Leaders you first beat new difficulty level with

[CornPlanter]

Yes, I'm pretty bored and gotta kill some time

These lists probably won't prove anything but we might see some interesting trends.

I'm going to exclude one leader from my list, that is Darius, because I always tend to do far better with him than my normal difficulty level. Otherwise my list would be like this: Darius, Darius, Darius, Darius, Darius...

1. Warlord - I started civ4 at this level. Dont remember the leader I first won with But most likely Tokugawa back in Vanilla times. Used to play him a lot.
2. Noble - dont remember either.
3. Prince - Alexander of Greece. I dont remember was it Warlords of BtS already. Domination.
4. Monarch Toku of Japan, it was also my first enforced UN victory abusing vassals BtS
5. Emperor - Pericles of Greece. Culture.
6. Immortal - Elizabeth of England. Domination.
7. Deity - it's unlikely I will ever give a shot at Deity. Civ 5 is comming...

 

[TheMeInTeam]

Settler - Washington of USA. Accidental culture win.
Chieftain - Don't remember.
Warlord - Probably USA, Washington or Roosevelt
Noble - Don't remember.
Prince - Don't remember.
Monarch - Churchill of England in Cam_H's game where we were not allowed to build libraries or run caste. It was a complete gamble, playing up a difficulty with restrictions. This was one of my earliest iterations of a horse archer charge.
Emperor - PYL II: Backstabbers. I used catherine, and backdoor'd an AP victory on the strength of the broken random event, "best defense".
Immortal - Immortal University V - Hannibal. Another AP game, but this one with some conquering to secure the wonder. I skid across the finish line as my super runaway AI ally sury nearly won UN himself, but instead awkwardly voted me AP winner since I did not yet have mass media and he was friendly.
Deity - My first couple Deity wins were all AP (I actually forget which leader I cheesed to win first), although since then I've completed every VC on deity except conquest and time on a standard map. My odds of doing so in any one game are not so good.

 

[babar]

Settler/Chieftan - I picked Germany because I thought the Panzer looked like the best UU. I think it must have been domination, but I never saw any tanks. Still haven't used a Panzer to this day.
After that it would have been Julius/Cyrus until Monarch, always domination.
Monarch - Peter, because I was dead keen on the SE and I figured the Research Institutes would save me if I was still lagging at the end. Again, Domination, finishing long before the RIs arrived.
Emperor - Julius, domination
Immortal - One City Peter, Space Race! Followed by a CHA/PHI Greek leader (modded because CHA/PHI didn't exist in Warlords), domination.
Deity No way

 

[Caeserportugal]

Settle - Actually it was the civ4 tutorial with Julius Caeser. Got a counquest victory.

Cheiftain - Domination victory on a Continents map with Julius Caeser. Was my only chieftain game

Warlord - Played 6 games on warlord. My first victory was with Washington a diplo victory. I also won my first space victory on this diffulty with Mansa

Noble - When I returned to playing CIV4 on BTS I played on Noble got a victory as Augustus I think it was domination though I can't remember. The second I remember won with Ramsses and was my first culturul victory

Prince - Only won it twice - The first with Julius Caeser was a backdoor domination through the UN. The second yesterday as Gandhi a space race vitory.

 

[ParadigmShifter]

Settler - Elizabeth via space race http://hof.civfanatics.net/civ4/game_info.php?dsply=&entryID=8206
Chieftain - Willem via conquest http://hof.civfanatics.net/civ4/game_info.php?dsply=&entryID=13672
Warlord - first was a domination win with Stalin, denied due to 2 crashes in the HoF
First HoF accepted game: Charile via Time http://hof.civfanatics.net/civ4/game_info.php?dsply=&entryID=17273
Noble - can't remember, started on this level.
Prince - Alexander via space http://hof.civfanatics.net/civ4/game_info.php?dsply=&entryID=7082
Monarch - Ragnar via domination http://hof.civfanatics.net/civ4/game_info.php?dsply=&entryID=8504
Emperor - Augustus (warlords version) via domination http://hof.civfanatics.net/civ4/game_info.php?dsply=&entryID=10743
Immortal - Justinian via AP cheese http://hof.civfanatics.net/civ4/game_info.php?dsply=&entryID=15309
First legit Immortal win: Darius via Space Colony http://hof.civfanatics.net/civ4/game_info.php?dsply=&entryID=15523
Deity - Saldin via AP cheese http://hof.civfanatics.net/civ4/game_info.php?dsply=&entryID=16080

 

[TheMeInTeam]

If spawn trash and events are somehow "legit", then so is AP.

 

[ParadigmShifter]

Nah I didn't feel like I had "won" when my caravels were carting around missionaries whilst I saw destroyers

EDIT: You know I don't game starts TMIT - barbs on always, huts on, events on, random opponents - even at Immortal and Deity. No mapfinder.

 

[allunderheaven]

Chieftain: can't remember
Warlord: Qin Shi Huang? Culture? A little foggy on this one.
Noble: Zara Yaqob, domination
Prince: Lizzie of England (a space race victory) along with a domination win as Stalin
Monarch and above : Can't predict the future...

 

[JustinianVII]

I pretty much never play a game through until its end. The first actual victory I scored was a domination on Prince with Lincoln.

