Darius, The Best Leader.

[muxec]

Pericles - great SE, just chop early mids.
Augustus Caesar - do we have iron?
Cyrus - great UU/trait synergy, strong late game warmongering with commando tanks just out of the factory.
Shaka - cheap barracks with courthouse aspect. Strong corporate late game.
Sitting Bull - not really strong, but someone should mention him in every thread.

 

[muxec]

Someone break Godwin's rule already

I did not play any mods with extra leaders for Germans, are there any good ones?

 

[futurehermit]

What I meant by not having a weakness is that there is nothing about Darius that I rate as poor. Good techs, good traits, good UU, good UB.

My comments are also always regarding single player vs. the AI. Multiplayer changes many, many things. HC is MUCH worse against a human player imo. Military traits become much better against a human opponent.

Yes, Darius is not so hot with a coastal start. HC is not much better on a coastal start. Granted, he can get the GLH easier (ind), but that is about it. I personally love hunting as a starting tech because I value the early scouting (in order to plan strategy asap) and peaceful access to huts >>> access to warriors/worker stealing. This is based on my style of play though.

Obtaining land may be tough if you're boxed in by a really strong opponent who builds a lot of units or if you're playing on Deity. But otherwise as long as you obtain enough land in order to abuse drafting, obtaining land is not a huge problem usually. Paying the bills in order to afford a rush or rex is usually the bigger challenge imo, which is why financial leaders are rated so highly and why agg/pro leaders are not.

I think Darius vs. HC is a matter of personal preference. They are both very, very strong in the hands of a human vs. the AI.

 

[madscientist]

HC is better at coastal starts because of the UU. Coastal cities need less defense earlly on as the water supplies a natural defense on at least 1 side, usually 2 if not three. Stategically places Quechuas can remove the need for early archers and speed along HC path to the GLH. Darius Immortals are powerful but need horses.

 

[futurehermit]

The UU is good of course, but as TMIT has shown, it is possible to simply fogbust with regular warriors.

 

[madscientist]

The UU is good of course, but as TMIT has shown, it is possible to simply fogbust with regular warriors.

Yeah, but you need fewer as they will not be defeated by barb archers and you can simply defend the capital resources until the GLH is built. It's about time and HC's UU allows him to leverage the IND trait very early. Quechuas are great for an early rush, but they are also great very early defensively.

 

[muxec]

Semi-offtopic:
Darius does not have a cute hands clap animation. :/

 

[dankok8]

Darius, HC, and Liz - The Big 3!!
Common to all 3? Financial and a powerful UU!!

I rate them about evenly although if I had to choose one in SP it would be Liz. In MP, neither of these 3 is in my top 5 at least in FFA...

1) Best starting techs of the 3 - Mysticism and Hunting are bad at least in my book.

2) Can rush early despite late UU - one tech way from BW

3) Has a UU that kicks ass in the Industrial Era which is generally considered to favor the defender. This is a time I always find myself warring. Early rush is situational and depends on Horses in Darius' case.

4) UB is very good, much better than Apothecary and as roughly as good as the Terrace.

5) Financial + Philosophical allows for some amazing research speed.

 

[Bei1052]

Trait wise, I think Napoleon is the best leader. It sucks about the UU and UB, though.

 

[CivIVMonger]

..........

 

[mboettcher]

I've never had a problem fogbusting with warriors. Granted quechas can be very effective at this task for archers but setting up a half dozen warriors around the cap so that the barbs spawn elsewhere is a fine strategy. I just put them on hills (forested if possible) as they get a good fogbusting view and can handle archers pretty decently that way.

Btw Dog warriors are unbelievably good fogbusters. THey kill everything in sight and one can expand with impunity

 

[The Rook]

Obtaining land may be tough if you're boxed in by a really strong opponent who builds a lot of units or if you're playing on Deity. But otherwise as long as you obtain enough land in order to abuse drafting, obtaining land is not a huge problem usually. Paying the bills in order to afford a rush or rex is usually the bigger challenge imo, which is why financial leaders are rated so highly and why agg/pro leaders are not.

IMHO, if you can obtain plenty of land and cities by choice, then you should be in a good position regardless of whether your leader has strong economic traits. Early over-expansion to the point of melt-down is typically a choice rather than a necessity, the options are there. I find my toughest games to be the ones where options are limited.

