Top 3 Leaders

[plasmacannon]

1) Huayna Capac of Inca, to build wonders and tech, he's the best in the game - no brainer.
2) Darius of Persia, excellent teching, expanding, and at early rushes.
3) Mansa Musa of Mali, Financial and UB grants 10% more currency, techs well. UU best early defender, IMHO.
All excellent choices.

I don't play on Immortal yet, but, I have read alot on here about Saladin being excellent at higher levels.
1) His UU is the best UU that doesn't require a resourse (horse or Iron), so, you will always be able to build Knights.
2) His UB adds 2 culture to a normal library, keeping his borders incheck vs a Creative opponent. Also, 2 Priest specialists, if needed.
3) The leader Protective/Spiritual is supposidly one of the best for a cultural victory at higher levels.
He defends his cities well, and can flip religions to an opponent's, if attacked, without prod loss, to stall wars.
He would have a similar playing style as Mansa, but, with less money, and more culture and flexability vs AIs and with civics.

As the 1st poster didn't specify what type of win he was going for, should Saladin be included in this list?

 

[NihilZero]

Sal is nothing special on Immortal, in my opinion. He's not quite as bad as people think (Spiritual is always great fun), but he's below average because of Protective, starting techs, and mediocre uniques.

 

[TheMeInTeam]

SPI is good for culture, as are FIN and PHI. PRO is not good for culture and has gone from an extremely solid trait to arguably the worst thanks to 3.19 introducing bugged overflow. Again.

Prior to the overflow bug the access to 100's and 100's of gold early in the game was good enough economy that along with its defenses + late offense it was a good trait.

 

[CornPlanter]

1) His UU is the best UU that doesn't require a resourse (horse or Iron), so, you will always be able to build Knights.

Maybe it's just my play style but I cannot remember last time when I had to rely on Knights. Back in my Prince days, probably. I do build them once in a while... but very rarely.

Then again, I can't remember when last played Saladin either.

 

[TheMeInTeam]

Knights are just placed so awkwardly on the tree. They struggle vs longbows which can't be denied to the opposition and are available way sooner, and they have no answer to castles .

 

[NihilZero]

Knights are rarely a dominant factor, except of course in the case of Cataphracts, which can be useful on the battlefield for a millenium or more. If ever there was a unit that can make it worthwhile to completely change your style of play and do something unorthodox, it's the cataphract.

 

[Higher Game]

Knights are rarely a dominant factor, except of course in the case of Cataphracts, which can be useful on the battlefield for a millenium or more. If ever there was a unit that can make it worthwhile to completely change your style of play and do something unorthodox, it's the cataphract.

On the contrary, the cataphracts were quite Orthodox.

 

[TheMeInTeam]

Knights are rarely a dominant factor, except of course in the case of Cataphracts, which can be useful on the battlefield for a millenium or more. If ever there was a unit that can make it worthwhile to completely change your style of play and do something unorthodox, it's the cataphract.

Units that compete with Cataphracts for causing unorthodox behavior:

1. Samurai - the first strikes and power over xbows/longbows not available to even normal AGG maces make them worth considering.

2. East Indiaman - absolute, ridiculous naval dominance until chemistry means one might consider some cheesy blockades

3. Berserker - not a typical usage unit, all of a sudden you can do amphibious raids...from frigates/galleons, and carry this upgrade further.

4. Numidian Cavalry - enough of a downgrade that one might consider avoiding a HA rush

5. Janissary/Oromo - pushes with muskets are not typical, but these guys allow it

6. Cho Ko Nu - most people do not run heavy xbow offense, but these make one consider it thanks to a heavy dose of first strikes + collateral. Deny them iron or horse, and you have an eternity to abuse these.

7. Praetorian - the gold star of this list and the one that best competes with cataphracts for "game altering strategy". Sword rushes are pretty rare. Non-AGG sword rushes even more so, and they're both a bad idea unless you can reliably deny metal. But the praetorian? People will sell out on it even in non-ideal conditions, and for good reason.

8. Quecha - on monarch+, this allows something you wouldn't even consider otherwise and is also a pretty good candidate vs prat/cataphract.

Also, spain's UB changes gameplay a lot since it allows for CR III siege by building...a castle. Taken to the extreme you can get all the way to rifles/MG/arty with that, though a simple CR III cannon war isn't much of a reach.

 

[NihilZero]

I concur with your list, but Cataphracts are truly prodigious in terms of their longevity and are the most awkwardly placed techwise of all the decent UUs. They are still worth it quite often, even though it probably means no chance of Lib. Still, you can use them to kill the guy that gets Lib and get some payback that way.

An honourable mention for UU you might change your playstyle for is Janissary/Oromo. However, that doesn't divert you so much from the Lib path, you just need a quick diversion to Gunpowder and then probably an early Lib to Nationhood for draft ASAP. Similarly, I don't really consider macemen to be off the beaten path - CS is a requisite in most games and it's normally easy to acquire machinery once you have CS.

