Worst Leader?

[Arlborn]

I did a little study with Worldbuilder:

No promotions, no terrain, landsneckt vs. maceman:
6.00 vs. 5.33, 69.4% in favor of landsneckt

But when do you have unpromoted units fighting? Rarely, if you are utterly desperate for troops. This is a far more realistic situation:

Same as above, both units have Combat I:
6.60 vs. 5.71, 71.0% in favor of the landsneckt

I will confess my surprise, as I figured this would head more towards 50/50. Now, the same situations as above, with a mace attacking a landsneckt:

No promotions, no terrain:
8.00 vs. 9.00, 30.8% in favor of the mace
Both with Combat I:
8.80 vs. 9.6, 32.6% in favor of the mace

Oddly, attacking works better for each with Combat promotions, despite the fact it is the same unit matchup. That's something I've never noticed before in Civ, but being the effect is all of ~4% difference, it's not that great. What is more interesting is what happens below, where they line up for the unpromoted units but for the promoted units differ again...might be some rounding issues in the game.



But here is where I will lay down the hammer on the landsneckt:

Crossbow attacking landsneckt, no promotions, no terrain:
6 vs. 4, 92.7% in favor of the crossbow
Same sit., both with Combat I:
6.6 vs. 4.28, 93.4% in favor of the crossbow

Landsneckt attacking crossbow, no promotions, no terrain:
6 vs. 9, 7.3% in favor of landsneckt
Same sit., both with Combat I:
6.6 vs. 9.6, 8.1% in favor of the landsneckt



So, the landsneckt is utterly hopeless against anyone who uses a number of crossbows in their armies. That adequately describes my medieval force, and I've noticed in BtS the AI uses more crossbows now than it did before to balance out its stacks. It's easy to say "just use knights!", but remember: the crossbow is one of the earliest medieval units available, with maces and knights coming much later (you get Machinery before Guilds). So, there is a period before Guilds that really isn't all that favorable to Charlemagne. You also could say "just rush for the Guilds tech!", but remember that Charlemagne doesn't have any of the economic traits, so that is difficult to do without the Philosophical or Financial bonus in particular. It can still be done, though.

But it does very good considering the unit it replaces. Very balanced UU in my opinion, and good. You just won't win a game out of it, but then, it would be unbalanced(looks at Firaxis).

 

[DigitalBoy]

Same as above, both units have Combat I:
6.60 vs. 5.71, 71.0% in favor of the landsneckt

I will confess my surprise, as I figured this would head more towards 50/50. Now, the same situations as above, with a mace attacking a landsneckt:

...

Oddly, attacking works better for each with Combat promotions, despite the fact it is the same unit matchup.

I was surprised to hear that also, but since the defending maceman gets "-50%" against the landsneckt (the bonuses both apply to defender), the combat promotions go towards canceling out the penalty instead of adding a flat 0.8 strength. In this case, reducing the penalty from 50% to 40% only increases the maceman's strength by 0.381 (8/1.4 - 8/1.5 = 0.381), while the landsneckt gets an additional 0.600 from his promotion. Incidentally, each subsequent promotion would increase the maceman's strength by a larger amount until finally capping at +0.8 per 10% bonus when the bonus/penalty reaches 0%.

On the otherhand, when the landsneckt defends, it gets a bonus instead of the macemen having a penalty, so the landsneckt gets +0.6 per 10% bonus and the maceman gets +0.8 per 10% bonus.

 

[lilnev]

No promotions, no terrain:
8.00 vs. 9.00, 30.8% in favor of the mace
Both with Combat I:
8.80 vs. 9.6, 32.6% in favor of the mace

This is oddly written. The landsknecht is favored to win whether he's attacking or defending (just by a few more % points when attacking).

Basically, you still want maces for CR, and you still want longbows for city defence. The landsknecht makes a good stack defender, stopping both knights and maces, so you don't have to bring crossbows. He's also "OK" as a city attacker after your maces have broken the best defenders, and "OK" as a city defender if you need him in that role. So he's a modest upgrade of a common support unit. Fine, but nothing special.

