EmperorNapoleon
Chieftain
- Joined
- Oct 16, 2005
- Messages
- 51
Jazz_Newton said:
No Louis is Industrial/Creative
My favorite leader is Alexander - You can't beat those early GP and barracks - not to mention Phalanx!
What Leader traits have you played and what have you learned?
- Thread starter Brutus2
- Start date
No Louis is Industrial/Creative
My favorite leader is Alexander - You can't beat those early GP and barracks - not to mention Phalanx!
Evil_Kanevil
Chieftain
- Joined
- Jul 8, 2005
- Messages
- 25
I'm just about to finish an emperor game (huge map, 18 civs) with louis XIV of the french. I was playing rhye's earth map, and hence I started in europe which is a really cramped starting position. Luckily, the germans started with two scouts, a worker and a settler rather than a warrior. I took advantage of this, declaring on the germans and killing one of their scouts in turn 1. In turn three, I razed berlin and captured their worker which gave me a head start (equal to the AI considering they get to start with a worker). It also freed up some much needed space.
Anyway, this thread is about leader trait and I just have to say that creative is goddamn awesome if you want to play expansively and wage a lot of war. Especially in the mid-late game when many civs have a very developed culture, it can be really hard to keep the cities you conquer from flipping. Creative really alleviates this problem, since you don't always have access to culture bombs
Also, building the stonehenge early is a great risk (I missed it in another emperor game despite starting with mysticism) and even if you pull it off, the missed expansion is quite costly. With a creative civ, I was able to run paris as a straight settler factory for quite some time, getting me way ahead of the AI in the early game.
Industrious is nice too, but if we're talking about winning the game straight up, I'd much rather combine creative with some other trait like aggressive.
Also, spiritual appears to be pretty good on tougher difficulties, since you won't be getting an early religion without it. (In my game I focused on terrain-improvement techs, and didn't get a religion until confucianism). Also, the power of spiritual increases with the game speed, as 5 anarchy turns out of 200 is much worse than 5 turns out of 500...
Anyway, this thread is about leader trait and I just have to say that creative is goddamn awesome if you want to play expansively and wage a lot of war. Especially in the mid-late game when many civs have a very developed culture, it can be really hard to keep the cities you conquer from flipping. Creative really alleviates this problem, since you don't always have access to culture bombs
Also, building the stonehenge early is a great risk (I missed it in another emperor game despite starting with mysticism) and even if you pull it off, the missed expansion is quite costly. With a creative civ, I was able to run paris as a straight settler factory for quite some time, getting me way ahead of the AI in the early game.
Industrious is nice too, but if we're talking about winning the game straight up, I'd much rather combine creative with some other trait like aggressive.
Also, spiritual appears to be pretty good on tougher difficulties, since you won't be getting an early religion without it. (In my game I focused on terrain-improvement techs, and didn't get a religion until confucianism). Also, the power of spiritual increases with the game speed, as 5 anarchy turns out of 200 is much worse than 5 turns out of 500...
CitizenCain
Warlord
- Joined
- Oct 27, 2005
- Messages
- 144
Greek Plunder said:
I'd rather build Stonehenge (which I've been able to beat the AI to in every game I've played so far, even on Monarch difficulty), reap aproximately the same benefits and have a different trait, honestly. Plus, if you can found a couple religions early, two of your starting cities are going to get +5 culture a turn on top of everything else anyway - so there are definitely strategies that make the creative trait almost obsolete by 2000 B.C. (At least for single player games.)
Having said that, I think there are worse traits than creative, I just happen to think that there are much better ones (and some sweet trait combos, none of which include creative).
