Leader Discussion - José Rizal

[disjointaccount]

Sorry for the delay on this one; I was busy this last week catching up on work from having been on holiday the week before lol. But it's another interesting one now - José Rizal.
His leader ability is Pambansang Bayani, which is a three-parter:

• When gaining rewards from a Narrative Event, gain an additional +20 Culture, Gold and Influence per Age
• Increased Celebration duration and Happiness towards Celebrations by +50%
• Has additional Narrative Events

His attributes are Cultural and Diplomatic, giving him access to the Cultural Exchange and Local Festival endeavors, along with events for attribute points upon researching Writing and Inspiration (per this post).
He has a starting bias for tropical terrain.
Playing as José Rizal unlocks Majapahit (otherwise unlocked by improving 3 Pearls or having at least 3 naval trade routes) and Hawai'i (otherwise unlocked by having at least 2 settlements on landmasses of no more than 15 tiles) in the Exploration Age, and Meiji Japan (otherwise unlocked by improving 3 Tea) and Siam (otherwise unlocked by improving 3 Ivory or having 4 Temples) in the Modern Age.
As an AI leader, his agenda is Kapwa - Increase Relationship by a Medium Amount for the player with the most active Endeavors started. Decrease Relationship by a Medium Amount for the player with the most active Sanctions started. If there is a tie between the players with the most active Endeavors or Sanctions, then Increase or Decrease Relationship by a Small Amount accordingly.

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

 

[Siptah]

I think he is the weakest leader in the game. The extra narrative events are fun, but I feel they would have fit better for Ibn Battuta. More celebrations is a nice bonus, and flexible, but it doesn‘t really speak to me. Maybe if I would play super-wide, always 5+ settlements over the limit?

 

[stealth_nsk]

José Rizal is an influence powerhouse in early game and gold is big too. All goody huts are considered narrative events, so if you focus on explorers a bit, you could get a lot from it. Also, if I remember correctly, some of those additional narrative events have quite strong rewards.

 

[Leucarum]

Influence is the best yield in the game. He gets... Some bonuses towards it. That's fine. Still he feels more than a little lackluster if I'm being honest..

 

[Doratov]

He is the leader everyone sleeps on. But no joke, with Oracle, he is the GOAT. You can score perfect scores in every age with him. In Antiquity, on deity, I can usually build 9-12 wonders, such untouchables as the Pyramid Of The Sun as well. The culture rushes simply add up in an almost unnoticeable way.

 

[stealth_nsk]

Influence is the best yield in the game. He gets... Some bonuses towards it. That's fine. Still he feels more than a little lackluster if I'm being honest..

With 3 initial scouts, you could get goody huts every 2-3 turns in the opening phase of the game. Together with other narrative events it's possible to nearly double influence output in this phase.

But yes, if we compare to other jumpstart leaders, i.e. Isabella, the bonus is not big and not long.

 

[Leucarum]

With 3 initial scouts, you could get goody huts every 2-3 turns in the opening phase of the game. Together with other narrative events it's possible to nearly double influence output in this phase.

But yes, if we compare to other jumpstart leaders, i.e. Isabella, the bonus is not big and not long.

I don't hate his ability, it's aggressively fine. Grey was the right colour to pick for him IMO.

 

[Giskler]

Worst leader in the game, his ability reduces the rate at which you acquire new policy slots.

 

[disjointaccount]

Agree with everything being said here. The events are novel and fun, but he's definitely a bit weak. Also really not a fan of the extra celebration length slowing policy slot expansion like @Giskler said.

 

[pjotroos]

Worst leader in the game, his ability reduces the rate at which you acquire new policy slots.

Yeah, I played my very first game with him and didn't go back for that exact reason. The Celebration duration needs to be removed; I'm sure it was meant to be a beneficial effect, but for any reasonably played game it's a massive malus. The ability should just be the "Happiness towards Celebrations" bit.

 

[Krikkit1]

Yeah, I played my very first game with him and didn't go back for that exact reason. The Celebration duration needs to be removed; I'm sure it was meant to be a beneficial effect, but for any reasonably played game it's a massive malus. The ability should just be the "Happiness towards Celebrations" bit.

They could change it to +50% Happiness to Celebration, Celebration Duration AND 2 Slots per Celebration.
or +50% to Happiness toward Celebrations and +50% to Celebration Government Effects.

