Which Leaders are best to be friends with?

[Big J Money]

I'm asking for those of you with some insight and experience to please share your opinion on which Leaders make the best allies and precisely why. It may be because they are the easiest to ally with, or because there is some other benefit (they are loyal, they can give you stuff, etc, etc...)

There otherwise seems to be no strategy article around here breaking down each leader's profile (aside from BTS), so I thought maybe this would be something that would be more feasible but still useful to some of us (certainly me, as I am never that good at Diplo).

Please do not offer tables with numbers. They are too hard to memorize and break the immersion of the game anyway.

=$= Big J Money =$=

 

[futurehermit]

Some leaders like Cathy, Alex may backstab you so they don't make good allies.

I like having an attackdog and a tech partner. If Shaka is around I will do whatever he asks whenever until I get him to friendly. He is the biggest dog on the block and having him at my side ready to attack anyone at my beck and call is a good deal. Then having a financial leader as a tech partner is always good.

The rest can be eliminated at your leisure

 

[PericlesOfAthen]

I like Shaka too and I also like Kublai Khan, he techs well and is willing to serve as attack dog too. I also have never had a problem with him backstabbing. I like Mansa too as long as he is contained and doesn't have a large amount of land. If he does then he's a threat and I try to take him out early. I am playing my first game with Pacal II of the Mayans and very strangely he founded FOUR religions and he is expansive and financial. He worked to spread hindiusm far and wide from the very beginning of the game and so everyone is hindu except poor Charlemagne. Pacal's the one I've be trading with as he is the only one to keep up so far. But if I'm not friendly he won't trade so I don't think he'll make a good partner normally.

 

[xfactor99]

Well, it depends on what your concerns are. Gandhi and Mansa Musa will pretty much never declare war on you if you're buddy-buddy with them, but they're such tech fiends (Mansa Musa especially) that they may just zoom past you and all of a sudden they're two eras ahead of you and about to win launch a spaceship while you're still stuck with grenadiers and riflemen. Mansa Musa is notoriously easy to tech trade with, but since he's always one of the leaders in tech it's dangerous to help him out anymore.

Montezuma, Catherine, Ragnar, Alexander, Genghis Khan, Boudica, and Napoleon are notorious backstabbers/warmongerers (Montezuma especially) so keep that even if you get them up to pleased, they'll still have no qualms marching up to your border with a stack of doom.

Some of the better allies, in my experience, have been Hannibal, Cyrus, Bismarck, Hatshepsut, and all the American presidents...no complaints with them.

And then there are the religious nutjobs you have to handle cautiously (Isabella, Brennus, Saladin, Charlemagne) and the rogue isolationist that always ends up pissing everyone off (Tokugawa)

 

[futurehermit]

Pacal's the one I've be trading with as he is the only one to keep up so far. But if I'm not friendly he won't trade so I don't think he'll make a good partner normally.

I've had no problem trading with Pacal at pleased. Just be sure to avoid WFYABTA

 

[Withouthatred]

Oranje and asoka are the best two from me experience.

 

[Aquarius_DJ]

Some leaders like Cathy, Alex may backstab you so they don't make good allies.

I like having an attackdog and a tech partner. If Shaka is around I will do whatever he asks whenever until I get him to friendly. He is the biggest dog on the block and having him at my side ready to attack anyone at my beck and call is a good deal. Then having a financial leader as a tech partner is always good.

The rest can be eliminated at your leisure

I have Shaka in my current game. He is Budhist along with Ghandi. Shaka declared war to me. Not a surprise. For some mysterious reason I managed Ghandi to declare war on me too... Because of that Shaka was on a +4 relationship with Ghandi. After I whiped out some of their attackforces I made peace with both. 20 turns later Shaka declared war to Ghandi out of the blue. So i guess he isn't quite someone to trust...

