I see a lot of hate for Mao and Napoleon, mostly with the reason that their traits have no synergy and (especially with france) the UU sucks. Since these two are at the top of my "awesome" list I'll try to provide a little insight.
Napoleon. Aggressive, Industrious. Ok, lets see. Industrious is going to let us build half price forges (an expensive improvement) and wonders, aggressive is going to let us build stronger melee/gunpowder units. How about building some axemen, chopping out the oracle for early metal casting, getting cheap forges and making more axemen, faster? You don't even need to chop oracle, this wonder is ridiculously cheap with industrious and you can build it in your capitol the slow way no problem. This has got to be one of the best MP tactics there is, I always have great (and fast) games with the Napster. Musketeers are good with Napoleon, awesome pillagers and they get defensive bonuses. Whoever said knights counter them is a fool.. I dare you to attack my musketeer with a knight while I get defensive bonuses. Should you choose not to attack me (you won't after ALT-mousing the odds) I'll run around you and pillage another town/resource, heh.
Mao. Philosophical, Organized. Ok, fast universities, courthouse, lighthouse. +100% GPP, -50% civic cost. Naturally, we are going to want some specialists and GP's. Try to get your GP city founded and growing ASAP. Get a library and 2 sci specialists as early as possible (in the capitol usually) after your necessary worker techs. First great scientist makes an academy in the capitol, the rest will sit here as super specialists. Yeah, your basic super-science city routine. Initally, Beijing will be my specialist city, I tend to switch to the dedicated GP farm when I get Caste System on the go. Every now and then it is advantageous to use one for a critical tech (say, philosophy, which opens up so many good things). You can afford to have a couple more cities than non-organized civs in the early game, which translates to an even larger advantage as the turns progress. You can get half priced courthouses everywhere fast, which is great when on the warpath or just settling like mad.
Mao has access to the all-powerful Cho-ko-nu. Abuse this unit like a red headed foster child. When machinery rolls around, you are undisputed lord and master of all that your eyes survey. I suggest you make LOTS of these guys, and attack everything that isn't your civ-color to make it yours. See, Mao's china is well suited to a medieval era explosion in size. When you take over your whole landmass with cho-ku-nu's you will see how absolutely fantastic it is to have half price courthouses and civic costs to consolidate your gains. Come the renaissance, you get half priced Universities (another expensive improvement), therefore getting Oxford faster, and putting it in your mega science city. Right about here is where you will leave everyone else eating your dust permanently, if you haven't already.
Any leader with creative has an awesome early game advantage, the phil attribute realy makes a great person approach really woth it. If you manage to build stonehenge, not only are you right off the bat a great cultural city, but your going to get 3 great prophets at a very fast rate. Or forget stonehenge your going to expand anyway, but build a library and place 2 science specialist in a city. In the early gaem great peopel for scientific reasons cannot be matched. it isnt till the middle ages that Great people become outdated for research reasons.
