I've just about had it!

[RonnieMac]

I'm about 1 more 2 hour gaming session without getting a leader away from returning this game. This coupled with the fact that you cannot stack units and give them all the same orders is pissing me off. Someone please tell me that I'm doing something wrong. It has been a long time since I've played a Civ game and the last one was CTP2 about a year ago. As I remember it the combat was very good on that game you could amass forces and all attack at once. Why wasn't that done with Civ3?

[MrWhereItsAt]

The stack units option was added in a patch (v1.21f I believe). Get this and install it and hit "j" to move all the units in one square at once.

Moreover, combined arms works best. Build groups of units - eg send Catapults and Horsemen with your Swordsmen. Usee the catapults to bombard defenders and weaken them, then attack with horsemen, who have the chance to retreat if they are losing. Finally ensure that you carefully maintain and protect your elites, giving plenty of experience to veterans to get them up to elites. Then when you have a must-win situation (eg last defender is a 2hp warrior), then use your elites. This way you don't risk losing them, and you have a better chance of getting leaders.

[vmxa1]

Leaders are a bit of the draw. If military and if you have the Epic you can increase your chances of promotions and hence leaders. If you want to get them you need to be at war and use those elites on weaker or damaged units to get those victories and the shot at a leader.
Once you get a leader use it, if you have more elites to fight, as you can only have one leader at any point in time. Prolonged fighting is what generates leaders.
A standard game would be 6-10 for me, but I have gotten up to 55 in a game (pre ptw). PTW seems a bit less than before, IMO.

[The Mad Monk]

I'll be fortunate to get three leaders in a single game, but then, I'm a lover not a fighter.

[Mountain Sage]

The Mad Monk,

As a lover (of beautiful buildings and cultural achievements...), you meant three leaders since you started playing Civ3, isn't it?

[pedrojedi]

I always end up getting about 2-3 leaders in a war-game. When I am more peaceful, all neighbours tend to be as well, and the rate of leader generating drops considerably. At my current game (Carthagians, uah-ha!), I am right now in ~450 AD, still no wars, even though the greeks are getting a little too pedant.

Leader generating games are almost always achieved with constant wars (and Militarist trait, if you chose it).

[Arrian]

Militaristic civs with strong UUs are the best leader generators.

China, Japan, Celts, Rome. A powerful UU will win more often, and thus you will have more elites and more chances for those elites to win and generate leaders.

I am currently playing AU206 (check the strategy forum to find out what "AU" is), and that game is about testing the Gallic Swordsman re: is 50 shields too much?

The answer we've pretty much decided on is "no." In my game, it is 900AD. I have generated 5 leaders. I expect to generate several more.

Be careful with your elites. Unless you have veritable hordes of elite units, hold your elites for attacks you can pretty much guarantee will succeed. Nailing AI archers, for instance, with Gallic Swordsmen. 3 attack v. 1 defense. Use your vets on tougher fights, so you don't lose the elite units.

The Heroic Epic will increase your leader generation rate by 25%, but is only a worthwhile investment if you are planning on doing lots of fighting after completion of the HE (so it will pay off).

-Arrian

[minke19104]

I've gotten about 10-12 leaders in my current game..

about 4-5 of them got turned into Armies, since I cannot find anything else to do with them ? Basically Military is an essential trait for Leader generations...

And yes, Gallic Swordsmen rule!.. I've been playing a normal monarch huge map game with celts. Maybe that's why I keep getting leaders, cos theyre just so many civs to beat up!!

[Arrian]

Yeah, I'd expect more leaders on a Huge map. My best effort on a Standard map was 12. I've had a couple of 9 leader games recently (Japan, Rome).

As you point out, though, sometimes you have no real use for leaders you are generating. There are key periods in the game when leader generation is most valueable. Basically, from the beginning through the early industrial age - after you rush Hoover, that is.

-Arrian

[Jawa Jocky]

I know its late in the game but modern armor will give you more leaders then you will know what to do with.

[The Mad Monk]

Originally posted by Mountain Sage
The Mad Monk,

As a lover (of beautiful buildings and cultural achievements...), you meant three leaders since you started playing Civ3, isn't it?

No.

