Civilization and Leader discussion

[Not.Bad]

Disclaimer: This is not a "whose the best leader" thread, plenty of those already. Instead this is a thread for people to share ideas, strategies, and over looked synergies of all leaders. I don't want to exclude the party favourites such as Catherine and Julius Caesar etc. but the emphasis is on “over looked” more then “already obvious”. Many of you older (and newer) Civ 3 players may remember Ision's Civ reviews and the buzz they created whenever a new civ was reviewed and people wanting to give them a try. I hope this thread serves (if even a little) a similar purpose.

In order to make this thread useful to everybody, I ask that you post the game play perspective you play on. Difficulty, size, and speed all offer vastly different game play, but the purpose of the thread is open to everyone. Remember as well, strategies are not set in stone, think more of guideline and direction.

So I’ll start it off!

My name is Not.Bad; I am a seasoned monarch player working my way into emperor. I play on standard maps, at normal speed, with the other setting changing according to my mood. All my strategies are geared for single player. The civ I would like to discuss are the glorious Persians ruled by Cyrus.

The Persians are my highest scoring domination win on Monarch so far. Their traits are Creative and Expansive, with the starting techs of Hunting and Agriculture. The Persians I enjoy vastly for their versatility and options. Neither of his traits "locks" you into a strategy, while at the same time the Civ itself has the potential for a very strong opening. Expansive and Creative offer great expansion options. Cities I wouldn't consider founding with other Civs, I gladly sweep up with Cyrus, often giving me a very dominating position. This is especially important for Cyrus, because you WANT horses, settling in a less favourable position to acquire them is a lot less punishing with the Persians. Push comes to shove; Persia is no push over for an early war either, in fact I recommend it. It’s the Civ I am debating cracking emperor with, though I may choose Egypt (whom I may do a write up on, if this thread goes well)

The Persians are one civ I actually always recommend a specific opening for. Hunting starts you off with scouts and a head up toward archery if God forbid you start with neither copper nor horses. Archer masses for the win! I always build a second scout initially, followed by a worker (for chopping). When playing any civ that has the option to build scouts, I consider it prudent to do so. Anything and everything you get from goody huts is a bonus (even maps may help you track down horses or copper in the near future faster, or other goody huts). My research choice is almost always mining, followed of course by bronze working (I know, I know, typical strategy, but it’s just too powerful to ignore) initially if I have a sizeable forest area, otherwise its animal husbandry. I’ve never started a game where my initial worker didn’t have something to do. Between hunting, agriculture, mining/bronze working and/or animal husbandry/wheel a worker followed by a scout will have something to do. Versatility, man do I love Cyrus.

My scouts’ goals are simple; find as many goody huts as possible, while not straying “too far” from home. This is important for many reasons. If I find horses (or copper very close, though I prefer horses), my next research choice will be the wheel, and I will move my scouts to areas best suited for “fog busting” and set them to sentry (that way they can run if it’s a barbarian). It’s a bit of a gamble. Scouts won’t stop barbarians, but the fog busting should reduce the amount incoming or give you enough advance warning to get a few extra warriors out if needed. If all is going well though, proper defence is just around the corner. (Note: I may discard this gamble on emperor, prioritizing archery instead. The window for Immortals is a bit shorter I am finding, and barbs come earlier, Archery is a step towards Horse Archers, which can follow up your Immortals so you can keep your momentum and you get added earlier security). The scouts also have a secondary goal, and that is to achieve level 2 and select the combat 1 promotion and the medic promotion. If this is achieved, and you find early horses, you just acquired your mobile medics for your Immortal horde. A strategy I sometimes pursue to guarantee this in ideal standards is using my worker as an “animal magnet”. That is I send him immediately outside my border to chop, to attract animals, using a scout to defend.

As for back at home, what I build obviously varies a lot. If I have many near by Civs, I’ll worry less about chopping fog busters, and work on expansion and an initial army instead. If isolated, I’ll mix in a few early warrior/archers in to fog bust and escort, while expanding in a more “natural” fashion.

