I'm trying to cycle through all of the leaders at least once and play to their strengths, and - at a glance - baseline Napoleon looks so underwhelming he's no better than a blank leader would be.
The gold per antagonised leader is flat value, not a percentage, so it maxes out quite low. If you alienate absolutely everyone you meet on a standard-sized map, that's 32 gold per turn in antiquity, and up to 112 gpt in exploration (24 and 80 on small, which is the default setting). By mid-exploration, it already feels like a pittance, and you only get it by forfeiting any bonuses alliances would give you, any of the collaboration projects you now won't be getting 'cause they hate your guts, and (most importantly) all of the +10% per alliance bonuses you can otherwise get from the skill tree. Beyond a bit of extra gold in early antiquity, I don't see how & where they are worth the trade off. The rest of his kit appears to serve no other purpose beyond antagonising the whole map to enable the gold per turn.
More than that, for a leader designed to push everyone to hate you, he has nothing that would help you when the war starts; no combat bonuses, nor bonuses to pillaging. The actual benefitial effects are all allocated to the other persona. Meanwhile, the other economic leaders (Amina, both Xerxeses, Isabella) just generate extra gold passively from the things you want to be doing regardless, and often give you extra burst of gold each time you trigger a specific condition.
Is there an interesting play I'm not seeing?
The gold per antagonised leader is flat value, not a percentage, so it maxes out quite low. If you alienate absolutely everyone you meet on a standard-sized map, that's 32 gold per turn in antiquity, and up to 112 gpt in exploration (24 and 80 on small, which is the default setting). By mid-exploration, it already feels like a pittance, and you only get it by forfeiting any bonuses alliances would give you, any of the collaboration projects you now won't be getting 'cause they hate your guts, and (most importantly) all of the +10% per alliance bonuses you can otherwise get from the skill tree. Beyond a bit of extra gold in early antiquity, I don't see how & where they are worth the trade off. The rest of his kit appears to serve no other purpose beyond antagonising the whole map to enable the gold per turn.
More than that, for a leader designed to push everyone to hate you, he has nothing that would help you when the war starts; no combat bonuses, nor bonuses to pillaging. The actual benefitial effects are all allocated to the other persona. Meanwhile, the other economic leaders (Amina, both Xerxeses, Isabella) just generate extra gold passively from the things you want to be doing regardless, and often give you extra burst of gold each time you trigger a specific condition.
Is there an interesting play I'm not seeing?
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