Great Tech Leaders

[Krill]

So long as you have copper most civs can survive fine. But without praets Rome sucks. You can always make the UB if you survive long enough, and you always have access to a civs traits (usefulness of course can be argued) but most UU are not always available.

[jbp26]

greece, persia, egypt, inca, just to name a few. almost any of them really. iron is only important if you don't have copper, and sometimes not even then.

[Krill]

Dunno, I like crossbows if I'm protective, need iron for knights as well, and I think pikes as well. BUt then, you should be able to kill someone with iron or at least settle it by the medi era.

[rah]

Isn't iron also required for cannons?

[Krill]

Yup.

[Blaupanzer]

I said, "Except for iron," in my earlier post. Trust me, no civ will make it through the classical and medieval phases without iron, unless they are alone on a large, otherwise resource-rich island. Even then, iron is needed for railroads, too. I do not believe either Roman leader or the Dutch leader have any "bad traits." That was my point.

I agree with Supr49er about Mansa Musa. I don't tech nearly as well with him as the AI does. I turn on no tech brokering, and he always has a boatload of techs he can trade -- meaning he researched them himself. Quite amazing, really. But to me, it might as well be magic. I cannot reproduce that result.

[jbp26]

Originally posted by Blaupanzer
I do not believe either Roman leader or the Dutch leader have any "bad traits." That was my point.

imperialistic is one of the worst.

[TriMiro]

If you have a lot of empty land around you Imperialistic lets you claim it fast, Catherine is the most powerful REX leaders.

As for Tech, my best tech games were with Pericles. I get early Pyramids, pop a ton of Scientists and settle/light bulb. Works great.

As far as the Creative trait goes, the territory advantage for creative is not the best part. Creative reduces the hammer cost for Libraries, which lets you get scientist early on. I have found it difficult to run a specialist economy without Creative trait (at least I do not get an early lead like I want to).

[Blaupanzer]

FIN may be key to push science to its max, but folks here are agreeing that CRE is also key. The cheap libraries (and theaters) are of great value for science advancement.

However, what about ORG to avoid a huge drain on your economy; PRO to defend without being forced into Vassalage or Theocracy to get decent promotions for the army, or IND to get civ-changing wonders and extra GP to light bulb with?

[joncnunn]

For best Science, you really want at least one of FIN / ORG (either boost commerce or reduce maintence, the better choice being map dependent) Either way reinvest some of the extra income or reduced maintence cost into larger empire and/or higher science slider. (Org will also allow you to work ocean tiles faster (cheaper lighthouses), faster court houses (reducing maint) and also bring factories on line faster (for in turn faster science buildings remaining to be built).

Then add either the other of them to really maximize raw or add a civ with a UB that either has higher science (or to a somewhat lesser extent) one that adds higher income (in this case run a higher science slider).

Other fine choices are IND if your planning on building Great Library (or to a lesor extent the Oracle). Also note that either way just having Marble is better than IND for wonders this early.

Phio is a fine choice if your already planning on building wonders as well; in this case the extra leaders help the general economy. And the Universites themselves are really cheap with this traight.

Creative's main advantage as it relates to this is faster libraries and will evenually fade, but an early science lead advantages multiply for quite some time.

The other traights advantages to science are mostly in the some other unit and/or building(s) reduced cost so you have time to build the science & commerce buildings earlier.

[Diadem]

I'm surprised how many people underestimate the CRE trait. Imho on the highest difficulty levels it is the singularly best trait, hands down.

There are basically three ways to pop borders early in the game. Get an early religion, and spread it. Get Stonehenge. Or be creative. But on deity level, the first two are simply not available.

Creative is thus a HUGE benefit. You don't have to worry about popping the borders of your new cities, which allows you to focus on more important matters such as building enough military.

Also creative allows you to place your cities better. Since your cities will quickly expand, you don't have to place them right next to important resources. And a better city placement will work for you the rest of the game.

Deity civs also have mad culture. It's almost impossible to maintain your borders against their cultural pressure. Once a city has popped its borders twice, your fat cross tiles will get at least 22 culture a turn. Even a deity AI won't crush that too easily. Without CRE your second border pop will be a lot slower, so you'll accumulate a lot less culture on your fat cross. Also the AI can found closer to your cities.

Finally faster libraries help a lot with your research and great people. And with the very low happiness caps on deity, the faster theatres and colloseums are also very useful.

FIN is also very useful. ORG is utterly useless, it saves you a few GP a turn at most, unless your empire is so large that you have already won the game anyway. IND is nice on low levels, but utterly useless on deity because you'll barely be building any wonders. SPI is nice too, for the flexibility is allows, and the turns it saves you from sitting in anarchy. And all of the military-focussed traits are useful, of course.

[Loxy]

I also like the creative trait very much. It gets better and better the higher the difficulty level.

I really want a leader who is charismatic/ creative. Charismatic for its obvious military benefits and the build in +1 happy face. And when your city is at the happy cap u can build a cheap monument for another +1 happy face if there are no other sources of happiness (HUUUGE bonus on high levels with their low caps). Stonehenge is of course very good if u can manage to build it and with the creative trait your new established cities become practically culture proof.

Creative also is VERY good for war. It gives u more land and the resources on it quickly. It gives the ability to block the AI with ease and keeps your research running nicely in the first wars due to the cheap libaries.

In my opinion creative/ charismatic would be one of the most desired combos when playing above monarch level.

[Diadem]

Yeah charismatic is good. The extra happy faces are really useful. And the quicker promotions means you'll need less military to get the job done.

But if CHA > FIN. I don't know.

I do know that on water maps the Dutch reign supreme.

[Felch]

Originally posted by Blaupanzer
Dikes come late for the early game

Too true. Luckily on an island map, the games tend to last much longer. So the Dutch advantage there is immense.

[snoopy369]

I don't think CHA is a good mid-to-late game characteristic. It's great early on but later on that is not as useful (as the happy cap is higher than the health cap), and while it certainly lets you get out a bigger early empire, I think FIN is more useful in the early game than CHA. (CHA-FIN might be a very powerful early game combo, though...)