Rank the Aggressive Leaders

[Ibian]

We had a discussion recently about the UU, the Jaguar, and the conclusion was that having the Jaguar is an overall plus for the Aztecs.

Not to start the argument again, but i still disagree with that. A sword can take out a protective archer in a 40% culture city. If that sword is celtic, it can do it on a hill too. And hills never disappear.

Jags need SOMETHING that makes them better on the offense in forests. Being a roadblock is simply not enough of a selling point.

 

[mystyfly]

^^ It depends on your goals. The jag is no unit that can conquer the world (like the praet) but if you get DOWd early you're likely in a bad situation, probabely even resourceless (though you shouldn't), then the jag is a very nice unit to keep you alive. Or you use it to stagnate the other AI's growth. A fortified jag in a forests is nearly impossible to kill. And worker stealing is silly easy with the jag.

 

[DMOC]

Interesting to see that Genghis Khan has more votes than his grandson.

 

[Artichoker]

Interesting to see that Genghis Khan has more votes than his grandson.

It's a shame, isn't it?

Even after they expanded the building discounts for Creative...yet's he's still in last, by a significant margin.

Not to mention...the last poll for Protective leaders featured Gilgamesh (Protective/Creative) in a close tie for 1st with Churchill. That same trait--Creative--isn't helping Kublai Khan win any votes this time.

On the other hand, Mao Zedong (Protective/Expansive) came in dead last in the other poll, but Shaka (Aggressive/Expansive) takes the same trait and comes in a close race for 1st.

That's the way it goes...

 

[InFlux5]

Kublai is the best land-grabber in the game, being incredibly well-suited to domination victories. Creative allows you to war without worrying about culture.

Hammurabi's cheap Courthouses are a god-send in aggressive games. War-ravaged cities are not typically production powerhouses, yet Courthouses are essential to keep your economy afloat.

Boudica's traits make her an obvious pick.

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Re: Ragnar and the Financial trait. For a heavy warmonger game, Philosophical is much better than Financial in my view. Having to constantly worry about cottages being pillaged is incredibly tedious.

 

[TheMeInTeam]

^^ It depends on your goals. The jag is no unit that can conquer the world (like the praet) but if you get DOWd early you're likely in a bad situation, probabely even resourceless (though you shouldn't), then the jag is a very nice unit to keep you alive. Or you use it to stagnate the other AI's growth. A fortified jag in a forests is nearly impossible to kill. And worker stealing is silly easy with the jag.

Keep in mind, that if you're conquesting, you can relentlessly whip out more jags as you press on. They're weaker, sure, but resourceless. You can reinforce with them very, very easily. Distributed whipping can be very dangerous. New cities become gifts that keep on giving. Don't stop until you're worried about strike .

Edit: I'm shocked about KK also. I almost put him in ahead of Ragnar. Cheap libraries allow for research while conquesting. The UU is great, on of the better ones, and setting up new cities can be pretty painless.

I do feel aggressive to be a bit wasted on the mongol civ though. I'd rather have ORG/Creative, AGG/Charismatic, etc. Some sort of trait that helps empire management (favoring ORG), and either the same creative or charismatic so those keshiks get REALLY ugly. Maybe they didn't do this for balance reasons.

 

[mystyfly]

Not to mention...the last poll for Protective leaders featured Gilgamesh (Protective/Creative) in a close tie for 1st with Churchill. That same trait--Creative--isn't helping Kublai Khan win any votes this time.

I guess part of the reason gil is so popular are the zig and the vulture, extremely strong UU/UB.

On the other hand, Mao Zedong (Protective/Expansive) came in dead last in the other poll, but Shaka (Aggressive/Expansive) takes the same trait and comes in a close race for 1st.

Mao has no real synergies (except protective + chokos) while Shaka has agg + ikhanda, they work very well together.

 

[Harry Potter52]

I guess it should be Ragnar, Monty and Tokugawa

 

[Harry Potter52]

I guess it should be Ragnar, Monty and Tokugawa

 

[TheMeInTeam]

I played another Shaka opening, and I change my mind about the Impi. It's a solid UU, the nasty sucker is on par with immortals thanks to cover and mobility which are available to it with a building you'll be getting anyway.

