Who is the WORST Civ Leader? [POLL]

[nate46]

Everyone talks about the best Civ Leaders.... You have the broken early unique unit combined with solid traits tier: the Incas, the Perisians, the Caesars, the Egyptians, the Malinese...

You have the strong financial civs--Willem, Elizabeth.

You have the Imperialistic Civs that everyone agrees are good for SOME reason, (Catharine, Victoria, Suleiman), but its certainly not because imper is a tier 1 trait -- no, obv it's a mediocre trait that just happens to synergize well with every single other trait.

But what about the worst Civ Leaders?

--

For marathon I'd argue its Saladin. Spiritual is pretty bad on marathon (since there's not as much anarchy). Protective is garbage. His starting techs are terrible, esp for marathon where you'd want some kind of food tech or mining rather than the wheel. His unique unit is rarely of any use.

On normal speed, though, spiritual is probably too good of a trait for Saladin to be the absolute worst. Or maybe it isn't. Who is worse than him?

Trait wise, it's got to be Tokugawa (agg/pro). But his unique unit is so much fun that I just can't put him last.

People who don't know how to leverage imperialistic sometimes put Charlemagne at dead last. He's certainly the worst, by far, of the imperialistic civs. His starting techs suck (but with imper, you can just go settler first if the worker has nothing to do!). But his unique building is a good one.

Churchill is pretty bad. But at least he starts with mining.

What about Boudica? can you win a game with super promo'd gallic warriors, to make the agg/char combo worth it? Are gallic warriors even worth building or are they totally useless? Does it even matter if they have extra promos if you have to bring along catapults anyway?

Who's the worst civ leader?

 

[Bandobras Took]

I'd say Isabella, because I'd rather have any other Spritual leader/civ than her and I'd rather have any other Expansive leader/civ than her. She has castle UB that ups Siege Unit XP, but starts with Fishing, which, if I'm remembering correctly, rules out the Engineering bulb. And her UU seems rather meh.

Saladin I can't call worst because the Madrassa is a nice early UB, and resourceless UUs can save you when the map is bad.

And it's not just Tokugawa's UU, it's every single draftable gunpowder unit that makes him great.

 

[nate46]

the +5 exp siege works for cannons too... CR 3 cannons right out of the gate is pretty strong...

also her unique unit is a cuir that doesn't get beat by pikes and gets defensive bonuses. That's hardly bad. I mean, cuirrasier rushes are pretty popular, so i'd think an even better cuirassier would be a pretty good unique unit.

Her traits are both decent. I don't see how isabella is bad??? sorry, didn't include her as an option!

 

[timmy827]

For me, SPI and EXP are top-4 traits (I don't play marathon), and that greatly outweighs Isabella's pretty bad starting techs and meh UU, well into the top half. (I agree the UU is pretty meh, how often does the AI stockpile a bunch of pikes to stop a cuir rush? you generally see only a few and a lot more longbows. The 10xp trebs/cannons are a lot more appealing path).

 

[georgjorge]

On lower difficulties Highlands map, Gallic warriors can be a speedy and effective attacking force on par with Horse Archers. That's about the only good thing I can say about them. Guerilla III Rifles with the Dun could be spectacular, why can't it be done (Dun obsoletes with Rifling)?

Still - it's got to be Tokugawa. The ONLY things he has going for him is drafting stronger gunpowder units and Samurai, but both give you benefits at a time when they aren't really crucial.

Generally, you either want to start conquering cities long before gunpowder units or use mounted (Cavalry/Cuirs), and if you have 12+ cities already those extra promotions won't matter that much anymore. Samurai are strong but again, in medieval war it's all about having enough Trebs and stack protection (Pikes/Crossbows). If you got those things, it doesn't matter whether you attack cities with Samurai or even plain Swordsmen.

You picked some convincingly bad leaders, but no good starting techs and no good traits convinces me the most. Saladin is a close second in that department with only one good trait.

 

[Fippy]

I'd say Isabella

oh my..

Well for me it's Charly, sorry Nate (Imp leader )
If you are looking for Protective with bad starting techs..Charly waves at you.
Fast settlers are always nice, but most traits offer something good.

(I agree the UU is pretty meh, how often does the AI stockpile a bunch of pikes to stop a cuir rush?

You can watch this movie in your nearby deity cinema
Also Maces..