Now let’s discuss our Immortal horde. You have them, now what do you do with them? Give them all the flanking promotions. In your ideal world, your Immortals will easily have Flanking 2. This is a whopping 60% chance to withdrawal, immunity to first strikes and strength of 6 vs. enemy archers! Those other juicy promotions are just around the corner. I easily achieved 4 sometimes 5 promotions with my Immortals. An early war with these monsters is incredible. If you managed to upgrade your initial scouts with medic the pressure you can put on enemy cities is huge. Spearman can give you trouble, but with the withdrawal chance and sufficient numbers, you can wear them down. You will lose a few, but many will withdrawal and can be then be healed up, and once that spearman goes down, the rest should be cake. Sending 4 Immortals to raze their copper source would be a good idea as well. Ideally though, pick a target without bronze and just go at it. Oh and avoid Alexander like the plague.

That’s it for the Persians. I find any victory from this point forward is pretty achievable. His traits aren’t ideal for a cultural win but not terrible either (cultural wins never struggle with happiness, but health, and creative isn’t terrible), the potential early dominant position can make up the difference as well. Diplomatic is open to anyone, and you can go the vote myself U.N. leader way easily (mini domination victory I call it) or the more natural way. Of course, Persia makes an excellent domination leader, creative is great for securing borders and getting the needed land mass, expansive insures healthy growing cities, which means more production and more population. Of course, conquest isn’t out either especially an early one if you get enough momentum. Remember just because you aren’t aggressive, doesn’t mean you can’t warmonger! It just means you should build more horses! Something Cyrus has a great line up for. Space race is fine too, achieved again, by your hopefully dominant position.

Oh and one last thing, Cyrus is a great, and I mean great “bad habit” breaker. I find I really learn the pace of the game with Cyrus. Stonehenge is not needed, which means more hammers for early military, which is something that helped me make my jump to monarch and now emperor. Same with the Oracle, it’s not that I couldn’t get it, just that I completely ignore that line of techs (often just trade for them) until I am ready to head towards Guilds and I need Monarchy. It taught me then to capture holy cities instead of founding my own. The fun thing is, despite those two, wonders aren’t out. If I find stone near my start position, the Pyramids is VERY achievable, but I don’t count on getting it. If it’s there, it’s there. The amount of times I popped masonry from goody huts is quite frequent. Same goes for the lighthouse (continent games etc.) Lastly, it got over my fear of not having financial as a trait and that you can do more then well without it. The only Civ I find I could enjoy more then the glorious Persians is the venerable Egyptians. Her versatility is almost as good and one thing I miss with Persia is the no anarchy, which opens up many diplomatic options and similar yet different play style. Persia has my vote for emperor though, because expansive really shines.

Hope you enjoy and please share!

 

[afireinside]

My favorite leader is bismarck.

Expansive: +2 health in all cities. Its like having 2 free health resources. Hanging Gardens is +1 health and its a world wonder. The healt bonus allows for more chopping opertunities. Also the granary speed makes them more buildable which is good because their bonus is so helpful.

Industrious: wonder production speed is a huge help. As for early wonders, there a sinch to snag. what else to explain. Also forges. Probably the only building you do make in all your cities. +25% production, a specialist with +2 hammers, great gp, and happy faces for gems gold and silver. sweet.

Early go for cottages and cities. Make alot of cities around your capital and connect them. Overlapping is not a bad thing and you want to overlap to share some forests between cities. Peace until there is nowhere left to expand. By then you should have catapults and macemen and ou can win by strength in numbers. Most helpful thing i think for winning is to use a rally point for your troops, and to turn on always biuld previous unit in the city screen. It makes it easier to mass troops.

When you get to the fork at writing, go the top route, to industrialism and aritllery instead of biology and communism path. Industrialism is when you take off because of panzers and backed up by artilery there unstoppable until copters.

