Leader personalities

[Shaka II]

Originally posted by Kassiopeia
I don't have enough games under my belt to give a solid opinion on anyone else, but Montezuma. Oh, Montezuma. At first sight, kill - no, exterminate without prejudice.

Nobody does anger better than Montezuma. I love it when he slides his hand over his face, you can feel the anger.

[Common Sensei]

Originally posted by Brutus66
I'm not sure they did FDR very well in the game. The character doesn't really look like him, and even if it did he looks too hale and healthy. And where is his cigarette?

As for traits, I think it's ironic that he's depicted as a peaceful builder when in reality he is remembered best as a wartime president.

FDR looks like he is performing a Jedi Mind Trick when he greets you.

"Five gold will be fine for all of your technologies."

[Martinus]

Originally posted by Shaka II


Nobody does anger better than Montezuma. I love it when he slides his hand over his face, you can feel the anger.

Yeah. I also love Huaynac's little "seizures" when he goes mad.

A bit of an update on Isabella - I shared religion with her and her neighbours today - and she proved a very friendly and helpful ally, much less willy and greedy than Catherine and Elisabeth. The game was only with 3 religions (I limited a number of religions for a small game for better gameplay) and it seems she was much more reasonable - I suspect she hates heathens and people who trade with heathens, so in games with 7 religions that goes for basically everybody.

[Martinus]

Incidentally, I just went through leaders' favoured civics, and there seems to be an overall pattern, or at least sort of a rule of a thumb.

Police State (Montezuma, Qin Shi Huang, Genghis Khan, Peter, Isabella) - "evil warmongers" (maybe except Qin) - don't turn your back.

Hereditary Monarchy (Hatshepsut, Louis XIV, Huayna Capac, Kublai Khan, Alexander, Catherine) - "honourable warmongers" - they are pompous and aggressive, but can be reasoned with and you can reach a "working relationship" so to speak.

Representation (Victoria, Napoleon, Bismarck, Ceasar, Cyrus) - "reasonable statesmen" - they can be warmongers, but are pretty reasonable and you can get on with them relatively easily. Possibly the best allies.

Universal Suffrage (Roosvelt, Washington, Frederick, Asoka, Gandhi) - "peaceful builders" - reluctant to go to war, so probably good neighbours, but not the best allies.

And then there are five "oddballs" who usually end up being disliked by many or at least can be quite unpredictable, since they don't have natural allies:

Elisabeth (Free Religion)
Saladin (Theocracy)
Mansa Musa (Free Market)
Mao (State Property)
Tokugawa (Mercantilism) - which also explains his isolationism and unwilligness to open borders.

[LordShiva]

Yes, that would explain Tokugawa.

[TheArsenal]

Actually caught him in a relatively good mood:

[madmaxxam]

I haven't played too many games, but...

Tokugawa tried to take me in an opportunistic attack. Unfortunately for him the next turn my other war was over and I proceeded to take half of his empire. Later in that same game I was betrayed by Catherine, who was a game-long ally (right when I got gunpowder). Anyway, she might have taken my 1 city, but I was able to reinforce it just enough until my war machine started. Anyway, I'm still laying the smackdown on her. I've decided that I can afford to take her entire empire. By the time she had riflemen to match mine it was too late, and she was too weakend. Mao and Saladin have been extremely peaceful the whole game. Montezuma I've been at odds with the whole game. There are 9 AI total, but those are the only ones that stick out. Oh, and Alexander is small and shares no borders with me, and has no tech to compare to mine, but recently decided to declare war.

[jdchambe]

I've had many of the same experiences as well.

Montezuma is always declaring war. But he plays rather stupidly and as long as he isn't an immediate neighbor you can usually just ignore him and let his own neighbors deal with him. He always seems to end up on the bottom of the dogpile when he gets into a tussle with the other AI civs.

Tokugawa is also a war monger, but as with montuzuma, his empire is usually one of the weaker of the ones I have to compete with in the end game. One time he tried to invade me in the end game with his weaker technology but superior numbers and I nuked every city in his empire in retaliation. Now that was fun...