Charlie definitely has the worst traits and bad starting techs, but I think his UB is enough to pull him out of last place. I still vote for Saladin....

peace,
lilnev

 

[Antilogic]

I really don't understand why people rag on Samurai. What's the workhorse of the typical medieval army? Macemen. What's a Samurai? A maceman with 2 base first strikes and Drill 1. 2-3 first strikes. They are much, MUCH stronger than macemen. I'm very sorry they're not as strong as Praets comparatively, but they eat run-of-the-mill maces for breakfast. And they get first strikes on longbows, even the protective ones(who'll tend to wisely promote up City Garrison before getting more Drill.) Toku buffs them further by throwing a combat 1 promotion into the equation. The real weak point for Japan is the the Shale Plant. It's never been very good, but now that Coal Plants have been nerfed, it's quite unpalatable. Agg/Pro, though, is a very nice combo for war. An stone defense and a buffed offense sounds pretty good, even without anything for building...

I don't understand it either. The two times I've played Japan I was quite pleased with their UU and traits, once in Vanilla and once in Warlords (I didn't get to use the UB because I won Domination too quickly!).

On the Landsneckt: I am somewhat modifying my opinion based on that little Worldbuilder exercise earlier. However, I would never completely replace maces in my offensive stacks with them because I need city raiders.

@lilnev: I pretty much copied those values right out of the game, so they are worded that way to show who was attacking (the "in favor of" refers to the attacker). If you notice above, though, it makes a difference who is attacking who in terms of chances of victory.

 

[lilnev]

Yeah, I figured out what you meant, but the wording threw me at first. "in favor of the mace" sounded to me like the mace is favored to win (i.e. maces odds greater than 50%), when you just meant "attacker's odds".

And I agree that the Samurai is quite good, and Japan overall is solid. You get a great window for warring starting with Samurai and extending to drafted rifles.

peace,
lilnev

 

[Permanganate]

Samurai are reasonably good; their one drawback, that they need Iron instead of Iron or Copper, can be worked around by planning ahead in the Classical era and making sure you get Iron. IMO, their bad press is for three reasons:

1. There are better UUs around at the time, like the Cataphract.
2. Few really understand how first strikes work. The combat odds calculator doesn't work out first strikes properly, either.
3. Tokugawa's AI sucks. He's so isolationist that he's a backwater in almost every game. His awfulness is probably coloring how people see the Samurai.

 

[Polycrates]

I want to stick up for Saladin, who gets an undeservedly bad rap around here. Firstly, he's Spiritual, which is so good that it pretty much automatically puts him in the top tier. Second, Protective has quite a good synergy with Spi, though it isn't a strong trait overall. It's very easy to draft quite good gunpowder troops with the easy switch to Nationhood and the additional happiness Spi brings. Trips to Theo or Vassalage can also guarantee good-quality archery/gunpowder grunts being churned out anywhere in the empire (or everywhere in a pinch).
The Madrassa is a great UB, because it's otherwise very difficult to run priests. It pretty much guarantees you Christianity and first dibs at the Apostolic Palace if you want them.
After your first Great Person, Prophets can be very hard to generate, and this makes it much easier, so you can always get a shrine.
And with Angkor Wat, it gives lots of productive priests.
Plus the extra culture lets you win a cultural border war with most civs, and keep up with Creative civs.
The Camel Archer isn't great (unless you don't have resources, in which case it's a godsend), but the retreat bonus is really really nice (especially with the BtS flanking), and makes the Flanking promos much more useful on the one mounted unit that normally doesn't benefit much from them. Opens up a lot more tactical option for using them, reduces reliance on siege, helps with unsupported blitz attacks, helps wipe out siege-heavy SODs, smooths upgrades and promos from horse archers and to cuirassiers/cavalry.

I also really don't understand how Huayna could be considered the worst leader though. Industrious is crap, sure, but Financial is solid and his UB is incredible (it's like half the Creative trait on its own! and it synergises nicely with Financial too). The UU is fantastic for early rushes if you're into that sort of thing (I am ), and also for easy barb defense, which is a hell of a boon on high-level raging barbs.

He has his merits, but I'd have to say Qin for worst leader.

 

[bonafide11]

I would like Saladin much better if the Camel Archer was made better. It should get a larger withdrawal bonus or something...

 

[Esgaro]

I want to stick up for Saladin, who gets an undeservedly bad rap around here.

While you make good points, I think that Ramses is probably better at doing most of what you described, with the exception of drafting promoted gunpowder units. He can run his priest specialists with monuments, letting you start your great prophet generation even earlier. Bulbing theology and divine right are still easy, but with industrious you can more painlessly construct the Apostolic Palace, Angkor Wat, Spiral Minerat, University of Sankore, and the like. Don't get me wrong, I don't like industrious that much either. However, in this context, I think it fits better than protective.