As for victory, i go for conquest. Ill expand until 20 cities maybe, but after that, its not worth it to waste time on buildings in new cities. The maintenence will just kill you. Wars should be fought for resources to keep up happiness and reduce war weariness. Conquest is the way to go becasue you can ransack the enemy instead of trying to preserve the land. You also have more contorl of when you will win

 

[atreas]

It seems that, in CIV 4, this kind of discussion isn't popular at all. I can think of some reasons for that:

There is a very strong trait (Fin) that is combined with a very easy to follow strategy (cottage spam). Most people seem to be happy when playing just that way alone.

There are some UU that really stand away from competition - like Praets and Cossacks.

There are some leaders that combine two very strong traits, like Washington.

So people don't seem willing to try anything else than that. I tried to create a similar thread a long time ago, with similar "unpopularity" - you can find it here: http://forums.civfanatics.com/showthread.php?t=159232.

 

[Ray Patterson]

Weird that this topic has become unpopular, it was the strategy topic in the first month after release...

I think the discussion is quite problematic because traits are so differently applicable at different difficulty levels. And even then, "difficulty level" may even not be the rank itself but rather the rank in relation to your skill...

but yeah, how's the CIV IV war academy coming along?

 

[Riffraff]

personally i like the indians - especially ashoka.

The workers really give you a massive edge at the start of the game - opening the path for building early wonders or waging an early war (prefer this option).

Traits are also quite excellent imo. Havent seen a calculation on this, but the turns you are producing and not in anarchy, really kick in. Organisitional is obvously cool cause of the cheap courthouses and lowered maintainence cost.

But what I really like about the indians are the starting techs. Meditation opens the path for an early religion and mining opens the path for an early axeman rush, using your fast workers who can chop like 25% faster than other workers (cause you can start straight away). With such a great opening, you can cruise through the rest of the game without too many difficulties.

 

[KillerCardinal]

Lately, I have started to find that I really like playing as Mansa Musa. By doing a fairly early jump to archers, you will be able to protect your civ for quite awhile, without needing to get Longbowman for quite awhile.

Also, the skirmishers are great for early warring if you find some bronze, since when your axemen take a city, you can completely defend the city with the skirmishers. I've been trying to decide if you couild do any decent early warmongering with simply the skirmishers without bronze, and for me, the jury is still out on that.

I really like the traits that Mansa has because I obviously like Financial, but I also love spiritual. On Emperor, it was a godsend to me for diplomatic reasons. I was able to keep switching to whatever I was asked to, to play nicey nice with the other world leaders. Also, if you can manage to either capture or build the pyramids, I find it it quite useful to switch between representation and police state in the early game(partially to combat war weariness, and build units). Without spiritual, I am generally not willing to use police state, because I rarely want to stay in it for long periods of time, which would lead to an unacceptable number of anarchy turns.

Mansa Musa recently won me my very first emperor win with a spaceship victory, which could have been a domination victory if I was a little more patient with warring in the late game(I may go back and see if I can win it that way in fact). I had 55% of the world and 60% of the population, against Elizabeth who had 30% of the world, and I was a little ahead of her in military techs when I started space racing.

FYI, the settings I generally like to play at are Large/Epic, Large/Marathon, since I like to be able to fight wars without my units going obsolete tooo quickly.

BTW, I like this thread. I actually get sick of always hearing about the same strategies that simply focus on one trait like financial or philosophical and seem to ignore the possibilities of synergies between both traits, the unique unit, AND starting techs. I like the idea of a thread that actually talks about other things.

 

[KingSteve3721]

Traits are also quite excellent imo. Havent seen a calculation on this, but the turns you are producing and not in anarchy, really kick in. Organisitional is obvously cool cause of the cheap courthouses and lowered maintainence cost.

yeah i like the indians too, asoka as you said.
the fast workers provide better chopping and mining, because the can move onto one of those spaced and still do something.
and yes, spiritual IS a good trait.
you can have those better civics in the beginning without losing a turn of reesearch or production. so it gives you a better early game.
it also gives you a better late game, because all those saved turns of anarchy will put you a little higher in the tech race, and organised gives you that extra gold to do that.
but as mentioned, the traits in this game do really go along with diffuculty level.

