Who is the WORST Civ Leader? [POLL]

[Fippy]

Agg. has been downgraded to #2 worst trait here cos..well let's be honest, i rarely see starts where an early breakout with Axes i.e. would help much.

Most starts posted are at least fairly average, without much "pressure".
Agg is for those starts where you are boxed in for example, and where starting with barracks + better Axes (well almost barracks, so cheap ) really helps.

If we have no starts where early rushes other than HAs are useful, yep then Agg is bad.
But is that really how we should consider traits, under good circumstances only.

 

[Izuul]

Agg warriors are good for fogbusting. If the barbs aren't too bad you can sometimes get by with only warriors.

I'll have to try a pure axe rush with Agg on deity at some point.

 

[nate46]

I'll have to try a pure axe rush with Agg on deity at some point.

... maybe fippy can explain it to us how this could ever possibly work, lol... Here's how i see the possibilities:

A) Your rush fails spectacularly because they have too many units. Obviously you lose.

B) You take a couple choice cities. Problem: Deity ai's won't make peace after you take a couple cities, since they'll still have higher power rating. You're now stuck in an endless war. After a long grinding war, you and your neighbor are both hopelessly far behind the others. You lose.

C) You take all of their cities. You now have to pay maintenance for them. Your economy is total garbage, and you're nowhere close to currency. You lose.

D) You raze most of their cities. Was it really worth it? ... Also, the next thing that happens is some other deity AI spam settles all of the land from the cities you razed, and then becomes out of control with 20+ cities.

I'd think you'd want to wait for catapults before attacking, but what do i know...

 

[Fippy]

Couple points

Power rating is rather unimportant for cease fire (same as peace), if you have decent war success.

Normally you rush if your land is bad (let's take dry rice starts, how often do we see those?) or if a dangerous AI does not leave you much space.
You would rather worry about paying for your new cities, than how will i manage my bad 3 cities until (Cats?).

With Agg, Axes are 5.5 str units, not much worse than HAs and they can get CR or cover. HAs are faster, but Axes can be available early.
Deity AIs like all others can be catched with weak defenses.

Tricks in abusing AIs during war (or before declaring) are good later in your game, but early they can be really overpowered.
Like..take a great city, make cease fire..heal..capture some workers, attack again.
It's possible to set limits how far you want to go, it's not all or nothing.

Much of this can be seen in games like sgotm.
When time matters, not winning the game, other units and strats come into play suddenly.

 

[MegaLurker]

hmmm...

Do you actually need trebs though? you can probably just go with samurai's + catapults. Then you don't need engineering. Although knights would be a problem, if they already have guilds...

Catapults vs medieval and renaissance units might never reach that tipping point you get with Trebuchets where the first 1 or 2 die and the rest survive and (usually) end up at CR2 or even 3 before long. They do some collateral damage (though less than trebs, if im not mistaken), but keep dying. So catapults become a huge hammer sink and reinforcements have to make it all the way from where their produced to the front line. On the other hand a good number of your trebuchets will be barely damaged, if at all, and can move on the next city. Presumably you have a supermedic at this point so even fairly damaged trebs can move on to the next city much faster than newly built catapults could get there. That's less of an issue if you're lucky with the map layout and everything is fairly close.

the other advantage of samurais is that they have pretty decent odds vs grenadiers, and trebs don't. So you might be able to keep the medieval war going a bit longer.

Doesn't really matter, though. You need the collateral damage from siege to make up for the discrepancy in production. The first couple trebuchets might not get good odds, but the rest will. Samurai just aren't that much better than the defenders they need to beat, unless you go down to a difficulty level where you can have faster success with earlier units in the first place.

and they can take cities without bombarding as much, or without losing as many trebuchets --- edit: nevermind, i'm wrong... I just tested this in worldbuilder and somehow trebs have higher odds vs hill longbows than samurais???? can someone explain how combat math works? lol.

Edit2: according to my worldbuilder tests -- Samurai's have better odds vs grenadiers than trebs do... but they have worse odds vs hill longbows. Is the combat % estimates even accurate?

The odds don't take first strikes into account properly, but that wouldn't be the issue here. You might not know that the only promotions that actually increase your attack strength are the combat promos. Everything else actually subtracts from the defenders strength instead.

That's why trebuchets are so much better than catapults even though they have a lower base strength, because the 100% city attack bonus is actually a -100% for the (usually) much higher base defense strength.

