Leaders: How to play them and how to play against them!

[Iranon]

I can't decide whether that 'guide' is painful to read or hilarious... the only sure thing is that I lose a few brain cells for every paragraph.

 

[ParadigmShifter]

Hah I'm reading the civs guide on IGN now. Monty very strong for a cultural victory? Wow...

EDIT: LOL

ANALYSIS
Intelligence is definitely not the strong suit of the French, which forces them to normally be on or behind the curve of technology. They'll produce things quickly, so it may behoove you to consider the French as a military civilization, even though they really aren't. The French, in fact, aren't much of anything, and shouldn't be played except by hardcore Civ players who tend to win every match.

EDIT2: LOL2

ANALYSIS
The Incas are a challenge, but they can hold their own in the beginning of the match due to their unique unit and building coming very early. Still, they'll need to be on the ball and constantly expanding if they want to exist in the last turns of the game.

LOL3

ANALYSIS
India is one of the most peaceful nations in the game, and focuses on expansion due to culture. If you play as India, your strength will be in research and exploiting your resources like crazy. Getting into wars will blow you away, so make sure that any military units you create are used defensively. Diplomacy will be important, because if you screw with your rivals and bring their wrath, you won't survive to see 2050 AD.

 

[Iranon]

It's worth it to quote the entry for Huayna Capac...

The Incans and Zulus are the weakest two civilizations in the game, and because of Huayna Capac's attributes, the Incans are easily the worse of the two. Although the combination theoretically gives the Incans a good economy, they won't be able to take enough land to suck in the resources and churn out enough money to offset their weaknesses. In other words, they suck, and no amount of gold they make will change that. If you're going for a handicap match, have the better player pick the Incans to even things out.

So apparently the HoF crowd ban them to save players from unnecessarily difficult games...

*brain implodes*

 

[QuixotesGhost]

ANALYSIS
India is one of the most peaceful nations in the game, and focuses on expansion due to culture. If you play as India, your strength will be in research and exploiting your resources like crazy. Getting into wars will blow you away, so make sure that any military units you create are used defensively. Diplomacy will be important, because if you screw with your rivals and bring their wrath, you won't survive to see 2050 AD.

Ghandi is my favorite warmonger .

 

[ParadigmShifter]

Maybe the IGN article was written by Attacko.

 

[michmbk]

I don't know how everyone got past the page on civics on the IGN guide. I nearly fell out of my chair with these three quotes:


Caste:
"I despise the Caste System, because as I've said in other sections, specialist citizens are overrated. Stick with Serfdom, it will pay off bigger in the end."

And on slavery:

"The only real benefit is the ability to sacrifice your people to finish a building, which is not a recommended strategy."

And of course, the best labor civic, serfdom:

"This is a very, very good civic in the early turns. "

I think I've only used serfdom when spiritual, and when making a big change from farms to workshops/watermills after communism. I really do feel dumber having read the civics section of that guide.

 

[PieceOfMind]

The guide is not even for BtS. I don't remember seeing esp mentioned once, and they said holy cities gave line of sight... Warlords maybe?

more lols from

"You can sacrifice the Great Prophet in a city to create a Shrine, which generates income for your civilization's treasury from every city in the world"

And this one...

"This automatic spreading of religion goes faster if:

* The city receiving the religion has few, if any, religions in it already. If a city has six already, it will be nearly impossible to gain the seventh.
* The receiving city is within the same civilization's borders as the spreading city.
* The spreading city possesses one or more of the religious buildings, such as temples.
* The civilization of the receiving city has the same state religion as whatever religion is trying to be spread. "

I got bored reading it...

 

[Stewie0416]

You should check out their "sample game"
The guy beelined the religious techs, founded Hindu. CONVERTED even though Gilgamesh was right under him and was a different religion, and settled his 4th city at 125AD

Did i mention this is noble? and he lost as well

 

[ventrue]

That is why I am hoping to hear about the rest of the leaders in this thread.

Before I found out about this forum and all of the really talented players, I actually used some of the advice on that piece of crap IGN article, lol

Anyhow, thanks to this forum, I have improved from Warlord to Prince, but I still have a long way to go.

 

[The Almighty dF]

That is why I am hoping to hear about the rest of the leaders in this thread.

Before I found out about this forum and all of the really talented players, I actually used some of the advice on that piece of crap IGN article, lol

Anyhow, thanks to this forum, I have improved from Warlord to Prince, but I still have a long way to go.

I'm a noble player personally, but I'm loving this (MadScientist's, not IGN's) guide. There's a lot of leaders I just don't know how to play.
Hatshepsut, both Chinese leaders, the American leaders, De Gaulle and Napoleon of France...

 

[madscientist]

Updated my list to include Lady Boudica!