 

[atreas]

I like Asoka too, but unfortunately it's the one UU that is affected more by game speed - and I like to play in slower speeds (Epic or Marathon).

In Normal speed you really get a huge boost in chopping (because the movement cost is high), but in Marathon the impact is practically extremely small (since the chop lasts 3 times more, the 1 move gain is proportionally much smaller). For that reason I would like a modification in UU that speeds the work itself, and not the movement.

 

[Lance of Llanwy]

If I feel like war-mongering, I love picking Toku(Kublai as well, but I'll leave him for later). His trait combo is very. very nice for going to war. Aggressive obviously helps, more by opening up more options than the actual bonus, but...lemme tell ya, City Raider II Swordsmen with Cover are insanely good at taking cities, and with similiarly beefed axemen and cats backing them up, you have a pretty beastly war machine, and one that can be put to work quickly and with fewer hammers, thanks to half-price barracks. Vassalage and Theocracy help you leverage that advantage even more. Organized insulates your tech rate from the cost of quick expansion, allowing you less time in the tech doldrums, and it also allows you to make use of expensive techs like Organized Religion without seeing a big impact on your bottom line. Plus, cheaper courthouses mean you can get them up nice and quick and get the cash rolling in quicker.
What's more, his starting techs are quite nice, Wheel and Fishing. If you pop horses nearby, you can quickly get some early chariots and pressure or even conquer(YES, you can crush Civs with Chariots) opponents. If you want, you can get pottery straight away, and get your cottages up and running quicker than nearly anyone else. If you start with a lake, the commerce will provide an early edge in the tech-race, allowing you to reach crucial techs faster. If the map is watery and you're relying on the sea, Sailing is readily available, making the Great Lighthouse an easy grab. Need the happiness/health boost from that resource, or get your copper hooked up? No problem, you can get the roads down straight out of the box

If that was it, Toku would be a solid war-mongerer...but, he has Samurai. They're macemen on steroids. Instead of suffering first-strikes from enemy bowmen, they turns the tables, often getting a free shot at the main city defenders of the age. They even hold up decently against crossbowmen when properly promoted, considering crossbows are supposed to be their counter. They often slaughter enemy melee without taking much damage themselves, and make for an extremely effective medieval rush with the backing of cats and some pikes to keep those pesky knights at bay. You can easily eviscerate an opponent quickly, bringing in longbowmen and crossbowmen in the rear to defend your newly captured lands. I crushed Cathy's 9-city empire in about 20 turns with few casualties, using a samurai/cat rush, and, thanks to their first-strikes, samurai often last long enough to be promoted into gunpowder units, supplying you with a group of crack city-raiders to tide you over until tanks, allowing you to continue your rampage in the Renaissance and Industrial ages. Wow....I'm like drooling at the prospect of amphibious assaults with CIII 'rines....
So, next time you feel like cracking some skulls, take the Japanese out for a spin. Your hapless opponents will be crushed in short-order, thanks to your flexibility and the power of bushido....

 

[Jayhawk_Colin]

I like to play as the Russians, Russia has been my nation since the days of Civ 2.

 

[ArmoredCavalry]

I like the indians too, exept as Ghandi. Industrious is very helpful for getting a Lot of early wonders. but more importantly, the forge. ANY city in a reasonable location is transformed into a hammer monster. and let us not forget our hammer monsters turning into...*shudder*. as for spiritual, I enjoy being able to switch civics without consequense, although this becomes more useless as time goes by. fast temples are great for happiness and conquered city culture. Indian starting techs are by far the best, mining AND early religion, how much better can it get? The fast worker is just an added bounus that never gets obsolete.

but despite these all being great individualy, It's frightening when it all comes together. to put it simply, Ghandi is ironicly a VERY powerful warmonger. first, get an early religion, then research bronzeworking. Meanwhile, expand to about 3 cities(or more, it depends) then reasearch priesthood and start on the oracle, then the wheel, and then reasearch whatever you want(I go agriculture>pottery>whatever I see fit). now use those super-workers to chop the oracle, chop stonehenge, connect everything, mine all the hills, and most importantly, get copper. use the tech from the quick oracle to get metal casing(an early forge is a beautiful thing).

now add that all together, free culture+superproduction+improved land= massive axemen hoard in short order and supercities. your neighbour is now in severe danger of being annialated. with your new "union" empire, you will stay ahead for the rest of the game.

but it doesn't end there, no that is the beggining. with this large empire of yours, you can build all the wonders, outpace in the tech race, and STILL maintain a large force. should you decide another war is in order, It's a cake-walk, a superior force in tech and numbers.

