What Leader traits have you played and what have you learned?

[Brutus2]

After playing a few games I wanted to share some of what I have learned about the leaders I have tried so far. Please share leaders and civs you have tried and strategies you have developed for them...




My first one is France with King Louis as the leader playing on Noble difficulty. I choose Louis because he is the only leader with the trait combo I need for my strategy which is Creative and Industrious. The musketeer unique unit doesn't seem very impressive and he does not start with the techs I want first but oh well. I feel that having the leader traits you want is most important because that will be with you the entire game.

Now, first let me say that being Creative is just awesome in the early game land grab. All your cities (settled or captured ones) will create +2 culture from day one with no need to build anything. Add in the culture bonus from your palace and your starting city's boarders will expand like crazy. You will be amazed at how huge your empire will grow from just a few cities and new cities will be able to work their full radius of tiles just a few turns after you settle them and continue to expand like crazy. This allows you to easily grab up all the nearby resources and grab a huge chunk of land from your nearby enemy. Considering that you will not have open borders yet you can even block other civs from being able to send settlers to unclaimed areas if they can't get around your huge empire.

The first tech I get is Mystisism for 2 reasons. First, I want to build Stonehenge as soon as possible. The fact that my civ does not start out knowing this tech already is not a big deal since I won't be able to start building the wonder until my city grows a bit anyway. This wonder is great for my plan because it adds another free +1 culture to every city making my borders expand even faster! But the main reason I want this is to start building Great Prophet points right away so that when I found a religion I can build a shrine as soon as possible and start pulling in some extra coin real early. Being Industrious helps me build the wonder much faster even though I had to research the tech first and other civs start already knowing Mystisism. If I happen to have a source of stone nearby all the better. The second reason for getting Mystisism first is that it sets me on the way to founding a religion. The AI civs who start with this tech are going to beat me to buddism, nothing I can do about that and I don't care because I want Monotheism anyway.

I shoot for monotheism next because all of the techs required for it are things I need anyway. Also Monothesism gives me the first civic option that I want so I would be researching it anyway. Might as well be the first to get it and found the religion as well. In my last game I was actualy able to found hinduism and judism giving me 2 holy cities! With all the Great Prophet points I'm pulling in from Stonehenge I can easily get two shrines and spread two religions for double the coin gain!

After founding my religion my next goal is to grab up all the key resources. By now my empire has grown a great deal more then the other civs from being creative but in order to make sure I get all the key resources I need to research bronze working and metal working to reveal copper and iron on the map. Once I have those I make sure to send settlers to grab those resources before the other civs see them if they are not already within my huge empire. Usually I can can grab all or most of the horse, copper and iron resources away from my opponents without having to build and escort settlers just from my ever expanding borders! If I manage to do that, I am assured of a stronger army once I start building swordsmen. If I think war is needed I will go after the tech for catapults next because even without resources your enemy can build archers which are tough city defenders.

The downside of this strategy is that I have somewhat ignored my defenses because as soon as my starting city sent out the first settler I started working on Stonehenge. I had a few scares with barbarians approaching my capital with only one warrior defending it. Good thing is that animals will stay out of your territory so you don't have to worry about them for long.

I also had some trouble with my economy early on because even though I had a huge chunk of land under my control I only had a few cities so not much income. Once my trade routes and cottages developed, religon spread and courthouses were built, I was able to go back to 90% science and still have a good profit plus.

From here my capital keeps pumping Wonders like crazy from being Industrious and because my quickly expanding borders included both stone and marble! Any enemy cities near me are soon surrounded in my culture and can't work many tiles. Time to roll out the swordsmen and catapults and prey on those small, resource lacking neighbors of mine!

 

[Underseer]

I'm a total Civ goober (love the game, but wouldn't describe myself as being terribly good at it).

My first attempt at a game was a disaster. I made a bunch of really awful decisions and plummetted into debt so fast that one by one my military units were disbanded. By the time my workers started getting deleted, I decided the game was a wash and tried another one.

Being absolutely paranoid about money, I chose Catherine (creative, financial). As I expected, the creative trait sort of boosts your money and research because you don't have to spend any points on culture directly. As you pointed out, those borders just expand and expand on their own and I can max out research to my heart's content (with just enough devoted to commerce to keep me from going in the red). I haven't tried any other leaders but the two mentioned so far, but the game with Catherine has been easy, easy, easy if you're prone to expansionism.

 

[Zelgadis75]

I tried a few civs but found Ghandi of the Indians to be best.

Industrious gives +50% wonder build, which is HUGE. Good luck beating comp civs to wonders without it. Wonders are key because they really help pump out great people. In one game I was able to build all the wonders in my capitol, and I was at one point getting like 80+ great people points per turn.

Also he gets spiritual, which eliminated anarchy altogether, which i also like.

