Thoughts on the Strongest Leader in Warlords

[andrewlt]

They did seem to skip some trait combos due to overpoweredness. Philosophical/Industrious was avoided. I think it holds true for Industrious/Charismatic in Warlords.

Cyrus has a great combo of traits but I'm not that big a fan of his UB. Huayna Capac has a great combo of traits as well and a great UB but his UU is too early if you're in a large map.

It seems that the earlier the UB, the better it is, while UUs are best in midgame. I haven't found out a single civ who has a great combo of traits while having a great UB and UU, so they did some balancing there. Of course, I could be missing something.

 

[a4phantom]

They did seem to skip some trait combos due to overpoweredness. Philosophical/Industrious was avoided. I think it holds true for Industrious/Charismatic in Warlords.

Cyrus has a great combo of traits but I'm not that big a fan of his UB. Huayna Capac has a great combo of traits as well and a great UB but his UU is too early if you're in a large map.

It seems that the earlier the UB, the better it is, while UUs are best in midgame. I haven't found out a single civ who has a great combo of traits while having a great UB and UU, so they did some balancing there. Of course, I could be missing something.

The Quechua is considered by many to be a top tier UU, so if his traits and UB are as good as you say he's golden. And there are unfortunate exceptions to the later-in-return-for-better rule you cite, although it held true for Cossacks, Panzers and Redcoats in vanilla. The Praetorian is one of the best UUs and very early, and the SEAL is not a fantastic unit but comes latest.

 

[VirusMonster]

They did seem to skip some trait combos due to overpoweredness. Philosophical/Industrious was avoided. I think it holds true for Industrious/Charismatic in Warlords.

Cyrus has a great combo of traits but I'm not that big a fan of his UB. Huayna Capac has a great combo of traits as well and a great UB but his UU is too early if you're in a large map.

It seems that the earlier the UB, the better it is, while UUs are best in midgame. I haven't found out a single civ who has a great combo of traits while having a great UB and UU, so they did some balancing there. Of course, I could be missing something.

I don't think any combo of traits is overpowered. There are 11 traits total (8 vanilla, plus 3 new), thus a total of 11x10=110 different combinations are possible. You can't possibly expect them to put 110 different leaders into the game just to accomplish each single trait combination. Industrial / Philosophical might sound imba, but any other combination of traits can be equally strong. For example, take the Aggressive/Imperialistic combo of the Mongol Empire, you just can't stop those guys. Sure they can't keep the captured cities, because they will lack the funds, but they will raze cities to keep up.

The weakest trait in my opinion is Creative and needs a boost. Rest of the traits are fine. Their combos are fine as well.

The UBs are pretty balanced in my opinion. I liked the new UUs. What I don't understand is the -10% attack decrease from Horse Archers to cities. I don't understand why it was implemented. Now many people massed horse archers anyway, people were massing swordsman and axeman.

 

[suspendinlight]

I don't think any combo of traits is overpowered. There are 11 traits total (8 vanilla, plus 3 new), thus a total of 11x10=110 different combinations are possible. You can't possibly expect them to put 110 different leaders into the game just to accomplish each single trait combination. Industrial / Philosophical might sound imba, but any other combination of traits can be equally strong. The weakest trait in my opinion is Creative and needs a boost. Rest of the traits are fine. Their combos are fine as well.

Not important, but it's actually only 55 combinations since Spirtual/Expansive = Expansive/Spiritual, etc.

 

[VirusMonster]

Not important, but it's actually only 55 combinations since Spirtual/Expansive = Expansive/Spiritual, etc.

Yea, I am too sleepy, you are right. 55 combinations and how many leaders do we got? 26 old leaders and 10 new leaders? 36? Well, eventually we will have industrious/ philosophical as well on the 2nd expansion if there is going to be one. 18 combinations left.

Please make the creative trait strong as well plz.

They still did not boost the Aztec UU, but they managed to create an imba Persian UU. Go figure!

