Best new leader

[Prussia]

They already planned season two later this year. Too bad I can't afford HBO.

[OzzyKP]

Oh so season 2 is going ahead? Awesome.

[Velociryx]

Man, that's a tough call. I voted for Augustus, because he comes the closest (creative/organized) to Catherine (creative/financial), who was broken until they pulled her teeth. All in all, the only thing that could improve Augustus would be to start with Hunting, rather than Fishing, but then he'd start too look eerily like Catherine, so that's out (but starting with Fishing is more than made up for by the Roman UU anyways).

Other strong contenders in my mind are Mehmed - one step from Pottery out the gate...that's really strong, and IIRC (not looking at the manual...doing this from memory) Tokugawa gets mad kinds of promos (agg/pro ?) for his units, making it a warlord's dream come true.

I like 'em all, but those are the three that really stand out in my mind.

-=Vel=-

[Velociryx]

Most improved existing civ would have to be the Aztec...with the Blood Altar, these guys are pop-rush MONSTERS.

-=Vel=-

[Prussia]

The only downside to sacrificial altar is that slavery could possibly come at a time before temples, in which case you'll be unhappy pop-rushing until then.

[Velociryx]

Nahhh, before then, it's just "normal" pop-rushing...so you see the same penalties as everybody else, but once you get your "courthouses" up...oh my LORD.....

-=Vel=-

[Blaupanzer]

Been playing Augustus lately. This leader is awesome, as in awe-inspiringly dominant. UU, UB, traits all very well coordinated for early game lead, later game domination -- victory of your choice. The is, IMHO the second best combination of traits and uniques (behind only the unavailable PHI/IND, the old cossack, and the Incan terrace) possible and the best available. I am a believer.

[Velociryx]

Amen! The trait synergy between Creative and Organized is simply unbelievable. Both are at their best when you follow a steady diet of expansion, and of course, with cheap court houses and the Godzilla unit of the ancient age, steady expansion is about as easy as it can get with this civ.

The ONLY weak spot I can find with them is that they start with Fishing. Give me anything but fishing as a starting tech, and it'd be (nearly) as good as the pre-warlords Catherine.

-=Vel=-

[Arrian]

I don't see how Augustus is stronger than (Julius) Caesar. I mean, if you're looking for trait synergy, how could you get much better than IMP/ORG??

-Arrian

[Dominae]

Ramesses.

(Wow, am I the first to mention him?)

[Generaldoktor]

Originally posted by Velociryx
...The ONLY weak spot I can find with them is that they start with Fishing. Give me anything but fishing as a starting tech, and it'd be (nearly) as good as the pre-warlords Catherine.
-=Vel=-

The reason for fishing is to give them a quick bump to sailing, which of course isn't a starting tech. This reflects their naval superiority. Romans aren't always noted for it, but if you look at the early domination over Greece, the defeat of Carthage and the beating back of the civil war challenge from Cleopatra/Anthony at Actium; as well as naval suppport of their later land campaigns; they really were naval players.

Of course, in Civ 3, there was something called "Seamanship" or something, which has been discontinued. (Oddly, I don't think the Romans had that in Civ3.) If you can get a seaside start with Rome and migrate to Colossus/Great Lighthouse, big navies, other lighthouses, etc., it is merely another angle you can use to dominate with them. Historically necessary and not really a waste as a starting tech, IMHO.

[Velociryx]

Don't get me wrong...there's a lot to like about the Imperialistic trait, and JCaesar has an awful lot going on (in general, the Romans are top flight, as Civs go), but in my mind, it breaks down like this:

JC:

IMP gives you options. You can either expand peacefully (fast settlers), or, you can knock some heads (and when you do, get your generals out faster, and probably net a couple more than normal, during the course of the game)

ORG works well with either style of play, since both will result in growth.

Note, however, that with JC, if you expand peacefully, you've got to either spend LOADS of time building early culture junk, or you've gotta settle less optimally, and right up against the resource you care most about. OTOH, if you conquer your way to bigness, then you get what the AI gives you (which, of course, is true of every other civ as well).

AC:
Creative gives you options in the same spirit as the fast settler, but with a bonus...yeah, you might not get said settler as quickly (though in practice, IMP won't shave much off an early game settler...as I understand it, only HAMMERS are doubled when doing a settler, so it's by no means a "50% faster settler"), but you gain the vast flexibility of being able to set up shop optimally, and just let the resources fall into your lap--also opens up the ability to ZOC block with your borders, essentially fighting a two front war, but without the maintenance cost for troops.

