Who is your favorite new leader in bts?

Byzantium, Spain and Aztec have very unique Uniques: Insanely cool if you can make them work, with a chance of being completely useless depending on gamestate and preferred playstyle. Byzantium is most likely for me to be a total miss (I'm very much into whipping and generally appreciate the tactical applications of Jaguar Warriors. Spain has some interesting opportunities for a Renaissance-to-Industrial push; stronger siege is good and with a GLH-fueled economy I might wish to avoid the Economics/Corporation line anyway).
Still, a solid military edge that you can get by trading (no need for a tech lead for your game-deciding push) and the ability to gain any amount of happiness don't seem bad; chances are I simply suck at breaking these advantages. In the hands of the AI, Justinian is quite solid.

Good for me: Darius, followed by Pacal. Solid economy traits, boring-but-practical cap raiser UBs and in the case of Darius an excellent rushing unit.

Good for the AI: Willem and Gilgamesh. CRE is a great trait in the hands of the AI; Willem gets bonus points for being opportunistic and, by AI standards, actually playing to win. Gilgamesh gets extra points for being bad news if he's my neighbour.

Good for both: Zara Yaqob. I love half of what he has to offer (Oromos have a huge time window - worth a beeline, and I might postpone Rifling until I can upgrade them straight to infantry for second wind. Organised is my favourite trait.) but don't appreciate the culture-related bonuses. The AI is again helped out a lot by CRE and he's balanced enough to be a long-term contender.

 

I'm not a fan of the Jaguars, the decreased strength just sets them back IMO. The +25% for jungle is only effective in some locations. I guess though they're cheap and make fairly good cannon fodder. This is just from my general experience though

 

1. Darius
2. Hatty
3. Julius

 

Why Hatty?

 

Most loved (when i play them) : Sury, Pacal, Joao, Gilgamesh
Most hated (when they near me) : Sury, Pacal, Gilgamesh, Joao

 

Well said.

 

He never really excels, and when I use him, I have a harder time than with my other favored leaders (this is mainly a personal problem though).

 

What exactly does this do, I tried it once on an AI border city and was hoping to get it to flip to me. Is that the wrong way to use is? Now I want to use it on a border city that flipped to Julius but I'm wondering if it's just a waste of time. How does everyone else use it.. (if you do)

 

Wow! That's a pretty random hijacking of this thread...

Look here for more answers to your question:
http://forums.civfanatics.com/showthread.php?t=339439

 

I liked Cre/Org for the Romans so much. Augustus was one of my favorite leaders until he got changed in BtS.

My favorites from the latest have already been mentioned: Pericles, Darius, Pacal, and Lincoln (for late games where I try to win by space or diplomacy).

 

Willem/Charlemagne

 

My favourite leader added with BTS would have to be Pericles, even if only for the cheap creative libraries running philosophical scientists. Fairly solid early UU and an okayish UB.

I'd have to pick Sury next. I hate coming up against him in games but have never played a bad game as this leader.

 

It's probably because I'm not a big fan of the Organized trait. I'm a low-level player though; maybe it's more useful on higher levels (increased maintenance?).

Hmm, perhaps I will give Darius a try, since he sounds like a powerful leader (Financial + Organized + Immortals).

 

What is up with everyone talking about the Dutch UB? I get it, but why? Willem is a good leader though, he will be my choice for this next game of mine today. I love Cre/Fin and the UB/UU are great for water maps.

 

You get a Moai Statue+Levee in every coastal city (which usually suffer low production) and if playing as the Dutch I make Colossus+GLH a priority (super-super coastal cities).

 

Yup.

 

In short, it is. Also, I tend to favor more aggressive play and don't build many wonders until the late game when there is no challenge for them (because they are too busy trying to hold off my hordes of soldiers).

Creative is sick when combined with the Romans, though--you conquer new cities with your legions and then they are immediately generating culture, so you can focus on Courthouses (Organized makes a contribution here), Granaries, and Forges to get them up and working. I suppose quicker Forges does help with this approach, but then you have to worry about culture. Also, the cheap libraries means you can get scientists up to help your ailing research rate that much quicker.

If you continue down the warmongering path, you might want to run Vassalage to get good new troops and Organized Religion to build stuff in your recently captured cities--both are high upkeep civics, which Organized will cut down for you.

Darius is another good leader in the expansion. He has one of my favorite vanilla Civ4 trait combos.

 

Organised is a powerful economic trait that is in full effect if you focus on production (and production-friendly civics tend to have high upkeep). As such, it's a strong trait if you're founding many cities and pushing your economy to its limits rather than attempting to secure an early tech lead. Cheap courthouses are also a useful tool for economic recovery.

But yes, it scales with difficulty twice... on lower levels you have an upkeep discount anyway (making it save less) and you might not have/want to strain your economy (making the other economic traits more effective in comparison).

 

I like Justinian the best because of his traits, his UB and UU, and I'm just interested in the Byzantines.