Worst Leader

[Tennyson]

I was wondering why I'm always back with score when I have clear lead in other graphs and have bigger land mass. So in game that is from half about trade with Europe, you score is subsrtacted for it, bright idea, lol.

Maybe they think trading with Europe is 'too easy'.

 

[majk-iii]

Shouldn't the "tax-rate" be deemed void/irrelevant after DoI? ...hence not show up at all on a scorecard where ind. has been gained/won.

 

[kolpo]

Is it really true that a high tax rate lowers your score? Tax rate increases when you sell many goods to europe, so I get punishesed for farming/producing lots of goods and selling them to europe? Wasn't trade the whole reasons many colonies where created in the first place?

So I get a low score for making myself and my mother country rich

 

[Sciguy001]

Boliver is defenetly the worst. Second would probably be Louis de Frontenac as his bonuses are contradictory to each other and all together not that good.

And those who think Van der Donck is the worst leader is crazy. he is the best commercial leader in the game.

 

[HermannLombard]

Boliver is defenetly the worst. And those who think Van der Donck is the worst leader is crazy. he is the best commercial leader in the game.

I agree with you about Van de Donck but Bolivar's military bonus is devastating in the WoI. He's among the most powerful leaders (though personally I prefer Jose).

 

[Sciguy001]

I guess I dislike Boliver because I rarely ever play with winning via independence in mind, I usualy end up with an easy time victory. I also don't like the Spanish in general as the natives are so much more useful keeping alive. Jose, however, can be pretty fun to play as.

 

[HermannLombard]

Time victory? I thought you could only get a time DEFEAT. In vanilla you must defeat the King (destroy all ships or all land units) or you lose, sometimes because the King doesn't ship the units over before time runs out.

 

[catbird4]

Cyrus McCormick is not the worst in that he is not harmful...but among the most usless...who needs all that cotton?

 

[prolefeed]

Re this: "With horses being dirt cheap and dragoons having +1 str I'd rather have an army with no soldiers so in that case both GWs traits are largely irrelevant (crosses being weak imo) and england gets no special starting unit."

With the right FFs, infantry are stronger than cavalry in forests and on hills, while cavalry are stronger on flat unwooded squares. So depending on the mix of coastal squares next to the cities most subject to attack, you might want mostly dragoons or mostly soldiers or (usually) a mix of both.

In any event, you need guns for both types of units.

 

[HermannLombard]

With the right FFs, infantry are stronger than cavalry in forests and on hills, while cavalry are stronger on flat unwooded squares. So depending on the mix of coastal squares next to the cities most subject to attack, you might want mostly dragoons or mostly soldiers or (usually) a mix of both.

In any event, you need guns for both types of units.

Yes, but it's very aggravating the time(s) you discover that you can't convert the infantry to cavalry because the soldier only has half the guns required for the dragoon! (Fixed or to be fixed in AoD II.)

I only use infantry as garrison troops, (almost) never in the field. In my games facing an REF of only double-digit size I don't defend, I attack and destroy all the King's units as soon as they land. Presumably that approach won't work facing triple-digit REFs, in which case some forested strong points would be in order. [I have had to use combined arms once or twice when approaching Pirate strongholds that can sprout a Stack of Doom.]

 

[prolefeed]

Re this: "Yes, but it's very aggravating the time(s) you discover that you can't convert the infantry to cavalry because the soldier only has half the guns required for the dragoon!"

You open the city screen, turn the soldier into a colonist working inside the city, then immediately turn that colonist back into a dragoon. Does this not work with the Spanish leader?

Re this: "I only use infantry as garrison troops, (almost) never in the field. In my games facing an REF of only double-digit size I don't defend, I attack and destroy all the King's units as soon as they land."

As I noted above, infantry with the right FFs can be more successful at attacking the REF than dragoons IF the REF lands on a wooded/hill/woodedhill square right next to your city. So why would you risk a weaker unit equipped with horses when you can attack with a stronger unit without horses?

 

[Antilogic]

Time victory? I thought you could only get a time DEFEAT. In vanilla you must defeat the King (destroy all ships or all land units) or you lose, sometimes because the King doesn't ship the units over before time runs out.

You have to go into the Custom Game options, turn off the European victory, and turn on the Time victory.

 

[Molybdeus]

I think they are all fairly balanced, a welcome change from the extremes of Huayna Capac and Saladin in Civ4.

Van der Donck is very subtly powerful. The tax bonus and less of a price drop from flooding the market with a good make trade with europe very profitable. I actually prefer him to Stuyvessant because I will often end up using extra cash more than the 25% bonus Stuyvessant gets from carpenters. With heavy city specialization and lots of gold you don't even need to run carpenters.

I think Washington is ironically the worst leader because producing crosses has depreciating value and guns are cheap to buy anyway. Adams on the other hand is marginally more useful for attempting quick victories.

 

[HermannLombard]

Re this: "Yes, but it's very aggravating the time(s) you discover that you can't convert the infantry to cavalry because the soldier only has half the guns required for the dragoon!"

You open the city screen, turn the soldier into a colonist working inside the city, then immediately turn that colonist back into a dragoon. Does this not work with the Spanish leader?

No problems with the Spanish, I was talking about Washington, and the *really* aggravating time is when you can't convert TWO soldiers into one dragoon. At Epic each dragoon requires 75 guns (and 75 horses), but the soldiers require 37 guns. You turn the soldier into a colonist, putting 37 guns in inventory. Turn a second soldier into a colonist and now you have 74 guns, and you can't turn even one colonist into a dragoon.

p.s. to Antilogic, thanks for the info, I didn't know there was such a thing, or rather I didn't know what it meant. Actually, I still don't, what's the point of a time victory? Is it a matter of avoiding being conquered until time runs out?

 

[Sciguy001]

Ya, Washington and dragoons just don't mix well together. And its hard to use primarily soldiers and cannons in your fighting force.

 

[Antilogic]

p.s. to Antilogic, thanks for the info, I didn't know there was such a thing, or rather I didn't know what it meant. Actually, I still don't, what's the point of a time victory? Is it a matter of avoiding being conquered until time runs out?

The point of a Time victory, if you turn it on, is to have the highest score when time runs out (be at the top of the list). You don't have to declare a revolution and beat the King to win (that's the Independence victory). However, by default, the King wins when time elapses unless you turn off the "Europe" victory condition.

 

[HermannLombard]

The point of a Time victory, if you turn it on, is to have the highest score when time runs out (be at the top of the list). You don't have to declare a revolution and beat the King to win (that's the Independence victory). However, by default, the King wins when time elapses unless you turn off the "Europe" victory condition.

Thanks for the explanation. Mostly useful for multi-player, I presume.

 

[Antilogic]

Maybe. I've never played with it, but I know some guys want to try for the "Canada" victory, where you just become a decent state without declaring war on the King. It affords some flexibility in the gameplay.

 

[HermannLombard]

I like the Industrialization and Economic victories in AoD II (and the theory of the Pirate Plunder victory), but for the first two I raised the thresholds.

 

[westamastaflash]

Donck is the best, not the worst! 100% tax rate increases means that you have tons more gold than you do with any other leader...