Who is the most dangerous leader?

[Stoney the I]

# 1 enemy : willem

He techs well, REXes nicely, usually founds a religion and maintains a heavy military. and, as i play agrro AI, he is garanteed to declare war someday.
kill off before steam power is a must.

2: Hannibal
same as willem basically.

3: inca
i've had games (monarch) where the inca's ran away from the pack and never looked back. If i loose on cultural victory or space race, its against these guys.

4: any warmongerer that likes to attack 1000 BC or earlier. Genghis comes to mind, as well as shaka.

5: osaka or ghandi on isolated island filled with resources. (had this a bunch of times on fractal maps, dunno why)
while i am kicking ass on the mainland with knights the indians watch it on INN (indian news netwerk) via satelite TV.

 

[champ82]

Zara and Hannibal have been consistent thorns in my side.
Currently though Shaka seems like a problem as he has a city on oil, is the leader and my oil is offshore. My only hope for oil is to take his which is not easy.

Or you could bee-line to plastics, get an off-shore platform, and possibly find ethanol corp. I did that one time, not having oil was a snag, but having enough infantry means you’ll probably be safe. You need to do this sooner rather than later obviously.
Anyway, getting internet is always a priority of mine and you need plastic to get that.
It may not be what you hoped for, but spreading ethanol to your cities will give you $ too.

 

[champ82]

UPDATE : Shaka as a true threat.

This would be better with screen shots & a game save. Someday I will be a big boy and include these on my posts.
Basically Shaka’s trebuchet assaults aren’t enough to work on me, but he is on another continent and is HUGE. Has vassalized most of his neighbors. Space and Cultral victories are turned off. If he is smart, which is not likely, he will get assembly line, he is one tech away, and if he is smarter, even less likely, he will make some factories and could be a powerhouse just by having so many cities.

UPDATE to the UPDATE : I have tried to add the saved game so you can see what I'm talking about.

UPDATE to the Updated UPDATE : This save is very on-topic as Zara and Hannibal make apperances as well.

 

[IagoAlberto]

Shaka is indeed dangerous, early and if he can gobble up another AI or two, i.e. he's on the other continent. Otherwise he can be contained and stagnates after the renaissance.

Now Hannibal is a true threat, one of the few AI's I've seen lead a competant invasion of my empire, plus he techs well and balances infrastructure and military better than most.

Cathy and Louis take honourable mention because they both can amass large empires and build a good military. They also both tech well and love to give you the good old

Really its any AI that balances war and building effectively. All the peace mongers can be taken out quickly if you have a decent stack that is roughly at tech parity. A warmonger on the other hand you know what to expect and are prepared. When they come at you they can be cut down to size or eliminated if you're 'really' prepared.

 

[Kiwi Tyrant]

I always play with the leaders personalities on 'random' so I can't predict from the beginning how they will react.

With this, I have found that Sitting Bull in the early stages can be just vicious if he's not your friend!

*makes Dog Soldiers without resources. These things can match any Roman Prat's sent at you; for less hammer cost!

*Totem Pole, coupled with Protection trait, means XP'ed Archer units comin' at ya early on! And when they're coupled with Doggies, removing them from forested tiles, hill cities.....

Thank the lord they are not Aggressive, Imperialist or even Charismatic!

 

[Commodore Nate]

I find Hannibal is always easy to crush, since he does the exact opposite of what you said he does in the early game with me.

 

[Jewman]

shaka is harmless. annoying like sh#$% but harmless..
monty is idk... i rarely actually play with him for some reason... i dont even try NOT TO.
i would say that brennus for me personally.
little sneaky bastard declares war on people within his religion.
and never likes me regardless of what i do or if im his religion.

someone said mansa musa.
haha last game mansa musa had airships when i had just gotten macemen and trebs.
and i totally owned him, i capitulated him and squeezed two techs out of him.
he held a tech lead on me for many many centuries after that even if he was considerably smaller than me. a mere fraction of my gigantic empire.