 

[Vladesch]

Lol. I just dislike that of the THREE ENglish leders, they pick two of the individual worst ones (Victoria and ELizabeth) just to gender balance the game. Come on where is ALfred, Henry V, henryVIII, edward, william of orange, cromwell. Lots of better choices but if they wanted a woman, they wanted a woman.

Elizabeth 1 was probably the greatest military leader England had as she was responsible for their victory over the Spanish armada.

Victoria was the longest reigning English monarch ever.

Seems like pretty sound choices to me. The alternatives you post with the exception of Henry VIII are much less well known. Cromwell? ...

 

[a4phantom]

Yea, I am too sleepy, you are right. 55 combinations and how many leaders do we got? 26 old leaders and 10 new leaders? 36? Well, eventually we will have industrious/ philosophical as well on the 2nd expansion if there is going to be one. 18 combinations left.

Please make the creative trait strong as well plz.

They still did not boost the Aztec UU, but they managed to create an imba Persian UU. Go figure!

What's imba stand for? Something about being super powerful I assume . . .

 

[VirusMonster]

What's imba stand for? Something about being super powerful I assume . . .

imba is short for imbalance, gamers use it often. At least in warcraft 3, we use it often

 

[VirusMonster]

I like Carthage best actually. Financial was old overpowered trait, now Charismatic is even better than Aggressive, therefore, financial&charismatic seems to be really good for warmongering. While I agree Persia is strong in terms of military, I strongly doubt that they can maintain a strong economy to keep those captured cities.

Incas are still good, altough they lost some of their firepower due to removal of Aggressive trait. You can still try quechua rush, but you will prolly need 2-3 more quechuas to capture cities.

 

[BigEd420]

The weakest trait in my opinion is Creative and needs a boost. Rest of the traits are fine. Their combos are fine as well.

I actually don't believe creative is all that weak.Especially for early expansion.Instead of building oblisks/monuments I prefer building settlers,workers,units ect..oblisks/monuments give only 1 culture and are obsolete with the discovery of calender.While creative gives 2 culture.Not a huge difference in mid to late game but still worth while for some quick early stage land grabbing and to keep the ai from some resources.
Of course I do think there are stronger traits.There are other ways of creating culture but they somewhat come at an expence of early expansion.

I was kinda disappointed that they changed Cathy's traits and took financial away from her.The combo of creative/financial meant I could expand quickly in the early stages and my economy could withstand it (or atleast recover from it quickly).
Just my opinion.I could be wrong.
I'm not sure who I think is the strongest leader since I haven't been able to play them all yet.However I think if used correctly they could all be considered the strongest.It all depends on your gamestyle and what victory condition you're trying to achieve.

 

[VirusMonster]

The weakest trait in my opinion is Creative and needs a boost. Rest of the traits are fine. Their combos are fine as well.

I actually don't believe creative is all that weak.Especially for early expansion.Instead of building oblisks/monuments I prefer building settlers,workers,units ect..oblisks/monuments give only 1 culture and are obsolete with the discovery of calender.While creative gives 2 culture.Not a huge difference in mid to late game but still worth while for some quick early stage land grabbing and to keep the ai from some resources.
Of course I do think there are stronger traits.There are other ways of creating culture but they somewhat come at an expence of early expansion.

The problem with Creative is it only affects the early game whereas practically any other trait has a longer time span for effectiveness. I am looking at the list of the other traits, they all seem to be effective for much longer periods of time. Expanding borders quickly just does not cut it. Any civ building the stonehedge, cheapest wonder in the game, can practically be Creative as well.

I don't know how to fix Creative, but I am pretty sure it is the weakest trait atm. I don't understand why people think expansive is the worst trait. Expansive pretty much rox at higher difficulty levels.

 

[a4phantom]

imba is short for imbalance, gamers use it often. At least in warcraft 3, we use it often

Thanks! I was and remain a huge starcraft fan, but I never got into WC3 for some reason.

I'm not against the conventional wisdom that creative is a weak trait, but doesn't it help immensely in going for Cultural Victory? It's helpful as a warmonger too.