Musa: he is one of the most dangerous in my opinion. He researches aggressively and hoards his technologies. Why I consider him dangerous is that if you don't make sure somebody takes care of him by the mid game, he is quite capable of sliding peacefully into an easy space-race victory.

The Catherine and Peter are great allies if you show them a strong military counter balance and don't tempt them into stabbing you in the back (which they will do immediately if you appear weak to them). Napolean is a lot like them but seems to be a little less trust worthy.

Gahndi and Hatshepsut seem more peaceful and easy to get along with. Gahndi seems to play well in a lot of the games that have involved him. Htshepsut not so much, she usually gets into trouble with one of her neighbors and gets slapped around a bit. I'm not sure why.

I don't have strong impressions of most of the others.

[jdchambe]

Originally posted by Martinus

Yeah. I also love Huaynac's little "seizures" when he goes mad.

what i like best is when alexander rolls his eyes at you. that man has a bad attitude.

[jdchambe]

Originally posted by Freddz
Spying was really bad as well.

I have to agree with that, the spying mechanic in civ 4 is one of the few things in the game that pretty much stinks. spy's are useful, but they are very limited, and being the only real espionage that is possible in the game, they are a bit of a let down.

[gakkun]

Originally posted by jdchambe

Musa: he is one of the most dangerous in my opinion. He researches aggressively and hoards his technologies. Why I consider him dangerous is that if you don't make sure somebody takes care of him by the mid game, he is quite capable of sliding peacefully into an easy space-race victory.

so very true. I have a very strong impression of him in my first game as I was on very good relations with him (15+) but he wouldn't share his techs no matter what, after all these years I've been supplying techs to him thinking he was a potential friend.

so in the end I nuked him out of pure frustration.

here are two others I have an impression of:

Monty: aggressive and more aggressive. In one game about 5 turns after he met me he sent this 2 archer 1 warrior 'army', took my lightly guarded 2nd city and then razed it!!! And it was only 3500BC or something rather.

Saladin: religiously xenophobic (is there a word for this?) never converts to a regligion he doesn't found, and as soon as he founds one he adopts Theocracy.

[LordShiva]

I keep bribing Vicky to convert to my religion, and she does, and then 2 turns later she converts back

[Amiricle]

Tokugama in any game Ive played absolutely loves me If I manage to get him to join in a war against another civ.

After we destroyed Alexander on one game around 500 AD, I had (+4 our mutual military struggle has brought us closer together) and he was a steadfast ally (Even sent me presents) all all the way till end-game, but still wouldnt trade certain techs or his world map ><; Hell I even offered to trade maps when I got satellites first and while he'd take mine, he wouldnt trade his? like wtf lol

[apostatedogfish]

In about 90% of my games I end up at war with Isabella if she starts near me. She tends to found a religion just before me and I hate to convert to a religion to appease neighbors when I can convert to a religion that I control the holy city of instead. I've found it very difficult to convert her to my religion, either by spreading it via missionaries to most of her cities, or by diplomacy. Haven't actually seen success with that.

Mansa Musa I've been able to make very easy peace with most of the time. Often enough I can coerce him into a war with Isabella for pretty cheap once fairly good relations are established.

Never had a problem with Saladin. Very peaceful relations there.

Cyrus seems all too willing to jump into a war or attempt to recruit me into one he's having.

Catherine seems too costly to keep good relations with in terms of other leaders' opinions of me. I can't NOT trade with one of her worst enemies without pissing EVERYONE off. It's easier to stop trading with the vile Russians and piss Catherine off than deal with being asked to cut ties every turn by someone else. Peter...not so much. He asks for technologies WAY too much, though.

Washington is difficult to piss off. I tried to provoke a war with him and nothing could drive him to it. Good relations were cheap and easy to rebuild.

Mao's always been a good friends, but I could never seem to crack Ghandi's shell.

[I_pity_the_fool]

I know that the leader personalities are determined by the entries in one of the XML files (I forget which one). Is there any documentation about what the entries there actually mean?

What does actually mean?