Leader personalities

[MotownDennis]

I've actually had Napoleon in many of my games. He's just a step above Monty in terms of warlike tendencies. If he's not declaring war on you, he's declaring war on someone else it seems.

I have only one thing to say about Isabella - b***h. Plain and simple.

[Philotas]

Originally posted by Arrian
Now, most are cautious, Hap remains pleased, and I'll probably get a few others up to pleased soon. Monty is annoyed, and I may get him to cautious. Or, alternatively, I may get Infantry and go pick a fight (a pillage fight, I figure).



-Arrian

Arrian...have you found a purely "scorched earth" pillage fight useful? I've tried it a couple of times with success and was curious if others have liked using that strategy.

[Nazaroth]

I find that Isabella the Spanish leader, always in my way.

For one, she always... usually... there have been other times that she hasn't had a holy city. She makes a religon bloc, usually instilling great hatred from my religon bloc (usually goes away around free religon) though, the damage was done during those years, usually large scale wars, (definately on Terra)... That killed many relations.

My most trusted allies however have either been the Americans of either personality and the Japanese. (I usually play the Japanese.)

I usually try to keep the spaniards somewhat happy, though they don't agree with my allies. So I usually tend to forge a negative trade relation. heh... 1 enemy is better than my trusted allies hacking me apart.

Spain is usually one of the weaker civs, in most of my games.

[Arrian]

Originally posted by Philotas

Arrian...have you found a purely "scorched earth" pillage fight useful? I've tried it a couple of times with success and was curious if others have liked using that strategy.

I have found it somewhat useful, but in the game I was having the most success w/it, I ended up landing a proper invasion force shortly after my pillage crew. My 2 pillagers (macemen) eventually died, but they wrecked about 8 or 9 tiles.

In the game I was discussing above, I actually attemped a pillaging run against Montezuma in the middle ages. I sent 3 units... 2 knights and... ack! I forget the third unit. It was some sort of footslogger. Anyway, I pillaged one tile. My troops then died. They died rather well, killing 1-2 units and wounding 3 more. But they were toast and with that, it was time for peace.

Pillaging, IMO, is best when you're a builder-type player with a tech lead, such that you can send a small number of technologically superior units to go wreck somebody's economy without really investing a whole lot of *your* economy in your military. If you try to launch a chevauchee against a militarily strong opponent with equal tech, your troops are probably just cannon fodder.

-Arrian

[Blake]

Scorched earth can be fun.

One thing that may be effective but is probably just good stress relief is razing all the enemies cities near your border, and then declaring peace, Thus the borders expand to fill the razed land and the enemy has to travel over 4+ tiles to attack your cities, greatly diminishing the damage they can do with a sneak attack. This is the kind of thing I might do when I have a large empire so don't really want more cities, next to a large neighbour who I can't really kill in one sitting (too much war weariness, other things to build). Pruning them back a bit is the thing to do. And besides, I love having
-10 you razed one of our cities.
-2 you razed a holy city.
Along with any other minuses I can rack up (bringing in friends, nuking, declaring war etc)

[Arrian]

Sounds good, Blake, although I would argue that what you describe doesn't fall under the rubric of pillaging. You conquered a bunch of territory. That you chose not to keep it and burned it all down is fine, but you took the cities... which IMO moves it from pillaging to conquest. Pillaging, to me, is when you run around ripping up terrain improvements but do not hit the cities.

-Arrian

[Blake]

Scorched earth: Pillage AND Burn!

I've never mass pillaged, except on odd ocassions using a chopper to carve a path through a road network to isolate a city.

[CarnalCanaan]

I think FDR is okay. He was a "warmonger" by Civ standards, but Genghis Khan was a "legalist" IRL. If anything, I'd rather Roosevelt be labeled in-game as FDR - just to confuse the firnirs.

Montezuma - Ruthless but not dumb. Someone next to him will die which means someone next to him will survive...

Bismarck - So far, the only leader who actually FORGIVES a war of aggression against him.

Friedrich der Große - Okay dude. Spiel sein Spiel: He wants to trade with you, not fight with you. Even if you're bitter enemies, a few resources here, a few techs now and again and he's cool.

Isabella - *****. Can't live with her, everyone's pleased if you kill her.

Saladin - Probably similar to Isabella in that common faith makes him a lasting ally.

Louis XIV - Why? The most loyal friend and most vindictive villian. What more do you want from your foil? You're tellin' me you wouldn't want him as your wingman when you go out? That's right.

Asoka/Ghandi - Neither of these have I managed to have a good relationship with yet. Go fig.

Mansa Musa - Similar to Frederick: Make money, not war! But also like Frederick, doesn't seem interested in making fast friends. (These two seem to play much like I do: Walk the midline and play each side off the other.)

Mao - His demand that you sign up to State Property gets old, but I've counted him among my closes friends.

P.s.: So, Russia got stuck with a high-brow floozy and an alcoholic bully as their leaders... no Lenin?! Please, Firaxis, if you're out there, put him in the patch. Rameses, too!

[Handel]

I noticed one thing - if Isabella or Montezuma are near you raise your army if they change to Theocracy. Of course, they may just attack each other.