 

[Powerfaker]

Voted Charlemagne.

Poor starting techs like all 5, but including Myst the most useless of all.
Pro the most useless trait of all. Cha rules out Churchill/Boudica. Imp, Spi, Agg are just oke to me, difficult to weigh. Imp could be crucial for the first 1-2 settlers, Agg in an early war, Spi in diplo later.
UB is fine. On the others too. shale plant however way late.
Worst UU. What's a landsknecht supposed to do? Avoid to build Pro boosted X-bows? At least camels means mounted units in a horseless empire. Other UU's add something useful to the regular unit.

Hunting would be a lot better with huts on by the way. That would put Saladin on the bottom for me.

I haven't played Churchill and Boudica yet, but they don't seem the worst anyhow. Boudica should easily have plenty of well promoted units, so actually a nice civ to play. (her UB seems to obsolete her UU bonus though? Both grant guerilla1)

On the Samurai.
In my experience they're noticeable better than maces. Easier wins, playing lower odds is acceptable so more XP gained.

 

[rah]

Yeah, charlemagne for me also.
Poor Starting techs (check)
Since I usually go MT I don't get back around to engineering until way too late.

If I'm going all out war and have a gold or two in the neighborhood,
Upgraded Samurai are a lot of fun at least.

 

[TheMeInTeam]

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.

With double gold mine you'll vault forward fast. Without that you'd need some other kind of commerce source, like riverside cottages or stuff like oasis tiles.

There's something to be said for having the cities though.

 

[Gwynnja]

I think Churchy and Sal don't belong in this discussion. Neither one of them is great, but they're both miles ahead of Charley, Toku, Boudica, and Genghis. Charley's the worst, BTW. Those Starting techs are putrid.

 

[pandamancer]

I actually like saladin, the ub allows planting cities near the enemy borders in order to steal enemy resources. Chop the madrassa then in less than 10turns the resource is yours. Crucial when playing imm or deity where you are losing spots from the ai. Running 2priest and scientist isn't so bad either, it allows fast academy or early theology depending on the situation.

Never played churchill but drafting redcoats seems fun.

I have some success with charly but survival is highly dependent on the map

Boudica, i won a cultural victory with her but i find her luckluster compared with churchill

Yep i voted toku... toku of celts for maximum mediocrity (but you get c1, cg1, g1, drill1 from drafting muskets or grens! )

 

[MantaRevan]

Came here expecting to vote Saladin but came out voting Charlemagne instead.

Posters make good points that the Madrassa is often overerlooked and can help win early border wars, Camel Archer is good for resource-less starts(no knights can be painful, especially if you also don't have ivory) and Madrassa/Spiritual synergy w/GProphets.

I'd still rather play Ramasses in literally every scenario, but it edges him out over Burger King, who literally has nothing besides a good UB going for him. Charlie isn't organized, so it would seem that Inkanda>Rathaus in almost every situation anyway.

Not sure how Churchill is even in the rankings. Good UB and UU, good 2nd trait, Great UU synergy with both traits, and acceptable starting techs.

Mao takes the cake for me. You could certainly make a convincing argument that the strong Chinese starting techs place him above some of the other PRO leaders like Toku or Charlie, but Mao is a real stinker.

He wins the award for leader that I would least like to play because

1. His traits synergize poorly. I'd rather use someone like Churchill, SB, or Toku who can do fun and interesting things with the PRO trait than Mao, whose traits just don't play off each-other very well.

2. Everything Mao does well, Qin Shi Huangdi does as well or better. Wanna go for a culture win with China's impressive UB? Qin does it better. Wanna utilize Chu Ko Nu synergy with Mao's PRO? Qin has the same option.

He's bad, not fun, and outclassed by another leader from the same civ. He'd take my vote over Charlemagne if he were in the poll.

 

[georgjorge]

What the...Mao? Best starting techs in the game, one of the better traits in the game (definitely not worse than the second trait of the other Chinese leader), and one of the few UUs that can win games on their own?

The popular theory on monkeys and Shakespeare might apply to this thread as well: if it goes on long enough, every single leader in the game (and even those not in the game) will show up here as the worst.

 

[Fippy]

I like Mao after the latest deity botm
Okay we had State Property..GJ already gave all the good reasons why he's not a bad leader.