CitizenCain
Warlord
- Joined
- Oct 27, 2005
- Messages
- 144
The Apple said:
Try using those cottages on river tiles next time. +3 commerce with a cottage and financial. Which is quite huge in the early game, especially if you start near flood plains. +3 food, +3 commerce by the time you're researching your 2nd or 3rd tech? <drool> Even a +2 food, +3 commerce grassland is pretty nice, and provides a good use for those cities you sometimes have to found with lots of food and no production. In fact, I'd argue that Financial is ever bigger in the early game if you combine it with cottages. Consider that an extra commerce on a tile that should give you 2 commerce is a 33% increase... by the late game, all those cottages will be towns and pumping out probably 8 commerce anyway, with financial bumps up another one... or only a 12.5% increase.
The effect is much more noticiable in the early game, especially if you use the extra tech production to blitz a tech like, say metal casting (forge) or astronomy (observatory), etc.
I started with Romans on noble to get a feel. I've learned a few things but look forward to stepping up a notch or two as I am dominating the game. I don't know if any of my thoughts are valid but a few things of note....
*Praetorians These guys rock. Though I didn't beeline to iron and had to overcome a barb city to get iron I can see how they'd be devastating in the early game.
*Drama--the combination of getting a great artist which was planted between 4 German cities was awesome. He has flipped one German city and is pressuring 2 of the 3 others to their city limits.
* Food cities --They ain't so great. City planning really needs a combination of shields and food. In the future I'll spam cottages around big food type cities.
*Forests on rivers--Since I thought most of the river tiles would be used for food I chopped river forests first since those tiles will always be worked first. Chopping not only helped get a early settler our faster but it helped finish a couple wonders that were a big help.
*Early roads are not so critical--Unlike Civ3 roads are not quite as important unless they are taking you somewhere or hooking up a required resource.
*Research by calendar (TM?)as Sirian would say--It seems to me your tech path, in many cases, is dictated by your immediate surroundings. If you find wines then it makes sense to get monarchy fast.
My .02 but the game is so new I don't know if much of what I say should even be considered. Anyone havin' fun yet?
*Praetorians These guys rock. Though I didn't beeline to iron and had to overcome a barb city to get iron I can see how they'd be devastating in the early game.
*Drama--the combination of getting a great artist which was planted between 4 German cities was awesome. He has flipped one German city and is pressuring 2 of the 3 others to their city limits.
* Food cities --They ain't so great. City planning really needs a combination of shields and food. In the future I'll spam cottages around big food type cities.
*Forests on rivers--Since I thought most of the river tiles would be used for food I chopped river forests first since those tiles will always be worked first. Chopping not only helped get a early settler our faster but it helped finish a couple wonders that were a big help.
*Early roads are not so critical--Unlike Civ3 roads are not quite as important unless they are taking you somewhere or hooking up a required resource.
*Research by calendar (TM?)as Sirian would say--It seems to me your tech path, in many cases, is dictated by your immediate surroundings. If you find wines then it makes sense to get monarchy fast.
My .02 but the game is so new I don't know if much of what I say should even be considered. Anyone havin' fun yet?
I play on Monarch, because the tool-tip said that was where the AI was just plain smarter. I got stomped about 20 times in a row, mostly as the Romans. Now I'm finally into the Industrial era (as Catherine of Russia) and only in 3rd place.
Things I learned:
1. Creative is uber. In the beginning you are always, always trying to grab land before they do. This early-game boost is just overwhelming, in my opnion. "Land is the foundation of the State!"
2. Financial is awesome. Organized is pointless; why save money on expanding to more cities when you could just make more money in the first place? You can start doing this with your first cottage (if it is on a river).
3. Founding a religion is really, really great. I always go stright for Polytheism, and if I miss it, that's ok - I go to Monotheism (the Judeaism audio track is cooler, anyway). Convert to your new-found religion immediately - its +5 culture in the founding city, which is huge in the beginning. I spend most of the game in Organized Religion civic.
4. Pottery is the uber-tech. You are going to make cottages. Lots of them, and early. After I get my religion the first thing I go for is pottery.
5. Archery is like, necessary. If you don't have lots of archers the AI will push you around. And barbarians will eat you.
6. Copper is better than Iron, since it comes earlier; but you will need one of the two as soon as possible. You have to have spearmen to stop their rampaging chariots and axemen to stop their swordsmen.
