Huanya Capac when you look at the overall history of CIV IV is an automatic S-Tier civilization. He first appeared in the base game as Aggressive and Financial, then they lost Aggressive and replaced it with Industrious, his Quechuas still have Combat 1 like he didn’t lose Aggressive and his unique Granary grants the same culture bonus as Creative; the Incas have the unique situation of being a civilization with four traits instead of the normal two.
Ramses is awesome for a religious economy. Have 4 religions within your borders, spread them every where, found at least 2 yourself for the shrine gold. Then build all the religion wonders: university of Sankore, spiral minaret, apostolic palace and Sistine chapel, build temples everywhere, monastery’s everywhere for +40% research in each city. Your research goes off the charts, Ramses I think is the best for this strategy
Actually Ramses is amazing for this strategy. His obelisk gives you priests to work and great prophets, so you can found the religions and build all the shrines. Build the Angkor wat as well for priests with 2 hammers
Creative is my favorite early-game trait. It allows me to quickly get my cities built, connected, and trading with each other without having to spend time building monuments or temples to do so. Generally, my favorite strat with it is to chop out Stonehenge and not have to worry about my borders for a solid chunk of the early game until religions really get going. That said, you’re right about it being worthless as the game wears on.
Many of these traits are quite situational--some times you can get a good city spot you couldn't have gotten without Imperialistic. On a map with many ocean fish tiles creative is god tier to make those cities more valuable a lot sooner. And then there's the unique units that can be a big boost if you get them in time for the first wars.
Yeah, there are even leaders in the bottom that I would choose given certain conditions, like Joao or even Stalin. I tried to do it based on how easy a certain strategy is or how consistently good the trait combination is. Like Churchill is the best in my opinion because every gunpowder unit can be amazing, and you can really roll with an advantage like that.
I’ll say this about Expansive: It basically cancels out the drawback of Floodplain tiles, thus making cities working them, which are already good, that much better.
I feel tha you really, really overrate moment-of-power leaders like Tokugawa/Boudicca/Churchill, who live and die on specific unit/trade combo. Yeah, synergias are good and all, but most of these leaders are not good outside of said moment, especially Protective ones which is just horrible overall and requires Agg/Cha to work at least remotely well. Also quite surprised that with such approach you put Stalin at D, cheap Barracks + Forges + Combat1 make him probably the most scary leader in late antiquity, with both quality and quantity at his side. Outside of said opportunity window he is meh, but still better than, say, Tokugawa.
This is interesting, but pretty clearly geared toward earth maps, especially with org leaders being rated so high, on random standard maps most org leaders are mediocre (except for Darius and Mehmed) while fin leaders are the king.
Yeah, basically all my experience is based on the Earth map. Certain maps can make these traits a lot better or worse. Really depends on what you consider "standard." Some people prefer Pangaea where org leaders aren't very good; even on regular continents, it's not very good. I really like the Earth map for all the snaking water routes and geographic chokepoints, but that tends to make snakier empires with higher maintenance. Also, you clearly suck at this game so.... lol
I never could get into Civ IV. Civ V just always seemed like an objectively better game in every single regard. Why do some people prefer IV? Does it have areas where it is actually better than Civ V or is it just flavor preference?
The economics game is way more interesting in Civ IV. It also has many more "tricks" to learn and is way deeper than Civ V. Also, combat is a lot more challenging to master. It also has more means of changing gears mid game than Civ 5. I like Civ 5, but I find IV to be a much more elegant game design, but it takes some time with it to appreciate it. The only reason I'd play Civ V is because I just played too much IV ! :)
Very simple thing: One thing you always had to keep in mind was your civilzation's security, you always felt like you could be attacked - the newer games just strayed away from this and it seems to me like more and more like a boardgame than something resembling a history-themed simulation game
@@patrick-sprachenmusikstudi5351 I think this started to be an issue only in Civ VI, and its precisely because VI tried to be some sort of weird history simulation rather than an actual game, even to the point where the AI leaders get angry at you for not having enough spies or cutting down too many trees instead of actually trying to use diplomacy as a tool to win the game. In Civ V I find the opponents, even the AI ones, are plenty aggressive if you neglect your military and/or get behind in tech.