Edit: I'm in 1712 AD on emperor pulling 1300 + bpt. I have about 40% of the world, 35% of which I took solely with impi hit and run war declarations. Map is fractal, wound up with 3 continents:

Me, persia, france on one.

Asoka and Vikings in middle.

Germany and Eithiopia on far west continent.

The fun thing about the impi/ikhanda combo is the war declare/cease fire city sniping. Rushed and killed persia NP (no way they were hooking up any resources). I didn't bombard anything, so war weariness was terrible while fighting France, but it didn't matter. Declare war, steal like 1-3 workers that turn if possible, and either take a city on turn 1 or turn 2. This is pretty easy with 12 impi, and they can (in godly "full monty" numbers) take on longbows even. It didn't matter that France had iron. I'd declare war, take a city or two, then take peace. This was hard to pay for so I cottaged everything. New cities got ikhanda pop rushed, workers would chop out more impi while in peace, then I'd go again. I'd use capture money for deficit research when possible to keep up (wound up lucking out on the lib race around 1300 AD).

The trick with impi is to take a city or two before they can react, then camp out until peace. Rinse and repeat. It's actually not that hard to do because they are very, very cheap to produce, especially as time goes on. If you want to keep making them after engineering trade away iron for a bit . You think you'd take diplo hits for doing this and you will, but if you target religious scape goats or just take a side then some people will either like or love you even if you declare war on their enemy 15 times . This tactic is great for wearing a civ down while assimilating cities.

Later on barracks + ikhanda add up to -70% maintenance. Everyone talks about how great the HRE UB is once he has it up, and this is very close to that with only slightly extra investment (aka cities that you wouldn't normally put a barracks in, you do so).

This strategy relies on LOTS of workers. Expansive has synergy there, but stealing them is still cheaper if you can manage, which you probably should be able to . Shaka is definitely a top leader in my eyes due to his early game dominance in non isolation (where he still isn't horrible, just not great). Still undecided on Ragnar vs KK.

 

[Harry Potter52]

That's seems like a good strategy but don't they stop having peace talks after some time?

 

[DrJambo]

Kublai's Creative is an awesome trait for being aggressive and hooking up those key resources quickly.

Hammurabi's Organized is superb for dealing with the maintenance of a large empire.

And Boudica's Charismatic complements extremely well with being Aggressive.

It's tough call actually because Shaka's UB really deserves a mention too.

 

[Killroyan]

Argh, tough toss up to be honest. I think Shaka is the best imho. It was my first domination victory on monarch and I never got into trouble. Genghis is based on a game on great plains where I vasalised everybody around 1650. Boudica is third as the extra happiness and extra promotions make her always a force to count with.

Now if Toku would have better starting techs he would be one of my more favourites too especially when you come to rifling then he kicks behind.

 

[TheMeInTeam]

That's seems like a good strategy but don't they stop having peace talks after some time?

It takes a couple turns at first, later on it takes like 10 turns or so. Generally speaking though, if you have enough impi and you took a city and captured a worker or three, the AI doesn't really note that you have nothing but fast spearmen. It notes that you took a city and that it's reeling, and is willing to take peace .

As long as you have the units the AI will talk peace. The trouble is diplo hits with other civs, which on this map was only one, and on another continent (though it could and did reach me declaring war, it was distracted by another civ fighting it mostly). If you do this too much to someone who has like 5 people pleased, then you're going to get dogpiled. If you do it against a heathen/scapegoat or before they meet, the only downside is that you can't trade with your victim (unless you want to wait a few extra turns between wars, using the "pointy stick" research method!). Also, it takes a bit of practice to do this and still tech ok. I mentioned I won the lib race but I won it in like 1300 AD and on emperor this won't always happen (I knew it would due to the GG emergence on the unknown continent, and the tech status of the AIs I'd met). Even if you don't win lib though, it's important to tech decently even while warring, which can be a tough balance to get used to at first.