7. The pillaging! The point of going to war with your neighbor is not to capture his cities - that's incredibly hard - but to burn his infrastructure to the ground. Those towns take 70 turns to mature, and you can burn them in 2 turns with a horse unit.
8. Aztecs suck. If you start next to the Aztec, they will attack you early and often, no matter how pointless. They can't win, but they can gaurantee you don't win.
9. Start making Great People early, preferablly in one city. The scientist Academy is incredible, and founding your religion's special temple helps it spread faster.
10. I always get my religion, archery, pottery, and then I go for the Alphabet. I usually get it first, and then I can trade around and catch up with the AIs.
11. Always, always, always have your scout end his turn in a forest or a jungle. It's his only hope of living through the night. And of course, just like Sulla showed us, his first two promotions are Woodland I & II, for the movement benefit.
Traits
All the other traits suck, since they don't help you on turn 50. Maybe Industrious or Philosophical; but Expansive and Organized are just lame. +2 Health only helps halfway through the game, and Organized is almost as bad, plus it hardly helps. I think these two traits exist for the Chieftan 100 cities micromanage love fest game. Which is a style I sometimes enjoy.
War
I never build Knights; I have an early warfare period with axes and horse archers, and a late period with Cossacks. Knights would be cool but they just don't fit in. Even my Cossacks have like 10 turns where they rule, and then Riflemen show up. Units become obsolete faster as the modern age approaches.
I stopped building walls; with Creative, my cities get to 40% cultural defense pretty soon, and walls are only 50% (and they don't stack!). Catapults, however, are necessary if you want to take another city.
Things I learned:
1. Creative is uber. In the beginning you are always, always trying to grab land before they do. This early-game boost is just overwhelming, in my opnion. "Land is the foundation of the State!"
2. Financial is awesome. Organized is pointless; why save money on expanding to more cities when you could just make more money in the first place? You can start doing this with your first cottage (if it is on a river).
3. Founding a religion is really, really great. I always go stright for Polytheism, and if I miss it, that's ok - I go to Monotheism (the Judeaism audio track is cooler, anyway). Convert to your new-found religion immediately - its +5 culture in the founding city, which is huge in the beginning. I spend most of the game in Organized Religion civic.
4. Pottery is the uber-tech. You are going to make cottages. Lots of them, and early. After I get my religion the first thing I go for is pottery.
5. Archery is like, necessary. If you don't have lots of archers the AI will push you around. And barbarians will eat you.
6. Copper is better than Iron, since it comes earlier; but you will need one of the two as soon as possible. You have to have spearmen to stop their rampaging chariots and axemen to stop their swordsmen.
7. The pillaging! The point of going to war with your neighbor is not to capture his cities - that's incredibly hard - but to burn his infrastructure to the ground. Those towns take 70 turns to mature, and you can burn them in 2 turns with a horse unit.
8. Aztecs suck. If you start next to the Aztec, they will attack you early and often, no matter how pointless. They can't win, but they can gaurantee you don't win.
9. Start making Great People early, preferablly in one city. The scientist Academy is incredible, and founding your religion's special temple helps it spread faster.
10. I always get my religion, archery, pottery, and then I go for the Alphabet. I usually get it first, and then I can trade around and catch up with the AIs.
11. Always, always, always have your scout end his turn in a forest or a jungle. It's his only hope of living through the night. And of course, just like Sulla showed us, his first two promotions are Woodland I & II, for the movement benefit.
Traits
All the other traits suck, since they don't help you on turn 50. Maybe Industrious or Philosophical; but Expansive and Organized are just lame. +2 Health only helps halfway through the game, and Organized is almost as bad, plus it hardly helps. I think these two traits exist for the Chieftan 100 cities micromanage love fest game. Which is a style I sometimes enjoy.