Qin does not everything better.
If not going for early wonders, expansive can give you a faster start for Chu-kos.
Not sure how those were done best, been some time..maybe Oracle MC?
Ind is nice there, but cheap granaries and faster worker are also not bad (and Oracle always a gamble on deity).

 

[Izuul]

Ag + Mining + Chu-ko-nu is already good enough to make a leader average. Kind of similar to Gilgamesh IMO. Everything besides PRO is pretty darn good. Neither have any traits that i would rate top tier, but they both have solid 2nd tier traits that provides an important building at half price, both have A+ starting techs, and both have nice UUs. CKNs are even better than Vultures provided you have favorable conditions to get them pretty early.

 

[nate46]

That's why trebuchets are so much better than catapults even though they have a lower base strength, because the 100% city attack bonus is actually a -100% for the (usually) much higher base defense strength.

was doing some more testing on this... you're correct but for the wrong reason.... assuming the strength values listed in the tooltip is accurate...

the diff in base defense isn't what matters... what matters is +% defensive bonuses compared to offensive bonuses.

all defensive bonuses are subtracted from the offensive bonuses... if there is any offfensive bonus left over, or any defensive bonus left over, the strength of the defender is then modified... either by multiplying by 1 + the remaining defensive bonuses, or dividing by 1 + the remaining offensive bonuses. (since its percentage based, this is effectively the same as modifying the attacker by the same proportion... so difference in base strength isn't the issue...)

But this creates an unusual effect... if offensive bonuses are greater than total defensive bonuses, part of the offensive bonuses effectively multiplies with the other part. Which makes city raider a self-multiplying stat...

For example: even though it says +145%, it's actually (vs a fortified hill longbow) +75% and +70% multiplied together, which is the same as +197.5%. Weird.

But for lower values of offensive bonuses... offensive bonuses are worse than just having higher base strength, percent per percent, up until the point where offensive bonuses = defensive bonuses, where they become equally good. After which, they become better...

The treb vs longbow... in this example, the treb effectively attacks the same as a 11.9 strength unit with no bonuses... since it gets +70% and +75%...

compared to the samurai, which has +120% base strength over the treb... plus a 45% city raider bonus... where the 45% city raider gets subtracted from the defensive bonuses of the longbow, so to the samurai its only worth (1.75/1.30) = +34.6%. since its 8.8 times 1.346, it effectively attacks the same as an unmodified 11.84~ strength unit, worse than the treb, but this is not factoring in either the first strikes or the fact that the treb doesn't need to do as much damage to "win".

But if the samurai had city raider 3, the defenses and offenses would completely cancel out.... making it worth the full 75%... Its worth even more than this vs the grenadier (which doesn't have as many defensive bonuses.) A hill grenadier fortified will have +50%, which makes CR III worth +50% times +25%, or 87.5% ...

 

[MyOtherName]

It's futile to think of % as percents. I'm going to replace % with & just to help excise the notion of actual percentages from the discussion.

Except for the attacker's combat promotions, all of the X& modifiers get accumulated together; e.g. CRIII attacker, combat I defender in a city with 40& tile defense gives

• -75& from CR
• +10& from combat
• +40& from tile defense

for a total of -25&.

If the total is X&, the defender's strength is modified by either multiplying or dividing by the quantity (100 + |X|)/100.

The value of adding another +X& bonus to the attacker is the greatest if the defender's bonus would otherwise be +(X/2)&. The further away from that target (in either the positive or negative direction), the less the effect is.

 

[nate46]

is there some reliable way of getting samurais early? like, some bulb path or oracle slingshot that works well? If there was some reliable way to get to CS + machinery + construction by 200 ad or so, toku would be unstoppable....

looking through this...

http://www.civfanatics.com/civ4/strategy/greatpeople_tech.php

Great prophet path--If you oracle theology, you can use the great priest you get from that to bulb civil service. But is that worth it with all of the crappy religious techs you have to take early? Unless you have some other plan for theology. I guess you can use it as trade bait. I don't think this is worth it... Actually, this is probably not a good idea, would take forever to get a priest with just the oracle, anyway, you'd get cs faster just by building an academy and bulbing nothing...

option 2: Great merchant -- this seems possible.

relevant techs in the chain:

Currency --> Metal Casting --> Code of Laws --> alphabet --> Sailing --> Monarchy (skip priesthood to avoid) --> Civil Service.

great engineer also:

Machinery --> Metal Casting --> iron working --> engineering --> feudalism (avoid priesthood) --> Masonry --> Construction --> Priesthood (avoid poly/meditation) --> monarchy (avoid priesthood) --> Code of Laws --> Optics (avoid compass) --> Civil Service

(edit: i forgot -- math is required for civil service... can't skip it even if you wanted too)... actually you could just bulb engineering as a contingency plan and start with trebs, following up with samurais later.

