Leader Discussion - Ahsoka, World Renouncer

[disjointaccount]

Following on from his warmongering counterpart, now we have Ashoka, World Renouncer (or food Ashoka, if you're bad at remembering which name goes with which persona like me). Given that the kits are ultimately different, my thinking was that different threads for different personas made the most sense, but since comparisons are obvious and natural, as we saw in the World Conqueror thread, maybe going forward leaders with personas just get one thread? Anyone got any strong feelings one way or the other?
His leader ability is Dhammaraja, which is a three-parter:

• +1 Food in Cities for every 5 excess Happiness
• +10% Food in Cities during a Celebration
• All Buildings gain a +1 Happiness adjacency for all Improvements

His attributes are Diplomatic and Expansionist, giving him access to the Local Festival and Farmers Market endeavors, along with events for attribute points upon unlocking Mysticism and Piety (per this post).
He has no starting bias.
Playing as Ashoka unlocks Chola in the Exploration Age (otherwise unlocked by having three Settlements with a city center adjacent to a coastal tile, excluding lakes), and Nepal in the Modern Age (otherwise unlocked by having three settlements with at least 5 mountains each).
As an AI leader, his agenda is Without Sorrow - Increase Relationship by a Medium Amount with the player with the highest Happiness yield. Decrease Relationship by a Medium Amount with the player that has the lowest Happiness yield.

So what are everyone's thoughts? Likes/dislikes? Strengths and weaknesses? Fun strategies? Good civs to pair him with?

 

[UWHabs]

He gets bonkers happiness bonuses. Even with 2 rural tiles, there's +4 happiness for the 2 buildings in a district, plus another +2 happiness per specialist on the tile. You're never struggling for happiness, which means you can easily go well over the settlement limits without worrying.

 

[Leucarum]

The challenge wish Ashoka is deciding what to do with your happiness. Going over settlement limit is a solid choice. But it's tough not to want the Maurya traditions/UQ. He synergizes so well with his chosen civ...

He is possibly the leader I like the most that I have yet to reach level 10 with. I always like the idea of a World Renouncer game, but then sit down and pick someone else. I don't really know why

 

[disjointaccount]

Like I said last time, I think this is the stronger of the Ashokas, in part because I actually value the food more so than the production (in the sense of, I prefer food knowing I'm playing tall - which I probably am to some extent with WR - over the production in a more generalist warmonger-y game), but also because he has a way to give himself some happiness rather than relying on a civ. Maurya is the obvious choice for both Ashokas but at least with WR I feel a bit less locked in and freer to pick a slightly less happiness-centric civ since I can supplement whatever happiness I have with the improvement adjacency.

Assuming you're stacking celebrations, which you almost certainly are, a near-permanent +10% food is really nice. Ashoka WR is a solid tall leader. The only point I'd raise against him for tall is that he can pump your cities full of people, but doesn't offer any way to get more value out of said people. I think Confucious works really well as a tall leader in that regard, and it'd be nice to see other food/growth focused kits similarly help with the actual yields side of things either through boosts to specialists, or boosts to adjacencies to make getting good specialists easier. Ashoka WR is already very strong though, so any significant boosts in that regard might be too much. Alternatively, if you don't fancy tall, play wide and use all that food to keep a higher number of cities ticking along at a reasonable rate, because all the happiness makes the settlement limit a non-issue.

I don't hugely care for either of his endeavors - in fact, imo diplo/expansionist is the worst combination in the game for endeavors - but the diplo and expansionist trees are both very strong, so swings and roundabouts there.

Objectively, he's very strong. I don't find myself gravitating to him super often though. I think that's maybe just because food and happiness aren't "flashy" yields? If I'm playing Ben or Confucious and generating absurd science, it's fun to hover over the yields ribbons and see how I'm wiping the floor with the AI. It's fun to see the wild pace at which I blast through the tech tree. Similar can be said for culture, influence, and gold, and even production has the same effect for me to an extent, in spite of how harsh I was on WC in the last thread. Food is powerful because going tall is powerful, but it lacks that big number factor that my brain enjoys. Same for happiness, outside of having lots of celebrations (which is kind of a capped thing since once you're hitting a celebration every 10 turns, it doesn't matter if you have 1 happiness more than that threshold, or 1000).

 

[Navelgazer]

Yeah, as good as the World Conqueror persona is (and it's quite good), it's hard for me to pick that one when World Renouncer is right there. Neither persona is one of my mains, but A:WR is straight-up gas. Which is funny to me - I don't think of food or happiness as being priorities for me in a game (over things like culture or money or science or production, I mean), but I think that maybe that's what makes him work so well - he takes care of those things that I don't think about as much.