 

[VirusMonster]

Thanks! I was and remain a huge starcraft fan, but I never got into WC3 for some reason.

I'm not against the conventional wisdom that creative is a weak trait, but doesn't it help immensely in going for Cultural Victory? It's helpful as a warmonger too.

Well 2 culture per turn with Creative and at Marathon speed you need 75000 culture to reach Legendary status. Even if you spent 2000 turns before winning a cultural victory, you still would have only produced 4000 culture, which is nothing compared to 75000 you should achieve.

Culture gives cities defense bonus, but siege units can reduce it with no problems.

I am open to listen your suggestions on how to fix Creative.

It is not so helpful as a warmonger, because at later stages when you capture a city close to some other high-culture enemy, the chances for city flipping are very high already. It won't matter whether you can produce +2 culture per turn and expand your borders once. If the city has high chance of revolt, it will revolt. Creative trait does almost nothing to stop recently captured cities from revolting.

 

[Murky]

Of the new leaders, Augustus is the best I've used so far. No need to build Stonehenge, you can just go straight to Praetorians.

Ragnar is a close second.

 

[Enkidu_Warrior]

It is not so helpful as a warmonger, because at later stages when you capture a city close to some other high-culture enemy, the chances for city flipping are very high already. It won't matter whether you can produce +2 culture per turn and expand your borders once. If the city has high chance of revolt, it will revolt. Creative trait does almost nothing to stop recently captured cities from revolting.

The benefit of Creative to a warmonger is not stopping cities from flipping.

The benefit is that when you capture cities, you don't have to make cultural improvements your first builds. That saves you gold or whipping (if you want to rush) and gets you ahead of the game getting those cities growing (eg granary/lighthouse), useful (eg forge/barracks) and/or self-supporting (eg market/grocer/bank).

Personally, I love warmongering as a creative civ.

EW

 

[Martinus]

The benefit of Creative to a warmonger is not stopping cities from flipping.

The benefit is that when you capture cities, you don't have to make cultural improvements your first builds. That saves you gold or whipping (if you want to rush) and gets you ahead of the game getting those cities growing (eg granary/lighthouse), useful (eg forge/barracks) and/or self-supporting (eg market/grocer/bank).

Personally, I love warmongering as a creative civ.

EW

Precisely. Same goes for recently-founded cities.

I think it's one of the reasons they removed combos of Creative with the two most powerful traits in game - Financial and Philosophical.

 

[douglas_21]

Does anyone have a list of the left out trait combos?

 

[a4phantom]

Well 2 culture per turn with Creative and at Marathon speed you need 75000 culture to reach Legendary status. Even if you spent 2000 turns before winning a cultural victory, you still would have only produced 4000 culture, which is nothing compared to 75000 you should achieve.

Quick and dirty estimate says that's 5% . . . for free . . . not nothing, especially when competing with another civ going for the same victory condition.

It is not so helpful as a warmonger, because at later stages when you capture a city close to some other high-culture enemy, the chances for city flipping are very high already. It won't matter whether you can produce +2 culture per turn and expand your borders once. If the city has high chance of revolt, it will revolt. Creative trait does almost nothing to stop recently captured cities from revolting.

It's expanding the borders that I care about. I want to deny my enemy the use of those roads, and I want the resources I probably conquered the city for. Expanded line of sight is nice too.

 

[Paulk]

With the +2 culture from the creative trait do you get culture % bonuses like free speech, brodcast towers, and cathedrals? so that +2 could end up bieng a decent +6.

 

[Paulk]

Here is also a list of all trait combinations done on a Word Spreadsheet. Red is combos that dont exsist and yellow is current leaders, while black is the same trait on both axis. Some trait combos that are left out (IMBA IMO) are Organized/Aggresive, Aggresive/Charsmatic, Finacial/Organized and Philisphocial/Industrious. I also find that the imperialistic is one of the weaker traits and I'd rather have creative or expansive over this trait.