Best synergy based on leader/UB/UU?

[Lyoncet]

I think Pericles deserves a fifth mention.

 

[McThomas]

I think Pericles deserves a fifth mention.

i think he is broken....

 

[Fleme]

Still waiting to be proven how Augustus and Forum make them somehow stronger and more synergistic than other combinations for generation.

 

[Iranon]

The Romans and the English queens stand out in my opinion.

Augustus: Whipping discounted settlers into discounted wonders is very helpful on high levels; otherwise spamming wonders in one city for maximum GPP is going to be tough without neglecting expansion.
The forum will have enough early GPP to do something, Praetorians being very long-lived is very useful if your focus is on wonderspam rather than conquest (and they're strong enough that you can play a convincing military game if you desire).

Julius: ORG/IMP and Praetorians will allow a large empire early on, peacefully or not. ORG makes high-upkeep civics more attractive, and a disincentive to run Pacifism makes the forum more relevant. ORG also does more for specialist-happy economies because of more/bigger cities, again giving the Forum more to work on.
Praetorians have enough raw power that half of a military trait (IMP) is enough, and you'd rather have something to speed up initial expansion and somethign to help the economy. ORG puts other economic traits to shame if you're expanding/conquering as fast as possible, especially the latter: If you're cranking production up to 11 (Praetorians, essential infrastructure in newly-conquered cities) other economy traits do little.

Elizabeth: PHI/FIN is great for an uncompromising techer who is willing to postpone expansion/warfare for a bit. A good way to translate this into a win is a Renaissance/early Industrial war pitting Riflemen and/or Cannons against Longbows and maybe a few Musketmen. The Redcoat extends the window of opportunity: while the true fun is over if the AIs get their own Rifles or Grenadiers, England retains a considerable advantage and can mop up easily unless you face mass cannons in time (unlikely).
Last not least, the Stock Exchange synergises very well with a Financial civ - cottages and windmills for rushbuy everywhere, no production improvements in most cities.

Victoria is similar but less extreme, and has more of an incentive to expand early.

Note: Imao the forum still sucks despite some synergy with the leaders. Irrelevant for this topic. I didn't mention Huayna Capac despite being an excellent leader because his advantages stem from raw power rather than synergy.

 

[madscientist]

Still waiting to be proven how Augustus and Forum make them somehow stronger and more synergistic than other combinations for generation.

The only way to prove it is play a walkthrough, of which I am busy enough.

The closest I can come up with is the Agustus OCC in the classic RPC game where I had alot of GPs popping, but a OCC is not what you are looking for.

 

[mirthadir]

The Romans and the English queens stand out in my opinion.

Augustus: Whipping discounted settlers into discounted wonders is very helpful on high levels; otherwise spamming wonders in one city for maximum GPP is going to be tough without neglecting expansion.
The forum will have enough early GPP to do something, Praetorians being very long-lived is very useful if your focus is on wonderspam rather than conquest (and they're strong enough that you can play a convincing military game if you desire).

Julius: ORG/IMP and Praetorians will allow a large empire early on, peacefully or not. ORG makes high-upkeep civics more attractive, and a disincentive to run Pacifism makes the forum more relevant. ORG also does more for specialist-happy economies because of more/bigger cities, again giving the Forum more to work on.
Praetorians have enough raw power that half of a military trait (IMP) is enough, and you'd rather have something to speed up initial expansion and somethign to help the economy. ORG puts other economic traits to shame if you're expanding/conquering as fast as possible, especially the latter: If you're cranking production up to 11 (Praetorians, essential infrastructure in newly-conquered cities) other economy traits do little.

Elizabeth: PHI/FIN is great for an uncompromising techer who is willing to postpone expansion/warfare for a bit. A good way to translate this into a win is a Renaissance/early Industrial war pitting Riflemen and/or Cannons against Longbows and maybe a few Musketmen. The Redcoat extends the window of opportunity: while the true fun is over if the AIs get their own Rifles or Grenadiers, England retains a considerable advantage and can mop up easily unless you face mass cannons in time (unlikely).
Last not least, the Stock Exchange synergises very well with a Financial civ - cottages and windmills for rushbuy everywhere, no production improvements in most cities.