 

[cabert]

I have Shaka in my current game. He is Budhist along with Ghandi. Shaka declared war to me. Not a surprise. For some mysterious reason I managed Ghandi to declare war on me too... Because of that Shaka was on a +4 relationship with Ghandi. After I whiped out some of their attackforces I made peace with both. 20 turns later Shaka declared war to Ghandi out of the blue. So i guess he isn't quite someone to trust...

pleased and friendly are very different relation standings.
shaka will attack on pleased, not on friendly.

Catherine will attack even if friendly, so it's useless to try to be nice to her.

 

[axident]

Cyrus is very loyal and rarely starts crap with you if you are even remotely in his power range.

 

[Solver]

Mansa Musa is my favorite ally. Remain allied with him for most of the game, getting some very sweet trades out of it, then you'll probably need to backstab and attack, otherwise he'll run away with the game.

Gandhi, Asoka, Darius and Willem are good allies - if they like you, they won't attack. Then there's also a bunch of leaders who are excellent allies if you have the same religion - Ramesses, Brennus and Saladin stand out in particular, they usually have some good trading material, and don't want to attack you if they like you.

 

[budweiser]

For me, Shaka is best. He is very reliable and always has lots of troops available to throw at my (umm, our) enemies. Actually, I dont trust anyone else.

 

[madscientist]

Hereare some catagories

Trustworthy: These people will not backstab you, are easy to befriend, and useful in a war: Cyrus, Bismark (he did once though), Asoka, Hannibal.

Useful weapons of war: These can be bribed into attacking someone and easy to befriend with monarchial rule, that said do not trust them. Catherine, Alexander, Ragnar. Oh, give catherine whatever she wants, tribute Alexander as need be trade with ragnar.

Peaceful techers. People who can help you into space but may just beat you there first if not carefull. Ghandi, Mansa Musa, Wang Kon.

Your religious solemates: Brennus, Saladin, Ramses II. They love you if the same religion and have religious favorite civs to help butter them up. They also rarely shift to free religion. DO NOT TRUST ISABELLA!!!!

The indifferent. Those who will unlikely declare but give you nothing in return (tech or military). Elizabeth, Washington.

The untrustworthy. Shaka, Montezuma, Ghengis, Julius, Napolean. Contrary to the above posts I DO NOT TRUST shaka and he is my most detested neighbor.

 

[colony]

Most of the crazy warmongering AIs will ask for tribute early on, if it's a reasonably valuable tech they want and if you give it to them then you'll normally get a big relations boost with them, most of the time enough to get them to Pleased. I won't actually trust any of them, but they are very useful to have on your side, as long as you have enough techs to keep them at war with someone.

Being friends with backstabbing AIs is also useful when they're best friends with your target, they'll be bribable when even some of the aggressive AIs aren't. Alex and Cathy can be good for this, just don't let them get a big power lead or leave cities on their borders lightly defended.

I don't tend to deliberately aim to be friends with any specific peaceful AI in the early game, but any reasonably peaceful non Financial leader, like Cyrus or Asoka is good to have on your side. The Financial ones, particularly Wang and Mansa, are normally among my first targets, knowing that they're capable of getting a decent sized tech lead always makes me nervous when I meet them.

 

[gettingfat]

None of them can be friends, although some of them are better, on relative terms. There are a few type of leaders I simply avoid being their "friends":

Backstabbers: IMHO all warmongers are backstabbers. I think Alex, Napolean and Montsy are just the worst. It seems to me Bourdica is the female version of Alex and all she does is piling up military. Cathy is getting angrier in BtS. I disagree with Shaka being trustworthy as he stabbed my back at least twice while being friendly before. Ragner can be a dangerous jerk as well.

isolaters: Some leaders never truly love to interact. For example even you get Toku, Stalin, Mao and Brenner to pleased they won't give you any daxm thing still. So I usually don't care much befriending these highly reserved guys.

Bullies/buggers: Some of them will keep making insane demands even your power ranking is way higher than them. If you say no then it's -1 dip modifier. Napolean and Louis, Genghis Khan, Peter, Shaka all ask a lot. Mansa actually is quite bad, keep making those insane requests.

