your favorite leader

[ChiefTonfa]

i've been playing civ for a while now, and decided my ultimate favorite leader is napolean. because my top two fav traits are organized and charismatic. cheaper matineance throughout game, cheap courthouses and factories and lighthouses, reduced upgrades, and 2 extra happiness early on. definitely my favorite. i think leaders are more important than civs cause the traits last throughout the game. who is your favorite?

 

[Meepers]

Personally I like Qin Shi Huang.. but my play-style is very differant than most people on the forums seem to be (I play with self-piloted workers, basicly never play higher than Warlord difficulty, etc) .. I simply love the + to city defense on all my defesive units.. plus I always play with either Theocracy or Vassalage (until/if I get Pentagon) so all of my defensive units start with City Garrison x3... plus I try to obtain a large % of wonders, so 50% increased Wonder Production is much love

 

[TheMeInTeam]

I like washington, but there are a number of leaders who are stronger.

 

[killmeplease]

I think Washington is the best leader for early game.
Personally i like Charlemagne

 

[AmazonQueen]

Justinian or Gilgamesh

 

[Sian]

whichever i happen to roll ... but quite fond of Creative

 

[michmbk]

Leaders, I love Asoka, Napoleon and HC - the first two for great warmongering, and the last for great everything.

 

[Iranon]

I quite like Peter; not overpowered but very solid and convincing me to not cover the world in cottages with his late but influential UB. I want to like Montezuma... the UU is cute because it offers a bag of tricks rather than raw power, the UB is truly unique as well and possibly the strongest in the game. I just wish he had an economy-minded trait rather than AGG.

 

[Racsoviale]

hmm I have 3 leaders I tend to play more than the rest: Catherine, Alexander and Kublai Khan.

But Im am beginning to lean more towards Kublai, since he has my two favorite traits at the moment, I hate having to build monuments for that early culture. And I am trying to improve my warmonger skills, and I like Keshiks with insane amounts of promotions straight out of the gate.
I also really like Elizabeth and Ragnar, but I try not to play as them since I am also trying to improve my micromanagement and overall skills in the game and I feel financial is too good to really force me to learn how to manage an empire. The same could be said about organized and industrious.
The bonuses are too good to force me to adapt and experiment with specialists, and I am also trying to not build wonders - which I believe I read somewhere here is a good mark as to how good you have become - "If you can beat you difficulty consistently without relying on wonders you should consider moving up"*

I also like Montezuma and Shaka, but I dont like to play as them since then they would not appear in the game


*all credit goes to whoever said it, all misinterpretations and wrong wordings goes to me

 

[blitzkrieg1980]

I think Washington is the best leader for early game.

??? HC (FIN, Quechua), Cyrus (IMP fast settlers, CHM extra , Immortals), JC (fast settlers, fast courthouses, praets), Gilgamesh (CRE for free border pop, PRO for easy defense, Vultures), Darius (FIN, ORG, Immortals)??? EDIT: Washington's traits are good early game (+2 and fast workers/granary), but the UU/UB come too late for me to say he's the best early game leader.

My personal favorites are Hatty/Ramesses (prophet spam and SPI), Willem van Oranje (love traits and UU), JC for obvious reasons.

the UB is truly unique as well and possibly the strongest in the game

You abuse the whip from Bronzeworking to endgame don't you . I guess Monty's especially strong for this since he's SPI and you can have quick whipping spurts before switching back to emancipation

 

[JTMacc99]

i've been playing civ for a while now, and decided my ultimate favorite leader is napolean. because my top two fav traits are organized and charismatic. cheaper matineance throughout game, cheap courthouses and factories and lighthouses, reduced upgrades, and 2 extra happiness early on. definitely my favorite. i think leaders are more important than civs cause the traits last throughout the game. who is your favorite?

I also like Napoleon, but some of it has to do with musketeers. I find that 2MP charismatic, draftable, multipurpose ground troops work really well with my usual plans to rip everybody to shreds with cannons at my earliest convenience. The organized trait also helps a great deal with the rapid empire expansion during that period.