The Praetorian doesn't need to be talked about really, although I find it a little overrated...

A relatively unknown quantity for me is the Cho-Ko-Nu (and maybe Sitting Bull Xbows). It looks like it could be another one that is worth the effort to beeline, but I haven't found a China game yet where it was convincingly on the cards. It's on my to do list.

 

[theskibum]

Getting Cho Ko Nu's to Drill III out of the box is easy and Drill IV is even possible given a couple GGs. CKN with D-III is a reasonable alternative to maces w/CR2 when you have no iron. I have wreaked havoc on the world twice on Monarch as Mao with CKN's.

I found the key here is an Oracle sling shot to Theology to run Theocracy with barracks early on. Tech hard Metal Casting and Machinery and you can have your D-III CKNs before the AI is fielding LBs and way before maces. They will eat all melee units for breakfast. They do a reasonable job at beating garrisoned LBs if coupled with cats. The only thing they have a hard time with is units immune to first strike. This is where a spy destroying the targets horse source is a good thing.

 

[TheMeInTeam]

CKN with D-III is a reasonable alternative to maces w/CR2 when you have no iron.

No it isn't. You need iron to build CKN .

but I haven't found a China game yet where it was convincingly on the cards. It's on my to do list.

Conditions to meet for CKN being viable:

1. You can deny the target horse or iron before it reaches guilds. Knights have too much base strength and the base strength of siege in this era is too poor to deal with them effectively.
2. You can survive a sustained war. Note that the hammer investment doesn't have to be that high; trebs with CR II are pretty hammer-effective against defenders unless you're up against protective. However, if it is likely that you will get backstabbed, maybe it isn't a good idea. You also treat it a little differently than normal 10-20 turn wars: buildup is all-out like normal, but tapers off to heroic epic and maybe one more city once the AI is reeling, so that you get back to economy right away.

Note that this does not require special investments - trading for machinery before someone gets guilds + horse + iron isn't always a tough move, so if you scout someone and see resource deficiency (or one that can be created easily enough with guerrilla II longbows etc), you can probably pull this off. Bonus points for using the PRO trait to completely lulwut own their incoming stack on DoW. Don't forget that trebs are immune to collateral, but might be picked to absorb it, such that they are useful in ctiies with lots of longbows/xbows to defend against said stack before moving out. Obviously your longbows which have more defense strength than field grenadiers will mop anything they have, especially if they are in fact denied knights.

 

[ParadigmShifter]

Yeah I Oracled Machinery once with China only to discover I had no Iron

 

[Jerrymander]

Yeah I Oracled Machinery once with China only to discover I had no Iron

I, too, am guilty of this.

 

[theskibum]

No it isn't. You need iron to build CKN .

Doh!!! I was thinking they were resourceless as well as having kickass extra first strikes.

 

[bitplayer]

Im a big fan of darius.

My other choices would be JC and Suliman.

Im currently trying to put pericles to work but- for some reason- he's a bust. Which is surprising to me as his traits tell me he should be pretty good.

 

[itg]

Pericles has poor starting techs and a UU which doesn't serve him well (at least with Alex you'd have AGG backing it up). The Odeon's ok, but it's not at all gamebreaking. The traits are nice enough, but there are better combos out there.

 

[Jerrymander]

Pericles has poor starting techs and a UU which doesn't serve him well (at least with Alex you'd have AGG backing it up). The Odeon's ok, but it's not at all gamebreaking. The traits are nice enough, but there are better combos out there.

I see Pericles as a gimmick leader. He can really jump start a specialist economy with Creative's double-speed libraries along with Philosophical. But beyond that, he plays like any other Philosophical leader.

 

[NihilZero]

Greece are a real chore at the start thanks to their techs. Starting techs are almost as important as leader traits if you ask me, at least on the harder levels where you might not survive the early game at all with Hunting and Fishing.

The Greeks overall are a big disappointment, they should be better.

 

[ParadigmShifter]

You can tech archery immediately with hunting, so the early game threat (barbarians) can be reduced significantly.

 

[TheMeInTeam]

Greece are a real chore at the start thanks to their techs. Starting techs are almost as important as leader traits if you ask me, at least on the harder levels where you might not survive the early game at all with Hunting and Fishing.

The Greeks overall are a big disappointment, they should be better.

They're very average, and IMO that's fine.

While the UU isn't exciting, an axe w/ no hard counter is a reasonable threat. Similarly, the odeon isn't going to win any awards, but you get a helpful culture boost as well as the potential for an extra late game . Boring, but it's no assembly plant (bad) or ikhanda(good)!

PHI hands a good deal of flexibility to a game, and both of them have it.