Which Leader/Civ makes you crazy-volcano-mad?

[dante alighieri]

In another thread I was expalining how I think my current game woes are due to interfernece by Wang kon and the last thing i typed was "I that guy!" as if he was a real person. It made me think, I really do hate that guy. every time i see his weaselly fat face in a game I know he's gonna be a pain. even when we've been allies I've hated him. Why/ Because i know....I just know it was "friendly" and "Pleased" ally Wang that spammed me with spies in one game. In another game he voluntarily became my vassal so i'd be his guardian against the vikings, but later backstabbed the hell out of me when I needed help. (I eliminated him later in that game for it....ah, sweet catharsis....)

There are plenty of civs i don't like being near in a game...monty, Izzy, boudica....but at least they're up front about their bloodthirsty craziness. Wang is just a greasy little skunk, which in my opinion makes him a bigger arsehole than a warmongering bully like shaka or monty. At least you know where they stand.

So what civs really drive you up the wall. What civ leader makes you grind your teeth because you know they're dishonest judas goats? You know no matter what you're going to end up being enemies with them? (but they usually have a way of staying alive, because of distance or some or factor that keeps you from killing them early on) for me, its Wang. I don't like seeing Mansa Musa either, but only because he techs and trades too well.

 

[TBT]

I don't like Shaka the most. He is like a war robot, only building army, attacking and conquering. I can't trust him when he is my neighbour. He always backstabes me, even when I give him techs as "gifts for a friend", have the same religion and the same rivals.
But in my current game he has broken his teeth on me (Huayna Capac). His huge neighbouring empire backstabbed me with the strongest army in the world and his vassal, mine being the third but nearly twice weaker in statistics. I thought it was over for me but I managed to decimate him in a long campaign, painful mainly for him because his soldiers didn't pillage me much and only I captured and razed his cities. I switched all production to cavalry that he couldn't build yet, all espionage points on him and paid two other civs to declare war on him. His initial and main mistake was trying to capture my border city while I moved 3/4 of my army there before his main stack arrived.

During that long campaign I exterminated his vassal Isabela (she refused to talk until her last soldier), razed about 5 huge cities of Shaka including the capital and conquered in total about 70% of his huge terititory. Now I have the strogest army and largest empire but I have too much micromanagement in cities and all neigbours hate me.

 

[Pieman]

Shaka is almost always the strongest military threat in my games. Hannibal often seems very powerful, raking in gold, maintaining a large army and teching well. Sury is quite an arse if you don't share his religion and always seems to do really well. Catherine is also someone to look out for, though she has been a very good ally in recent games.

 

[Diamondeye]

Willem Van Oranje and Shaka are some of the biggest jerks in the game imho.

 

[Iranon]

Joao. He's neither bloodthirsty nor loyal enough to be a good lap dog. He's too much of a miser to be a good trade partner. He's opportunistic enough to attack at inopportune moments. The only good part about him is that he usually doesn't have the military power to back up his jerkiness and is an easy source of free cities.
I can tolerate backstabbing curs if there's some gain to be had in the short run... Joao rarely gives me a reason not to wipe him out.

Suryavarman and Catherine are jerks as well, but at least they can be useful. Surly is a tolerable ally if he has the same religion and Catherine will do anything to anyone for the right price.

 

[Wacky]

Catharina ,..

I was playing the 18civ map rivaling with China, All the time I was scared for Catharina. Don't backstab me beautiful Ruler

Later in the game she vassaled out free Will for me . I thought it was a good thing to do. Butt she really build up a massive modern army (I gave her techs). Lets say I learned many things that game

 

[Ormur]

Catharina ,..

I was playing the 18civ map rivaling with China, All the time I was scared for Catharina. Don't backstab me beautiful Ruler

Yes I voted for Catherina because of the same experience in the Earth 18 civ map. Eventually I always had to destroy her, whether I started in China or Europe. She just couldn't be trusted.

 

[Refar]

I voted for Joao.

Shaka is actually a really honest guy. He will allways attack you, so you cant talk from "backstbbing" there...

 

[UnlockPotential]

I vited fir Burger King..Charlemagne...it might be me, but when he get's the AP he really annoys me...

 

[The Snug]

You forgot to include Monty in your poll, or was that by design since he's a 100 percent war monger, and with him the idea of "surprise" doesn't exist?

 

[djvandrake]

Definitely Joao. He's a real rat fink. In my current game on one turn we are getting along fine and complete a nice trade to take relations to very close to friendly (like +9) and on the very next turn he declares with a surprise attack. Luckily he's an idiot and tried to amphib and attack directly off the ship. My ships of the line handled things nicely.

He's such a backstabber. Always a false face.

Catherine is too but I don't mind her as much because she's such a flirt.

 

[HerrDoktor]

Caesar, for an early rush. He just can't place his dirty hands on praetorians. If he's not around, Hyena, Monty or any other Mesoamerican crazy heart-munching leader. To tell the truth, actually, everyone who is unfortunate enough to be my next-door neighbor will end up six feet under, except ninja turtles like Sitting Bull, who will sit there until I got the catapults.

 

[Bongo-Bongo]

From the list, I have found Justinian winds me up the most, but of all the leaders, Charles De Gaulle, gets to me the most. It's bad enough that he regularly stabs me in the back, dragging me into wars that usually aren't too difficult, but I can't really afford to fight, he also has a freakishly large nose. No nose should be that big!

Shaka and Monty don't really bother me too much. Sure, they're annoying, but I've found the inevitability of their attacks has made them predictable opponents. So now I just attack them as soon as I can.

 

[one2tieyourshoe]

Joao. By far. In my current game, I razed his civilization because he was doing worse than some colony/vassals. He was doing so poorly, I just felt bad. But didn't want his loser civilization to be absorbed into mine.

 

[dante alighieri]

You forgot to include Monty in your poll, or was that by design since he's a 100 percent war monger, and with him the idea of "surprise" doesn't exist?

Yeah, I didn't include monty because he always attacks. No subtlety....you KNOW he's gonna DOW no matter what.

 

[Kepi]

Alexander was the first AI I truely felt backstabbed by. I've been a lot more cautious when he's near me ever since. He does make a good war ally though, he actually makes a decent attempt at taking down the other AIs at war. However, if I were to leave anything short of a battalion at our border he's likely to come sniffing around. Then again, sometimes just two workers paving roads at the border seems enough reason for him to wage a war on me.

 

[Silence101]

I voted for Joao.

That's funny - Joao pisses me off in every game. I'm glad I'm not the only one.

Other honorable mentions for me are: Gilgamesh, Catherine, Victoria, HC, Suryavarman (sp?), Hannible, Cyrus, Justinian... I'm sure there's a few that I'm missing.

 

[BalbanesBeoulve]

I despise all the warmongers. Survayaman is probably the worst, because he's impossible to get along with. He gets -2 everytime you deny his request, so he's impossible to stay friendly with.

 

[Ceritoglu]

EDIT: Crazy internet connection!

 

[Ceritoglu]

Joao & Shaka always create trouble for me...I ended up going for Shaka because he is consistently dominant, whereas Joao is only occasionally so and is usually fairly impotent in non-seafaring maps.