Best Spiritual Leader

[pollock]

Ghandi is great fast workers rule.
Mansa musa has great traits and the skirmishers can help survive on levels above your difficulty againist barbs and threats.

But i think its madness dont meantion montezuma. Aggressive spirtual with swordsmen that dont require iron and can get woodsmen 2 with barracks and 2exp from woodsmen 3 ? :O
I tear stuff up with these
Guaranteed rush with infiltrators through the forest. They dont know what hit them

 

[itg]

Voted Gandhi, but if you're willing to swallow your pride and go for the AP win, Ramesses is the best in the game.

 

[Gwynnja]

Mansa. Could have just as easily voted for either indian. Or either egyptian.

 

[The Almighty dF]

I voted for Ramses. He's easily the leader I'm best at. His UB goes -extremely- well with Industrious, since it assists with running a specialist economy (in this case wonder-based SE). Get the 'mids and the SP and now you can switch between the government and religious civics as you need to.
All this combined with easily one of the most powerful UU's in game, and you've got yourself a beast.

 

[NihilZero]

How strange it is that Gandhi is running away with it when most people generally don't rate Philosophical at all, if recent polls are anything to go by. Maybe folk are starting to see sense?

 

[Cusanus]

Can't be Mansa.

The fact that Mansa can never have Mansa as his neighbour is too much of a disadvantage.
Although, for completely different reasons, the same thing might be said about Gandhi or even Ashoka.

My vote is on Hatshepsut.

 

[bobbyboy29]

The supersoka (Asoka) is the best for me. Org has great synergy with Spi, Org lets you run high cost civics on the cheap, Spi allows quick switches into and out of these civics. I think org is the most powerful trait as well. I find Asoka not only to be really powerful, but a lot of fun to play as well as he allows you a great deal of versatility in your civic choices.

 

[UncleJJ]

There really isn't a "best" leader of any kind, it depends on the type of map and the game speed and opponents, as to how well they perform in a given situation. And what sort of game you want to play. All those leaders are good and I've had enjoyable games with them. Even the much despised Saladin has many virtues. Play on a higher difficulty and have Monte as one neighbour Ghengis as another and then Protective can make sense particularly if you don't have stone.

A Spiritual leader needs a state religion to make the most of his civic switches which often revolve around OR, Theocracy and Pacifism and other civics in several powerful combinations. If you're going to have a state religion and spread it to all your cities it makes sense to control the shrine of that religion and that needs G Prophet. Saladin and the two Egyptions have UBs that allow priests to be run for easy generating of that GP.

I voted for Saladin, as a protest, and so I could see who others were voting for. They are all the "best" in my opinion.

 

[Gwynnja]

How strange it is that Gandhi is running away with it when most people generally don't rate Philosophical at all, if recent polls are anything to go by. Maybe folk are starting to see sense?

I'm more of a fan of fast workers than I am of PHI.

 

[oranje willem]

Mansa:
-Financial is the best trait imo
-You build a forge in every city anyway -> 10% more gold
-His UU will save you against early rushes and makes barbarians a joke.

Gandhi close second, if only his UB would be a bit better... would make him too strong on the other hand

 

[Cusanus]

-You build a forge in every city anyway -> 10% more gold

Yeah, "10%" more gold.

 

[NihilZero]

I'm more of a fan of fast workers than I am of PHI.

I get why people like India, I'm just surprised that Philosophical is seen as outclassing Organised by a big margin. I personally love them both but ORG is much better for me. Granted, Gandhi's PHI is obviously stronger than most due to excellent SPI synergy (although I suppose you could argue that SPI weakens PHI in some respects due to the ease with which you can adopt Pacifism, if you are that way inclined...).

 

[r_rolo1]

If people are not voting for the leader but for the leader+UU+UB, I really don't see why Monty is getting so little votes

 

[pollock]

Jaguars own

 

[Gwynnja]

If people are not voting for the leader but for the leader+UU+UB, I really don't see why Monty is getting so little votes

Monty's UB is awesome but his starting techs, UU, and other trait all kind of suck.

 

[TheMeInTeam]

If people are not voting for the leader but for the leader+UU+UB, I really don't see why Monty is getting so little votes

Jaguars have to compete with fast workers, skirmishers and war chariots .

The Jag is a pretty good niche unit, but the two above are just ridiculous and come on arguably better traits.

Skirmisher is a bit better in MP than SP but is no slouch in the latter, and Mansa is incredibly easy to play so he gets my vote, but it's hard to vote down Hatty, Ram, hell, most of them. Even the lowly sal is reasonable because he has the potential for some APcheese and is just as diplo-abusive in SP as the others.

FW are similarly good in both modes, and are reasonably godly on quick game speed.

 

[r_rolo1]

Aztec UB is clearly the best of all the Spi leaders have access besides unrestricted (besides my profound respect for what siege boosted from the spanish UU can do ... ) and IMHO it is worth far more that a lot of the UU around this poll in helping in a empire build. Why people are so focused on the UU anyway ?

 

[pollock]

Gwynnja jaguars dont suck I find them to be one of most consistent rushers/early attackers on immortal/diety.

Iron working is a biggish risk if cant guarantee iron specially if settle so little.

Almost always have forests too attack through on settings i tend to play. 2 moves absolutely confuse the ai so can steal workers. Woodsmen 3 also owns when get it.I think it was less useful in vanilla so id assume jaguars best in BTS

The ai might have bronze by time your rushing/attacking with IW being an expensive tech but can defend from axemen in forests and get some workers. I tend not to find it so much a problem but i may have been lucky

 

[madscientist]

I voted for the other Indian Leader, Asoka mostly because of the ORG trait and what I feel is the best UU in the game. The UB is weaker than most but not useless as the extra happiness allows you to swap out of the happiness civics at will, the only SPI leader with a happiness UB except for Justinian.

Monty is number 2 because of the UB which works very well with the agressive trait and well promoted UUs can mean alot of great healers later on.

Gandhi is next to me for the reason stated.

Mansa is next for the reasons stated and I actually like the UB quite a bit. Gives you extra production, happiness, and gold all in one building

Ramesses next because the UB works so well with a Settled Great Person game

ISabella is great if you start with seafood as she can get an early religion easily, if not she can usually pop out an early worker faster by working a 3 hammer tile if possible.

The most interesting thing is how little ove Hatty get's here compared with the CRE survey where she was #2. Not sure what to think of that.

 

[NihilZero]

The most interesting thing is how little ove Hatty get's here compared with the CRE survey where she was #2. Not sure what to think of that.

SPI is better than CRE?