 

[Ormylar]

I'm on Zara Yaqob/Mansa Musa for their teching
Shaka / Caesar for military
Isabella for religious alliance enemies

I agree with you for that. Dutch are good in science as well plus any other spiritual civ later on in the game. I find Ragnar very annoying with his units in the early/mid game. One civ that's very tough and annoying in the beginning is the Portugese. All he does is builds city after city after city! And what surprises me even more is that he's pretty advanced untill late middle to late. Ghandi, Gilgamesh and Hatshepsut are also tough.

 

[Ormylar]

I always play with the leaders personalities on 'random' so I can't predict from the beginning how they will react.

With this, I have found that Sitting Bull in the early stages can be just vicious if he's not your friend!

*makes Dog Soldiers without resources. These things can match any Roman Prat's sent at you; for less hammer cost!

*Totem Pole, coupled with Protection trait, means XP'ed Archer units comin' at ya early on! And when they're coupled with Doggies, removing them from forested tiles, hill cities.....

Thank the lord they are not Aggressive, Imperialist or even Charismatic!

Just send Chariots to kill his dogsoldiers.

 

[Kiwi Tyrant]

That would be a simple solution if he did'nt stack his Doggies with his highly promoted Archers and move them onto forested tiles etc. If he was human and not dumb AI, he'd include spearmen and really compound the problem!

 

[Ormylar]

True, assuming he has copper. You don't need copper to build Dog Soldiers.

 

[URSExelcior]

Strongest AI's: Willem van Oranje, Hannibal, Zara Yaqob, Mansa Musa, Huanya Capac
Dangerous AI's: Julius Caesar, Genghis Khan, Kublai Khan, Shaka, Brennus, Alexander, Catherine

Honorable mention: Sitting Bull because he uses espionage, -frequently-

 

[blitzkrieg1980]

shaka is harmless. annoying like sh#$% but harmless..

You really think so? IMO, if he isn't located close enough to me for pre-Astronomy war, he's a big time trouble maker. He seems to be an effective early land-grabber, he remains tight in the tech race, and he's quite violent => has huge stacks.

At least, this is how it goes in most of my games. He has successfully rebuffed one of my late game amphibious assaults which I NEVER have trouble with!

 

[QwertyKey]

For whatever reason I rarely draw Shaka or Zara, and I don't think either has ever been a huge deal for me. The only ones who have ever whipped me out (after I got some experience with the game) were Cathy, Gilgamesh, and Alexander. I've had some issues with Cyrus as well, but he just seems to be one I draw a lot, so at some point he's got to be a problem.

 

[Rusty Edge]

One of the worst situations I've found is when Shaka is on another continent with Ghandi, and Shaka vassalizes him, or he converts Shaka to his religion - making Ghandi's brains in league with Shaka's fists.

By the time I can reach them I have to be able to out-tech Gahndi and out-fight Shaka ....it's a tough invasion.

 

[blitzkrieg1980]

^ ^ ^ That's usually how Shaka gets ahead of me in tech. He's with Mansa Musa or Ghandi and has vassalized or become close friends with them.

I think it's interesting how different people's CIV game draws different common characters in their games. What's more interesting is that each person's CIV game has their common characters being commonly strong or weak. I almost ALWAYS get Isabella, Shaka, Zara, and one of the Indian leaders. Zara is ALWAYS a powerhouse. Isabella is almost ALWAYS on top. Monty (if I get him) is almost ALWAYS at the bottom of the list.

I wonder why that is? For me Gilgamesh has never been a threat and I rarely get him.

 

[Zenon_pt]

Monty, Monty, Monty, Shaka, Monty, Monty...

Definitely Monty(zuma) in my top one!

 

[Lexicus]

Julius can be pretty bad in the very beginning. In fact, he's the only one who's ever actually eliminated me with his military. All other games I lost, I've lost because someone else won.

 

[Kiwi Tyrant]

They can all be equally bad-ass if you 'tick' the option to randomise their personalities from the start. That way you don't have the luxury of already knowing exactly how the leader will react and play; just like a human player.
Ghandi might be a warmonger, Shaka a pacifist, etc.....

 

[szemek77]

O yes, Shaka is a pain in the....... I played a game as Dutch and he was just terrible as a neighbour. After second war with him, when I thought he would be too weak to even think to start again with me, he did it again..... Like a little dog trying to bite a bear. I wasn't hurt much, but I couldn't sleep well either.