Victoria is similar but less extreme, and has more of an incentive to expand early.

Note: Imao the forum still sucks despite some synergy with the leaders. Irrelevant for this topic. I didn't mention Huayna Capac despite being an excellent leader because his advantages stem from raw power rather than synergy.

I think Liz and Vicky have obvious better synergy with UB and traits, but not so much with the UU. If you give the UB and pretty much any other good UU roughly in the era (conquistadors, cossacks, oromos) you could do just as well. Churchill gets more far more synergy out of the UU that either of the ladies get with the UB (especially because synergy with the UB is possible for churchill using cash for quick mass cannon upgrades).

 

[Kadazzle]

Obviously I believe Shaka has the best synergy, but Stalin deserves a mention. With Industrious/Aggressive, Cossack as a UU and some random Research thing that gives you +% building Spaceship parts, after you take over half the globe with your Cossacks, you can pretty much go anything with this guy. Domination and Conquest are easy due to the Cossack, Space is easy due to the increased Production on spaceship parts, and Culture is easy due to Industrious. Obviously no direct synergy, but at least there's synergy to win the game any way you want to.

 

[TheMeInTeam]

The unique benefit to the RI is not spaceship parts. All labs get that. The RI gets 2 scientists automatically, making it essentially the same as the great library (minus 2 base GPP and some culture) on top of being a normal lab. *That* is quite powerful, and would be completely broken if it came sooner.

IMO cathy (who has a trait that actually benefits cossacks) and even peter have arguably better synergy with their uniques. Russia is good in general however.

Also, why is industrious a big deal for culture? I'd rather have FIN, SPI, or PHI (SPI probably being tops tbh). EXP gets honorable mention too as you are *only* health limited in the latter half of a culture attempt.

Shaka's synergy is incredible even though I think his UU is only average. It hits with about the same power as a war chariot vs non-axes, but it costs more. Oh well...zulu already has a top UB and a solid expansion trait to match it so can't have everything.

 

[Nilmerf]

but Stalin deserves a mention.

I think he deserves a mention as having the LEAST synergy in the entire game. Sure, he can be played well and is not a bad leader.. but with his two traits and two uniques having nothing to do with one another at all, I just can't see it.

This isn't about the best leader or most versatile leader, it's about synergy.. that's why I still say Vikings.

 

[mariogreymist]

I also like Ragnar for synergy. The whole package works well together. FIN helps you get to Berserkers early enough to make them powerful, the UB gets those berserkers to war quickly and AGG is an obvious trait for a UU/UB which are both offensive military weapons.

The OP mentioned Mehmed, and he is one of my favorite leaders...but not for synergy. His combination of traits and UU/UB make him extremely versatile. All in all, versatility > synergy imo. Ragnar is not a great draw as a leader should you start inland, Kublai lousy if you have no access to horses. Synergy is great once the dominoes start toppling, but versatility pays off every time.

 

[madscientist]

The best thing about Stalin is that he is the only agressive leader to start with mining and thus can research BW right off the bat! Tech the Wheel next, get copper with the second city, fast Barracks and clean house pretty fast!

Stalin is very useful for culture due to wonderspamming.

The Russian UB is pretty powerful for a late game Representation. It is not that late as you need superconductors after electricity and refridgeration, doable.

A good point about the Synergy of Stalin's Agressive trait and the Russiona UU. It's been a while since I played as Stalin and I sort of forgot that synergy (I usually get Peter or Catherine).

