Your 3 Best and 3 Worst (in preparation for Civ5)

[futurehermit]

1) Ramesses--A really, really powerful leader, especially with horses

2) Mehmed--For some reason, I have a hard time losing with him

3) Zara--I think the most adaptable leader there is. Very powerful.


Worst

1) Toku--Agg/pro, no economy. Excellent late game warmongerer, but you have to get there.

2) HRE--Imp/pro, next to no economy, brutal starting techs.

3) Saladin--Spi/pro. Works ok when you don't have to war early and have a gpp capital.

 

[JTMacc99]

Best for me:

Napoleon - I just adore the Organized/Charismatic combo for some reason. It's just so flexible for running both economies and wars on so many levels.

Zara - Another one who lets me run my early game in two or three different ways with very little trouble.

Darius - Heh. I just played a game with this guy, after having not used him in a long time. There are games where it's hard to cottage spam, but mostly this is just a matter of figuring out who to kill early, grab some nice grassland or floodplains for my cities, and ride out the game to an easy domination.

Worst for me:

Charlemagne - Just yuck. I have to do everything the hard way right from the start. No useful cheap buildings (unless you really need walls for some reason,) and no help for the economy, and no help with the UU.

Stalin - Industrious isn't a terrible trait, but I don't do well with it combined with Aggressive. It's like I want to use the cheap barracks and combat 1 promotion to haul off and kill somebody early in the game, and that completely works against the idea that my best production city could be building wonders that might even be something like the Oracle for early Metal Casting and access to my cheap Forges.

Justinian - Another one that lines up two traits that I struggle with as a pair. I get cheap settlers, which is nice early, but Spiritual doesn't usually help me pay for the cities.

 

[The Almighty dF]

Hahaha, that sucked so badly.
So I was just testing out my runnerup for third worst leader, Sury.
I build up a fairly big empire, but I do it peacefully because there's no barbs and both my neighbors like me.
They're both at pleased, Japan and Mali. We're all the same religion, we haven't really had any bickering.

...then Mali declares war on me and wipes me out.
It was funny seeing that he was still pleased with me the entire time he was killing my people.

 

[MarcoPollo]

Best:
1) Asoka -- with the fast worker, ORG and SPI you can be quite flexible. The beginning of the game is tough at times, but once you get your set-up going, reaching a winning momentum becomes very easy. REX hard, almost to a crash, then diplo manipulate with SPI to avoid conflicts while your economy recovers. Then where you go is up to you -- especially with some espionage tricks.

2) Hayuna Chapac -- FIN and IND. Wonder spam with a good UU an UB. Fun to get those shiny toys.

3) Mehmed -- For reasons stated above. Very flexible and durable.

Worst:

1) HRE -- nothing to inspire creativity here.
2) Toku -- ditto
3) Justinian -- ditto

 

[Naxle]

1) Ramses II. Fast forges, an awesome unique unit [and decent unique building] and traits I tend to favour. Though I'm biased, he is my favourite historical leader. Love the egyptian names.
2)Shaka. Love the Early mini-courthouse, and killing everyone on my hemisphere with impi. Always end up emphasizing production and then building wealth with him.
3)Isabella/Mansa Musa. I love to kill mansa if he is an NPC, but him traits make him worth a go. Isabella had cool units and I seem to do well as her.

Bad At:

Brennus and Boudica: I just cannot muster any enthusiasm for the celts.
Alexander: Traits don't interest me.

 

[The Almighty dF]

Brennus and Boudica: I just cannot muster any enthusiasm for the celts.
Alexander: Traits don't interest me.

In all honesty, I'm the same way with the Celts.
It's just... beh. The UU and UB are pretty uninteresting. I never found Gurilla to be that useful of a promotion, except against certain leaders (Prot leaders seem to favor building on hills, but even then it's not too common in my games.)
However. Boudica does have favorable traits, possibly the best pure-warmonger trait combo (yes, much better than Agg/Pro.) Brennus... I'm not all sure how to use him with his traits.

 

[Sportyatuncw06]

I typically don't like leaders with militaristic traits, yet looking at my top 5scores Ragnar, Toku, and Shaka hold 3 spots. all early domination wins on small or tiny maps though. I always liked org and fin and ind but I used to play on noble and go for space race or cultural victories. Moving up to Prince and monarch change things a bit. Of course the incans and romans are strong but i like the american leaders even though their uu and ubs aren't much help until late in the game. my favs
1) Mehemed- Ottomans I think the hamman is one of the best ubs and janisary is very powerful if, esp. you get to gunpowder early. I perfer Mehemed because org pairs well with exp and his ub. perfect empire building.
2 darius- persians are very stong in the game and fin/org works pairs very well with apothacry for great empire building. I am not crazy over immortals though (any mounted unit for that matter)
3)Rooselvelt- i like the ind/org combo and although his uu and ub are late in the game the mall is a very cool building (plus I guess I am partial to USA)
One leader who looks very strong on paper that I never have luck with is Charlie. No one seems to like him but his uu and ub look like some of the strongest out there. I just don't think I optimize his traits
three least favorite:
1)Sitting bull- I just don't get his uu or ub. phi is ok, but i don't like pro
2)Bodica or Brennus- Gallic warrior is an improvement over swordsman how? Dun is garbage. Ragar is way better than either
3) Ramesses- I know this one has everyone scratching their heads but I think it is more due to the high expectations i have for the egyptians that i can never meet. oblisk don't seem very great to me (granted i don't run se very well) but i don't even build monuments in most of my cities. war chariots should be nasty but I can never get horses whenever i uses egypt. chalk it up to bad luck i guess. ind is only good for wonderspaming for cultural victories and needs a financial trait to help which spi doesn't. spi and ind are the 2 worst traits for me. such a shame i dream of war chariot rushes and never have had a map that made one possible.