@@yvindheilo229 can you elaborate a little on what you mean by these "tricks" and "changing gears"? I haven't played IV nearly enough to know what you mean. Also, combat being more challenging to master sounds weird to me, since I thought it was just about moving doomstacks around and more troops meaning you win. What did I miss?
@@khatack There is one big main differences with Civ 4 and 5 IMO. Civ4 has a more "either-or"-approach, while Civ 5 has a "yes-and"-approach. In Civ5, the economics game is mostly about filling buckets. You have a blue science bucket, a pink cultural bucket and so on. You usually want to fill them up as quickly as possible (there are some exceptions especially regarding unlocking social policies if I remember correctly). Many aspects in the game back this mechanic up and the social policy tress is a perfect example. Each choice you make build upon the last one. And once you pick one, it can't get unpicked. The bonus stacks. In Civ4 your bonuses (boni?) doesn't always stack. With the civics system, your choice eliminates four other choices. But you can later make that choice again, and knowing when to switch between them very often provide hard and meaningful choices. This also relates to the tech tree. Which techs to research is very often guided by what civics you "think" you need in the future. This requires a layer of stretegy that is almost completely absent in Civ5. On top of this there are also several "key" techs in 4 that are extremely powerful. You also get great people for being first to some of them, even unlocking religions. I always felt the journey through the Civ4 tech tree was way more interesting than in 5 because of this. On top of this wonders are also MUCH more powerful. Civ 5 also did away with the economy slider. This goes hand in hand with what I've already said. In Civ 5 you have very limited options to "change" your economy mid game. Everything just stacks. I'm not saying Civ4 economy game is super complicated, but compared to Civ5 it is. Finally it's the "slavery" economic which is a good example of what I mean by "tricks". Mastering this (without reading it up on forums) is actually a skill on its own. And I don't remember Civ5 having anything like it game mechanics wise. War in Civ4 is more about which city produce what, in which order and what you think you'll gain from a war. In 5 you want to build an army, but your options are very limited as units are very expensive and cities are few. So usually it comes down to having a few of each. Some archers, front line, siege, flanking and so on. The strategy when moving them around is actually quite straight foreward IMO and don't provide many interesting choices. In Civ4 moving units is much quicker and less complicated and also doesn not provide too many interesting choices. But knowing which city to attack, army composistion and city specialization is a much bigger aspect. It's more macro scale than micro scale. Also your empire infrastructure (and thus also importance of good worker management) is extremely important to get the units where you want when you want them there. Also it's not enough to just take out the enemies main force and then just land grab the rest of the civ afterwards, which I found happened way too often in Civ5 (because the AI dodn't have time to make new forces because of production costs, had few cities so losing just one was too decisive, and had few units to begin with). In Civ4 wiping out a nation can be very hard. And I believe anyone who has experienced that yoj just build a stack and run the computer over either has laid 100's if not 1000's of hours in the game or is plain simply playing on too low difficulty. Don't get me wrong, I enjoy a game of Civ5. I don't think it is a bad game. But I find it much more shallow and less brainburny than 4 .
I think it's because he makes a good strategy (drafting, particularly a drafted rifle rush) even better. If I had a game where I knew I was going to do a rifle rush, the only other trait I might want is creative to help offset the unhappiness with culture, but I think I would much prefer Toku
@@mediocreattempts1212 The problem is that Tokugawa will more likely be target of rifle draft than to rifle draft himself. Dude is the only leader in the game to lack any peace bonuses, which puts him at huge disadvantage until at least Muskets appear (coz Agg and Pro have no synergy other than gunpowder units), let alone Rifles.
Tokugawa has always been regarded as dismal at best, not sure where the idea of putting him in S tier came from, especially over Huyana whos easily the best leader in the game. So why hes not S tier is a mystery as well.
@@TovKafur Eh, Agg/Pro is great in the Middle Ages for Toku, too. While Samurai aren’t as broken in 4 as they were in 3, they’re still easily the best melee unit in the game thanks to the Maceman bonus and their First Strikes. Only thing Sams aren’t good against are Knights, and that can be remedied with Medic Pikemen guarding the stack.
I think you sold Brennus a bit short. Yeah, his traits are at-odds, but the way I look at it is this: He’s got options for fighting and options for peace, making him very versatile.