...

So here's an idea:

Rush great lighthouse first, then go for colossus, too. Thats a nice combo to get your economy kicking. Then run one engi specialist -- added to the 4 great merchant points, you have 7 gpp/t. You'll then wait for two great people, some combination of merchants and engineers:

If you get two great merchants: Bulb currency and civil service.
One of each: Bulb civil service and machinery... although if you get the great merchant first, you'll be tempted to bulb currency...
If you get two great engineers: Bulb Machinery and engineering.

...

another option:

you could also run scientists to add to the pool... you'd pollute the GP pool a bit but an early academy is not bad and you'd have more great people total...

say you do this:

1) Rush Great Lighthouse.
2) Build library in cap, and set science slider to zero after writing, while running two science specialists.
3a) If you get a great scientist, build an academy and then tech towards code of laws through the currency path. Then switch to caste and run merchant specialists somewhere. Use the great merchant to bulb civil service.
3b) if you get a great merchant, bulb metal casting and go for colossus. Stop running scientists, and run a great engineer and then bulb either engineering or civil service with the next GP.

 

[elitetroops]

is there some reliable way of getting samurais early? like, some bulb path or oracle slingshot that works well? If there was some reliable way to get to CS + machinery + construction by 200 ad or so, toku would be unstoppable...

200AD shouldn't be too hard. Oracle MC and quickly get up a forge in a second city to run Engineer. Depending on how fast you get the Oracle and forge, you can have a GE to bulb machinery around 500BC. By then you can selftech CS. If not, you should in any case be done teching CS by 200AD. If you have trading partners, MC can be traded for about the entire classical era while you beeline.

If you get to CS+machinery by 500BC you probably don't even need construction.

Oracle CS is of course even better, but hardly reliable...

 

[nate46]

Yeah, you're right, 200 ad wouldn't even be that hard. I might be overselling it... there's also the issue of having enough production in time...

 

[MegaLurker]

was doing some more testing on this... you're correct but for the wrong reason....

No, just plain old correct, I think.

assuming the strength values listed in the tooltip is accurate...

the diff in base defense isn't what matters... what matters is +% defensive bonuses compared to offensive bonuses.

Which then always gets applied to the base strength.

all defensive bonuses are subtracted from the offensive bonuses... if there is any offfensive bonus left over, or any defensive bonus left over, the strength of the defender is then modified... either by multiplying by 1 + the remaining defensive bonuses, or dividing by 1 + the remaining offensive bonuses. (since its percentage based, this is effectively the same as modifying the attacker by the same proportion... so difference in base strength isn't the issue...)

But this creates an unusual effect... if offensive bonuses are greater than total defensive bonuses, part of the offensive bonuses effectively multiplies with the other part. Which makes city raider a self-multiplying stat...

For example: even though it says +145%, it's actually (vs a fortified hill longbow) +75% and +70% multiplied together, which is the same as +197.5%. Weird.

But for lower values of offensive bonuses... offensive bonuses are worse than just having higher base strength, percent per percent, up until the point where offensive bonuses = defensive bonuses, where they become equally good. After which, they become better...

The treb vs longbow... in this example, the treb effectively attacks the same as a 11.9 strength unit with no bonuses... since it gets +70% and +75%...

compared to the samurai, which has +120% base strength over the treb... plus a 45% city raider bonus... where the 45% city raider gets subtracted from the defensive bonuses of the longbow, so to the samurai its only worth (1.75/1.30) = +34.6%. since its 8.8 times 1.346, it effectively attacks the same as an unmodified 11.84~ strength unit, worse than the treb, but this is not factoring in either the first strikes or the fact that the treb doesn't need to do as much damage to "win".

But if the samurai had city raider 3, the defenses and offenses would completely cancel out.... making it worth the full 75%... Its worth even more than this vs the grenadier (which doesn't have as many defensive bonuses.) A hill grenadier fortified will have +50%, which makes CR III worth +50% times +25%, or 87.5% ...

The game doesn't multiply any bonus by another bonus.