What do people think of Washington as a leader?

[smbakeresq]

just curious.

[couerdelion]

Cheap granaries and bonus happiness with fast-promoting units.

Decent enough combo.

Starting techs: fishing and agro. Not great but better than the English.

UU and UB: For decorative purposes only

[Ming]

I'm not a big fan of playing the Americans. I hate it if I get them in a MP game with random civs. Their UU and UB are pretty worthless and don't even come until very late in the game.

Their starting techs can lead to fast city growth, which translates to heavy whipping, but their are many other techs I would prefer to start with.

[smbakeresq]

I am trying to work with them, but it seems that you build and build, basically overexpand, then make a massive rush late with mall-built units.

When you get the malls up and running, the cash is great for rushing everything, since after all, in construction, there is no problem mony cant solve.

[Garth Vader]

Since I just have vanilla I like the financial and organized. I have never used their UU though!

[couerdelion]

Originally posted by Garth Vader
Since I just have vanilla I like the financial and organized. I have never used their UU though!

Who would want to. Axes and Swords are far more powerful units.

[smbakeresq]

In vanilla, Washingotn was great. Financial and organized were a good combo.

[khines]

Originally posted by smbakeresq
In vanilla, Washingotn was great. Financial and organized were a good combo.

I agree. They were a great combo. When I got CTP, I didn't check out the differences and was pretty surprised when my game didn't turn out the way I expected.

[One_more_turn]

I agree American UB and UU are worthless as most of my games are over by the age of cavalry. But Americans will do great in an advanced start setting.

[Krill]

Washington is one of the better civs in the early eras, regardless of lack of UU or UB. Expansive allows you to slave a worker after putting only 15 hammers into it, and you can get a granary as well if you slave for 1 pop. The effect if you look at it from the perspective of a single city isn;t an awful lot, but looking at it from the perspective from an entire empire and that you can start making cities productive sooner leads to the snowball starting sooner, giving you an advantage over other civs. As of Warlords 2.08 EXP is the best trait.

Charismatic allows atleast +2 happiness in every city at the cost of 30 hammers; and the monuments provide a free border pop anyway so unless you get a religion and are spreading it monuments are the way to go. Being able to grow to size 7 instead of size 5 is pretty nice, especially as you can slave from size 8->5 instead of Size 6->3, so a city will always be "productive" compared to an opponent.

I wouldn't rank Washington as a favourite because I love SPI too much, but I wouldn't complain if I ever got him in a random game. Atleast a high ranking 2nd tier civ, maybe first.

[BobTheBackpack]

(As of Vanilla) I don't like to play as USA. I like an Expansive trait. But I would probably like to play as George Washington in Warlords. (Don't own it yet)

[Sabre2th]

In vanilla Civ4, Washington is great in the modern era. If used to their full effect, SEALs are actually quite powerful. Organized keeps costs down and Financial provides a huge boost to money and research, making him very useful no matter what your late game strategy.

The only reason I don't play as Washington more often is because I rarely have to do anything but coast to the spaceship in the modern era. Any wars I might fight require little or no effort at that point.

[couerdelion]

Originally posted by Krill
Washington is one of the better civs in the early eras, regardless of lack of UU or UB. Expansive allows you to slave a worker after putting only 15 hammers into it,

What's this?!

More tweaking of the traits?

[Krill]

OK. Lack of decent UU or UB. The Seal sucks except in modern and future era starts, and the American Mall is just ****ty.

[Common Sensei]

Good slavery synergy.