Cool strategy with Cyrus, build the Great Wall for total of 200% great general production, settle one great general in every city which is easily done, run theocracy and feudalism. Boom every city produces units with 3 promotions. Imperialist also works well on Earth to grab the stone and horses in Central Asia quickly for fast great wall and early immortal rush.
I never really think about great wall strategies; I often just overlook the building because I feel like it's really difficult to get. Plus, if you're getting all the tech for the great wall, it's normally so much better to go for the pyramids instead. In my Cyrus of Persia Earth playthrough, I preferred to just move the capital for the horse immortal rush.
I think it would just be the same positions as where they are currently. I also already have a video where I talk about all the civilizations and their unique units and buildings a bit more.
@@mediocreattempts1212 Yeah, true. I was thinking it could be a more in-depth analysis. I know you’ve praised some UUs for their unique abilities on paper, but I was thinking what you could do was analyze them in practice and then create a tier list.
Glad you enjoyed. I haven't gotten into streaming (my playthrough videos are essentially vods with any interruptions or accidental f-words trimmed out, so you might enjoy those).
This list is crap as Huyana Capac is hands down the best leader in the game as his terraces give him the culture buff creative leaders get and your going to want granaries anyway. You also overstate the value of protective, if you're enaging in a defensive war then your diplomacy is already failing and its almost useless against AI players anyway so you only get the best value from the trait in multiplayer games but even then there are other better options. Industrious is also undervalued here as half price forges as well as quicker wonder production means more wonders or more fail gold. Philosophical is also good with specialist economies, which are favored by more experienced players and are more resilient in multiplayer games. Overall, this list seems to be biased towards a certain playstyle and doesnt account for different strategies that can be employed. There are better tier lists that arent geared towards a certain type of play and also account for the UU and UB of each civilization.
@@anttiharju3739 I gotta be doing something wrong I really struggle with financial leader (except Elizabeth) I find leaders that keep my maintenance down really are my bread and butter. Admittedly I don’t really run a cottage economy
What can you do with creative...you seriously never culture trolled your beloved neighbors off the map before? THAT'S what you can do with creative 😉 Catherine is really annoying since she has this habit of culture flipping your cities if she isn't at war with you (yet).... so even at peace she is gobbling up her less cultured neighbors. And asking if financial is better than spiritual is like asking if gold is better than dogshit... financial is the best trait in the game since it rockets your science if you cottage like crazy hence why financial leaders are usually ahead of everyone else. You also seem to underestimate Elizabeths ability to spam great scientists and skyrocket her science due to financial and philosophical...
I have beaten my neighbors culturally before, but normally that happens because of the Sistine Chapel or maybe because I'm Spiritual and have built a bunch of temples everywhere allowing me to go for cathedrals. On deity, I just find that the 2 extra culture doesn't amount to much when the AI can build all their buildings, including monuments and libraries, so cheap. Financial is obviously very good, but being able to change civics so easily with spiritual allows for some amazing optimizations on marathon where I always play.
@@mediocreattempts1212 mehh i never really cared for the spiritual trait as temples only grant happiness and one culture unless you can manage to get the wonders ofc.. but temples already are cheap to build anyways so it is a minor bonus, and anarchy is not really that much of a setback to give it more significance than say creative (creative sistine culture trolling is just too good to ignore and theatres and colosseums are far better culture bombs than even sistine chapel if you up the commerce->culture slider and creative leaders can get these up very quickly. like i said: don't underestimate creative culturetrolling my friend. And the 2 culture right of the bat is always good as it allows you to get your city cross tiles under control really fast without any need to build monuments or temples to get them going) and you can also swap without anarchy in a golden age. The extra commerce from financial is by far more useful all game long as it fuels science, espionage and culture and it is never a bad thing to have a stash of cash for a rainy day and you'll be swimming in it when you cottage spam with financial leaders. You also underestimate industrious imo as production is power and just as essential as science and a strong economy. Sure the wonder part is pretty much pointless vs wonderspamming ai but i wouldn't downplay faster construction of essential buildings like forges and factories which are expensive buildings but are critical for jacking up production in your cities. It is by far a bigger hammer payoff than the temple production bonus from spiritual as forges have a far larger Hammer cost than temples and are far more critical buildings due to it increasing your production and depending on mining resources they also give a nice chunk of hapiness) and yeah..i never really cared much for the anarchy part as you only swap civics a few times in the entire run of the game. It is useful sure, but not better than industrious or creative imo
Lol, I didn't even think about how I pretty much solely approached this from the idea of winning domination victories. Yeah, for cultural, there would be a totally different analysis, and spiritual would be much better at going for it because of all the temples.
