst of all 3 UU Muskets. Drill is not very usefull compared to 25% vs knight from the ottomans or 2 movement to defend cuirrassier stacks vs. pikes.

 

[drewisfat]

Zara Yaqob can't have musketmen. Oromo Warriors are far better. You will go far when you learn the difference and use oromo warriors effectively.

This thread is about leaders with the creative trait. What distinguishes them is not just their second trait. It is also their unique unit, unique building and even their starting technologies. Please reread post #1.

Sun Tzu Wu

Going to call out the rudeness here on your part. It's obvious from the context (mentioning french muskets) not to mention the fact that Fippy is a very good player, that she knows about the existence of Oromos.

Furthermore I fail to see how the synergy between creative and the second trait isn't relevant to this discussion. Financial is even more powerful with earlier libraries and border pops (unlike ORG which operates pretty independently of CRE).

Funny you should mention knights soon after mentioning Oromos pre-gunpowder invulnerability. I'm going to ignore the fact that you have over 6000 posts, HOF records and are one of the most accomplished civ iv players, and inform you that Knights with immunity to first strikes, are pretty good against a unit you've loaded with first strike promos.

While Oromo rushes may be effective, cuir rushes are also very effective and are available very soon after on the tech tree. While I'd almost always use oromos to make the game more interesting, they're not any better than cuirs, and if my life was on the line, I'd probably do a cuir rush.
Musketeers GREATLY help the efficiency of a cuir rush. It's much more valuable to have a UU that gives a moderate buff to a strong unit than a strong buff to a weak unit. (This is why cataphracts for instance aren't that great).

Just on the UUs alone Louis > Zara. Add on the fact that Ind is the best tech and org is only average on a big map and one of if not the worst on pangea and Louis blows Zara out of the water.

Saying Willy should be near the bottom is overkill. Sure his UB is overrated by noble players with size 25 cities, but it is still one of the best UBs out there, and goes great with being FIN.

 

[Gwynnja]

With barracks and either vassalage or theocracy and the state religion, drafted oromo warriors have 2 XP;

Can't draft in vassalage.

cataphracts for instance aren't that great

If they aren't great, they are at least very good. Way, way better than knights.

 

[vranasm]

financial is better for small empires, organized better for large empires, I think it's pretty easy equation.

So depends on your expectation of how the game will evolve. I think in scenarios we try to discuss here, the large empire before having Currency+Col is a bit rare situation and after you get those 2 techs you have plenty of tools how to handle the empire.

Dunno my personal view of fin x org shifted over the time couple of times... these days I value financial (yet again) a bit higher then org. Makes early game so much easier.

Dutches are great mostly because fin, cre and great start techs.
A lot of the time UU/UB except couple of exceptions don't pay any role in the game and your starting techs are biggest obstacle for good start.

IF we were playing balanced resources, Egypt would be one of highest picks, but at the same time risky since AI gets copper too.

Dunno how everyone else, but every game I launch with Egypt I don't find horses after teching AH first there goes one big "siiiiigh" and if I find them, then it's about nearest empire.... makes the game a bit too predictable and non-interesting.

Dutch offers flexibility (the fun part is not that good argument, but for me it's strong argument)

 

[Sun Tzu Wu]

I don't get all the love for ORG and Oromos. Double speed couthouses are nice after the first target is captured, but how does it help you with capturing it in the first place? The reduced civic upkeep is like trading away 1 extra ressource.

Oromos are the worst of all 3 UU Muskets. Drill is not very usefull compared to 25% vs knight from the ottomans or 2 movement to defend cuirrassier stacks vs. pikes.

A lot of great players recognize that Drill IV as generally superior to Combat IV. Units with Drill IV can often kill units with their multiple first strikes without taking any damage; as a result they gain additional experience at very little risk (2 XPs at 99+% odds is quite common); they also sustain far less damage when attacked by seige (catapults). Oromo Warriors include free Drill I and Drill II; one can get Drill III and Drill IV by training Oromo Warriors with barracks and either vassalage or theocracy with the state religion. In addition to all the above, they are the most fun military unit to use of all the units and unique units that BtS provides. Perhaps that helps explain why I took offense to them being referred to as just "muskets".

Janissaries are also a great musketman based unique unit with +25% versus melee, archery and mounted units and I especially like Sulieman as a corresponding leader, but he does not have the creative trait and thus outside of the scope of this thread.

I also agree that the Muskteer is a very good musketman based unique unit. The two plot moves make it very versatile, but in actual combat it has all the weakesses of musketman unit (meaning no combat bonuses). My comparison of it to a knight was a bit unfair; it does ignore walls/castles whereas the knight can not, but when using spies to support city revolts, the knight's higher base strength will prove to be superior.

Sun Tzu Wu

 

[Sun Tzu Wu]

I'm well aware that knights have immunity to first strikes and this presents a problem for Drill only units. When playing Zara Yaqob, I beeline Gunpowder via Civil Service or Theology -> Paper (possible GS bulb) -> Education (double GS bulb) and plan to complete it much earlier than any AI is likely to complete Guilds. The AI likely to get Guilds first can optionally be targeted and eliminated first. Alternatively, Civs far ftom Guilds or lacking Horse can be targeted. When at war with a Civ that has knights, I may include some Pikeman (should be able to trade/steal techs through Engineering by that time) and it may be possible to get Formation on Drill II (though I'm not sure about that).