 

[McThomas]

Kublai Khan is imo a very good choise.... Creative obsolites Monuments and the UU and UB is made for eachother... ecept the hinch... you need horses, like Justinian

 

[lymond]

Kublai Khan is imo a very good choise.... Creative obsolites Monuments and the UU and UB is made for eachother... ecept the hinch... you need horses, like Justinian

I love when horses pop up in the cap's BFC or close by and I pop HR from a hut. No nearby AI will survive the BCs. It almost feels like cheating.

 

[DigitalBoy]

I think Gilgamesh has good trait/unique synergy too.

Creative and ziggurats make for really strong expansion, with the cheap, whipable walls and promoted archers providing fast and hammer-efficient defense for far-off cities. And the UU is pretty stellar in general and makes for a superb rushing unit.

 

[Windsor]

The best thing about Stalin is that he is the only agressive leader to start with mining and thus can research BW right off the bat! Tech the Wheel next, get copper with the second city, fast Barracks and clean house pretty fast!.

Stalin does have good starting techs, but mining is still overrated as a starting tech.

Sure, you can research BW on turn 1, but unless your "lucky" getting a deer as your food resource(only a deer is a weak food resource), you will loose a lot.

If you start with a farmable food-resource Stalin needs to research agriculture, the wheel and BW. Hammurabi can get away with just mining(which is the cheapest of these 4 techs) and BW. Stalin needs 40% more beakers than Hammurabi before he really is ready.

 

[Absolute Zero]

As someone said, Ragnar has pretty good warmongering synergy on any maps involving a lot of water. Financial gives those coastal tiles an extra commerce, while Aggressive makes his Berserkers stronger so they can unload from Navigation I galleys (thanks to the Trading Post) and attack coastal cities without penalty.

Looking at just UU and UB, Mongols have good synergy. Zulu does, too.

 

[TWSqueaks]

On a watery map Willem can dominate pretty hard if you REX aggressively and beeline Astronomy to start sending out settlers. Combined with GLH or Colossus Financial means you can keep yourself up in tech while spamming out settlers, which claim land thanks to Creative.Then get to Dikes and production jumps up too.

 

[InvisibleStalke]

HC has a near perfect combination in my opinion - to the extent of being overpowered.

- Quechas provide either an automatic destruction of an opponent that is too close, or cheap barb defense that means you can succeed regardless of nearby resources.
- Terrace saves the cost of building a culture building in every city meaning you can get a fast start going
- Financial means going early pottery will pay off (and allow your UB to be built). It will sustain the costs of rapid expansion either through a Quecha rush or through chopping out settlers as quick as you can.
- Industrious means you can balance your cottages with production cities fired up with quick forges and the key wonders you want. There are lots of wonders that can really fire up a particular strategy - with financial to get the techs fast and Industrious to build the wonders quickly, HC can capitalize on any he wants.

 

[zehcoutinho]

I like Willem van Oranje for sea games. Until Frigates come along, you rule the seas in a critical time, the race for overseas territory. The Creative trait helps tp claim territorry much faster at this point. I think that if you play this advantage right, you can gain an edge that will be difficult to reverse. And the UB will be a great boost to the empire production because of the many water tiles. The Financial trait also is great for sea games.

 

[futurehermit]

I don't get why some people say Mehmed doesn't have synergy. Org for horizontal expansion + Exp for vertical expansion means you can play for an expansion focused game (see my sig). Also, with Org + Exp, just add the GLH (cheap light house, cheap harbor). Plus, the synergy of having so many cheap buildings (lh, harbor, granary, courthouse, etc.). His UB fits awesome with Exp + anyone? His UU is awesome if teamed up with cannons before your opponent hits gunpowder (e.g., Steel off Lib). Or, even just with trebs. One of my fav leaders for sure.

My best games though seem to be with KK. Incredible synergy. I can't think of a leader with a better axerush. Sensational really. 1st opponent with axes, 2nd+ with keshiks, mop up with cavalry that benefit from the Ger. Cheap libraries for specialists to keep up in tech. Cheap theatres/coliseums for to combat ww. A powerhouse for emperor and below imo.