@@quadroninja2708 Fair enough. In short leaders like huayna capac, hannibal, mansa musa, pacal are all S tier, and tokugawa should really be low tier. I think this depends on the map type, size and difficulty setting, but GENERALY speaking a tier list should be made on the most agreed upon meta. In Civ4 case, that's either Pangea or Terra standard size with Deity difficulty (or at least Immortal). From that point of view, anything thats financial is S tier, followed by Charismatic, Philosohpical, Organized and Industrious. In other words, if you win a game like that with Tokugawa i swear to god I'll send you a 1000$.
@@salek991 you'll never have to send me 1000$, as I can barely beat Prince, lol. Yeah, I agree with you, even on lower difficulties, Financial trait is the most useful one
Huanya Capac when you look at the overall history of CIV IV is an automatic S-Tier civilization. He first appeared in the base game as Aggressive and Financial, then they lost Aggressive and replaced it with Industrious, his Quechuas still have Combat 1 like he didn’t lose Aggressive and his unique Granary grants the same culture bonus as Creative; the Incas have the unique situation of being a civilization with four traits instead of the normal two.
Ramses is awesome for a religious economy. Have 4 religions within your borders, spread them every where, found at least 2 yourself for the shrine gold. Then build all the religion wonders: university of Sankore, spiral minaret, apostolic palace and Sistine chapel, build temples everywhere, monastery’s everywhere for +40% research in each city. Your research goes off the charts, Ramses I think is the best for this strategy
Actually Ramses is amazing for this strategy. His obelisk gives you priests to work and great prophets, so you can found the religions and build all the shrines. Build the Angkor wat as well for priests with 2 hammers
That's a nice, well-thought strategy. I'll have to give it a try if I play Ramesses sometime
Ramses is my favourite Egyptian leader
Catherine.....if Taylor Swift was a leader of the world (that angry hair flip turnaround 😂)
Creative is my favorite early-game trait. It allows me to quickly get my cities built, connected, and trading with each other without having to spend time building monuments or temples to do so. Generally, my favorite strat with it is to chop out Stonehenge and not have to worry about my borders for a solid chunk of the early game until religions really get going. That said, you’re right about it being worthless as the game wears on.
Many of these traits are quite situational--some times you can get a good city spot you couldn't have gotten without Imperialistic. On a map with many ocean fish tiles creative is god tier to make those cities more valuable a lot sooner. And then there's the unique units that can be a big boost if you get them in time for the first wars.
Yeah, there are even leaders in the bottom that I would choose given certain conditions, like Joao or even Stalin. I tried to do it based on how easy a certain strategy is or how consistently good the trait combination is. Like Churchill is the best in my opinion because every gunpowder unit can be amazing, and you can really roll with an advantage like that.
I’ll say this about Expansive: It basically cancels out the drawback of Floodplain tiles, thus making cities working them, which are already good, that much better.
I feel tha you really, really overrate moment-of-power leaders like Tokugawa/Boudicca/Churchill, who live and die on specific unit/trade combo. Yeah, synergias are good and all, but most of these leaders are not good outside of said moment, especially Protective ones which is just horrible overall and requires Agg/Cha to work at least remotely well.
Also quite surprised that with such approach you put Stalin at D, cheap Barracks + Forges + Combat1 make him probably the most scary leader in late antiquity, with both quality and quantity at his side. Outside of said opportunity window he is meh, but still better than, say, Tokugawa.
This is interesting, but pretty clearly geared toward earth maps, especially with org leaders being rated so high, on random standard maps most org leaders are mediocre (except for Darius and Mehmed) while fin leaders are the king.
