Leader Discussion - Xerxes, King of Kings

[disjointaccount]

I was deliberating just holding off on Xerxes to have the double bill for both personas after Blackbeard, but figured breaking them up might be nice for the sake of variety. So let's get into Xerxes, King of Kings.
His leader ability is Crusher of Rebellions, which is a four-parter:

• +3 Combat Strength for Units that are attacking in neutral or enemy territory
• +100 Culture and Gold per Age upon capturing a Settlement for the first time
• +10% Gold in all Settlements, doubled in Settlements not founded by you
• +1 Settlement Limit per Age

His attributes are Economic and Militaristic, giving him access to the Open Markets and Military Aid endeavors, along with events for attribute points upon researching Code of Laws and Authority (per this post).
He has a starting bias for desert terrain.
Playing as Xerxes unlocks Abbasid (otherwise unlocked by improving 3 Camels) and Mongolia (otherwise unlocked by improving 3 Horses or having 3 siege units) in the Exploration Age, and Qajar (otherwise unlocked by having a settlement with at least 5 specialists), Mughal (otherwise unlocked by improving 3 Salt or having trade routes with at least 4 unique civilisations), and Russia (otherwise unlocked by having 3 settlements in tundra terrain) in the Modern Age.
As an AI leader, his agenda is Lord of Fire - Decrease Relationship by a Medium Amount when a player is not at War. Increase Relationship by a Small Amount when a player is at War.

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

 

[Siptah]

He does what he‘s supposed to do: aggressive conquering. And he does that quite well. He doesn‘t seem to be OP, but all of his bonuses are useful and come in making aggressive conquering easier or more rewarding. A bit of a shame that what counts as conquered is reset in each age in this case, but it makes sense for the game at large .

Edit: as for civs, the obvious Persia into Mongols works well. It would probably what I‘d choose when I would attempt a game that ends in exploration by conquest.

 

[Krikkit1]

The double counting of Settlement Limit bonuses means he gets +6 settlement Limit by Modern. Nice exploit for true wide.

 

[Leucarum]

I think he has my favourite version of the various CS buffs... And the extra settlement limit is really useful.

Not my favourite Xerxes but he's fun.

 

[magicq99]

A bit of a shame that what counts as conquered is reset in each age in this case, but it makes sense for the game at large .

Thank you for this info, I was not aware of this. I always assumed that the game keeps track of who founded which settlement across all ages.

The double counting of Settlement Limit bonuses means he gets +6 settlement Limit by Modern. Nice exploit for true wide.

Are you sure that this is an exploit and not the intended behaviour? To me it seems intended that this gives +1 +2 +3 = 6 in total across all ages. After all, from a bonus like "+200 Gold per Age" you would also expect to get a total of 1200 Gold.

 

[Krikkit1]

Thank you for this info, I was not aware of this. I always assumed that the game keeps track of who founded which settlement across all ages.


Are you sure that this is an exploit and not the intended behaviour? To me it seems intended that this gives +1 +2 +3 = 6 in total across all ages. After all, from a bonus like "+200 Gold per Age" you would also expect to get a total of 1200 Gold.

The difference is gold is accumulated and spent while settlement limit is just there.
Also the duplication means an advanced start only gives him +3.

Catherine’s bonus gives her +6 culture /GW in modern not +12 (+2+4+6)

Whether intentional or not it means Xerxes KoK can practically ignore Settlement Limits in Modern with some setup.

 

[magicq99]

Maybe my post above is misleading. I was drawing the comparison with a one time bonus of +200 Gold per Age at the start of each age, not a per turn yield of +200 Gold per age.

And I do not see the difference here between such a lump sum of gold and the additional settlement limit. I see both as being accumulated. The settlement limit is not "just there", it can be increased during each age and is "spent" when you found or conquer a new settlement, this is just tallied differently as an addition to the number of settlements rather than a deduction from the limit. But this could easily be counted differently, with a balance of zero if you are at the limit and a positive/negative balance if you are below/above the limit.

But in the end the settlement limit is the accumulated balance of all your bonus yields, just like with Gold.

And with a lump sum of Gold per age, you also do not get the Gold you would have gotten in previous ages with an advanced start. But you can carry the Gold over in your balance from previous ages during a normal transition. The settlement limit works in the same way, imho. So with an advanced start in Modern with Xerxes you get the +3. But if you had played this from Antiquity, you would get this on top of the +1 and +2 which were granted in the earlier ages and are carried over in your balance. With the lump sum of Gold per age this works the same.