 

[mboettcher]

All true but I find my options are *less* limited by both prot and agg than any other traits in such situations. Agg lets you fight out of a problematic situation early and block off a good chunk of land for later. Prot lets you play a little looser with diplo and let your enemies come to you before counter attacking (really only works on higher difficulties, otherwise the enemies don't bring anything to bear). So while ceratin traits let you survive better in tougher situations, and I don't discount the value of such, others do make tougher situations more rare to begin with. All traits can be played to a high degree of effectiveness with the rare and dissatisfying situations of isolation on water based maps which do destroy parity in a sense (though its not all archipelago maps, don't get me wrong. Just certain situations make many traits absolutely uselss and I don't think this is entirely proper but then again I suppose such things go both ways with pangea, which I don't play either mind you)

 

[The Rook]

All true but I find my options are *less* limited by both prot and agg than any other traits in such situations. Agg lets you fight out of a problematic situation early and block off a good chunk of land for later. Prot lets you play a little looser with diplo and let your enemies come to you before counter attacking (really only works on higher difficulties, otherwise the enemies don't bring anything to bear). So while ceratin traits let you survive better in tougher situations, and I don't discount the value of such, others do make tougher situations more rare to begin with. All traits can be played to a high degree of effectiveness with the rare and dissatisfying situations of isolation on water based maps which do destroy parity in a sense (though its not all archipelago maps, don't get me wrong. Just certain situations make many traits absolutely uselss and I don't think this is entirely proper but then again I suppose such things go both ways with pangea, which I don't play either mind you)

I agree. For this reason I tend to favour versatile traits over ones that perform very impressively in certain situations. Personally I like Creative for rexing, as it can get cities up quickly, and obtain territory you otherwise may not in tight situations. When land is abundant, Creative can fogbust and "claim" much land without settling cities so that you may fill in the spaces when your economy is more robust. Even water based maps often have great potential city spots that are useless before the first border pop, with no food or forests building that monument can take forever. At the moment I prefer Philosophical to Organised and Financial as an economic trait. IMHO it's the least terrain/territory dependent of the three. Financial demands working numerous +2 commerce improvements to really abuse it, and Organised is far less impressive with smaller empires. Philo gets weaker as the game goes on, but can be utilised to provide a dynamic initiative in so many ways.

 

[Belisar]

I really don't understand why people don't like Huyana Capac

Some of us regard industrious as weak and financial as boring mid-tier trait (at higher levels, that is). This doesn't fit with the Quechua who shines there.

 

[pigswill]

Arguments about 'best leader' are unlikely to be resolved because two other factors are at least as important: the map and the skill level of the player. Unless you can balance out those variables you ain't going to get an answer.

 

[The Rook]

Arguments about 'best leader' are unlikely to be resolved because two other factors are at least as important: the map and the skill level of the player. Unless you can balance out those variables you ain't going to get an answer.

True. I would add the play-style of the player too. CIV is such a complex game that it's possible to advance quite far and be completely ignorant about certain ways of playing. Naturally we gravitate towards leaders who gel with our technique, and probably sometimes underestimate those that don't.

Nevertheless, I expect your words will fall on deaf ears. This certainly won't be the last time the "best leader" is debated.

 

[madscientist]

Actually I think alot of the arguments are taking map into consideration, thus why HC tends to be a favored since he can play almost any map (and why favored by myself).

As far as the difficulty level, we only need to look at our own improvements in levels. Three leaders have always been the breakthrough for myself: HC, Darius, and Ragnar (with GLH abuse). Those were key leaders that got me from one level to another.

 

[CivIVMonger]

For me, it's an apinoin. That's why, other than the name"Darius, The Best Leader." I have said nothing as a true fact about Darius being the "best".

 

[mboettcher]

Some of us regard industrious as weak and financial as boring mid-tier trait (at higher levels, that is). This doesn't fit with the Quechua who shines there.

Industrious is most definitely not a weak trait. Top tier. Good gold production for failed crappy wonders. Cheap early production/specialist buildings- forges. Easy national wonder placement. And of course unstoppable wonderbuilding with the proper resources and not half bad wonder building with out. Granted its somewhat resource dependent for its power but what powerful UU isn't?