Yeah, basically all my experience is based on the Earth map. Certain maps can make these traits a lot better or worse. Really depends on what you consider "standard." Some people prefer Pangaea where org leaders aren't very good; even on regular continents, it's not very good. I really like the Earth map for all the snaking water routes and geographic chokepoints, but that tends to make snakier empires with higher maintenance.
Also, you clearly suck at this game so.... lol
I never could get into Civ IV. Civ V just always seemed like an objectively better game in every single regard. Why do some people prefer IV? Does it have areas where it is actually better than Civ V or is it just flavor preference?
The economics game is way more interesting in Civ IV. It also has many more "tricks" to learn and is way deeper than Civ V. Also, combat is a lot more challenging to master. It also has more means of changing gears mid game than Civ 5. I like Civ 5, but I find IV to be a much more elegant game design, but it takes some time with it to appreciate it. The only reason I'd play Civ V is because I just played too much IV ! :)
Very simple thing: One thing you always had to keep in mind was your civilzation's security, you always felt like you could be attacked - the newer games just strayed away from this and it seems to me like more and more like a boardgame than something resembling a history-themed simulation game
@@patrick-sprachenmusikstudi5351 I think this started to be an issue only in Civ VI, and its precisely because VI tried to be some sort of weird history simulation rather than an actual game, even to the point where the AI leaders get angry at you for not having enough spies or cutting down too many trees instead of actually trying to use diplomacy as a tool to win the game. In Civ V I find the opponents, even the AI ones, are plenty aggressive if you neglect your military and/or get behind in tech.
@@yvindheilo229 can you elaborate a little on what you mean by these "tricks" and "changing gears"? I haven't played IV nearly enough to know what you mean.
Also, combat being more challenging to master sounds weird to me, since I thought it was just about moving doomstacks around and more troops meaning you win. What did I miss?
@@khatack There is one big main differences with Civ 4 and 5 IMO. Civ4 has a more "either-or"-approach, while Civ 5 has a "yes-and"-approach.
In Civ5, the economics game is mostly about filling buckets. You have a blue science bucket, a pink cultural bucket and so on. You usually want to fill them up as quickly as possible (there are some exceptions especially regarding unlocking social policies if I remember correctly).
Many aspects in the game back this mechanic up and the social policy tress is a perfect example. Each choice you make build upon the last one. And once you pick one, it can't get unpicked. The bonus stacks.
In Civ4 your bonuses (boni?) doesn't always stack. With the civics system, your choice eliminates four other choices. But you can later make that choice again, and knowing when to switch between them very often provide hard and meaningful choices.
This also relates to the tech tree. Which techs to research is very often guided by what civics you "think" you need in the future. This requires a layer of stretegy that is almost completely absent in Civ5.
On top of this there are also several "key" techs in 4 that are extremely powerful. You also get great people for being first to some of them, even unlocking religions. I always felt the journey through the Civ4 tech tree was way more interesting than in 5 because of this. On top of this wonders are also MUCH more powerful.
Civ 5 also did away with the economy slider. This goes hand in hand with what I've already said. In Civ 5 you have very limited options to "change" your economy mid game. Everything just stacks.
I'm not saying Civ4 economy game is super complicated, but compared to Civ5 it is.
Finally it's the "slavery" economic which is a good example of what I mean by "tricks". Mastering this (without reading it up on forums) is actually a skill on its own. And I don't remember Civ5 having anything like it game mechanics wise.
War in Civ4 is more about which city produce what, in which order and what you think you'll gain from a war.
In 5 you want to build an army, but your options are very limited as units are very expensive and cities are few. So usually it comes down to having a few of each. Some archers, front line, siege, flanking and so on. The strategy when moving them around is actually quite straight foreward IMO and don't provide many interesting choices.
In Civ4 moving units is much quicker and less complicated and also doesn not provide too many interesting choices. But knowing which city to attack, army composistion and city specialization is a much bigger aspect. It's more macro scale than micro scale. Also your empire infrastructure (and thus also importance of good worker management) is extremely important to get the units where you want when you want them there.
Also it's not enough to just take out the enemies main force and then just land grab the rest of the civ afterwards, which I found happened way too often in Civ5 (because the AI dodn't have time to make new forces because of production costs, had few cities so losing just one was too decisive, and had few units to begin with).