 

[The Almighty dF]

I think I know what leader I'd like to see added here soon.
Saladin.
It seems like he's one of the least favorite leaders on the forums. I'll agree, combined with his weak UU (only useful if for some reason you don't have horses) and a UB that isn't that doesn't seem to go with everything else (his traits combined with his UU and his AI suggest that he's a warmonger, but you don't need the extra culture if you're a warmonger. The +2 alone will be alright for landgrabs.)

 

[obsolete]

I learned long ago never to trust magazine articles on game reviews, particularly if the game-distributor was running adds in that publication.

But out of curiosity, I took a look at that game review...

Now, this means that certain religions will be certainly researched and founded before others. Hinduism will probably be the first discovered, and Christianity one of the last.

Uhh, it is pretty much Islam that is going to be last there buddy.

Also, when you found a religion and gain a Holy City, you will get a Great Prophet. You can sacrifice the Great Prophet in a city to create a Shrine, which generates income for your civilization's treasury from every city in the world.

Uhh, no you do not gain a Prophet from a Holy City, these come from the gene-pool from GPPs. And it is not considered a sacrifice. And no, you do not gain income from every city in the world...

By the way, Great Prophets may be randomly born for you even when you didn't found a religion. If, say, you take over a Holy City from another civilization, and you randomly wind up with a new Great Prophet, you can burn him to create a Shrine in your new area.

Taking over a Holy City alone does not mean you will get a GP! Certainly if it does not have a shrine in it like you are trying to create! And if you were running a priest economy it would not be considered random, it would be definite. Also you KNOW when you are going to pop a GP, it is not random, but calculated.

...you will gain ridiculous amounts of cash....That's a crapload of culture, and can make border towns crazy large, not to mention huge threats during border wars or for cultural victories.

-

That doesn't mean it makes religion illegal, just that there is no "official" religion for your country. (This is like how, up until 2006, the United States had no "official" language. Congress passed a law to make English the official language, although that didn't exactly change anyone's daily life.)

[sic].

For a guy who seems to be an expert on grammarian and linguistics issues, he sure has a very unorthodox use of adjectives and adverbs for a magazine article.

I also find it very intriguing that he spends at least the first three large paragraphs apologizing and being very Politically-Correctly cautious about the different religions, and possible company lawsuits. He also tries to mention how the article is not meant to offend anyone from any of the mentioned religions, but then later gives us a comment like this:

If Washington has Judaism, and New York doesn't but is a few tiles away, those damn Yankees will probably start singing "I Have a Little Dreidel" within a few turns.

Quite a few other problems I have with this article, like mentioning how the Holy City automatically lets you see into other cities. IIRC you had to have the SHRINE built first for that vision to work. It does not matter now since the feature was removed, but still another big flaw in that article.

I shall stop here or this post will be pages long. I will not even bother getting into his weird talk about missionaries and sacrificing them too, LOL.

 

[The Almighty dF]

Yeah... IGN is kinda famous for being ignorant.
You can find that same level of intelligence in other guides as well as their reviews.
They also love to make lists like "Greatest Cartoons Ever" and include stuff that will anger people in order to generate hits. Like saying that Family Guy and Neon Genesis Evangelion are in the top 10, that Beavis and Butthead are in the top 5, that Naruto is the 33rd greatest piece of animation ever, etc.

I've always imagined their offices to look something similar to the sets for HeeHaw.

 

[Bandobras Took]

Small note . . . you suggest Agriculture and Pottery for Tokugawa ASAP, but it's worth mentioning that he can get Pottery directly by starting with Fishing and the Wheel.

 

[ventrue]

If you have any spare time, could you do Roosevelt and Washington next?

I am going down the list and trying to win with every leader.

Thanks a lot!

 

[ventrue]

You can scratch off Roosevelt. I just won a space race with him. It was a pretty easy game and I didn't go to war the whole game. I think he is pretty good for space race, you just have to be sure to keep your power level up.

I am moving on to Washington next. I love the charismatic trait and expansive is fun also. I will probably go for another space race with him.

 

[Bostock]

You can scratch off Roosevelt. I just won a space race with him. It was a pretty easy game and I didn't go to war the whole game. I think he is pretty good for space race, you just have to be sure to keep your power level up.

Vegeta! What's the scouter say about Roosevelt's power level?!

(*ducks*)

 

[ventrue]

Vegeta! What's the scouter say about Roosevelt's power level?!

(*ducks*)

it's over 9000 years old, just like the joke, ha ha

Anyhow, Roosevelt was actually a lot better than I expected. I thought I would lose for sure with him.

 

[The Almighty dF]

Roosevelt's medium difficulty.
Washington however... he's a REXer judging by his traits, but his UU and UB are both late game.
Lincoln seems like the ultimate specialist economy leader, though. Philosophical + higher population limit.