Best Custom Leader?

[thelibra]

Well, the poll earlier on the best start-tech pairing got me making spreadsheets and so on and so forth. I then got to wondering, as I'm sure almost everyone here has...

"...if I made my own leader up, and got to choose both traits, both techs, the UU, and the UB, what would I pick?"

I know it heavily depends on your style of play, so I'll probably see like a million different answers. I am, however, just going to hazard a guess that the Praetorian is 90% of people's choice for the UU.

I'd probably go with this for a financial game:
Financial/Organized
Hunting/Mining
Stock Market (UB)/Fast Worker (UU)

 

[Kevin J]

Financial/Philosophical
Fishing/Mysticism (if going for an early religion & good synergy with Financial) or Fishing/Mining (if not going for early religion, still good synergy with financial)
Dike(UB)/Fast Worker (UU)

Edit: ok, I'm tempted to mod a civ to do this for me. Someone point me to the right XML files!

 

[jimbob27]

Organised (or Financial) and Charismatic.

Mining + Wheel (or agriculture) as the techs.

Preatorians (duh!) as the UU, and the Ikhanda or Forum as the UB.

 

[Polycrates]

My best custom leader would probably be Shaka as-is, since he's already the absolute perfect package, but that doesn't really count.
I'd go with Agriculture/Hunting for starting techs. Other than that, it's hard to pick, but I would probably go with:

Spi/Cha
Ger
Cataphract

OR

Spi/Phi
Madrassa
Oromo Warrior

OR

Spi/Org
Rathaus
Fast Worker

Other good ones I can think of:

Agg/Spi
Sacrifical Altar
Praetorian

Spi/Fin (or fin/exp)
Terrace
Fast Worker

Cre/Exp
Fast Worker/Holkan/Skirmisher
Ziggurat

 

[DigitalBoy]

Hunting/Fishing

Philosophical and either aggressive or charismatic

Janissary or Oromo Warrior

Hammam or Odeon

 

[Adder]

Mining/Agriculture
Imperialistic/Creative

UU: Cataphract
UB: Ziggurat or Rathaus

And gimme a scout to start with!

 

[Enigma256]

Creative/Charismatic
Dike

UU is difficult, i don't like any of them.
maybe Samurai, cause Macemen is usually my first war, but i never tried them.

 

[Esgaro]

If Byzantium had better starting techs, I would say Lincoln of Byzantium. Let's change the techs to agriculture and mining, and count that as my vote. Running a specialist economy with Lincoln and the Byzantine UU and UB is just too much fun.

 

[Nishdog]

I just played a game with these settings:

Industrious
Expansive

UU = Fast Worker
UB = Pavilion

Starting techs:
Mysticism
Masonry (so I cheated...)

Goal of game was to achieve a cultural victory through religion and wonders. I didn't touch the culture slider, and I only "built" culture near the end of the game when I ran out of useful things to build.

 

[RockTheCazbah87]

Phi / Ind

UU - Fast Worker
UB - Rathaus

Starting Techs: Mining / Agriculture

Not great for anything in specific, but my all round best combo.

 

[Nishdog]

Rathaus is great for building a large empire and keeping costs low. Expansive is also great for a large empire because of quicker Settler building, so I'd go with that over Phi. Fast workers are awesome for pushing out and improving the sprawling empire.

If I was going for Phi/Ind, that would lend itself to cranking out wonders and generating lots of GPs. For that, I'd probably want the Forum instead of Rathaus.

Mining/Agriculture is a solid starting combo if your strategy has you building a worker/fast-worker first. If not, I'd prefer to start with Mysticism to gain the first religion.

I have to admit, though, that the Ethiopian Omoro Warrior seems really interesting. Do those free Drill promotions stay with the unit once it upgrades to Rifle or Infantry?

 

[TM Moot]

I reckon the best combination (currently available) is Huyana Capac .