In Civ4 wiping out a nation can be very hard. And I believe anyone who has experienced that yoj just build a stack and run the computer over either has laid 100's if not 1000's of hours in the game or is plain simply playing on too low difficulty.
Don't get me wrong, I enjoy a game of Civ5. I don't think it is a bad game. But I find it much more shallow and less brainburny than 4 .
Dude, Tokugawa in S-tier!? The dude’s only good for war and nothing else!
If he was more versatile, like Nobunaga in 5, I’d enjoy him more.
I think it's because he makes a good strategy (drafting, particularly a drafted rifle rush) even better. If I had a game where I knew I was going to do a rifle rush, the only other trait I might want is creative to help offset the unhappiness with culture, but I think I would much prefer Toku
@@mediocreattempts1212
The problem is that he’s got nothing going for him in peacetime, which is why I dislike him in 4.
@@mediocreattempts1212 The problem is that Tokugawa will more likely be target of rifle draft than to rifle draft himself. Dude is the only leader in the game to lack any peace bonuses, which puts him at huge disadvantage until at least Muskets appear (coz Agg and Pro have no synergy other than gunpowder units), let alone Rifles.
Tokugawa has always been regarded as dismal at best, not sure where the idea of putting him in S tier came from, especially over Huyana whos easily the best leader in the game. So why hes not S tier is a mystery as well.
@@TovKafur
Eh, Agg/Pro is great in the Middle Ages for Toku, too. While Samurai aren’t as broken in 4 as they were in 3, they’re still easily the best melee unit in the game thanks to the Maceman bonus and their First Strikes. Only thing Sams aren’t good against are Knights, and that can be remedied with Medic Pikemen guarding the stack.
I think you sold Brennus a bit short. Yeah, his traits are at-odds, but the way I look at it is this: He’s got options for fighting and options for peace, making him very versatile.
Cool strategy with Cyrus, build the Great Wall for total of 200% great general production, settle one great general in every city which is easily done, run theocracy and feudalism. Boom every city produces units with 3 promotions. Imperialist also works well on Earth to grab the stone and horses in Central Asia quickly for fast great wall and early immortal rush.
I never really think about great wall strategies; I often just overlook the building because I feel like it's really difficult to get. Plus, if you're getting all the tech for the great wall, it's normally so much better to go for the pyramids instead.
In my Cyrus of Persia Earth playthrough, I preferred to just move the capital for the horse immortal rush.
Charismatic and organized are my favorites
I have an idea for your next Tier list: Unique Unit tier list.
Redcoats would be the top of S, obviously, but I’d like to see how the rest stack up.
I think it would just be the same positions as where they are currently. I also already have a video where I talk about all the civilizations and their unique units and buildings a bit more.
@@mediocreattempts1212
Yeah, true.
I was thinking it could be a more in-depth analysis. I know you’ve praised some UUs for their unique abilities on paper, but I was thinking what you could do was analyze them in practice and then create a tier list.
Always nice to see new content for my all time favorite game.
Do you stream on twitch?
Glad you enjoyed. I haven't gotten into streaming (my playthrough videos are essentially vods with any interruptions or accidental f-words trimmed out, so you might enjoy those).
This list is crap as Huyana Capac is hands down the best leader in the game as his terraces give him the culture buff creative leaders get and your going to want granaries anyway. You also overstate the value of protective, if you're enaging in a defensive war then your diplomacy is already failing and its almost useless against AI players anyway so you only get the best value from the trait in multiplayer games but even then there are other better options. Industrious is also undervalued here as half price forges as well as quicker wonder production means more wonders or more fail gold. Philosophical is also good with specialist economies, which are favored by more experienced players and are more resilient in multiplayer games. Overall, this list seems to be biased towards a certain playstyle and doesnt account for different strategies that can be employed. There are better tier lists that arent geared towards a certain type of play and also account for the UU and UB of each civilization.
Lol I’ve never managed to get a good gameplay off with Ragnar despite trying so many times
Go for an axeman rush and a cottage economy! Probably what Ragnar is best at.
Rags really excels on archipelago maps. The quicker boats are a nice boost, and financial is the best trait in the game.
