Lennier
Emperor
And to top it off, it's a rather late UB, so therefore would rarely be decisive even if it was better.
I'm currently playing my first game as Tokugawa. (I play random leaders and he has just never come up before.) If his UB is not the worst there is, it has got to be one of the contenders. A building with fewer benefits than the standard one and no advantages, other than not needing the most common resource on the map, is a real stinker.
How does the Shale Plant provide fewer advantages than the standard one? It gives a 10% hammer bonus (unlike the Coal Power Plant), and allows guaranteed access to one of the most important hammer booster buildings in the late game. Additionally, you can optionally sell/trade off your coal and rid yourself of the extra health deficit that comes with it. I agree with TMIT about the Shale Plant being underrated (although it obviously isn't amazing).
I gather that you are saying the Shale Plant gives a 10% bonus in addition to the 25% bonus that the Coal Plant gives. I misunderstood the bonus, thinking it was 10% instead of the 25%. So, if it is indeed a net of 35%, then I was wrong in stating it to be a real loser of a UB, due to my misunderstanding.
BTW, you may still want the coal in order to maximize the production bonus of the Ironworks.
Starting with Combat I, and being Charismatic, also makes it MUCH easier to obtain the fabled Medic III + Woodsman III great healer general (heals +50% per turn). You only need 6 promotions instead of the normal 7, which is just 28 XP for a Charismatic leader... 20 of which will come from attaching the GG to the unit. This means your stack can heal quickly while attacking a besieged city, and set off for the next one in no time...
So I still do not understand how there can be such a big difference between e.g. Julius and Augustus, because this boils down to comparing ORG and IND, granted that ORG is better, because it helps with finance/research independently of winning condition etc. But is it really so much better? IND is, I think stronger on intermediate levels, because you will probably beat the AI to any wonder you really want (while you won't on the two highest and you could do it without IND on Noble or below. I ragequit "lonely Augustus" several times on IMM, because I couldn't get the wonders I needed (Pyramids)... )
IND is significantly better than ORG. IND is generally considered the best trait or on the level with FIN / PHI. The people who rate ORG highly generally play giant marathon space race corp games, or haven't mastered lowering maintenance costs. If this was on S&T instead of Gen Dsn you'd see a lot more people agree with this, and underrating IND and overrating ORG seems one of the major stories of this tier list.
o.k., failgold is IMO a broken exploit (especially in the combo with wonder resources/IND), unfortunately apparently necessary to beat the highest levels.
It is qualitatively quite different. Swordsmen combat units. Building Praetorians is just really good way to combat units.Uh sorry, but seriously?
With Quechs, War chariots, Praets, Immortals, Elephants, GLH, bulb rushes, begging 1g for peace and AIs in general doing silly things..putting hammers into wonders that show in your possible build list = broken exploit?