Financial/Industrious
Mysticism/Agriculture
Terrace (UB)/Queacha (UU)

I just love the combo and always use it when I go up a level.
If I could go off piste I would fancy a bit of..

Industrious/Philosophical
Mining/Mysticism
Dike (UB) / Fast Worker (UU)

 

[Ikael]

In the case that the combo "industrious philosophical" is forbidden, I would choose "industrious, financial" or "philosophical, charismatic".

Starting techs: mysticism for the early religion, fishing because fishing boats are better than workers early in the game

UU: Praetorian. Oh, sweet, sweet praetorians.

UB: Dike. Come on people, this is a seriously game - changing building.

 

[RockTheCazbah87]

Rathaus is great for building a large empire and keeping costs low. Expansive is also great for a large empire because of quicker Settler building, so I'd go with that over Phi. Fast workers are awesome for pushing out and improving the sprawling empire.

If I was going for Phi/Ind, that would lend itself to cranking out wonders and generating lots of GPs. For that, I'd probably want the Forum instead of Rathaus.

Mining/Agriculture is a solid starting combo if your strategy has you building a worker/fast-worker first. If not, I'd prefer to start with Mysticism to gain the first religion.

I have to admit, though, that the Ethiopian Omoro Warrior seems really interesting. Do those free Drill promotions stay with the unit once it upgrades to Rifle or Infantry?

Well argued. Phi / Ind is just the way I play - pumping out Wonders and GP's. The Forum... I sort of forgot about it but it would indeed make a nice pairing with the traits.

And the Oromo Warrior keeps its promotions as far as i'm aware.

 

[aberwak]

Being the massive builder I am...

Creative + (Expansive or Imperialistic)
UU: Carrack
UB: Rathaus
Starting techs: Hunting + (Mysticism or Mining)

 

[LightSpectra]

Financial/Charismatic
Mining/Mysticism
UU: Cataphract (Byzantium)
UB: Mint (Mali)

 

[The Almighty dF]

Financial/Philosophical
Stock Market/Exchange.. whichever
Panzer.

Basically I want Elizabeth with Panzers. I would <3 that. so much.

 

[Antilogic]

Leader: Imp/Pro
Starting Techs: Fishing, The Wheel
UU: Jaguar
UB: Obelisk

Why? This is about the most painful combo I could come up with on the fly. Plus, nobody else is going to post something this abysmal! Ha ha ha!

...


...

Here's a list of what I would actually consider:

Leader: Cha/Fin, Cha/Phi, or Cha/Org
Starting Techs: Agriculture, Mining
UU: Redcoat, maybe; I'm not too keen on any particular UU, but not a Modern Age UU.
UB: Forum, Odeon, Rathaus, or Seowon

 

[King of Town]

creative, organized, oromo warrior, and the forum. Adding the forum to anything almost gives you three starting traits.

 

[gettingfat]

Traits: Financial/aggressive
UU: Dog fighters
UB: Rathus
Starting techs: mining/hunting

Unlike the original Sitting Bull, you don't need to research mining, and you have a scout (due to hunting) to know where your closest neighbour is, and you have aggressive trait to give the weak dog fighters some steroid. So you will be essentially the early rush king without any concern for resource availability. What you need to do is:

Research BW and build a worker, send your scout to know where your poor neighbour (or prey) is => whip a cheap barrack => build/chop/whip 4 cover dog fighters => take your neighbour's capital.

A cover dog fighter will have 4 + 35% strength = 5.4 strength. An archer defending a city with 20% cultural defence will have 3 + 70% = 5.1 strength (plus bonus from fortification), so 4 cover dog fighters will easily take care of 2 archers and will still have a good chance vs 3.

In the worst scenario you see horse right in your target's fatcross (ie. those invisible pastures), rush earlier and switch to choking mode.

In MP game, your neighbour (probably have a couple of warriors and is still trying to hook up copper or horses) will disappear before they know what hit them.

With Rathus and financial traits and two capitals, if you still can't win then that's your problem.