War
I never build Knights; I have an early warfare period with axes and horse archers, and a late period with Cossacks. Knights would be cool but they just don't fit in. Even my Cossacks have like 10 turns where they rule, and then Riflemen show up. Units become obsolete faster as the modern age approaches.
I stopped building walls; with Creative, my cities get to 40% cultural defense pretty soon, and walls are only 50% (and they don't stack!). Catapults, however, are necessary if you want to take another city.
Pinstar said:
It's easy enough to make one if you want to try the combo. Just edit the file Assets\XML\Civilizations\CIV4LeaderHeadInfos.xml. Replace one of the traits in tle leader of your choice with TRAIT_CREATIVE.
You can even add more traits. I haven't actually played a game with more then two traits, so it could conceivably cause problems (I doubt it) but the extra traits do show up in the leader attributes.
Edit:
Be sure to back up your files before editing them! Don't say I didn't warn you!
Marquis Mark
Chieftain
I love using Frederick of the Germans (Creative/Philisophical).
Free culture really adds up fast and takes a lot of pressure off to build culture early, when you have other pressing matters. It also does a lot to save you from other civs that try to outculture you.
Philisophical is excellent. +100% Great People birth owns hard, especially when coupled with the Partheon wonder, National Epic building and Pacifism civic (+300% great person production!) Great people are useful for any game.
I also enjoy hunting first for a quick hop to archery and mining for quick hop to bronze working. Germans are a late-game civ so you have to maximize a military tech advantage to survive that long.
Free culture really adds up fast and takes a lot of pressure off to build culture early, when you have other pressing matters. It also does a lot to save you from other civs that try to outculture you.
Philisophical is excellent. +100% Great People birth owns hard, especially when coupled with the Partheon wonder, National Epic building and Pacifism civic (+300% great person production!) Great people are useful for any game.
I also enjoy hunting first for a quick hop to archery and mining for quick hop to bronze working. Germans are a late-game civ so you have to maximize a military tech advantage to survive that long.
Dairuka
Prince
After losing two games horribly; well before the B.C.'s were even over in Immortal Difficulty while trying to use the Mongols and the Incan's.
I decided to switch to Bismark's Industrious/Expansive traits; Thanks to them, I just completely dominated in Immortal Difficulty.
While the early UU's were missing; I found it EXTREMELY easy to expand. The reason for this is the fact that I only needed one worker as opposed to building 3-4 which limits around 20 turns of growth in your main city, or up to 50 turns of growth if you use unestablished new-cities. With the growth; add on that +2 health bonus; which is huge in the Immortal Level, since I didn't even bother to waste my worker's valuable time on connecting Health Resources. Instead I focused primarily on connecting cities for trade, and Production Resources to keep myself with a good military presence with a moderate sized population, {I was hovering in the 7 population region until I could hook up some happiness resources. 8 people usually meant unhappiness and a loss in production}
All the extra early growth helped me to keep up with production needs.
However; one of the main reasons I did so well was I planned my research route early. Rather than beeline for the Alphabet like I normally do to trade with more advanced nation's, I instead beelined for The Wheel; Bronze Working; Metalcasting; then Writing. With Industrious as my trait; I used Slavery to pump out a Forge in every city at the cost of only 1 population and 2 turns {1 turn to drop the pop rush cost to 1, and 1 turn to build it}. Then when i reach Writing; I pumped out Libraries into every city using Slavery for only 1 population and 2 turns; From there I'd establish every religion that wasn't already taken since I now have a significant advantage in research.
Before the renessaince era started; I founded Judaism, Confucianism, Taoism, Christanity and Islam. This gave me enough happiness benefits to pretty much ignore happiness at this point! With Expansive; My cities were around 18-19 in the early renessaince era. Most of my cities had at least 1 World Wonder in them; including my personal favorite one; The Pyramids. Which let me use Representation for a HUGE early game bonus. Since I only had 6 cities; this was a no brainer for a government civic choice.