What about Boudica? can you win a game with super promo'd gallic warriors, to make the agg/char combo worth it? Are gallic warriors even worth building or are they totally useless?

She also gets nice Axes.
Boudi would be considered a strong leader with better starting techs, very good early rushes possible and Charismatic is nice anyways.

Gallics are fun, mountain promo line is very strong if you get 1 for free.
They move faster than normal melee units with some hills around, and G3 is underrated.

 

[elitetroops]

All leaders can be good in some situations. I'd still rank Sal and Charlie very close to the bottom.

Looking at it in another way one could also argue that Alexander is bad. He's PHI, so certainly not the worst leader in the game, but he is a huge downgrade from Pericles. Pericles has great synergy with cheap libraries+PHI for very early GS, add cheap unis for cheap Oxford, and also half price UB, making it the cheapest happiness in the game apart from HR warriors. If your civilization of choice is Greece, there's very little incentive to ever pick Alexander. Even in super fast conquest games I value CRE over AGG.

 

[Izuul]

Yeah i don't know if there was much of an alternative for the devs, but i don't really like how a lot of leaders from the same civ share 1 trait. You end up a handful of leaders that are really similar, but just inferior to their counterparts to various degrees. Obviously this is going to be a bit subjective, but:

Pericles > Alexander
Gandhi > Asoka
Qin > Mao
De Gaulle > Napolean
Kublai > Genghis
Lincoln > Washington
Brennus > Boudica
Augustus > JC (although ORG can be nice if you just praet stomp everyone early)
Lizzy > Vicky (Nate just got angry)

There's also Ramesses and Hatty, but i think Creative fits pretty nicely with an early WC rush and keeps Harry on par.

At least with the Ottomans, Russians, and Persians you get some variety. I still think Darius is quite a bit better than Cyrus, but Cyrus at least offers something different.

Edit: I voted for Charlie as the worst leader.

 

[Izuul]

I guess I'll take the bait on the IMP thing too.

IMP is good if you beeline BW and whip/chop all of your settlers. If you do anything else its really mediocre. It offers very little production bonus when slow building settlers because the majority of that production typically comes via food and not hammers.

It also helps greatly to have conditions favorable to getting early BW. If you have to tech things like AG and AH first, BW is going to be late and might not even come in time to help with settler #2, much less settler #1. By that time you are only likely to build a few more settlers.

And of course you have to at least consider the opportunity cost of putting all of your forests into workers and settlers. I'm not saying you should save your forests for Math or anything, but if you plan to settle some cities and then rush you need to weigh putting your forests into workers/settlers vs putting some of your forests into units. That basically brings me back to the time issue. If settling your cities a couple turns faster is the only way you will get them, then 100% chop away (typically a deity issue). If that's not the case then much more thought is required. With IMP it's obviously much more compelling to put more chops than normal into them, but is that really game changing when compared to the benefits of other traits?

 

[nate46]

mostly unrelated to this thread... i just had a game where i built 3 cities totaling 8 pop and the oracle before building a single worker

Spoiler :

I think I'm going to die to barbs soon.

 

[nate46]

It offers very little production bonus when slow building settlers because the majority of that production typically comes via food and not hammers.

you typically go mining before food resources on imper, unless you have a 6f tile. The settler factory city is a 1 pop or 2 pop city that just works mines and nothing else.

and if you really have nothing but food, you can still whip and get the imper bonus from that.

 

[Fippy]

I find Imp interesting, but more for generals
They are very good on early rushes, 20xp divided over your units that's tough to stop for AIs if you can do so 2 or 3x with Imp.

I think for Genghis i.e. he's really not that bad if played right.
CR3 (and C1 ofc) Axes via Generals early..you can take out Deity AIs with that.

Sometimes it's experiments like that which change my mind on leaders, different playstyles. You will farm some barbs maybe so you can start with CR2, get a couple wins over AIs and then you can have several CR3 with a bit increased strength via Agg. Interesting stuff.

 

[MyOtherName]

Spiritual is pretty bad on marathon (since there's not as much anarchy).

I'm not sure this makes sense. Spiritual isn't just "no anarchy during the 3 times you switch your civics in the game" -- spiritual is "you can switch civics every 5 turns to pick what's best right this moment. And it's still just 5 turns, so marathon means you get to switch even more frequently relative to the time scale.