Thus the cycle continues, allowing for any type of victory (exept diplomatic, unless you call conquering votes a diplomatic victory).

As for background info, I used this stratagy in noble, but it was soo patheticly easy (even the game with only copper, oil, and urainium statiegic reasources) that I made the jump to prince, in which I faced an isolated start, meaning I fell behind in tech(but I still got most of the wonders, not having to worry about defense). Also, the stratagy isn't as effective if hills are sparse as there are less hammers to capatalize with the forge.

 

[Not.Bad]

Hey! Glad the thread kinda took off =)

I may do a write up for Isabella. Conquistadors have a short window (Musketmen counter them solid and the tech is right around the corner =/), but they are very powerful units and there is zero medieval counters to them.

I think financial is powerful, but when you do the hard math, it's not as wonderful as people think, just as many said, the effect is blantantly obvious andeasy to implement. The higher levels I play though, the more I miss other traits. I do admit though, coastal tiles that are 2f 2c are MUCH less appealing then 2f 3c, math or not. I always wish I was playing a financial civ whenever I have coastal cities ><. Cheaper banks is meh though I find. I only build banks in holy cities.

EDIT: The two traits I would love to hear about in synergy with leaders and in higher levels of play are philisophical and industrial. Neither of these I consider too usefull at higher levels, though that maybe because I still live with my paranoia of wonder addiction (every game I play, I always do better when I build almost no wonders, or when I do set my goal to get a certain wonder, I usually get it). I get GP factories and all that, but I just rather have what I consider a more "practical" trait. Please someone prove me wrong.

EDIT 2: I kinda see one with Roosevelt actually. He is very ideal to get large empires stabilized economically. Cheap courthouse, cheap forbidden palace/versaile etc, and my usual outer cities are usually unit machines that could fit in some cheap forges.

 

[Conquestador]

I think financial is powerful, but when you do the hard math, it's not as wonderful as people think, just as many said, the effect is blantantly obvious andeasy to implement. The higher levels I play though, the more I miss other traits. I do admit though, coastal tiles that are 2f 2c are MUCH less appealing then 2f 3c, math or not. I always wish I was playing a financial civ whenever I have coastal cities ><. Cheaper banks is meh though I find. I only build banks in holy cities.

I made a couple of game with industrial leaders lately mainly focused on build wonders (one prince, one monarch) and even if i could win both i feel that the research was slow.
As other stated in this thread one of the main strenght of industrial trait is the cheap forge that can be achieved early trough the Metal Casting Slingshot.
Another consequential benefit if that i can build the
Colossus very early at the price of a library and this will give me the opportunity of 2f 3c on coastal tiles for a long time ... never tried but i'm thinking how would be with Quin (Fin/Ind) and 2f 4c on coastal tiles !!
But later i will lost wonders against civs that can research faster, other times i've built wonders that are'nt very useful . So i want to ask wich world wonder you plan to build with industrious trait and wich research path you try to follow.
For me the best one are the Piramids (hard to get without stone), and the Hanging Gardens (+1 health to compensate -1 from forges).

 

[senwiz]

My favorite leader is bismarck.

Expansive: +2 health in all cities. Its like having 2 free health resources. Hanging Gardens is +1 health and its a world wonder. The healt bonus allows for more chopping opertunities. Also the granary speed makes them more buildable which is good because their bonus is so helpful.

