Are Some Leaders Pre-Destined to Lose?

[Tsar_of_Cows]

This is a lay-man's observations from playing quite a few games through, without random personalities.

Some things I've noticed about the AI, under normal conditions (default options, and assuming they don't start in a particularly bad area):

• India will always dominate the points list, and will usually be rediculously advanced.
• Mansa Musa will allways try and be friendly with everyone, and end up hilariously powerfull.
• Isabella will always be weak, is sure to found Christianity, and yes, she will hate you, and will usually declare war on you during the middle ages.
• Julius will head strait for preatorians, churn out lots of them, then start a war. And hardly ever trades technology.
• Genghis will always be behind in tech, have stacks of rubbish units and be endlessly grumpy.
• Napoleon likewise.
• Peter will almost allways become somebody's "Pet". (usually mine)
• Qin Shi Huang will be realtively strong, and wait for just the right moment before stabbing you in the back.
• Tokugawa rarely trades techs and as a result is generally weak, but will mass (outdated) units.
• Montezuma will have a war with you.

And generally: Leaders are much more willing to declare war on their allies than to stop trading with them -especially if they dislike you and you are paving the way with gold...


Anyone else noticed these sorts of trends? Are they the result of poor balancing? Am I just speaking crap?

[johnmcd]

That's about right.

Isabella will 'always' found a religion but if she gets one she is less aggressive about getting more.

I find Julius trades lots of tech though.

and yes, Genghis and Tokugawa should just be taken out of the game they are so pointless. They never threaten for the lead, they just act as a brake on a builder civ they are near usually.

[PaganPaulwhisky]

In my experience, yes some leaders always do badly (namely Napolean, Montezuma, Isabella, and Genghis).

Ghandi and Hattie always start off strong, but then get beat down as they are favorite targets for the rest (and me!)

Mansa, Frederick, Catherine, Kublai Khan, and Capac are always powerhouses in my games unless I beat them down early.

I have never gotten Tokugawa to trade techs with me despite having friendly relations and open borders. If you let this guy hang around he becomes really powerful in the endgame (Caesar also).

Cyrus is an absolute monster in the early to mid game. He has the best combo of traits for a high score start IMO.

[Yosho]

The reason Genghis and Tokugawa are generally not good is because it seems like the AI just dosn't do agressive dominating stratagies very well in this game, compared to older civ games. In older games, it wasn't unusual for you to get to the other continent and see that one civ has wiped out all the other civs on the continent and is now a huge empire; that just dosn't seem to happen often anymore. When the AI's do fight each other on their own (IE: not from wars started by you) they don't usually seem to get very far. So the civs that don't like anyone and spend all their hammers on millitary units tend to fall behind by the later game.

[Shaka II]

I agree that the aggressive AI players don't often do well. To see the aggressive leader strength, you need to be playing pangea or highlands. A water map is good for the builder, financial, science types. Aggressive types are not good sailors, but they shine in the land war on Asia.

In my four highest scoring games, Alexander has been number two in two games, partly because I like to team up with him, and he likes to fight, while Ghengis and Mao have been number two in the other two. The best domination traits are organized and aggressive in my opinion. Organized allows you to afford a large empire, aggressive allows you to conquer it.

In standard highlands with 9 civs, 4 made it to the final round, me (Washington), Mao, Ghengis, and Tokugawa. All organized or aggressive, or both.

Some of my observations for games with all victory conditions enabled, but with me playing for domination:

The AI performance is greatly affected by personality factors in addition to their traits. Some of the leader strengths that I see playing pangea:

1st tier - Mao, Mansa, Washington, Frederick

2nd Tier - Capac, Kublai, Ghengis, Catherine, Saladin, Caesar, Cyrus, Alexander, Louis, Asoka

3rd Tier - Tokugawa, Montezuma, Peter, Liz, Hatshepsut, Napoleon, Ghandi, Roosevelt, Victoria, Bismarck

4th Tier - Isabella

The flip side is which leaders are strongest for the human player. Only answering for domination play, I'd say organized plus any other trait.

Edited to move Frederick up to 1st tier. Can't let him or Mansa reach escape velocity.

[Spiderjeru]

Don't forget Alex. I have never once played a game with him as a neighbor that the little freak didn't go from Friendly to War at an absolutely hopeless time with no prior warning. One minute he's giving me free resources, the next he's sending twenty chariots to donate exp to my Macemen.

Saladin's another one that can be very, very ugly if you let him hang around. The worst ass whooping I've gotten so far was a Marathon, Noble game where I hit Caesar with a D-Day style invasion straight toward a coastal Rome. At the time, I was number 2 on score behind Caesar, and taking Rome pole-vaulted me to number one. As I cleared out Caesar's Riflemen with tanks and air power, I figured Saladin could wait - when I landed most of his cities had Cavalry as the chief unit. That decision bit me in the ass.

Twenty turns later - nothing by Marathon standards - I had seriously weakened Caesar and decided to make my move on Saladin. The well-mixed stacks standing gaurd on his border cities turned my absolutely massive army into scrap in no time. All of that Cavalry had very wisely been upgraded to Gunships. He couldn't go on the offensive, but I couldn't either - and as far as I'm concerned, that's me losing. It was humbling to lose ten units or so and have double that number out of commission without taking a single city.