Note what's best "right this moment" really does change a lot -- e.g. slavery is a lot better when your ready to whip than when you're not ready to whip, theocracy is a lot better when you're about to finish units, that AI's favorite civic is a lot better when you're trying to negotiate a sweet trade deal than it otherwise is.

 

[nate46]

Ghengis > Kublai all day every day, lol Who needs creative. Can use the turns you save from imperialistic to build the stonehenge (i'm joking).

... as for spi ... the thing about spiritual on marathon is that civic changes take 2 turns on marathon, and religion changes take 1 turn... so you spend a less percentage of your time in anarchy over the normal course of a game. SPI also has the same problem as organized in that by the time you have enough good civics to switch between, the game may have already been decided. But even organzied is better early game (pre 1000 bc), than spiritual is.

The other problem with spiritual on marathon is that marathon is much more of a warmonger's game, esp in the ancient/classical eras. If you're supposed to take half the map before you even research code of laws, spiritual is a pretty pointless trait, don't you think? Its much better for games where you're peacefully teching to liberalism or going for cultural victory or something... but those strategies are much less optimal on marathon where you're often better off gunning for early wars (since military units on marathon are cheaper and effectively faster).

 

[DrCron]

I voted for Toku. His traits have the worst possible sinergy, and I can't think of a game in which his UB would make any change in the final outcome.

In archipelago maps I would change it for Charlie because Toku's fishing would be way better than Charlie's hunting, but on a land map I'd say Toku's the worst one.

I don't think there's a real fight between those 2 and everyone else. CHA and SPI are clearly better traits than what these 2 guys have. Churchill starts with mining, Boudicca has traits that make a decent sinergy and Saladin is one of the best leaders for a cultural victory. Seriously, why is Saladin even an option? Don't you guys EVER try to win peacefully?

 

[georgjorge]

Regarding Imperialistic: I fired up a quick game as Cathy to get a feel for what nate is proposing. Cathy is best at claiming land with both Imp and Cre and starts with Mining.

I made a single Warrior (only Scout at start), a Worker for chopping and then Settlers at size 1 working a Gold. Researched Bronze Working right away.

As you can see these are very good conditions on the map - river for connection + Gold + lots of forests around. And the AI take care of barbs.

It feels really good to spam cities and I probably wouldn't have gotten even four cities otherwise here. You can actually keep up with the Deity AI for the first four or five cities this way. The downside? Take a look at the time where I have four cities but am not working either gold (because I want to grow to size 2).

Spoiler :

I'm able to afford THREE beakers only because of upkeep even though all my cities are connected for trade routes. I have Pottery so I can make cottages to get out of this hole (though the cities have to grow first), but Writing (in 5 turns) would still be far away without the double gold mines.

Bottom line? An interesting strategy IF you can dig yourself out of the tech hole fast enough.

 

[Bandobras Took]

the +5 exp siege works for cannons too... CR 3 cannons right out of the gate is pretty strong...

Does that bonus go obsolete with Economics? I can't recall offhand.

If it does, that means the UB does have a time limit. That isn't necessarily a bad thing in and of itself, but it does mean it's not universally useful. From that perspective, Charismatic and a couple of settled Great Generals can give you CR3 Arillery right out the gate.

 

[elitetroops]

... as for spi ... the thing about spiritual on marathon is that civic changes take 2 turns on marathon, and religion changes take 1 turn...

This is dependent on the size of your empire. As I just learned from the G-Major thread, sometimes switching one civic on marathon can lead to 25 turns of anarchy (if you have 400 cities ).

Checking one of my own marathon games with a more reasonably sized empire, 25 cities, 250bc, it would have been 3 turns to switch 1 civic and add 1 turn/civic if switching more. 7 turns if I want to switch all. If you go back and forth between teching and unit pumping mode, it is very likely that you will want to switch several civics at once.

 

[lymond]

I'd probably vote Charley due mainly to starting techs, and not much else going for him.

I think Genghis belongs on the list. Keshiks are awesome, but traits are horrible and starting techs not much to write home about.

Love me some Izzy!