Plus, lets face it, the camel archer doesn't really hold up war chariots, as far as the unique unit goes.

That said, I have to go with Suryavarman as one of the worst. Creative and Expansive are decent supporting traits when paired with something a bit more powerful, but together they are very uninspiring. While Barrays aren't terrible, they aren't exactly good. If the barray was part of a more powerful package, I could tolerate it. As for ballista elephants, well, that has been discussed to death.

 

[DigitalBoy]

He has his merits, but I'd have to say Qin for worst leader.

I don't know. Can't Qin Shi Huang do a pretty efficient chu-ko-nu beeline? Industrious for oracle, choose metal casting as free tech, rush forge, assign engineer, use great engineer to beeline machinery? That's pretty cool, right.

 

[Polycrates]

While you make good points, I think that Ramses is probably better at doing most of what you described, with the exception of drafting promoted gunpowder units. He can run his priest specialists with monuments, letting you start your great prophet generation even earlier. Bulbing theology and divine right are still easy, but with industrious you can more painlessly construct the Apostolic Palace, Angkor Wat, Spiral Minerat, University of Sankore, and the like.

I personally prefer Protective to Industrious (though Ramesses is the one Ind leader who makes the very most of it), for the really nice gunpowder-era troops. I'm not really one for the build-all-the-religious-wonders strategy, but Ramesses certainly does that better. Obelisk and Madrassa are much of a muchness, but I slightly prefer the Madrassa. With two priest specialists, there's plenty of time to get a prophet before you can bulb theology, and with the nice culture bonus, it can be worth it to chop/whip a madrassa straight away in a new city rather than worrying about a monument. Anyway, with Spiritual leaders, the madrassa and obelisk are really much better buildings than they get credit for.
One benefit of Saladin over the Egyptians is that he can better use the Theology bulb to bypass Civil Service for the time being (although with good timing and some luck, you can bulb it with a second prophet), and use Spiritual for Caste System/Pacifism and scientists to bulb his way to a super-early Liberalism, take free Nationalism or Gunpowder and soon start cranking out hordes of supermuskets.
Of course, the delightful Hatty runs rings around both of them

Plus, lets face it, the camel archer doesn't really hold up war chariots, as far as the unique unit goes.

Absolutely, but the War Chariot is so awesome that few UUs do . Nonetheless, the camel archer is certainly growing on me, and retreat chance is far better than a lot of people give it credit for.

That said, I have to go with Suryavarman as one of the worst. Creative and Expansive are decent supporting traits when paired with something a bit more powerful, but together they are very uninspiring. While Barrays aren't terrible, they aren't exactly good. If the barray was part of a more powerful package, I could tolerate it. As for ballista elephants, well, that has been discussed to death.

I like the Cre/Exp combo, and I think it has really nice synergy. There's a massive lag between building a new city and making it produce a positive contribution to an empire, and nobody can get new cities up to speed faster than Suryavarman. Creative lets you choose better sites and work all the best tiles fastest, while saving the need for monuments; Exp gives more workers, which means that those tiles are improved more quickly, and more chopping can be done, plus the quick granaries really help with growth and subsequent whipping of anything else the city needs. Cheap libraries only help the cause too, since scientists produce their science irrespective of the slider.
So he can really expand like crazy and not fall into economic doldrums but instead keep rolling on the momentum of new cities coming to age quickly. Admittedly, both Cre and Exp fade towards the mid and late game, but if you make the most of them early, they're smoking hot together. Baray is pretty cool, I reckon - +1 food means faster growth for whatever the city is doing (or more whipping), and once it's grown, it means half a specialist or a cottage instead of a farm.
Lots of Barays + Exp also means he does well in the sickness-heavy industrial age.
I admit that Ballista Elephant is incredibly underwhelming, though.

 

[Arlborn]

Qin, WORST LEADER? Come on!

OK, scrap it, I am a oddball. I find him at least top3 leader for me. I so love protective(ye, sue me!) + pavillon + cho ko nu! Industrious is just a small bonus.


I have fun trying for cultural victory with low number of units, so when I am attacked, it is always fun how desperate I am! Protective helps!


... What? ....


At least I am having fun.