 

[Doratov]

The celebration length is not that simple. At the start of the game, you will not field enough happiness to chain them together, and maximize the policy slots. So having longer celebrations in actually beneficial to the player. It strengthens the window of the effects, and with the +20% culture, Rizal's event benefits have more chance to produce extra yields. And by that, you rush through the civic tree faster and, gobble up not just the juiciest wonders, but the extra policy slots quite fast. And sure next ages it turns around, but if you played a good Antiquity, those few lost slots will not matter, your snowball will overcome on them.

But I'm not against to buff Rizal, give him the extra policy card yield buff, I'm sure it'll be beneficial for super easy all wonders runs

 

[Krikkit1]

The celebration length is not that simple. At the start of the game, you will not field enough happiness to chain them together, and maximize the policy slots. So having longer celebrations in actually beneficial to the player. It strengthens the window of the effects, and with the +20% culture, Rizal's event benefits have more chance to produce extra yields. And by that, you rush through the civic tree faster and, gobble up not just the juiciest wonders, but the extra policy slots quite fast. And sure next ages it turns around, but if you played a good Antiquity, those few lost slots will not matter, your snowball will overcome on them.

But I'm not against to buff Rizal, give him the extra policy card yield buff, I'm sure it'll be beneficial for super easy all wonders runs

They could also change the mechanism of Celebrations
...Allow Celebrations to be Triggered while in a Celebration... which simply adds X turns to the Current Celebration Duration. (and gives the Social Policy Slot)

 

[pjotroos]

They could change it to +50% Happiness to Celebration, Celebration Duration AND 2 Slots per Celebration.
or +50% to Happiness toward Celebrations and +50% to Celebration Government Effects.

Yeah, I'm not too fussy about how it's changed, so long as it's no longer "you get 33% fewer policy slots" in Exploration and Modern.

 

[Giskler]

Celebration length buff is also the reason why I never build Taj Mahal, they really need to change that effect to something else.

 

[Doratov]

To be fair, the intention was probably that celebrations are a rarer thing, and the length stretch will be a coveted thing. But slowing things down - I'm not sure it'd be a good move from the devs. Not right now at least, when part of the community start to say snowball is the game.

 

[The Civs 6]

Who?

 

[Ryansinbela]

Who?

José Rizal - Wikipedia

en.wikipedia.org

 

[A_Most_Foolish_Fool]

Hey all! Created an account on here to say that I think Jose Rizal may be very underrated. Tempo is king in Civ VII from my experience and Rizal reliably starts the game with an extra 120 Gold, Culture, and Influence due to 6 narrative events that you will nearly always get by turn 30 on a standard map. 5 of these events are from his quest to meet other Civs and come with extra goody hut style bonuses as well, while the 6th is related to your civ choice (I tend to go with Han as they are strong, synergize with Rizal's ability, and the Shi Dafu can have additional narrative events; Han's first narrative event is I think related to killing a unit with the Chu-Ko-Nu, which is pretty easy to get accidentally very early). That extra culture means you often have your choice of Pantheon which if you are not sure what to pick, could always use to go with a Pantheon that has two more narrative events associated with it. The extra influence means that in the very early game, you can both suzerain that city state that you want as well as launch and support early endeavors to form key alliances. I recently played a game where I was able to drown Xerxes KoK Persia in negative war support and was fairly quickly able to take their capital even despite the waves of Immortals, all of the combat bonuses Xerxes and Persia have, and the deity combat bonuses, which to be honest surprised me at the time. I'd explain the usefulness of early Gold tempo, but I think everyone is familiar with Isabella, so I will move on from that.

The lengthier celebrations mean that you get that 20% bonus the entire game without any effort. Pairing this with any Wine or Fur Resources on the map ensures that you get that 20% bonus in whatever you want, plus those additional Gold and Culture bonuses consistently, which can add up quickly. I know a lot of folks tend to say that it is easy to chain celebrations, but generally if you can chain celebrations easily without Rizal's bonuses (or those of a similar leader or Civ like Ashoka WR or Maurya), then you probably aren't pushing past your settlement limit far enough and your economy is suffering for it.

As far as policy slots go, I suppose my question is how many of those are needed to offset having a permanent 20% bonus to a yield of your choice? I often find in non-Rizal games that a lot of the ones I slot in the last spots are fairly mediocre, but again all of that is anecdotal and there is a lot more time needed to determine which is more important on average since there a lot of variables that can play into things. Generally, I prefer the constant 20% bonus over a civic with a smaller yield I don't care as much about, but that is just my opinion. Curious as to what y'all think!

 

[Ryansinbela]

Rizal was the first leader I got a non-score victory with