And of course, all the advantages that JC gets for ORG hold true for AC as well.

The difference tho, is in the shading.

Creative is a tremendously powerful trait that serves both the offense and the defense in the same breath. Defensively, it's a boon of course, but offensively, it plays well with the Praetorian (which itself is VERY "offensive" ). This then, gives AC a one-two punch that, when combined with their cheap court houses is....hard to beat.

JC's Rome is good too, of course, but IMP divides itself between offense and defense.....you must expand peacefully (and early) to see much use from IMP's cheap settlers, OR you must fight to gain the quicker generals...thus, at any given time, you're only getting "half" the benefits of IMP.

Those settlers are an early game, peace-time advantage, and their usefulness is extremely terrain dependent (ie, unless your resources are tightly clustered, you can either a) settle your cheaply bought city in an inferior spot, or b) spend TONS of turns building a monument and then tons more waiting for the borders to expand before you can actually start making use of your new treasures, whereas CRE's borders grow like Kudzu...his settlers might take a few turns longer, but before JC's new town has finished his Monument, AC's borders have already expanded and he's on his way to something else).

For my style of playing, the speed and flexibilty of those fast-bumping borders *far* outweighs the slight increase in (early) settler speed--cos it won't matter at all later...game's won or lost in the ancient era, IMO--and the 2-3 extra generals you might get over the course of the game.

That's why its cool tho...options for every playing style ....

Re: Fishing...I dunno man...I like fishing as a tech, I just don't like to START with it. IF I'm coastal, it's easy enough to research first, but if I'm not, then I've just been handed a steaming pile of garbage, when I woulda been better off with a "landlubber" tech. Give me anything but fishing at the start and let me avoid the land lotto crap. That's my motto...

-=Vel=-

[One_more_turn]

I voted for Augustus as my favorite leader. I played him in my first Warload game, he is cleaning up the continent quicker than his adopted father.

[couerdelion]

Originally posted by McMeadows
With new traits most 'old' leaders also have different traits. Caesar has an interesting combo:
setllers at double speed & 50% maintenance.
However, I doubt if the first trait really works...

Of the old leaders, I thought Julius looked most interesting in Warlords. Although the 50% bonus on settlers is not 33% off the build time this is still a very useful bonus if you need to grab land quickly – eg Terra Maps. And the combination of a strong UU with the 100% GG bonus is also quite strong. Add to this the decent UB benefit – which, although not the best, comes early enough to make a small difference – and you can’t really go wrong with this one.

Having written all that I can certainly see Vel’s argument that you get two benefits from IMP but only get to use one at a time. While the creative build bonus is for every city, IMP’s settler bonus is only for those cities that you build yourself. That said, I’ve commented elsewhere on my views about Creative so my only question here is how I compare the new Imperialist trait with Creative.

At the moment, I’m undecided on this trait. The early Warlord unit is particularly useful for allowing the important military buildings but, apart from that, won’t win you more wars. Since you’ll get this shortly after you would have received your first GG in a non-IMP civ, we can think of this GG as a “free” one for the IMP civilisation.

Now we know that this GG is at least as valuable as a military instructor and if you settle this in the city that is producing most of your units, then this is almost equivalent to running Theocracy. So we can see this as a free version of Theocracy which allow you to run a different Religious civic. Let’s assume that we chose to select Pacifism and, Hey presto! We’ve basically got ourselves the Philosophical trait for free with the one downside that we will miss out on the early benefits of the PHI trait.

This was sort of an attempt to equate the IMP trait with PHI but I think I have failed here purely on the basis that the PHI traits big pull is for early GPs. The Military instructor can certainly be compared to the AGG Combat bonus (and is better because the 2 XP covers all units and is more flexible).

So in a round about way, I’ve basically said nothing conclusive

Must say that I do take the point about Monty. So he may have a pretty poor UU but he can whip out an army of those batsmen in no time

[couerdelion]

So what is the great deal with Hannibal? Though I have to admit to never having played with any of the "beardies", none of them seemed to have anything all that inspiring to play with.

I'm also a little surprised with HC. For me the Quecha was always a bit of a "one-trick" unit. And even then not too great. I guess the one gain that HC does get from Warlords is that the trick can pay-off with a GG although this comes at a small price if your rival gets one sooner.