Industrious: wonder production speed is a huge help. As for early wonders, there a sinch to snag. what else to explain. Also forges. Probably the only building you do make in all your cities. +25% production, a specialist with +2 hammers, great gp, and happy faces for gems gold and silver. sweet.

Early go for cottages and cities. Make alot of cities around your capital and connect them. Overlapping is not a bad thing and you want to overlap to share some forests between cities. Peace until there is nowhere left to expand. By then you should have catapults and macemen and ou can win by strength in numbers. Most helpful thing i think for winning is to use a rally point for your troops, and to turn on always biuld previous unit in the city screen. It makes it easier to mass troops.

When you get to the fork at writing, go the top route, to industrialism and aritllery instead of biology and communism path. Industrialism is when you take off because of panzers and backed up by artilery there unstoppable until copters.

As for victory, i go for conquest. Ill expand until 20 cities maybe, but after that, its not worth it to waste time on buildings in new cities. The maintenence will just kill you. Wars should be fought for resources to keep up happiness and reduce war weariness. Conquest is the way to go becasue you can ransack the enemy instead of trying to preserve the land. You also have more contorl of when you will win

I must agree with this one. He is my favorite for now. Plus, if you get a good tech lead going, warmongering with Panzers, makes the world your oyster.

 

[luckynick]

So i want to ask wich world wonder you plan to build with industrious trait and wich research path you try to follow.
For me the best one are the Piramids (hard to get without stone), and the Hanging Gardens (+1 health to compensate -1 from forges).

as usual :
- stonhenge if not creative leader
- pyramids rocks but is mainly strong early if yo ucan couple with gardens for the engineer. Otherwise it bacome strong when you have enough food to run lot of specialists or/and enough full grown cottages (eq towns) and therefor mucha gold to make good use of US
- oracle to CS metal casting as you mentionned
- Great libray (simply rocks)
- gardens in the same city as pyramids
- colossus if lot of coastal cities

others can be skipped most time. Later you will want kremlin to empower usage of US

 

[emills]

Note; Prince and Monarch level

I have taken a liking to Alexander, although he is not the easiest leader to use. I have used him to try a no cottages game (at prince) and he can last up to the industrial era without them

He is not creative nor starts with mysticism so border expansions take libraries most often (a religion from trade will help your third and fourth cities usually). This means your first three cities will need to settle one tile away (food) or on top of a resource (marble/stone and sometimes copper). If a coastal start with seafood, make a workboat before a worker for better research, city growth and worker/settler production. If you get a coastal start without seafood, scream at the computer, especially when you see an AI capitol with 4 seafood resources. If you can get pyramids and the great library, Alexander can easily overtake the financial civs in tech pace using representation/buracracy/caste system with all great people placed in your capitol full of farms. With the national epic and oxford national wonders and NO COTTAGES, I have had Athens over 500 hundred beakers per turn. With a well placed cottage or two in the capitol and more imporantly other cities with cottages, you can compete with a dual representation/cottage spam with the best of them. I have really learned to appreciate the aggressive trait, not so much to warmonger but to level easier. For your melee and gunpowder units produced in a barracks it only takes them one fight to go to a level 3 (equivalent) unit. Take that axeman or swordsmen and kill an animal or even lowly barbarian warrier and you have a unit that is now at combat 3 or (for phalanx) combat two with the formation unit promo. A combat 4 axeman is the ultimate barbarian fog buster. Agressive's free combat one, while not giving a true level, allows all of the specialist promotions (pinch, formation, medic, shock, cover and ambush) either right out of the barracks or one experience point away.

Some notes about fishing civs (Rome, America, Greece, England, japan, Spain):

All fishing civs will have a huge advantage over other civs if seafood is available at the capitol sight. A seafood resource is one to three commerce and tons of food that cannot be pillaged in the very early game. This allows both city growth, research, health and worker/settler production, essentially all the things you need at the start of the game prior to any worker or building being built.