Tech gifters: Yes, you want builders as friends, but not those leaders who will immediately sell everything you hand to him for a bag of peanuts to your enemies. Mansa is the worst (Gandhi and Huaya is second). Once he discovers feudalism, in next 5 terms the guy you're at war suddenly have all archers magically becoming longbows. Adding to his demanding personality, I tend to finish him off (or at least leave him no more than 3 bad cities) every time he's my neighbour before rifling.

Religous frexks: unless you're going to keep the same religion, you'll break up from leaders like Isabel pretty soon.

To me, the better ones will be Hatshy, the three English leaders, Hannibal, Frederick. Wang Kon, Kublai Khan and the American leaders are OK, although somewhat reserved. It seems to me Orangie is fine. I still need more exp with BtS games though.

 

[ds61514]

The leader that is NOT the one you're about to kill.

 

[axident]

Hereare some catagories

Trustworthy: These people will not backstab you, are easy to befriend, and useful in a war: Cyrus, Bismark (he did once though), Asoka, Hannibal.

Useful weapons of war: These can be bribed into attacking someone and easy to befriend with monarchial rule, that said do not trust them. Catherine, Alexander, Ragnar. Oh, give catherine whatever she wants, tribute Alexander as need be trade with ragnar.

Peaceful techers. People who can help you into space but may just beat you there first if not carefull. Ghandi, Mansa Musa, Wang Kon.

Your religious solemates: Brennus, Saladin, Ramses II. They love you if the same religion and have religious favorite civs to help butter them up. They also rarely shift to free religion. DO NOT TRUST ISABELLA!!!!

The indifferent. Those who will unlikely declare but give you nothing in return (tech or military). Elizabeth, Washington.

The untrustworthy. Shaka, Montezuma, Ghengis, Julius, Napolean. Contrary to the above posts I DO NOT TRUST shaka and he is my most detested neighbor.

I don't know about the rest but Hannibal is a known backstabber. Look it up in the XML analysis thread. He WILL declare short of Friendly. Genghis and Nappy I've used to shield an entire flank before; just bribe them to attack others.

 

[RockTheCazbah87]

Umm... Gandhi, Asoka and Mansa are buggers, good friends but tech hogs. I can only think of a few true friends... being the Yanks, Cyrus & Darius, Willem... and Hannibal's always been a friend to me.

 

[dutchking]

My favorites:

Spoiler :

Elizabeth
Willem
Bismarck
~Napoleon, a little

People I suck up to:

Spoiler :

Stalin, scares me
Willem
Churchill
Roosevelt

People that piss me off:

Spoiler :

Montezuma
ISA-Friggen-BELLA!!!
Napoleon
Stalin
Louis XIV

etc...

 

[MisterBarca]

Well, it depends on what your concerns are. Gandhi and Mansa Musa will pretty much never declare war on you if you're buddy-buddy with them, but they're such tech fiends (Mansa Musa especially) that they may just zoom past you and all of a sudden they're two eras ahead of you and about to win launch a spaceship while you're still stuck with grenadiers and riflemen. Mansa Musa is notoriously easy to tech trade with, but since he's always one of the leaders in tech it's dangerous to help him out anymore.

Montezuma, Catherine, Ragnar, Alexander, Genghis Khan, Boudica, and Napoleon are notorious backstabbers/warmongerers (Montezuma especially) so keep that even if you get them up to pleased, they'll still have no qualms marching up to your border with a stack of doom.

Some of the better allies, in my experience, have been Hannibal, Cyrus, Bismarck, Hatshepsut, and all the American presidents...no complaints with them.

And then there are the religious nutjobs you have to handle cautiously (Isabella, Brennus, Saladin, Charlemagne) and the rogue isolationist that always ends up pissing everyone off (Tokugawa)

Genghis backstabbed me so badly the last game!

 

[RockTheCazbah87]

I can only think of a few true friends... being the Yanks, Cyrus & Darius, Willem... and Hannibal's always been a friend to me.

I take this comment back.

Willem's a son of a b*tch!