Best of all, India's specail unit is the fast worker, a worker with 3 moves rather than 2. This is huge, and useful throughout the entire game rather than one brief historical window.

 

[PoweredBySoy]

For the first few days I played as Isabella (Spiritual and Expansive). As such, I got addicted to the Expansive trait, and now find it hard to live without. Now it's one of my favorite leader traits to have.

But I've since moved away from Spiritual. I liked it at first because of the starting Mystisism tech. It pretty much guaranteed you an early religion. But I'm learning now that without Spiritual, I'm still usually able to grab Christianity before any of the AI does. No anarchy is nice though.

Lately I've been playing Tokogawa (Aggressive and Organized). I'm loving Aggressive. It's very fun, as well as extremely useful against those pesky barbarians on harder difficulty settings. But Organized doesn't seem very useful to me. Perhaps in the late-game it becomes more beneficial. But in those crucial early years, it does little. As such, I'm thinking of playing more with Gengis Khan. =D

 

[PoweredBySoy]

I tried a few civs but found Ghandi of the Indians to be best.

Yeah. My roommate plays Ghandi, and it is indeed an extremely powerful civ if you're taking the peaceful approach.

But when we play multiplayer, I usually have to bail his ass out when the Barbarians come. =D

 

[CitizenCain]

I'm starting to think Financial is highly underrated... and since I love industrious, Qin of the Chinese seems to be a powerful one. I should post my Beijing screenshot - 1200 AD, and my capital has 6 floodplains with towns on them, each generating 3 food, 1 hammer and *9* commerce. It makes the tech whore approach somewhat viable, even on Prince difficulty... So try Qin if you'd rather dominate with your production and economy/technology than just by pumping out lots of axemen.

 

[Zhahz]

I played as the industrious/organized americans (normal sized continents map, noble) and dominated for score the whole game, built tons of wonders, which lead to tons of great leaders, and my income was crazy (due to orgainized, I guess). Problem was, I didn't notice the little messages saying an AI was building space ship parts and I had no goal for winning other than having the highest score. So I lost to space race - and that won't be happening again!

I love industrious becuase building wonders faster is glorious - but it doesn't do much else for you.

Organized is more nebulous but it seemed to be helpful. If you develop a large empire your civic costs get to be up there and it helps a lot with that. If you were going for a small empire type of victory I doubt it would do much for you.

I next played as Saladin (spi/phi). I'd already tried spiritual in my very first chieftan game that's not worth mentioning since even for a civ gimp like me chieftan is way too easy. This was again on continents/normal/noble like my first game - and again I found myself on a continent with only 1 other AI. And again, I dominated for score but had no clear goal for winning. And again an AI was going for space race. I ended up winning by domination because I had to take out AIs going for space races.

I still have mixed feelings about spiritual. The lack of anarchy is nice. On normal maps it's easy to found a religion even if you don't start with mysticism.

I'm also torn on philosophical. It's great early on but eventually it takes so long to produce GP that I'm not sure it matters. I produce a lot of GP regardless and I'd guess that you don't get that many more GP overall with philosophical due to the scaling, you just get em faster early on.

My next game was so ugly I just quit since it was a sure loss. I went with Tokugawa (aggressive/organized) on a pangea/normal/noble setup thinking I'd win by conquest. However, everything backfired. I don't understand the 3 pangea map options but I got a very small map. I had a sweet start - my first city blocked a chunk of land with room for 2 other cities immediately - so others couldn't even explore it. I built 3 cities outside of that before building 2 cities on my hidden plot. Barbarians had built a city while I was exanding outwards and I had to remove it as it was in a bad spot (delayed me). I also built a few wonders. Oh yes, times were great for Japan. Right about the time I could build samurai Napoleon, my closest neighbor, invaded. I had defenses but no counter attackers. He pillaged my lands which caused all kinds of unhealthiness in my cities, and pillaged my resources cutting off the iron I needed to build samurai - totally killing any hope of defense. So far, every time I've seen napoleon in a game he's been hyper aggressive. I should've been better prepared. Lessons learned!

I like the way the aggressive trait is implemented in Civ IV much moreso than how it was in Civ 3 - but obviously you have to do a much better job than I did in USING it. :-/

 

[Gulio]

I did Japan on the 5th one in (forget which it was) against 5 comptuers. I kicked the crap out of them.

The biggest thing that helped me was the 2nd setler I got from a Barbarian camp.

Got 2 cities and then I boxed one country in and wouldn't let them pass. I waited until they got all the terrain upgrades done then I killed them.

I allied with catherine and basically bent over to her, I did this so she would help me and to war with me.

(this was on a standard map).

I was at 19 cities, and one turn I got 5 great people, which I always keep in 1 city. However, in that city I found that I had 3 artists.

I took 3 setlers, and those 3 artists and created small cities around an comp player. I then created 3 cities, and got each artist to add 4000 culture to each city. INstantly I took over their section of the map. I then moved my army in and killed them.


