How do you play Alexander?

[Bast]

I think his traits are too weird. Aggressive is pretty much a pure militaristic trait and philosphical is almost the reverse. The only thing I can think of is trying to get as many Great Scientists as possible and popping military techs and conquer. I suppose the Odeon is good in that it gives you culture for conquered cities. But pretty one dimensional in my opinion.

 

[Drake007]

since he's philo an SE is all the more interesting, and SEs tend to make it easier to have a lot of cities and production, which is great for war.

so you basically got it: pop scientists and enemy cities, as early as possible

 

[Mr. Civtastic]

I suppose the Odeon is good in that it gives you culture for conquered cities. But pretty one dimensional in my opinion.

Odeon makes an almost worthless building pretty good.

 

[mutax2003]

Race for pyramid and get it if possible, otherwise conquer it. Run an SE economy, build a lot of farms (in other cities beside the capital) & run specialists. In turn you have big cities with lot of productions, train a lot of units, and start conquering.

 

[FoxTrot12]

Alexander's fine for me. One dimensional? That's good for a war-addict like me! Agressive is obviously good, and then with Philo I can get great people back home when fighting wars to make the war effort easier! Plus, his UU isn't too shabby. It depends on your style of play, really.

 

[Blake]

Alexander is my favorite leader probably I mean for style.

To play Alexander you should spend most of your efforts spamming out units, devote a couple of cities to running a couple of scientists. Make an academy in your capital and mass settle the other great scientists there. Forget about the science rate and only bother with keeping it above 0%, the great scientists will power your research, combined with some bursts of research funded by the sack bonus from enemy cities.

Alexander's aggressive melee is unstoppable, Phalanxes school mounted units badly and have enough strength to deal with Catapults (Elepult doesn't phase Combat Phalanxes). Get currency and construction then head up to Guilds and Banking, you don't need Engineering so urgently since Formation Phalanxes make enemy knights weep (okay they die kinda often but who cares when they cost 1/3rd as much). Banks and Merchantalism will keep your economy healthy while the conquests continue.

Basically the Philo trait can be used as an excuse to focus nearly entirely on the aggressive trait.

 

[FoxTrot12]

I still think Philo can help out Agressive.

 

[Galileo44]

I think Philo is one of the best traits since it helps with the game no matter what. I always have a GP farm, and it is great no matter what type of game to have more GPs. Warmongering? Power your research! Teching? More teching! Culture? More Artists (DUH!)

Getting to the point, for the reasons Blake said, Alexander is great.

 

[Helmling]

What's an SE game?

 

[Galileo44]

SE = Specialist Economy

If you look in the strategy and tips forum, there are many articles on using specialists to power your whole economy, at least in the early game.

 

[Stylesrj]

How do I play Alexander?

With Civ IV, at the start when you can choose a leader!

 

[Dnomal]

Alexander is one of my favourite leaders, his UU alone makes it worth it, ever worried about a war chariot/immortal/keshik rush, they'll die at the end of phalnx points.

The UB is basically another theater, which is great, (never really saw the point of colliseum unless u'r desperate for happiness).

The philisophical trait means you can quite easily zoom ahead with only the simplest wonders, e.g great wall gives a great engineer - beeline to metal casting, get collosus etc.

Plus the greeks were pretty cool in reality to.

 

[dcbandicoot]

Alexander is one of my favorite leaders to play, if not my #1 favorite. The boost that he gets to great people helps out a lot throughout the whole game, and the aggressive characteristic is nice to have. His UU, the Phalanx, I have used to defend my cities (well, not uniquely, but in part) against Knights, and after promotions, even against Russian Cossacks. (with pretty good odds, I might add, considering its strength and hammer cost, I might add!)

In terms of an overall strategy, I typically expand enough where it's likely that I'll obtain Iorn or Copper early, and then build a city defensive core of about 60-70% phalanxes. I also promote one in each city with City Attack, should the need arise to expand via force. Alexander's quite useful for doing that. I have been in four wars with Roosevelt in my current game, razing 4 of his cities, taking 2, leaving him 2 (1 which will soon be mine via culture.. i have it practically surrounded).

Great Scientists are very helpful in obtaining military techs. Religiously, find out what's popular halfway around the world and make sure you can be friendly with them. Trade them military techs for others, even if it means getting a little bit of a ripoff out of the deal. (Ie, send 60 extra gold for a tech to obtain a tech of the same Erlenmeyer Beaker value). (Oh my God, I'm such a nerd for calling them Erlenmeyer Beakers).

Lastly, keep spies in the surrounding territory. Even a few turns warning in advance is a big help to Alex. I found this necessary the hard way when one of my opponents (well, Russia) built up 18 Cossacks to attack my 5-rifleman/3-grenadier/3-phalanx-defended city. And she was coming from halfway across the World, working across a pangaea. Psychotic bbbbii..erm, leader. I couldn't tell you for sure, but I think the AI might realize that an aggressive leader might be tougher to take down through military might. I've never seen such a large stack (well, 2 stacks). Defending that was miserable, the aftermath as bad. I was left with a rifleman and a phalanx. (and slightly thinned out defenses in four other cities)

Mike

 

[FoxTrot12]

LOL spies in Russia...
There is nothing terribly wrong with Alexander. He's good for beginners as a sort of "default" character.

 

[futurehermit]

Don't know if it's been said yet, but the way I play Alex is as follows:

1) Start with axe-phalanx rush if have copper

2) First two GP are great eng and great proph. Great eng lightbulbs machinery, Great proph lightbulbs CS. Early maces ftw!

 

[Mercenary82]

I start with axe/phalanx rushes first, and try to get a GE point giving wonder

like Great wall, then i focus on popping GE's to increase research and

production in all my cities while continuing my warmongering. joining lots of

Ge's to cities early on makes them very powerful.

 

[karr1255]

The extra great people can help you keep up in tech while being more powerful than your enemies. And obviously he's great for a SE.