 

[blitzkrieg1980]

The French are great for gunpowder-era pillaging wars. Stack-o-crusiers & shock musketeers and pillage every town/resource in site. I used this tactic to reduce a tech-heavy Willem to a shadow of his former self and then blew by him with techs to invade with Infantry/cannons against his grenadiers/crusiers.

 

[Nurgle84]

I prefer Charlemagne

I like my UU a bit later, so I can use them in greater numbers. I also like his REXing power with IMP and Rathäusern. Finally, PRO lets me turn those cities into really tough bunkers.

 

[michmbk]

You abuse the whip from Bronzeworking to endgame don't you . I guess Monty's especially strong for this since he's SPI and you can have quick whipping spurts before switching back to emancipation

That's one of the great things about Monty - his UB is so in sync with his traits, more so than most other leaders. The two FIN English leaders and Charlie come to mind as well with UBs in sync with traits, but Monty's UB is so useful with his SPI trait all game - quick switch to slavery for 5 turns and power whip twice, at the beginning and end.

 

[blitzkrieg1980]

Yeah, Charly is really strong early-mid game (those uniques are so great!). I was just saying that Washington is good early game (traits) but not as good as many others for the early game.

 

[DABegley]

Hannibal's the man for me. Great traits, charismatic and financial. Good starting techs, mining and fishing that mesh well with his UB, cothon. I also abuse the dickens out of his UU, Numidian Cav. Financial goes well with the cothon and the extra happiness and money allows strong REXing. An all-around enjoyable leader to play no matter what your strategy.

 

[blitzkrieg1980]

Hannibal + TGL + Colossus + any type of multi-landmass map = win

 

[Iranon]

You abuse the whip from Bronzeworking to endgame don't you . I guess Monty's especially strong for this since he's SPI and you can have quick whipping spurts before switching back to emancipation

I don't actually whip that much in the midgame; cities will have grown into their caps (whipping is great if you want decent production before you've reached your maximum size - you work more useful tiles more quickly compared to regular production) and be generally too large to make whipping flat-out more efficient.
Exception: I have the mids and a lot of marginally useful tiles - forests I want to retain or coast. Those aren't exciting enough to work all the time but perfectly usable to regrow from a whip before switching to specialists.

Once things like Biology farms, the Kremlin and corporation food come online, however, it's time to heavily rely on the whip again.

 

[tuckerthecat]

My two favorites are RamsesII & Zara Yaqob.

Ramses has great traits ( spiritual, industrious ) that are even better when paired together. Industrious helps you get the Mids + the wonder that allows all religous civis and spiritual lets you exploit them. His UU is great for an early rush or to counter an AI attack. His UB is one of my favorites as well I usually play a wonder spam super capital type economy with him so settled great priests are one of my favorite great people.

Zara ( creative, organized ) is great for rexing like crazy, he starts with a scout so its easier to get the lay of the land & I usually send my 1st settler to the best city spot closest to my nearest neighbor to block him in. Last game I played with Zara I shared a continent with 2 AI's & managed to block them both with aggressive settling letting me peacefully settle the other 50% of the continent. Organized lets you get away with settling far from the capital & spam filler cities. Creative lets you block the AI's & win the culture wars. Unless the map is really cramped or I'm given a bad starting location I can usually settle at least 5 more cities than the AI by the time all the land is settled. I use my land advantage to outtech & outproduce the AI crush them when my UU comes online, Oromo warrior with Drill4 with just baracks & theocracy is an insane unit. If you beeline gunpowder fast enough you will not have to worry about knights & the drill4 makes them hardly take any damage when attacking so you dont get bogged down with tons of healing troops. Pre knights nothing in the field can touch them & they are impossible to dislodge from captured cities. Once you finish off your continent with Oromo's upgrading them all ( most of them have at least 6 promos by now ) to rifles & finish off the other civs on the other side of the world.

 

[TheWilltoAct]

--I was just saying that Washington is good early game (traits) but not as good as many others for the early game.

Ooh I wouldn't cut him short, I feel that TMIT must have good reason for using him!
Off the top of my head, independence from early happy/healthy resources is a major boon. My guess is he uses it for the ability to grow cities to a higher cap early.
Plus great synergy with early buildings (monument, granary), what's not to like!