 

[vicawoo]

So some candidates for worst leaders are Saladin, Mao, and Qin? They're all protective leaders...
From my personal Protective challenge, Saladin might be one of the best protective leaders. He's very flexible: Pre-caste system, he can run 4 specialists. Of course, you can get caste system and switch between slavery, so it's a little redundant. Archers need no resources, camel archers need no resources, riflemen require no resources.
Camel archers are very strong, +25% withdrawal? Great for medieval warring, and you can use them with great generals as elite city raiders while crossbows defend. A good complement to attacking shortcomings.
Or, with protective, you can skimp on units and go philosophy and/or civil service for economy (and beeline liberalism, and get to the gunpowder age). And you're spiritual, so you can use organized religion for builder bonuses.
However, you can't play Saladin haphazardly, unlike the financial bludgeon that is Wang Kon.

Qin has amazing synergies with his UU, quick oracle, and tech or lightbulb machinery, and of course you can go for pyramids. He's also the fastest great wall builder in BTS.

creative, expansive is one of the best REX traits on paper.

 

[Bibor]

There's no such thing as a bad leader. Sure, some are "more suited" to certain playstyles, but more often than not, the land itself is dictating how you play your game. The same is true for units, buildings and literally everything in this game.

Well I play at Monarch, so I can't vouch for higher levels (moving on to Emperor now), but from what I've seen all leaders and civs have their ups and downs.
For example, people ditch the Industrous trait. The Great Wall (one wonder) single-handedly beats the Financial trait. It saved me at least 200 turns of research so far, probably more, in the critical phases of the game.

In my opinion, the only thing that really matters is that around end of the first third of the game (Middle Ages) you can clearly see and pursue a victory with even chances against the AIs. It doesn't matter what traits or UUs or UBs get you to that point, as long as they help you to "get over the hump".

One thing is for sure tho, I always cry for the traits I haven't chosen ("oh snap, I could really use those fast border pops"), because in every single game almost all of them will shine at one or more points in time.

The only trait I got severely hooked on is Philosophical. There's something really cool about the whole Philosophical/Pyramids/Great Library synergy and cities become more colorful. Pericles for President

 

[feralminded]

Massive thread necromancy going on here.

 

[TheMeInTeam]

True, but here's my take.

The worst leader, and this isn't arguable, is Sid. He's defined in the XMLs and leads the barbarians. He has no traits at all, and naturally leads forces with no UU or UB. Can't argue with that much .

However, of the regularly playable leaders, I'm going to pick toku. If we ignore UU/UB, his traits give him a strong mid-late game but leave him somewhat out to dry early on. No economy bonus and no advantage grabbing land outside a rush. If he's in an ample rush situation, he's fine, otherwise he's weak. Sams are good but come when war is at its slowest, and certainly won't get you changing stack composition easily. The UB is pretty foul being late and marginal.

 

[Bibor]

Massive thread necromancy going on here.

Whoops, didn't check the dates. Oh well, I'm at this stage (picking up the game after 4 years doh) so... was interesting to me

 

[feralminded]

No worries but for cohesiveness it would have been better to start a new thread. Regardless TMIT is spot on, Toku sucks. Fun because Samurai are wicked fun, but he still sucks. Khmer are not far behind though.

 

[Skallagrimson]

To leverage Spiritual you can batch build queues for periodic civic switches (e.g., buildings for Org Religion/Bureaucracy, units for Theocracy/Vassalage), but that is also a better fit with a Hybrid economy than specialized cities due to the flexibility of swapping all queues en masse.

To leverage Aggressive you can build decent units with cheaper civics, but there's an anti-synergy between Agg and Spiritual as with Monty due to the leveraging of one trait nerfing the other.

I don't like to give absolute ranks to any of the traits, but Agg and Spir are the most easily lived without, that's for sure.

Industrious is helpful at the low-mid levels when you actually *can* build wonders, but it's not much help on Immortal when you have zero chance to build wonders no matter what without a sharp beeline to the opportunity tech (and if you do that you have a decent chance to build it without Ind). So by in large Ind gets nerfed at the higher levels.

Fin, Phil, Org, those stay strong and aren't easily lived without.

 

[Joshua368]

Spiritual is a very strong economic and military trait, but you have a purposely use it, it's not something automatic like financial or organized. The guy above posted several good situations for it... jumping in and out of theocracy at will is very nice. And of course other benefits like easy AI diplo relations and the cheap temples (which become very powerful with the right wonders) aren't to be overlooked either.

My favorite part of the trait though has to be being able to enjoy the benefits of Caste System -- 8+ scientists in my early GP farm, and the +1 hammer to workshops that makes them good tiles post-guilds and superb tiles post-chemistry -- without sacrificing the sheer production capacity of slavery and its ability to save you in an emergency.