Financial Fishing civs have the great early money with up to 3 commerce per water tile (4 if fresh water). This commerce will give way to cottages later, but the strong start is hard to beat. (for an evil city screenshot, look at a financial coastal city with both the colossus and a golden era, every coastal tile is a money bag)

Philisophical fishing civs with the seafood, get decent commerce with a big step towards specialist support and great people. (in the above discussion of alexander I had one fish and one wheat, with farms and mines the rest of the way)

The above two combination occur in England with Elizabeth, making her one of the strongest leaders in the game. Given that england also starts with mining, Elizabeth can stand being landlocked without too much ability wasted. I haven't even talked about the redcoat either.

One other advantage fishing civs have is the ability of city connection. It just takes one tech, Sailing, to connect all your cities to each other. Combined with city placement on rivers inland, this will save you so much time to get copper to the capitol or resources wherever you need it prior to a road ever being built. I would recommend researching the wheel prior to sailing so that resources that are not on a river can get to a city.

 

[Toshiro126]

emills, thanks for the thoughts on Alexander. I like the traits he has, but haven't had as much luck with him as with some other civs. Your writeup gave me some things to keep in mind though...we'll see what happens next game!

 

[Gumbolt]

Chinesse look interesting. Mao Zedong. (Standard map, Monarch)

Starting with agricultural and mining is a big plus. Organized allows cheap early expansion. Philosophical gives great chanes for great people farms and probably an easy cultural win if you beeline for Codes of Law and other techs. USe the great people for holy buildings and techs to ensure the religion holy cities.

The collateral damage with Cho-Ko-Nu and the extra first strike makes the replacement crossbowmen a real option when attacking cities. Could it replace catapults on a chinesse game? The unit might even survive the attack compared to a catapult.

Started one game today using them for first time and i dont know why everyone doesnt use them. Got BW from a hut 3760bc. If it wasnt for lots of plains and small cities im sure i would be able to get 30-60 Great person points on 2-3 cities. I started 3 religions on my island. Only downside is Romans/ Russians/Aztecs/ french on map looking very aggresive but not on my island but i have a heallthy tech lead with 13 city base.

Good starting techs, good UU, and great traits. If you do one thing today play the chinesse with Zedong

 

[atreas]

emills, thanks for the thoughts on Alexander. I like the traits he has, but haven't had as much luck with him as with some other civs. Your writeup gave me some things to keep in mind though...we'll see what happens next game!

Alex is my best by far - I have played with him most of my games. In the link I have given I have written a presentation of the civ, giving a more "aggressive" stance than you (early war, at emperor +).

One word of advice:

With Alex try to get both Stonehedge (for culture) and Pyramids (for happiness) - it's quite possible, even at Immortal from my experience. Then stop building cities and concentrate on war - grab the nearest holy city. Stonehedge will give a Great Prophet very soon and you will live happily (and rich) ever after.

 

[mucco]

I'm in love with Hatshepshut at the moment. Egypt's traits look really good to me, the only downside being the UU. War chariots are useless to me, because they are easily countered by spears and need horses, but IMO unique units are not nearly as important as the traits of a civ (with some exceptions, of course).
Spiritual is my absolute favourite, because with it you can cave in to all "civic" demands from AIs, switch back after 5 turns and you have a stable +1 on relationships. Half price temples are also cheap happiness. Spiritual is crucial in sudden wars, too, when you see a big threat you can switch to police state, nationhood, theocracy on the same turn and possibly save a city. That happened to me several times, mostly in archipelago maps, when bringing reinforcements is hard.
Creative is big when expanding, it puts pressure on the enemies and on barb cities, allows working the entire city radius much earlier, helps with culture wins etc. Creative bonuses can often take one of the inner 8 tiles of another city's radius (which has not expanded yet), allowing you to see the garrisons and to amass forces 0 turns away from the city. You can declare and conquer a city on the same turn, which is not easy to achieve if you have stonehenge, because it's easy to build an obelisk if needed. The culture bonus is 2x the obelisk, so it will always win.
Egypt is good both for the early game, when you expand and encounter the first civs, and for the late stages, when spiritual helps building temples (many cities will have several religions late), and cuts off the wasted turn(s), which can be often crucial in my experience.