Sure Cuirrassier rushes are effective. Plus with needing only Military Tradition beyond Nationalism, they may sound better than an Oromo Warrior rush, but Cuirrassiers can not be drafted, thus far fewer Cuirrassiers can be built versus drafting Oromo Warriors. Also, Oromo Warriors can be whipping which provides Drill IV units as opposed to drafted Drill IV and thus the tech path to Nationalism is no longer needed and Cuirrassiers become a more distant goal. The key to a successful Oromo Warrior rush is either getting enough of them very early by whipping them or later with drafting far greater numbers later. Furthermore, Cuirrassier rushes are boring as well often resulting a later win, despite the mounted unit type advantage.

I don't believe I will ever agree that the Musketeer is better than the Oromo Warrior. The Musketeer is ok versus a weak enemy where the Musketeer can actually capture weakly defended cities. I have captured strongly defended cities with Oromo Warriors with trebuchet support. Oromo Warrior Drill IV units can chew up any unit, except knights in the open without defensive terrain.

I do concede that Industrious may be better than Organized. One simply must leverage a leaders trait in the best way possible rather than simply picking the leader with the best trait. If all this thread was about is how good the second trait was or how much synergy it has with the primary trait (creative) there would not be much to discuss in this thread.

Anyway, just a look at the poll tells us that more players thought Zara Yaqob was a better leader than Louis XIV.

Yes, I definitely overstated Willem van Oranje's weaknesses, probably in reaction to his unbelievable lead in the poll. Even ignoring his UU which requires a map where Astromony is needed for significant numbers of foreign trade routes and his UB which requires a map with large numbers of shore plots and seafood, I must agree that Financial is a really good trait which may alone justify an above average ranking. I'll retract my previous statement that he should be at the bottom of the poll. Somewhere in the middle is justifiable on the basis of the Finacial trait alone.

Sun Tzu Wu

 

[Gwynnja]

Furthermore, Cuirrassier rushes are boring as well often resulting a later win, despite the mounted unit type advantage.

Entirely subjective and irrelevant.

 

[Izuul]

You can't draft Cuirassiers, but you can easily upgrade to them with phants and/or HAs plus a couple GMs.

 

[TheMeInTeam]

- Formation is available on drill II, yes.

- Drafting is less expensive than whips and just as importantly does not stack with whip anger.

- Unless you are spain, cuirassers are a poor unit defensively and too expensive for that role.

- Cuirassers require both iron and horse, oromos require neither

- Whipped or upgraded cuirassers complement drafted oromos nicely

- However, oromos also complement a continued medieval war follow-up nicely, and MT isn't necessarily close in that case.

- Blasting weakness of drill to knights is like blasting the weakness cuirassers have to pikes (either you take spies into every single city or the pikes will have winning odds on you). It doesn't make sense in a vacuum and there are obvious workarounds in both cases.

I see little justification when going cuirassers and having mandatory access to both nationhood and muskets to avoid drafting entirely. Even stock muskets should be a factor of some kind in a cuirasser war; they're just easy to access. The UUs have extra utility.

Entirely subjective and irrelevant.

Boring is subjective, earlier win is not subjective; that is either true or untrue and might be map-dependent.

None of this is to say that I feel oromos are a top tier UU; that's the land of quechas, chariot UUs, prats, and keshiks. However, they have enough utility in the general sense (and are available off one of the strongest mechanics in the game) to be a solid UU on a consistent basis, which is more than Willem's UU can say (it's either absolutely spectacular or useless typically).

but it is still one of the best UBs out there, and goes great with being FIN.

I don't see how such a case can be made .

- Terrace
- Hammam
- Ball Court
- Odeon
- Ikhanda
- Sac Altar
- Ziggurat
- Ger
- Rathaus (too bad you have to pay the price of awful starting techs, a bad leader and iffy UU)
- Hippodrome or whatever (Byzantine)

You could also make a case that the cothon, mint, garden, baray, and even the totem pole sees more impact on the actual outcome of the game on average, simply because they are actual factors when it might still be in doubt much more frequently. "Average at best" =/= "one of the best" . All of the above share early availability relative to the dike, and some stand a reasonable chance to provide more impact even before PV considerations, especially considering that the dike can't provide useful returns everywhere (on a decent chunk of maps its productive boost over standard levees would maybe scratch that of a stock exchange lol).

 

[Sun Tzu Wu]

Yes, nearly everything posted in this thread is subjective to some degree at least. Cuirrassier rush is just as boring and effective in Civ IV and BtS as Infinite City Sprawl (ICS) was in earlier versions of Civ (pre-Vanilla IV). I agree that Cuirrassier rush is irrelevant, since there is no creative leader with a unique unit based on the Cuirrassier. On the other hand, how quickly one can win is very much a primary goal in deciding which creative leader is the best (which can be said to be the sole reason for the existence of this particular thread).

Sun Tzu Wu

 

[Sun Tzu Wu]

You can't draft Cuirassiers, but you can easily upgrade to them with phants and/or HAs plus a couple GMs.

I forgot to mention that Oromo Warriors, most with Drill IV at just 5 XPs and a fifth promotion at 10 XPs can be upgraded to Riflemen on normal speed for just 110W each. Due to the free Drill I and Drill II promotions, one can have Oromo Warriors with five promotions at just 10 XPs, and upgrade them to Riflemen with not a single lost XP (without needing Warlord attachment). Most other units with five promotions, none of which are free will need 26 XPs of which 16 XPs must be re-earned just to get back to its former level. Charismatic leaders lose 10 XPs at five promotions rather than 16 XPs when upgraded. Aggressive leaders' five promotion units lose 7 XPs when upgraded rather than 16 XPs. The protective trait also provides two free promotions (City Garrison I and Drill I) on archery and gunpowder units, but the first free promotion is only good for defense, thus the combination of the two is not very good for offensive units (at least not as good as Drill I and Drill II).

TMIT has brought up some other really good points too. In my opinion, he is the most objective poster in this thread and provides really sound arguments too.

Sun Tzu Wu