Leader Discussion - Isabella

[disjointaccount]

Sorry for the delay on this one; I was on holiday last week. But we're coming back with a fun one - Isabella.
Her leader ability is Seven Cities of Gold, which is a three-parter:

• Gain 100 Gold per Age every time you discover a Natural Wonder, doubled if the Natural Wonder is in Distant Lands.
• +50% tile yields from Natural Wonders for every Natural Wonder in your empire (nerfed, was +100% tile yields on Natural Wonders)
• +50% Gold towards purchasing naval units, and -1 Gold Maintenance for naval units.

Her attributes are Economic and Expansionist, giving her access to the Open Markets and Farmers' Market endeavors, along with events for attribute points upon training 2 Infantry units and a Cog (per this post).
She has a starting bias for coastal terrain and for natural wonders (the strongest bias in the game).
Playing as Isabella unlocks Spain (otherwise unlocked by recapturing a lost settlement) and Abbasid (otherwise unlocked by improving 3 Camels) in the Exploration Age, and France (otherwise unlocked by improving 3 Wine) and Mexico (otherwise unlocked by having 3 Distant Lands Settlements in desert or tropical terrain) in the Modern Age.
As an AI leader, her agenda is Wonderlust - Decrease Relationship by a Large Amount per Natural Wonder in the player's borders. If no Natural Wonders are possessed by the player, Increase Relationship by a Small Amount.

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

 

[stealth_nsk]

Isabella is a jumpstart leader, usually having a natural wonder with increased yields in your capital. Depending on the natural wonder, the city becomes a powerhouse in some area and early push is the most important. If you manage to settle on a second natural wonder, Isabella is unstoppable.

If you're unlucky enough to not start near a natural wonder, that's really bad, because other parts of Isabella bonuses are not that impressive. 100 gold early in antiquity is noticeable, but it's not even "purchase a settler" bonus. And further in the game the bonus becomes minimal. Same with ships, the effect is pretty small.

 

[disjointaccount]

I actually have pretty strong feelings about Isabella (and her nerf). I love how jumpstart-y her kit is; she's the ultimate tempo leader. You get the mother of all starts, but beyond that, her kit is almost blank (pre-nerf, the advantages to finding other natural wonders were pretty minimal since by the time you find them, the gold and yields wouldn't be very significant), and how strong you remain is entirely down to your skill as a player to maintain the tempo given to you on turn 0. I think that's a super fun concept for a leader, and the feeling of being able to carry that momentum forward if I played well made her one of my favourite leaders.

I think the nerf (and I know even calling it a nerf is potentially contentious since it's officially a "rework") took a lot of the fun out of her for me. She's still strong, but trading upfront power for a kit that provides more later (and which kind of dictates your playstyle throughout the game by making wonder-hunting more of a necessity) really detracts from what made her playstyle so fun for me.

 

[Berrern]

If you're unlucky enough to not start near a natural wonder, that's really bad, because other parts of Isabella bonuses are not that impressive. 100 gold early in antiquity is noticeable, but it's not even "purchase a settler" bonus. And further in the game the bonus becomes minimal. Same with ships, the effect is pretty small.

While that's a good point, in the one game where this happened to me, I just had to adapt my strategy. Rather than following my plan of building peacefully, it became a rush to explore, find natural wonders, settle there - or if an AI had already done so, conquer their settlement! This led to my empire being very disjointed and spread out, which turned out to be a lot of fun!

In fact, since that game, every time I've played with Isabella - whether I start near a natural wonder or not - I follow this strategy, and I typically end up with at least a few natural wonders, giving ridiculous yields.

Her naval abilities assist well in exploring and finding those wonders.

I really enjoy playing with Isabella, she's one of my favourite leaders!

 

[Leucarum]

It's a good thing for Isabella that snowballing still exists as that's pretty much why she can...Fun leader with a game defining ability.

 

[SemiLazyGamer]

I would add that the memento that gives food from excess happiness can be useful for Isabella, especially early on if you focus on getting the Wonder yields, since all Wonders have two to three happiness on each tile.

 

[Siptah]

There are also two natural wonders mementos. One gives more gold and the other doubles yields (if you control the most). I‘m not sure how exactly „most“ is defined, but if it is >=, then it should be a nice starting push for Isabella.

Edit: apparently, the latter was patched at some point and now just gives happiness on natural wonders. What a shame for a level 9 unlock…

 

[Haig]

My favorite Civ 7 leader along with Catherine, same flavor as Isabella in Civ 5.

I like to explore and I like natural wonders, so it's like custom made for me.

 

[Nigel_Tufnel2]

Ditto. I really enjoy playing with creative water-based leaders/civs (hence my deep love for Polynesia/Maori previously). I really enjoy the hunt for Natural Wonders, and the race to settle them as well as Treasure Resources is basically what I'm playing VII for right now. I've started many Exploration Age games with her leading the Chola. I get frustrated by some of the crappy Warehouse placements the computer sets up - the only remedy is to play from the Ancient Age, but I sometimes find that a bit grindy... I just want to explore the oceans!

 

[Lord Lakely]

Got mixed feelings on her: I think she's overtuned and meme-y in terms of design. I dislike the set of bonuses as being specifically Isabella's (she would have been a really good choice for a persona, as much as I dislike the idea of persona's), but they're also very strong and fun in practice. It's a lot of happiness and culture, depending on the map, and settling every Natural Wonder gives you an overarching goal to work towards (a huge deal in a game where you often just... don't have much to do).

On Pangaea she's without question a top three leader, under any Civ and circumstance.