Leader Discussion - Benjamin Franklin

[disjointaccount]

We've finally made it to B! This thread, we have Benjamin Franklin.
His leader ability is The First American, which is a four-parter:

• +1 Science per Age on Production Buildings in Cities
• +50% Production towards construction Production Buildings
• +1 Science per Age from active Endeavors you started or supported
• Can have two Endeavors of the same type active at a time

His attributes are Diplomatic and Scientific, giving him access to the Local Festival and Research Collaboration endeavors, along with events for attribute points upon unlocking Writing and Cartography (per this post).
He has no starting bias.
Playing as Ben unlocks Norman (otherwise unlocked by having 5 tiles with ancient walls), and Spain (otherwise unlocked by recapturing a lost settlement) in the Exploration Age, and France (otherwise unlocked by improving 3 Wine), America (otherwise unlocked by having three Distant Lands settlements on Plains) and Great Britan (otherwise unlocked by having 2 Fleet Commanders) in the Modern Age .
As an AI leader, his agenda is Civic Virtue - Increase Relationship gains with players that share a Government with him. Decrease Relationship with players that don't share a Government with him.

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

 

[Leucarum]

2 Scientific endeavours are great, and he just gets a solid amount of passive science. The AI always seems to do quite well with him, probably because his bonuses are pretty automatic, so I tend to target him early and hard. He feels a little bland to me so he's not one of the leaders I've played much, or especially enjoyed when I did... It is satisfying to knock him down a peg when the AI is using him though.

 

[Navelgazer]

I've been trying to come up with what to say about Ben Franklin for the last several days, even starting a couple of games as him just to get the words flowing, but here's what I've got:

Ben Franklin's ability is decent on paper. Production buildings are generally useful (although a lot of them tend to come near the end of an era and aren't ageless, making me not want to spend turns constructing them), and this makes them better and quicker to build. Extra endeavors and extra science for running them is nice. He pairs really well with Greece as a result. Presumably.

But, and maybe this is just me, I reliably have the worst luck whenever I try to play as Ben. Terrible, worthless starts, surrounded by purely aggressive IPs and boxed in by aggressive AI Civs, never able to get any momentum going, like, ever. So I don't have a lot to say here. Pretty decent on paper, but I never have any luck with him.

 

[disjointaccount]

Whoops I forgot to respond to my own thread again. I don't have a ton to say about Ben. He's very good at generating a lot of science and that's about it. A one-trick pony, but very good at that one trick. Something I feel like is maybe still slept on is that his science on production buildings applies to warehouse production buildings too, so it gives very early tempo boosts with your initial saw pit and brickyard, and momentum up on age rollover since it gives you a lot of ageless science.

I don't think there's anything particularly "wrong" with him; I think he's just a little one-note for my taste. Agree about the AI doing well on him. Very common to see an AI Ben with an insane runaway science yield by mid-late exploration.

 

[evonannoredars]

I've never played him, his abilities do seem pretty basic, though there's definitely leaders that are much less interesting to me. I can see him being unique in the early game with a decent science advantage, but otherwise pretty run of the mill later.

 

[Lord Lakely]

I think he's fairly mid. As it stands now, becoming Suzerain over a City State while accepting incoming Endeavours is way more powerful than actively spending Influence on starting Endeavours, and without the Endeavours his science really isn't that impressive. The '+1 Science on Libraries and Academies for every City State Vassal' Suze bonus beats Ben's kit by itself, and you want to secure that asap, regardless of who you are. The extra science from production buildings is not relevant: Barracks unlock at Bronze Working, Blacksmiths at Engineering. That's halfway through Antiquity. If it was the opposite (Production on Science buildings) it would be way better.

Another problem is that he's also Diplomatic, which means he's stuck with two copies of a fairly weak Endeavour that could potentially give the OTHER AIs bonus Influence. Local Festivals are bad, and you should hate them.

Boosted with the correct memento's however, it's a different story. Bifocals is great for some quick Influence recovery from getting a Mastery Tech (without that Memento it's hard to gain Influence other than specifically being Han or Greece), and the one that gives +1 Influence per age on Science buildings (I believe this is one of Himiko's?) are enough to put him firmly into upper B-tier. (That one also allows him to lead the Mayans, which in itself is the biggest reward of them all). Emile Bell is also a big deal for Ben, which gives him an extra Endeavour that doesn't suck.

Exploration and Modern are less rough for him, but what often happens in those games is that I grow bored of playing a middling Dip leader with no production or influence bonus, and then start a game with a Dip leader who does have a production or influence bonus. Such as, you know, Himiko, who is effectively Ben on steroids.

 

[MutilationWave]

My first game was Ben with Greece. It went very well but they're a good combo. I didn't ever support endeavors my first game, saving for CS, which turned out to be better. I think he's easy to understand and good for a new player.

 

[UWHabs]

Playing as Ben right now, he has a solid early game. Given the way bonuses work, you could get an early saw pit/brickyard down in the same time someone else gets one of the buildings (not quite, but close), plus you get +2 science from them.

After that, though, his bonuses are a lot less valuable. Sure, he gets some nice passive science going from the bonuses, but I think I find myself more often than not buying my production buildings, since most of the time I want them to grow my borders from a newly settled town. So his bonus to building them doesn't really help there. Although it's fun in the exploration era when you get some of the CS bonuses and attributes, to be putting in saw mills that are like +2 food/+4 production/+2 science/+1 gold/+1 culture, all for like 100 gold.

The one strategy I like with him is to make sure to get the Emile Bell, so he can also run 2x Ginseng agreement. But yeah, because he likes endeavors, you probably want to be friends with other civs and use your influence that way.