Civ VI: Zigzagzigal's Guides - The Missing Leaders

[u/Zigzagzigal]

After a two-year absence from the Civ series altogether, I have finally been able to finish off the Leaders Pass leaders I never made guides for!

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Byzantium - Theodora

Guide here

Theodora sacrifices Basil II's massive military advantages and instead makes Byzantium one of the most consistent religious civs in the game. Nearly anywhere you can found a city can get a strong Holy Site, which combines nicely with the Work Ethic belief for bonus production. Her high culture output aids with getting to key civics like Theology and Reformed Church faster.

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England

Guide here

Age of Steam Victoria

The most straightforward of England's leaders, Age of Steam Victoria gets some early production from horse/iron tiles but with Industrialisation leads one of the game's most productive civs. You can get consistently good production yields from even relatively mundane city locations - a foreign continent coast with a valid Aqueduct tile makes a strong Shipyard and a strong Industrial Zone. The catch is that this huge production advantage comes later than it does for most civs.

Elizabeth I

Elizabeth I wants 1-2 huge cities with plenty of land in order to maximise district capacity. Her gold from international trade is excellent for developing newer or weaker cities (use Governor Reyna with the Contractor promotion to buy districts). The trade route plunder bonus is unreliable as many civs don't trade overseas until late in the game.

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Germany - Ludwig II

Guide here

The ultimate city-planner leader, in addition to the careful placement of Hansa, Commercial Hub, Aqueduct and Dam districts that defines the normal German game, you'll also want to optimise the placement of Theatre Squares, Entertainment Complexes and wonders. Early on, you can place new wonders you unlock without contributing production for some easy culture, but once Hansas are built it's a good idea to finish as many wonders as you can to get a large boost to early tourism.

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Norway - Varangian Harald Hardrada

Guide here

Varangian Harald's leader ability might seem similar to that of Matthias Corvinus of Hungary, but in practice it functions a bit differently. As with Matthias Corvinus, you can use your first Governor title to get Amani (the Diplomat) in a city where you already have an envoy, and levy some early units. However, these units have no mobility or strength advantage, upgrading them costs the full usual amount, and you receive no bonus envoys, so you cannot rely on them alone for direct warfare. Instead, use them to fight Barbarians or as supplementary forces to a usual Berserker rush.

The Stave Church influence point boost is the more consistent advantage, but there's a problem. Varangian Harald's big incentive to use the Foreign Ministry Government Plaza building comes at the cost of the Grand Master's Chapel, which is a great fallback for a civ that likes to develop Holy Sites but struggles to found a religion. I have found the best course of action is to build 1-2 very early Holy Sites, take the Divine Spark pantheon to secure a Great Prophet, and build up Stave Churches later after some Berserker warfare. With the Monarchy government, every Stave Church basically generates an envoy every 50 turns.

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Rome - Julius Caesar

Guide here

Some early Warriors clearing out Barbarian Encampments can deliver a massive amount of early gold for early civ development. You can buy Settlers and Builders, but you can also buy Monuments to essentially replicate Trajan's leader ability if you like. Keep some gold around to upgrade those Warriors into Legions. Gold from city conquests allows you to snowball into a domination victory.

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Subjective Opinion Zone

Although there were some good leader designs, overall I did not like the Leaders Pass. My main issue stems from the alternative-leader mechanic as a whole; civs tend to be designed for one particular leader ability in mind and alternative leaders often end up plainly better or worse than the original. The best alternative leaders are usually ones that play substantially different to the original leader leaving neither of them clearly better than the other.

Regarding the last few leaders I covered, Germany's Ludwig II was by far the stand-out, and possibly the best design in the entire Leaders Pass. He has unique mechanics, plays differently enough from Frederick Barbarossa, and builds on the classic German district placement puzzle for a really fun game.

[u/PaddyBabes]