 

[TheMeInTeam]

Nah I didn't feel like I had "won" when my caravels were carting around missionaries whilst I saw destroyers

EDIT: You know I don't game starts TMIT - barbs on always, huts on, events on, random opponents - even at Immortal and Deity. No mapfinder.

All besides the point. If spawns are so broken that one side can get 30% land w/o war on a standard 7 civ map, AP abuse fits riiiiiiight in. Same thing when it comes to winning off something like "best defense" quest.

AP is one of 6 victory conditions in the game, and fireaxis/2k has told us time and again patch after patch after effing patch that they feel it 100% holds up as a victory condition. They patched away "too-strong" things like the spread culture mission (temporarily), overflow gold, and diplo win self-voting, but have never once touched balance of how to win AP other than that blanket change. How many patches were released since BTS, keeping the AP intact?

Well, not as many patches as have had broken game controls actually. Nevertheless, the AP is "legit" just as much as every other gameplay feature until it gets patched. It does happen to be one of the few features that flagrantly favors the human, but then again we have things like FLAGRANT LYING GUI, the computer cheating in ways unrelated to difficulty, instant game-over events, completely luck-based outcomes (spawn trash), flagrant anti-human trade bias (don't even try to pretend it isn't there), and AIs that don't even make a passing attempt at victory just so another one can get unruly.

If all that BS is legit by someone's standards, if EVENTS are legit by someone's standards, then it is hypocritical to call the AP anything but legit.

Personally, I think the AP is as broken as many of the other features, but if they actually balanced spawns and took away AIs that hand other AIs super positions on a silver platter, took away the cheats/map hacks/etc, then I'd be happy to see the uberbroken AP get nerfed to balance too.

They're committed to making sure the game remains broken in both directions, apparently.

 

[ParadigmShifter]

Oh lighten up Mr. Grumpy Wump!

It's a fun game!

 

[BornInCantaloup]

1 - Settler - Yet to come
2 - Chieftain - Yet to come
3 - Warlord - Yet to come
4 - Noble - Yet to come
5 - Prince - Yet to come
6 - Monarch - Yet to come
7 - Emperor - Hatchepsout the beautiful. Only win at Emperor difficulty.
8 - Immortal - Yet to come
9 - Deity - Yet to come


Impressed, heh ?

 

[itg]

Settler - Gandhi, space
skipped chieftain and warlord
Noble - Louis, space
Prince - Gandhi, domination
Monarch - Hatshepsut, space
Emperor - Darius, space
Immortal - Kublai, diplomatic (totally peaceful, incidentally)
Deity - Depends on what counts as a win. 1st was a duel map quechua rush. 2nd Earth18 as Rome (edit: diplo victory for that one). 3rd Ramesses OCC AP. No "true" win as of yet.

 

[mechaerik]

Settler: I think Cyrus of the greeks, Diplo.
Chieftan: Cant remember
Warlord: Cant remember
Noble: Willem, conquest/domination (I got both)
Prince: Willem, domination
Monarch: hatty, Domination.
Emperor: Not yet, but trying.
Immortal/Deity: Not yet.

 

[NetGear]

Used play a lot of mansa musa and saladin in noob vanilla days (spi/fin and spi/phi). Obviously 1 for Ce game and other for se game. Hated the fact that mansa didn't start with myst because I used to like whoring religion. Spi back then was considered top trait too.

Also liz back in the day, liz and catherine had lethal UUs (increased strength instead of bonus they have now). Played those exclusively for awhile.

My first emperor victory during bts day was darius or willem iirc. I had a period when I was obsessed with those so that's likely.

 

[SirElmo]

Well ive never won before

except for the tutorial but that doesnt count

 

[Lemon Merchant]

Settler - Lemon Merchant
Chieftain - Lemon Merchant
Warlord - Lemon Merchant
Noble - Lemon Merchant
Prince - Lemon Merchant
Monarch - Lemon Merchant

Well? Who were you expecting? I don't let the other leaders use my computer.

 

[MrCynical]

Warlord - Saladin. I only played one at this level - space race.
Noble - Alexander. Also space race.
Prince - Can't remember. Might have skipped this level.
Monarch - Julius Caesar. Domination, mostly thanks to the UU.
Emperor - Hannibal. Space Race.
Immortal - Ragnar. Culture - though I was almost at the domination limit anyway.
Deity - Pericles. Space Race - very marginally with an AI and its vassals controlling virtually all the rest of the map and only missing a bit of population for domination.

Tends to be space race at the higher levels as it's the easiest victory condition in my opinion. Even with a more powerful AI a few techs ahead they're usually sufficiently incompetant at actually getting the ship built that they can be beaten to launch.

 

[[username]]

Settler - Mansa Musa. Time victory. I was trying domnination, but my last war against Capac didn't go to well and I had 1% land missing.
Chieftain - Boudica. Conquest (with vassals though) on a huge inland sea map. Only map I've played so far where the barbs must have been close to domination, they had a ton of cities.
Warlord - Willem, on Archipelago. Featured my first nuclear war, which resulted in conquest.
Noble - None yet. I screwed up a few, but NC37 Victoria is looking promising right now.