Using "hopeless" leaders

[couerdelion]

It seems that the game now likes to give me the same random leaders so that I’m always playing the same style. What might make things a little more interesting is if I used a different civilisation and figured out the best way of playing to the strengths of that leader.

If anyone has a leader that they would want me to try as an experiment then I’d be happy to see what I can do with them. The ones I am not too keen on using are Gandhi, Lizzie, Saladin, Huayna since these have options that have already been well explored.

So please list your “problem” leaders here and I’ll go away and have some fun figuring out what they can do.

[JackRudd]

Napoleon and Alexander would be my choices.

[Saygame]

Monty is the toughest in my opinion. How about Montezuma?

[-SafaN-]

read the devils workshop about the atzek rush

[JackRudd]

Monty's traits work OK together. Spiritual's useful for a warmonger - you can switch between Police State & Hereditary Rule at will; similarly with Nationhood and Vassalage.

[couerdelion]

Haha, all aggressive. The trait where the diplomatic behaviour most closely matches that of the majority of gamers. Napoleon was probably the one leader who managed to launch a decent surprise attack on me when he moved moved a galley into my territory, enslaved a worker and sailed back to France with them. In most of my recent games he’s been placed alone on an island which is where the allies put him in 1814 and 1815 so probably the best place for him.

[Swiss Pauli]

Boney seems to be a tricky one to play. Maybe a beeline to Gunpowder via Guilds - Knights and Mustketeers might make a fun stack!

Otherwise, I'm not too thrilled with Louis either, nor Roosy, nor Ghengis, Izzy and Hattie.

[PaganPaulwhisky]

Pretty much anyone with industrious since I consider that to be a wasted trait. Roosevelt and Napolean are far and away the worst I think. Alexander and Louis follow pretty closely. I still haven't drawn any of the mongol leaders so I would be interested in those although I can't remember their trait combos. They seem much better than the ones listed above though.

[PaganPaulwhisky]

I forgot about Bismarck. He's awful too. Probably the best strategy for him is massive chop rushing.

[couerdelion]

Looks like Napoleon is a favourite so I'll have a think about and see where the dice falls. I guess the only real problem with any aggressive leader is that they have a fall-back strategy of conquest although the annoying thing here is that the strategy would be wasting the industrious trait.

Someone will have to tell me if there are tricks to getting the screenshots.

[proviisori]

just press print screen and paste it in some graf.program

[Stickyman]

I know that I am going to catch some flack for this, but my advice is to pick your favorite color.

Everyone go ahead and laugh, its how my wife picks her fantasy football team, etc., etc.

However, I find that when I'm playing a color I like better (yellow, red, blue), I enjoy the game more.

If I'm playing Brown or Peach or Rose I am usually grumpy, even when winning.


On another note, does anyone know how to change the colors for each nation?

[Akaoz]

huh... I play Napoleon a lot... Then again, I suck at Civ4, so that's prolly why I don't understand how bad he is.

[Hermann the Lombard]

Hopeless? I don't think any of the leaders are hopeless, and the aggressive ones have an obvious path to salvation. Some may have traits that don't mesh well and mesh worse with their starting techs, but that just calls for a bit more creativity in strategy...or it might call for LESS creativity, meaning the sort of generic strat that can work for almost any civ, assuming that the starting position cooperates a bit.

[Solver]

You know what's interesting about Napoleon? With him, the French UU becomes good. For Louis, it's what, a two-move Musketman? Meh, average. For Napoleon, it's a two-move Musketman, yay!

Consider it for a moment. If you do it right, you will get Gunpowder when your enemies still are defending with Longbowmen. Very plausible. At that time, for other leaders, Macemen and Knights are the units to use, Macemen are cheap by now, Knights are fast and strong.

For Napoleon, Musketeers are better vs. enemy Longbows. Suppose you have one free promotion due to Barracks. You build a Knight, promote Combat I, that's 11 Strength. You build a Musketeer, he has free Combat I, that's 9.9 strength, as good as an unpromoted Knight. You use the free promotion for Cover - the Musketeer becomes 12.15 strength vs. a Longbowman, a Knight's 12.

If you have two free promotions, even better, also give the Musketeer Combat II, that makes it 13.05 strength. A Knight with two free promotions would only have Combat II, and 12 strength.

So, Napoleon's Musketeers are the better units vs. Longbowmen. Just as fast as Knights, a bit cheaper, and as shown above stronger.

If the enemy has Musketmen, things are a bit different, though. WIth one free promotion for your unit, a Knight is Combat I and 11 strength, a Musketeer is still 12.15 from Combat I + Pinch. With two promotions, though, the Knight becomes 13.5, because the Knight can also take Pinch, whereas the Musketeer would remain 13.05, Combat II + Pinch. So the Knight has a small advantage.

Another thing to remember, though, Musketeers are much harder for the enemy to kill. Knights don't get defensive bonuses, and they are very weak vs. Pikemen (obviously) and War Elephants. Musketeers, though, do get the defensive bonuses and have no direct counter-unit, so overall, I would say that Napoleon's Musketeers are at least on par with Knights.

Maybe it's worthwhile even to consider ignoring ignoring Knights and just going for Gunpowder with Napoleon, and excecuting a massive Musketeer-attack there.