@@anttiharju3739 I gotta be doing something wrong I really struggle with financial leader (except Elizabeth) I find leaders that keep my maintenance down really are my bread and butter. Admittedly I don’t really run a cottage economy
What can you do with creative...you seriously never culture trolled your beloved neighbors off the map before? THAT'S what you can do with creative 😉 Catherine is really annoying since she has this habit of culture flipping your cities if she isn't at war with you (yet).... so even at peace she is gobbling up her less cultured neighbors. And asking if financial is better than spiritual is like asking if gold is better than dogshit... financial is the best trait in the game since it rockets your science if you cottage like crazy hence why financial leaders are usually ahead of everyone else. You also seem to underestimate Elizabeths ability to spam great scientists and skyrocket her science due to financial and philosophical...
I have beaten my neighbors culturally before, but normally that happens because of the Sistine Chapel or maybe because I'm Spiritual and have built a bunch of temples everywhere allowing me to go for cathedrals. On deity, I just find that the 2 extra culture doesn't amount to much when the AI can build all their buildings, including monuments and libraries, so cheap.
Financial is obviously very good, but being able to change civics so easily with spiritual allows for some amazing optimizations on marathon where I always play.
@@mediocreattempts1212 mehh i never really cared for the spiritual trait as temples only grant happiness and one culture unless you can manage to get the wonders ofc.. but temples already are cheap to build anyways so it is a minor bonus, and anarchy is not really that much of a setback to give it more significance than say creative (creative sistine culture trolling is just too good to ignore and theatres and colosseums are far better culture bombs than even sistine chapel if you up the commerce->culture slider and creative leaders can get these up very quickly. like i said: don't underestimate creative culturetrolling my friend. And the 2 culture right of the bat is always good as it allows you to get your city cross tiles under control really fast without any need to build monuments or temples to get them going) and you can also swap without anarchy in a golden age. The extra commerce from financial is by far more useful all game long as it fuels science, espionage and culture and it is never a bad thing to have a stash of cash for a rainy day and you'll be swimming in it when you cottage spam with financial leaders. You also underestimate industrious imo as production is power and just as essential as science and a strong economy. Sure the wonder part is pretty much pointless vs wonderspamming ai but i wouldn't downplay faster construction of essential buildings like forges and factories which are expensive buildings but are critical for jacking up production in your cities. It is by far a bigger hammer payoff than the temple production bonus from spiritual as forges have a far larger Hammer cost than temples and are far more critical buildings due to it increasing your production and depending on mining resources they also give a nice chunk of hapiness) and yeah..i never really cared much for the anarchy part as you only swap civics a few times in the entire run of the game. It is useful sure, but not better than industrious or creative imo
In Civ 4 its not as big a deal, but in CIV 3, I despised playing against expansionist civilizations
Considering how Temples and Monasteries form the bedrock of culture expansion, I’d say Spiritual’s bonus to Temple building is kinda broken.
Lol, I didn't even think about how I pretty much solely approached this from the idea of winning domination victories. Yeah, for cultural, there would be a totally different analysis, and spiritual would be much better at going for it because of all the temples.
@@mediocreattempts1212
Yeah, or even just having large, resilient cultural borders, period.
Gotta keep the Culture Press at bay, after all.
Did you not consider the various uu/ub ?
pretty sure focusing on the traits i think
Uf this list is just completely wrong.
You can always make yours, I'd love to see your opinion on that
@@quadroninja2708 Fair enough. In short leaders like huayna capac, hannibal, mansa musa, pacal are all S tier, and tokugawa should really be low tier. I think this depends on the map type, size and difficulty setting, but GENERALY speaking a tier list should be made on the most agreed upon meta. In Civ4 case, that's either Pangea or Terra standard size with Deity difficulty (or at least Immortal). From that point of view, anything thats financial is S tier, followed by Charismatic, Philosohpical, Organized and Industrious. In other words, if you win a game like that with Tokugawa i swear to god I'll send you a 1000$.
@@salek991 you'll never have to send me 1000$, as I can barely beat Prince, lol. Yeah, I agree with you, even on lower difficulties, Financial trait is the most useful one
Haha i feel you, i took me years until I got to Immortal and Diety.
Yeah, putting Huyana below Tokugawa is pretty clear this list is crap
Hey dude, write a script next time. You also sound like you're bored to tears
Oh god no, not at all! This is kinda the other way around if anything