In the later Renessaince era; While all the AI's were pumping out massive Military Research like Gunpowder or Military Tradition, I would beeline for Optics, Education and Banking. Focusing mostly on Research and my Economy. Production was at an all time high even though I only had a meager 6 cities as opposed to the AI's each having around 10 each. Since I only had 6 cities, it was notoriously easy to defend them. 3 macemen, 2 pikemen and 2 longbowmen were usually enough to repel anybody dumb enough to invade. Since my worker infrastructure was almost non-existant, yet my growth was steady; pillaging meant nothing. The worst they did at one point was limit my growth of pikemen because they pillaged my iron resource when I wasn't looking. Whoopty.
By the end of the Renessaince Era; the Neighbouring Mongols decided to invade me with Riflemen and Cavalry. I made extremely short work of them since by this time I had become the leader in technology due to being able to research a new Tech every 2-3 turns, while producing... well... anything and everything that wasn't a wonder in around 2-7 turns. With the huge number of temples in my cities, Happiness wasn't even a memory; hell my borders were even't impeding on the mongol's cities which was nice since it limited their growth!
I won by a Time/Score victory by 1500 points; but I had control of about Half of the Map at that point. Industrial Age and Modern Ages were spent pounding down every other civilization with Panzer's, Artillery and Marines.
All in all; I was satisfied with my game... and Bismark is my new favorite.
I decided to switch to Bismark's Industrious/Expansive traits; Thanks to them, I just completely dominated in Immortal Difficulty.
While the early UU's were missing; I found it EXTREMELY easy to expand. The reason for this is the fact that I only needed one worker as opposed to building 3-4 which limits around 20 turns of growth in your main city, or up to 50 turns of growth if you use unestablished new-cities. With the growth; add on that +2 health bonus; which is huge in the Immortal Level, since I didn't even bother to waste my worker's valuable time on connecting Health Resources. Instead I focused primarily on connecting cities for trade, and Production Resources to keep myself with a good military presence with a moderate sized population, {I was hovering in the 7 population region until I could hook up some happiness resources. 8 people usually meant unhappiness and a loss in production}
All the extra early growth helped me to keep up with production needs.
However; one of the main reasons I did so well was I planned my research route early. Rather than beeline for the Alphabet like I normally do to trade with more advanced nation's, I instead beelined for The Wheel; Bronze Working; Metalcasting; then Writing. With Industrious as my trait; I used Slavery to pump out a Forge in every city at the cost of only 1 population and 2 turns {1 turn to drop the pop rush cost to 1, and 1 turn to build it}. Then when i reach Writing; I pumped out Libraries into every city using Slavery for only 1 population and 2 turns; From there I'd establish every religion that wasn't already taken since I now have a significant advantage in research.
Before the renessaince era started; I founded Judaism, Confucianism, Taoism, Christanity and Islam. This gave me enough happiness benefits to pretty much ignore happiness at this point! With Expansive; My cities were around 18-19 in the early renessaince era. Most of my cities had at least 1 World Wonder in them; including my personal favorite one; The Pyramids. Which let me use Representation for a HUGE early game bonus. Since I only had 6 cities; this was a no brainer for a government civic choice.
In the later Renessaince era; While all the AI's were pumping out massive Military Research like Gunpowder or Military Tradition, I would beeline for Optics, Education and Banking. Focusing mostly on Research and my Economy. Production was at an all time high even though I only had a meager 6 cities as opposed to the AI's each having around 10 each. Since I only had 6 cities, it was notoriously easy to defend them. 3 macemen, 2 pikemen and 2 longbowmen were usually enough to repel anybody dumb enough to invade. Since my worker infrastructure was almost non-existant, yet my growth was steady; pillaging meant nothing. The worst they did at one point was limit my growth of pikemen because they pillaged my iron resource when I wasn't looking. Whoopty.