 

[ArchGhost]

I'm just a scrub at this game (started playing only a month or so ago), but it has to be Tokugawa, barring a map that is specifically tailored to his kind of start. Is Charlemange really that bad as to be compared to Tokugawa? I know he isn't great but Toku is really terrible. A better warmongering trait than Imperialistic would be nice, but Hunting is a much better starting tech than Fishing except in extreme cases; if Tokugawa doesn't have a grain start, he's screwed and always behind. I never rule out Horse Archers as an option for the first civ unless Inca is my only nearby attack option, so Charlie's Hunting start is much better in my eyes.

The Wheel is certainly a better tech than Mysticism for anything but a peaceful game, but Toku has no way to leverage the early access to Pottery; he'll be tied up researching the other basic worker tech he needs for food or ignoring cottages on a fishing start anyway. Charlemange, he's less locked in; he can at least utilize animals+check for horses as his first worker tech with no grains, or make a bid for founding a religion/go Stonehenge (lol) or Oracle while building a Warrior instead. I like starting Scouts for intel and Hunting as a starter tech for that reason but the value is offset by not being able to worker steal as easily and if you can't horserush you just set yourself back as far as Tokugawa.

As far as UUs go, for me if they don't come before Macemen they're too lacking in impact to matter (I am aware that Axes/HAs generally don't work as well the higher the difficulty goes); getting to siege is much more important or holding on for Cuirs/Cav is going to work better. I don't like using Macemen too much anyway because I don't have a strong grasp of how to cut teching time via bulbing yet( both the generating of GPs and the tech paths/trades needed), and even at the low level I play at, the Oracle is not always the best option compared to just wiping everybody out decisively earlier or just a bit later than Civil Service (even then, Trebs work better than Maces IMO). In this regard they both suck, as Landschnekts are useless (I have tried, ugh) though on paper the Samurai look freaking awesome if you got them fast. The way I understand it, Tokugawa's Fishing start throws a wrench into bulbing Machinery too, so you almost have to go for maces for any sort of timing attack play over another civ, since fast Protective crossbows are out.

For UBs Charlie's is one of the best if you are recovering from a hard and fast war, like say a blitz of Horse Archers or a Swordsman push against a neighbor. He can't do this as well as Shaka (man I love me some Ikhandas) and it's too bad he's not Organized, but indeed that would be OP as all get-out to have half-cost -75% maintenance courthouses and reduced civic upkeep (that scales with population, and thus every city you keep). In a more realistic timeframe to get courthouses without focusing on it, the sudden cut to expenses is a huge boon to economy. Tokugawa's UB literally isn't even a consideration in my mind: it's late, it's weak even if there is no equivalent for the extra +10% production.

I'm sure it's just bias on my part; I've never had a game where I was able to do anything meaningful early and was just playing catch up with Tokugawa, just like anytime I tried to used Isabella (who at least has a religious path to take with a good start). Tokugawa always seems at odds with himself: Fishing and the Wheel, Protective and Aggressive. But with Charlemagne, I've had some of my best games between landgrabbing with Imperialistic early and surviving the post-war econ crash because of those Rathauses after wiping out 2 or 3 neighbors in fast wars while going for CoL before Currency or Construction.

Again, chalk it up to inexperience. I'm not trying to say Charlemagne is great by any means, but worse than Toku....? Well, maybe it's not all bad...just by reading a little bit of the responses here and looking in the civlopedia, I can see that Toku's gunpowder units are likely to be supermen later on. Jeez, getting free combat 1, drill 1 and garrison 1 even before XP kicks in sounds downright amazing actually, and you could have Rifles swarming everywhere that would be unmatched with the whip/draft. Isn't that precisely what the aim of medival/cui/cav wars are though, to end the game before this becomes a factor in the first place? And then, a quick detour to Steel for Cannons and it all goes away as Cannon are an *insane* force multiplier. I sometimes even shut off tech entirely after Rifling+MT with Universal Suffrage, especially when i have vassals already to go for Steel if I need it. Nah, as I've have mentioned elsewhere in my posting I value early game advantages as having much more weight and impact than anything that comes sufficiently late, and Tokugawa is unfortunately in an uphill battle until he hits stride.....at Macemen, or worse, Gunpowder! Ouch...

As an AI he's just silly. Difficult to makes friends with, not very useful for anything if you do friend/vassal him, the other AIs push him around easily as his stubborness leads to warring before he can take it, etc. etc. Sorta like Sitting Bull, except Mr. Headdress is less likely to be a problem or get himself vassaled early on. Oh Toku....