The +6 culture per Great Work on the other hand is a per turn yield and not a one-time lump sum during each age. But again, the balance you have accumulated from this yield in earlier ages can be carried over to the next age. So Catherine can also have more culture at the start of the next age carried over from previous ages, if she gathered more culture because of her ability than she would have otherwise, which is also not present in an advanced start.

To me there is no difference here, from my point of view this seems to work as intended. And IIRC this was already discussed in another thread a couple of weeks ago.

I think you expect this bonus to give "+1 settlement limit at the start of each age". But it actually says "+1 settlement limit per age". To me this means you get granted +1/+2/+3 in each age, which should add up to +6 in Modern, if you started in Antiquity. Maybe they should clarify this bonus as "+1 settlement limit per age at the start of each age". But I think that this is the intended behaviour, since there is a one-time increase of the limit at the start of each age. And this increase is added on top of whatever is carried over from the previous age.

 

[disjointaccount]

I like KoK a lot. +3 CS on aggressive wars (which are most of my wars) is fantastic, and having a bunch of other solid abilities on top of that is just a bonus.

I had no idea his settlement limit stuff snowballed to have +6 in modern like that. My understanding was that settlement limit standardises at the start of each age (everyone starts at 8 in explo and 16 in modern), regardless of whatever bonuses you had in the previous age (ie. coming off of Carthage, you don't start with 2 more settlement limit than someone coming off of Aksum). Is it the case that having already had a cap higher than the age's base does carry over (and the standardisation is only to bring people below that number up to level the playing field, not bring those already ahead down) and I've just never played that wide and as such never encountered it? Or Xerxes' cap increase specifically carries over because as a leader he's kind of an ageless mechanic?

It seems a bit counterintuitive to me, given how, as mentioned, pretty much every other "per age" mechanics is just [listed number] x [age] rather than additively stacking that calculation for each age played.

 

[stealth_nsk]

I like KoK a lot. +3 CS on aggressive wars (which are most of my wars) is fantastic, and having a bunch of other solid abilities on top of that is just a bonus.

I had no idea his settlement limit stuff snowballed like that. My understanding was that settlement limit standardises at the start of each age (everyone starts at 8 in explo and 16 in modern), regardless of whatever bonuses you had in the previous age (ie. coming off of Carthage, you don't start with 2 more settlement limit than someone coming off of Aksum). Is it the case that having already had a cap higher than the age's base does carry over (and the standardisation is only to bring people below that number up to level the playing field, not bring those already ahead down) and I've just never played that wide and as such never encountered it? Or Xerxes' cap increase specifically carries over because as a leader he's kind of an ageless mechanic?

It seems a bit counterintuitive to me, given how, as mentioned, pretty much every other "per age" mechanics is just [listed number] x [age] rather than additively stacking that calculation for each age played.

If you end era with higher cap, you start next era with this value. I was able to finish antiquity with the cap of 11 (without Xerxes, otherwise it would be 12) and started with this value in exploration.

 

[disjointaccount]

If you end era with higher cap, you start next era with this value. I was able to finish antiquity with the cap of 11 (without Xerxes, otherwise it would be 12) and started with this value in exploration.

Ah, ok, thanks. That makes sense then. Had no idea it worked that way, I've always favoured somewhat taller play (I think for no other reason than I'm lazy so I optimise for less actions per turn lol) so I guess I've never felt a need to push the cap as high as I can.

Out of curiosity, how do you get 11?

• 6 from regular gameplay
• 2 from eg. Carthage
• .... I'm realising how little settlement limit is a mechanic I concern myself with haha. I'm guessing city states can give some?

 

[stealth_nsk]

Ah, ok, thanks. That makes sense then. Had no idea it worked that way, I've always favoured somewhat taller play (I think for no other reason than I'm lazy so I optimise for less actions per turn lol) so I guess I've never felt a need to push the cap as high as I can.

Out of curiosity, how do you get 11?

• 6 from regular gameplay
• 2 from eg. Carthage
• .... I'm realising how little settlement limit is a mechanic I concern myself with haha. I'm guessing city states can give some?

6 base + 2 from Carthage + 2 from City-States (both Militaristic and Exploration could give +1 if AI don't beat you to them) + 1 from Memento

 

[uppi]

6 base + 2 from Carthage + 2 from City-States (both Militaristic and Exploration could give +1 if AI don't beat you to them) + 1 from Memento

You can also get +1 from the Militaristic attribute tree, which you should be able to do with Xerxes. So if you manage to find and befriend a Militaristic and and Expansionist city state (which is usually possible, but you can be unlucky), Xerxes can achieve 13 at the end of Antiquity (20 at the start of Exploration).

Theoretically, there is also a +1 in the Expansionist tree, which would make it 14, but Xerxes is unable to get there without some insane luck at future techs/civics.