[Philotas]

I've found pillaging to be effective in a one-two punch. I'll march into the enemy territory in fairly straight battle lines, taking out one or two border cities and using the rest of the troops for just pillaging. Then, sue for peace, regroup, and go in for the final kill.

[Common Sensei]

Mansa Musa will LOVE you if you share the same religion. His diplomatic bonus for this goes as high as +8.

[Nik]

I have only played one game so far, but holy crap that was a war game!

8 Civs, I fighted all but Asoka. Reason for this was I were judaism, while rest of the world was cofusianism.
There were 2 wars without me, FDR and Monty twice.
Unlucky for me I were stuck between 5 civs: Mao, Tokuwaga, FDR, Isabelle and Asoka. One war were me vs. the first 4. Asoka, very friendly but very dangerous, leading in tech, and he nearly beat me to the stars.

Actually I think I most of the game from early mediveal to early modern were in war most of the time, only because of a extremely strong production base I could spit out units fast enough to fight all. At the modern era I got annoyed, and finished Mao and Tokuwaga, and the there were peace, except from the annoying Isabelle, which I did kill of next. (Tough they still had small island cities far of, they were no longer a threat)

All of this resulted in Asoka being way ahead in tech, I and began turning my massive war machine into a tech empire. He nearly built the space ship before me, but I was "saved" by end year, with me being a winner after all.

I played on Noble, but I have never see so much fighting ever before in CIV. And unbelievable I was able to fight off all in the end. Actually very funny, although I lack something in the diplomacy, it is a bit disappointing after all (including some of the tech, cannons so later) but that is another story.

So my immideate experince were that:

Monty = crazy/war monger
Tokugawa = isolations crazy
Isabelle, extremely religious, asking me 1000 of times to shift to cofusianism.
Catharina = *****, which always go the ways of the others (including attack the mightiest empire on the planet... me!!!)
Asoka, peacefull strange diffucult to handle kind of man...
FDR, actually I seem him as a kind of warmonger
Mao, stupid/ yet clever, jumping into a war later were his allies were clearly losing, yet on the other side of my empire, he stuck me hard at first, with all my military far away, but I got me revenge.
Inca leader (forgot his name), friendly at first, traded tech and world map with me, the became increasingly annoyed with me as I got stronger.

[Martinus]

Originally posted by Common Sensei
Mansa Musa will LOVE you if you share the same religion. His diplomatic bonus for this goes as high as +8.

Same with Asoka.

[Terrorfrodo]

I had Peter of Russia as one of two neighbors in my last "Inland Sea" game. I attacked my eastern neighbor Mansa Mussa early and took most of his cities without destroying him, to keep him as a powerless buffer on my border.

I intended to get along well with Peter then, make him my fast friend so I need to protect only one border. But he proved to be just an a**hole. He was pleased with me, close to friendly, but as soon as I was attacked by another Civ on the eastern front and was in some trouble, Peter demanded two valuable technologies as tribute. Very unwise. I gave him what he wanted, but as soon as I had made peace with my attacker, I built a large army and destroyed that russian traitor.

Btw, I had Napoleon in at least three of my ~6 games, and in one other game I played him myself (random choice).

[MadBunny]

Tokugawa - this guy needs serious therapy, every single game hes pissed at everyone and has no friends. Impossible to please.

Saladin - For some reason I always get on friendly terms with Saladin, in several games ive ended up with military pacts and fruitful trading with Saladin. Doesnt seem to be all to demanding, although a bit picky with religion.

Isabella - Arrogant and very picky with religion (its the traits, I behave similary when playing as her, spread religion etc, which bytheway can be a very effective way for economy and diplomacy, gaining both friendship with other civs and cash from their cities :P).

Alexander - evil bastard, keeps attacking me or demanding unrealistic tribute for no reason whatsoever.

Julius Caesar - evil bastard nr2, ruined several of my games with long wars for no apparent reason than me just being in the wrong spot at the wrong time.

Catherine - I usually play as her, only encountered her in one game and we got along very well, had a mutual war against Japan and Egyptia. One of the more fun games I had actually. (lost it with space race with just 2 turns left to completion... agh, was 10 turns from a Cultural victory as well, oh well cant win em all).

Washington & Roosevelt - Both seems eitherway, had long wars vs them and later on turned allies. One of the easier civs to deal with.

Louis XIV - Backstabbing bastard...


Have yet to meet the following: Gandhi, Cyrus, Napoleon. Think ill pick em manually for my next game and see what happens. After that ill experiment with a game with only Spiritual civs... should be interesting.

Philosophical

From general experience it seems that Philosophical civilizations are lot easier to get along with as long as they dont have a Aggressive secondary trait.

Spiritual

Spiritual civs are harder to please if you dont share their religion, can often become demanding or even start wars if you dont convert or tribute them.

Industrious

Might just be me being paranoid, but I get the feeling industrious civs can get envious on you if you have resources they want. Had both Bismarck and Lous XIV start wars on me a few turns after ive denied trading certain resources with them.



I try to adopt either my religion or civs to match my stronger neighbours to increase diplomacy values. I try being on good terms with civs further away, but if they get uptight they get the might finger. If you memorize the different civ traits you can easily figure out how to please em and develope friendships. For example you gain + for sharing same religion with Spiritual civs and do on. Adjusting your Civics can benefit relationships greatly as well.