I had over 18 wonders in 1 city, and the computer (all 5 playres) only had a chance to build 4 wonders.

Samurai rock. I'm not a fan of the new catipult... not sure how long bow men can actually split the wood with their arrows... but oh well.



However, I remember someone saying something about archers on a hill in a castle... they killed my tank! how does an archer kill a tank. stupid archer stupid tank all needs to be blown up.

 

[Brutus2]

My first game was with an Expansionist civ. I kept reading on these forums about unhealthiness limiting the growth of your cities and could not understand what people were talking about. I went all the way to a space race victory without seeing any unhealthiness and my cities never stopped growing. Then I played a non-expansionist civ and had little green unhappy faces all over the place as soon as I hit size 6. Although I did not really understand how to manage unhappiness since it was never an issue previously so maybe I could have prevented that better. Still, its one of those traits that you don't realize how good it is until you don't have it. I also had no problems with money. I always had a big treasurey, I guess from all the taxes of the high population cities? In every game I have played without expansionist, money has been tight.

I also really liked Aggressive. My units had so many promotions it was crazy. I had swordsmen with +55% city attack already and as I understand it units keep promotions when they upgrade.

Creative is still my favorite so far because I think the early land grab stage makes or breaks you and having Creative allows you to grab huge chunks of land which prevents other civs from getting key resources.

I think I may take creative and aggressive Kubla Kahnn for a spin next!

 

[PSXfile]

I'm still usually able to grab Christianity before any of the AI does.

This is exactly what I save The Oracle for.

 

[Pinstar]

I always played Morgan in SMAC, so Finantial is one of my favorites.

I've also fallen in love expantionist and find it hard to play without it.

As you can tell, Victoria-England is my favorite leader/civ right now.

 

[nho3]

Wow this is a good post. I have learned a lot

 

[Jazz_Newton]

But Organized doesn't seem very useful to me. Perhaps in the late-game it becomes more beneficial. But in those crucial early years, it does little. As such, I'm thinking of playing more with Gengis Khan. =D

It would seem to me that Organized could be most useful at the start of the game...??? I haven't tried it, but technically you should be able to build an extra one or two cities at the start without going into the red. An investment like that should pay dividends for the rest of the game. In short - Organized = more cities.

As the game goes on, Organized should get overtaken by Financial in regards to maximising profits.

 

[Bezhukov]

So far, my impressions of general power (different terrain/game situations/trait combinations notwithstanding):

1. Financial
2. Industrious
3. Expansionist
4. Philosophical
5. Spiritual
6. Aggressive
7. Organized
8. Creative

I'm not by nature a warmonger, so aggressive and creative could conceivably be higher in fact. The nice thing about Civ IV is that each one could be THE killer app in a given situation, but I've rated them in order of power - i.e. ability to change the nature of the game conidering the opportunity to plan around their effects.

 

[Masquerouge]

I tried Louis XIV, almost randomly, fpr my first game (noble), and did pretty good until the end, mainly because I had no clear plan in mind. The new tech tree is a killer if you don't have aclear strategy laid out ; I ended up switching between military, scientifical and health advances, and the Chinese beat me for the spaceship...
Still Creative is a terrific trait. Industrious is good, but it's good for wonders only, and wonders are good but not that terrific (and that's good for balance), and I put too many good in this sentence.
But Creative I think will be my fav trait. No need to build temples for the land-grabbing action !

 

[Greek Plunder]

Creative has got to be, in my opinion thus far, the most useful trait you can begin with. That early cultural boost is a real big plus. I dunno how you could rate it that low Bezhukov. Maybe the middle if you didn't particularly enjoy using it in your strategy, but still give it the respect it deserves!

My favourite combo thus far has been Kublai Khan's Aggressive/Creative traits. These are VERY good for expanding. You can get an awesome early military going, and your borders expand like crazy. have settlers at the ready, burn and raze captured towns, and watch your borders expaaaaand.

 

[fightcancer]

Wow this is a good post. I have learned a lot

my thoughts as well.

 

[nho3]

I just tried Ganghis Kahn (aggessive/expansive) and I started on a peninsula. Well I got boxed in by a civ to the south of me before I even got gunpowder. Then i traded world maps with somebody and the game crashed. Anyway that was the first game so far that I did not have the highest score compared to the other AIs and was kinda behind on development. I guess I wont use that civ again.

 

[jafink]

a great read while i wait to get my copy of civ 4

 

[Gunner]

Organized seems fairly weak to me so far. I've been playing a game as Caesar (Expansive and Organized). All organized does is cut your civic upkeep in half. Not your per city upkeep. Considering that most of the advaced civics actually have low or no upkeep I've been finding it rather useless.

One thing that seems really good about it though is the half price courthouses and harbors. Those are really great.