Next ALC game: Louis or Napoleon?

[Sisiutil]

OR

?​

In the next All Leaders Challenge game I'll be playing as one of the French leaders: either Napoleon Bonaparte or Louis XIV.

Based on previous feedback, especially after playing back-to-back games as the two Chinese leaders, I'll only play one game as France for now, and may come back to play as the other leader much later on. Since Louis and Nappy share a trait (Industrious) as well as starting techs and UU, this will avoid, I hope, too much immediate repetition in the ALC games.

Before you vote, please consider the main goals of the ALC series:

• Instruction: I started the ALC series so that I and others could learn and improve our games. Which leader offers the best chance to do this?
• Entertainment: Okay, I'm a bit of a drama queen. So sue me. But hey, ya gotta keep everyone interested. Which leader would you most enjoy in watching in action?
• Variety: This kind of fits into entertainment, but remember the "challenge" is to play a game as each leader, especially those that are used less often. I'd prefer to play a game as the less popular of the two leaders, but I'm not sure who that is in this case. In addition, whichever leader will offer the best variation from previous ALC threads should also be considered.

So which one should it be? Vote and voice your opinion and let me know.

 

[Weird Piggy]

Play Louis and be a culture whore. In my noble game, he was left alone on a continent and London has 5 wonders and 15k+ more culture than any other city. Of course he's way behind in tech and crap though.

 

[VoiceOfUnreason]

RB Adventure 8 - The French Revolution just closed. That game used Louis; whether that suggests playing him (because there's been lots of discussion of him recently) or avoiding him (for the same reason) is up to you.

 

[futurehermit]

creative vs. aggressive.

the unique points for each:

louis: cultural victory less common i think so that would be interesting
napoleon: opportunity to grab pyramids and oracle-CoL to run specialist econ while going hardcore aggressive.

both would be interesting.

 

[Gnarfflinger]

I said Louis. Napolean would simply run Axe-rush, Mace Rush, Musketeer rush, recolonize then try to push for Domination. We did that with Hatty...

 

[Murky]

I voted for Napolean.

 

[Eggolas]

You're a warmonger, so go with Napoleon. Although Louis is quite good at building empires, Napoleon can be played aggressively.

As a bonus, you might be able to initiate a bee-line to gunpowder and use the Musketeer rush strategy discussed on the forum (there is a thread on it).

I love the aggressive trait. With Industrious, you have a chance to catch a couple of early wonders that will make your warmongering a lot easier.

 

[Judge Dee]

I voted Louis. I'd be interested in seeing an early war (where you ignore cultural buildings & religions and let the auto-culture expand your boundaries for you) followed by a smug builder mid to late game, where you grab as many wonders as you can. Use the musketeers in a late expansion war to clean up your first or second continent. Possibly a diplomatic victory at the end, just for kicks.

 

[stuge]

Take Louis and go pretty peaceful from the beginning. Perhaps clean diplomatic or another cultural. It would be interesting to see a game where you don't own a whole continent.

 

[jayseedubya]

what exactly is a specialist economy?

 

[Argoth]

One where you run a ton of specialists in your cities as opposed to working tiles.

 

[Sisiutil]

Interesting points.

Napoleon pretty much means warmongering. Actually, that's true for any Aggressive civ; to do otherwise would be to waste one of their traits.

Louis could be played several different ways, as indicated by the suggestions in the posts thus far. No wonder he's leading.

VoU, I haven't looked at the RB game, on purpose, since I knew this one was coming up. I was kind of torn--yes I'd benefit from the strategic discussion, but from a novelty/entertainment standpoint, I'd prefer to not rehash another recent, posted set of games. I'm sure I can rely on yourself and others to distill the lessons learned there for me.

I'll let the poll run to the end of today and then go with the majority decision. Then I'll start the pre-game thread.

 

[FoolontheHill]

I voted for Louis as we've seen a good bit of warmongering so far in the SLCs (of course, we may see some with Louis ). Creative and industrious open up some interesting challenges like how fast can you launch, how fast can you win culturally, etc.

 

[pigswill]

Whichever Leader you go for you get the same UU. Obvious point is you can't upgrade to Musketeer which may have implications for your early warmongering. If you went with Louis you could go for Rex start, develop early territory then musketeer rush the continent (you could do the same with Nap but you don't get the early culture expansion).

 

[Gnarfflinger]

I for one would like to see a game where an early war is not pushed on us. And I think that Louis may be that leader. There still may be the obligatory axe rush, and maybe a Mace Rush, but Musketeers will likely handle the brunt of the military needs...

 

[Nares]

I was kind of torn between who to vote for.

I agree with how Louis lends himself to a Cultural victory, in particular a isolated start Cultural victory. But, short of reloading the map and checking it out with World Builder, I think you'd invariably end up finding yourself forced into the same kind of wars that are typical of CIV. They're really too much of a necessity to avoid.

I ended up voting for Napoleon because I think this particular combination of UU and traits makes for a slightly less common approach. A Metal Casting slingshot, combined with some different Great Person usage focusing primarily on GEs and GMs, and more of a Pillaging war via Musketeers and Knights, would add some variety.

 

[Mutineer]

I ended up voting for Napoleon because I think this particular combination of UU and traits makes for a slightly less common approach. A Metal Casting slingshot, combined with some different Great Person usage focusing primarily on GEs and GMs, and more of a Pillaging war via Musketeers and Knights, would add some variety.

For this strategy to be effective difficulty need to be rumped up to Monarch/Emperor level.

You will find that Efficiency of strats depends on dificulty level a lot. It was allways true for all civ games.

On higher dificulty AI is more developed, so, pillage there land bring mach more money. You may think about it as adding new elements to game.
Up to monarch you can easy win only based on your own development, after that you need to learn to exploite AI to full extend. Warmondering is a basic way to exploite otherr civ, but not the only one.

 

[kniteowl]

NAPOLEON!!! WHY?

Personally When I play with him I'd beeline to Preisthood Pick up the oracle get Metal Casting as a Free Tech so I can build those cheap forges quickly.

Once I got a Barracks and Forge in a Production City, Its time to pump out Free Combat 1 units and knock out a Civ or two lol.

Early Collosus near the coast wouldn't be bad either.

 

[voek]

I voted for Louis, but the next second I chanced my mind.. The reason i voted for Louis was, since I was thinking at Emperor level, where you won't have a chance to build many wonders even being industrious. So that would certainly a challenge. But you have build many wonders before in the ALC, so you certainly can being industrious. Wonders+culture is culture vic. Few suprises, few challenges.

So,

I revote for Nappie. Although a millitary genious, I dont think his traits are realy great together. The only good war-combo is: oracle =) metal casting imho.

I would like to see that. Wonderbuilding + warmongering is not the greatest combo...

I never use musketeers, so i am curious for their use.

 

[Killroyan]

Voted Louis. Diplomatic victory to make things worse on monarch level You wanted a challenge, I am proposing one to you. On a serious level, industrious/creative is a strange combination also and I wouldn't know how to really play this guy so I am very interested in that.