Local Festival and Farmer's Market are far from my favorite endeavors, but that's not enough to detract from how good this persona can be.

 

[MutilationWave]

I think you should keep giving personas their own thread, they are quite different.

 

[MutilationWave]

Like I said last time, I think this is the stronger of the Ashokas, in part because I actually value the food more so than the production (in the sense of, I prefer food knowing I'm playing tall - which I probably am to some extent with WR - over the production in a more generalist warmonger-y game), but also because he has a way to give himself some happiness rather than relying on a civ. Maurya is the obvious choice for both Ashokas but at least with WR I feel a bit less locked in and freer to pick a slightly less happiness-centric civ since I can supplement whatever happiness I have with the improvement adjacency.

Assuming you're stacking celebrations, which you almost certainly are, a near-permanent +10% food is really nice. Ashoka WR is a solid tall leader. The only point I'd raise against him for tall is that he can pump your cities full of people, but doesn't offer any way to get more value out of said people. I think Confucious works really well as a tall leader in that regard, and it'd be nice to see other food/growth focused kits similarly help with the actual yields side of things either through boosts to specialists, or boosts to adjacencies to make getting good specialists easier. Ashoka WR is already very strong though, so any significant boosts in that regard might be too much. Alternatively, if you don't fancy tall, play wide and use all that food to keep a higher number of cities ticking along at a reasonable rate, because all the happiness makes the settlement limit a non-issue.

I don't hugely care for either of his endeavors - in fact, imo diplo/expansionist is the worst combination in the game for endeavors - but the diplo and expansionist trees are both very strong, so swings and roundabouts there.

Objectively, he's very strong. I don't find myself gravitating to him super often though. I think that's maybe just because food and happiness aren't "flashy" yields? If I'm playing Ben or Confucious and generating absurd science, it's fun to hover over the yields ribbons and see how I'm wiping the floor with the AI. It's fun to see the wild pace at which I blast through the tech tree. Similar can be said for culture, influence, and gold, and even production has the same effect for me to an extent, in spite of how harsh I was on WC in the last thread. Food is powerful because going tall is powerful, but it lacks that big number factor that my brain enjoys. Same for happiness, outside of having lots of celebrations (which is kind of a capped thing since once you're hitting a celebration every 10 turns, it doesn't matter if you have 1 happiness more than that threshold, or 1000).

Sometimes I feel like the only person who has total runaway AI in every game. I can't top their science and culture even with twice as many settlements, no matter who I play. I always win, because AI sucks, but are you folks not seeing 1500 science and culture on at least one AI by the end of exploration?

 

[Leucarum]

Decided to start a game with World Renouncer as Maurya over lunch break. The sheer volume of happiness definitely lets you consistently go over settlement limits which is really nice. Especially if you do it earlier... Isabella forward settled me within minutes, so I wiped her out and speed-rushed the era to an end. Got UQs in a bunch of cities and kept myself well over the settlement limit. AI is ahead in science/culture at start of next age but my economy is so much better I should overtake quickly. Happiness is one of those yields you can translate into a lot of things.

Switched into Inca for exploration since I rarely do. No real major synergy with Ashoka but the Mauryan legacy is what's gonna stand me in the best stead I think. It really feels awkward playing Ashoka as any other civ.

 

[Nikolai II]

Not sure I have even played as him yet tbh.

 

[disjointaccount]

Sometimes I feel like the only person who has total runaway AI in every game. I can't top their science and culture even with twice as many settlements, no matter who I play. I always win, because AI sucks, but are you folks not seeing 1500 science and culture on at least one AI by the end of exploration?

Yeah, typically one or two will have run away with a crazy yield or two by mid-late exploration. Occasionally a similar standout will emerge towards the end of antiquity, usually things like a tropical spawn that got Mundo Perdido (often happens with Maya, who are busted to begin with), or a leader who's really strong just has a solid game.

Sometimes I can outdo that, if I'm playing with someone who's really good at maxing out a specific yield, which is what I was getting at with the Ben/Confucious thing. Or if I'm just having a particularly good game and enough has gone right. Regardless, though, yeah, most of my games have a standout winner or two among the AI.

That said, yeah, they suck at converting those big numbers into a win.

 

[Hellenism Salesman]

One thing I appreciate with this Ashoka is that he is one of the few leaders in the game who rewards you for building improvements instead of just endless districts.