Leader Discussion - Ibn Battuta

[disjointaccount]

Next up for these is Ibn Battuta
His leader ability is The Marvels of Travelling, which is a three-parter:

• Gains 2 Wildcard Attribute points after the first Civic in each Age
• Increased Sight for all units
• Gain a unique Eandeavor, Trade Map, that lets you gradually see other Leaders' explored areas

His attributes are Expansionist and Wildcard, giving him access to the Farmers' Market and Trade Map endeavors, along with events for attribute points upon researching Sailing and Cartography (per this post).
He has a starting bias for flat terrain.
Playing as Ibn Battuta unlocks Songhai (otherwise unlocked by having 3 Settlements with at least 3 navigable river tiles each) and Abbasid (otherwise unlocked by improving 3 Camels) in the Exploration Age, and Mughal (otherwise unlocked by improving 3 Salt or having trade routes with at least 4 unique Civilisations) and Buganda (otherwise unlocked by having 2 Settlements with their city centres adjacent to a lake tile) in the Modern Age.
As an AI leader, his agenda is Far and Wide - Increase Relationship by a Large Amount with the player who has uncovered the most Fog of War tiles. If there is a tie, Increase Relationship by a Medium Amount to tieholders. Decrease Relationship by a Small Amount with the player who has uncovered the fewest Fog of War tiles.

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

 

[stealth_nsk]

Love Ibn Battuta. Wildcard attributes are really strong and increased sight is really nice. Endeavors are a bit lacking, though.

 

[Siptah]

I loved him after release before the scout momento was nerfed.

I like his flexibility, but that also makes him a bit boring. I wish he had much, much more quests for exploring, trading, etc.

 

[Boris Gudenuf]

The problem I have with Battuta is that as an Expansionist Leader, he is rewarded for not expanding. IF he uses his extra sight range to scout everywhere, he lowers the value of his Trade Map Endeavor which gives him 'free' scouting by others. Also, why scout if by letting someone else scout you get better relations under the Far And Wide agenda with someone else who is doing the scouting?

A bit schizophrenic, if you ask me.

Frankly, I have most often played him because of his Unlocks: Abbasid, Songhai and Buganda are three of the strongest later-game Civs, and having them as a Given with Battuta greatly simplifies my planning and playing in Antiquity.

 

[disjointaccount]

I actually find him pretty uninteresting to play, simply because most of his power being in the Wildcard stuff actually means he has very little identity. I quite like to be pushed in certain directions by civs'/leaders' kits. If I'm playing a sciency leader, I can lean into that and pursue science, convert the scientific power into a military advantage, or build nicher strats to pursue other wins (like Friedrich's great works). Not to mention the way civ choice factors into this for leaders, and vice versa (do I double down, or pick something that shores up my weaker yields?).

Battuta is so flexible that he can just easily work for whatever you want to try, which, while objectively strong, is less interesting to me than kits which get me thinking about how I can minmax a specific yield or try out an offbeat strategy.

 

[The Civs 6]

What did he lead?

 

[Siptah]

Wrong question. He is still leading.

 

[Leucarum]

My favourite leader in the game. So flexible to play with, and he pairs well with a lot of different momentos and civs to give very different gamplay experiences.

Also has a great map colour.

 

[pjotroos]

Yeah, not much flavour; the extra sight is nice, but doesn't impact your strategy, really. He is very powerful, though. Getting 9 wild card points across the three ages means he can be easily custom-built for any victory type, and get to the end-of-the-tree power multipliers quicker than most. I prefer leaders that reward playing in a specific way, but there's no denying you can get some really quick wins with Battuta.

 

[Lord Lakely]

Not a big fan. He's a flavourful leader and pretty good at scouting, but his abilities are endemic to the game's balance issues and replayability: if you pick the optimal tree to put the wildcard slots in every time, then you'll always pull ahead, snowball and play the same game you always play. Which Battuta tends to do because he finds tribal villages more easily. It's a 'Win More' ability in most cases.

I also think his endeavours are pretty bad. Open Markets is probably the second worst endeavour, and Trade Maps doesn't really do much either, because you're already so good at scouting anyway.

 

[Renouf]

The two synergies I use with Ibn are using the two points in the Diplo tree for cheap suzerains (but I play with the Free Tech / Civics from CS removed so I prefer Tecumseh for CS games to reap more rewards) or using the 2 points + a Groma to get to the +1 Population in towns with either Carthage or Han. I'm not really sure how much of a practical momentum boost this gives you (especially since I haven't unlocked food bloom from Ashoka yet) but it is pretty fun to plop a colonist in a bunch of resources and grab 5 tiles immediately

 

[TheGhostEnthusiast]

It's not really a complaint, just something I've thought about, but I find it interesting that Battuta has powerful abilities related to flexible political leadership, (not really his specialty in real life) whereas Rizal gets the narrative events in which he visits and learns about unfamiliar lands. I'm sure it's a fitting bonus for Rizal, but it's a little funny to see a contender for history's most accomplished explorer, whose notes are a valuable historical source, struggling to find a unique gameplay identity while a well-traveled political writer is getting unique content in which he jots down the details of his experiences an aisle over.

 

[bengalryan9]

I think Ibn's fine. Flexibility has it's place and he's one of the few leaders who can work with literally every civ in the game. He's also a great choice for beginners and there is value in that as well. He might not be the most exciting, the most fun, the most powerful, or the most unique but he still fills a role within the roster.