By the end of the Renessaince Era; the Neighbouring Mongols decided to invade me with Riflemen and Cavalry. I made extremely short work of them since by this time I had become the leader in technology due to being able to research a new Tech every 2-3 turns, while producing... well... anything and everything that wasn't a wonder in around 2-7 turns. With the huge number of temples in my cities, Happiness wasn't even a memory; hell my borders were even't impeding on the mongol's cities which was nice since it limited their growth!
I won by a Time/Score victory by 1500 points; but I had control of about Half of the Map at that point. Industrial Age and Modern Ages were spent pounding down every other civilization with Panzer's, Artillery and Marines.
All in all; I was satisfied with my game... and Bismark is my new favorite.
PoweredBySoy
Warlord
apatheist said:
Couldn't agree more. And when that one guy said that Expansive sucked, I wanted to stab him in the face!!!
No, not really.
Expansive 4 lyfe.
TyranusBonehead
Bound & Determined
Zelgadis75 said:
I agree with this, I've played Ghandi twice now and thought this was a really good leader. I've also played Genghis Khan and Roosevelt.
I reallly liked Spiritual. I was swopping between Organised religion and Theocracy loads, depending wether I was building buildings or units. The 2 extra expirience points with Theocracy was great, 'cos when combined with barracks you get 2 upgrades to start with. Makes a really big difference.
I also really like the fast workers of India. Moving onto forests and still able to work that turn is great, as is being able to move around my empire easily, so my inefficent empire planning is not so bad.
I also really like the fast workers of India. Moving onto forests and still able to work that turn is great, as is being able to move around my empire easily, so my inefficent empire planning is not so bad.
It would make cultural victories far too easy.Speciou5 said:I have learned why there is no Indus/Philo nation.
Industrious = More wonders = more great leader points
Philosophical = Double great leader points = more great leaders
An Ind/Phil leader would likely get around 3 times the great leaders as a civ that has neither trait.
CitizenCain
Warlord
- Joined
- Oct 27, 2005
- Messages
- 144
walkerjks said:
Probably closer to double, considering that the great person cost keeps going up for each successive person.
TyranusBonehead said:
I played Ghandi in my first game and won a diplomatic victory. Those fast workers are great! But then I played Genghis Khan and Ghandi showed up as my nearest neighbor--I wiped him out with no problem. So I suspect that Ghandi may be alot tougher to play if you have an aggressive neighbor early in the game.
There seems to be a lot of advantages and disadvantages to each combo, and the game seems pretty well balanced so there aren't any truly awful combos. My goal is to play each and every leader, rather than to keep trying the same one over and over again.
I consider the creative trait to be absolutely essential. When your cities are able to produce 2 culture points from the begining, without having to build a culture producing building, you can get a great head start. If you play your game correctly, you can easily get the majority of resources and land on your starting continent with minimal fuss.
After the creative trait, I'm unsure of what would be the best trait. I've played with Agreesive as Kublai Khan and Spiritual as Hatshepsut. Both of those traits has been useful. Agressive was essential with me waging a very early war and defeating the Germans. In the long run though, I'm not sure if it will be all that useful. My problem with winning is that I keep getting beat with the Space Race. So I need to find a way to produce more research points. I've been eying the Industrious trait. A lot of those wonders should help increase my research and great person production. Philosophical might also be a godsend, but I'm not sure if it will be very useful during the begining of the game.
After the creative trait, I'm unsure of what would be the best trait. I've played with Agreesive as Kublai Khan and Spiritual as Hatshepsut. Both of those traits has been useful. Agressive was essential with me waging a very early war and defeating the Germans. In the long run though, I'm not sure if it will be all that useful. My problem with winning is that I keep getting beat with the Space Race. So I need to find a way to produce more research points. I've been eying the Industrious trait. A lot of those wonders should help increase my research and great person production. Philosophical might also be a godsend, but I'm not sure if it will be very useful during the begining of the game.
Try financial. Extra commerce is very nice because since it goes into science early and you can shift it to culture late if you decide to go for a culture victory.Life said:
And since you like creative, Catherine is the creative/financial leader and Cossacks are a very nice mid-game unit.
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