[The Mad Monk]

As a lover of beautiful buildings and cultural acheivements, I take it very personally if someone kidnaps and kills my workers and razes my cities.

[minke19104]

Originally posted by Arrian

As you point out, though, sometimes you have no real use for leaders you are generating. There are key periods in the game when leader generation is most valueable. Basically, from the beginning through the early industrial age - after you rush Hoover, that is.

-Arrian

I prefer my leaders to come early to middle medieval period. These are where the best wonders are: Sistine, Bach, Sun Tzu, Leo, Smith.

However, most of the leaders I got were after Hoover... which makes them useless, since FP and Palace were already perfectly assigned, and it's still a looong way before any modern age wonders become available.

[minke19104]

Actually I got 2 Leaders while defending against attack at the SAME turn..

They both died before the turn ends however, due to continous attacks, which made me pretty mad..

But I guess I were lucky, the next turn I attacked and got another Leader

[Arrian]

minke,

Yeah, that's when I want my leaders too (well, I want 1 a bit earlier, so I can sort out my Palace/FP), for exact same reasons you listed.

I also really like rushing Hoover... after having timed the completion of ToE to coincide with my discovery of Replaceable Parts. So, in the course of 1 turn, my workers speed up, I get 2 free techs, and then I get a free hydro plant in most of my cities. I often try to preserve a leader for Hoover.

-Arrian

[Theseus]

Small side note on elite management:

Later, when the value of GLs declines, I often do NOT preserve my fastmover elites (e.g., Cavs), but use them to bust down defender hps, depending on the higher retreat percentage.

Going back to the first post: RonnieMac, it's all in the percentages. Keep at it, learn the value of early warfare, and of a surfeit of units...

If you REALLY want GLs, learn how to create and use GL-generation battalions: a) ancient era version, a Spear and some Swords, and later b) a forward mountain fortress, some defenders, and a large number of fastmover attackers.

[Datajack Franit]

I could never get more than one leader, figure out 12...

[pedrojedi]

The number of GL we get seems sometimes to grow as your practice grow. But definitively having a militaristic civ is a great jump.

PS: I'm playing as vikings now, and the GL has not come yet (I'm in the start of medieval age). I'm getting nervous.

[steven8r]

I think the expected ratio is 1 GL per every 16 Elite battles or something. So every time one of your Elites engages in a skirmish there is a 1/16 chance that he will generate a Leader (if he wins).

Once you build the Heroic Epic, that ratio drops to 1/12. Presumably, you'd get a GL after every 12 battles. Rememer, it's a percentage, not a hard and fast rule.

Being Militaristic helps your units achieve Elite status faster than the non Militaristic civs.
Note: any unit that attacks or is attacked twice in the same round will advance a level.

Just hang in there RonnieMac. You'll get a GL before too long. In fact, you might just get more than you can handle.

Is there such a thing as "too many GL's"? It's pretty bad when you have to use them to rush things like Temples or Libraries, but you have to use them up in order to get more.

[minke19104]

Originally posted by pedrojedi
The number of GL we get seems sometimes to grow as your practice grow. But definitively having a militaristic civ is a great jump.

PS: I'm playing as vikings now, and the GL has not come yet (I'm in the start of medieval age). I'm getting nervous.

Are you using your Beserkirs alot? They are really GL makers, since they have the best attack until tanks, and theyre even better if you do not capture the cities from galleys. If they fail to capture a city pull back the galley out of enemy border. Let it rest there, then attack again. While in the ocean no one can touch the beserkir, except for enemy galleys attack your own. This is much better than having them try to defend a captured city with 1 defense.

Continuosly use Beserkir to their maximum advantage. Attack, capture, fortify, sail and find another city. You'll get one soon...

[pedrojedi]

Actually, my problem is exactly having to lie all expectations on my berserkir... since I'm far away behind in tech, and do not have horses, I only have slow-movers... and the situation gets worse with the fact that the enemy already have the gunpowder and can be even further ahead; I did not manage a good early initial strikes project, so I'm going down for good I think.

[Yahweh Sabaoth]

I have a problem consistently generating leaders, like some of you have expressed. I wage war quite a bit, and I only attack weak units with my elites.

I think my problem, actually, may be precisely that: I build a huge advantage numbers-wise before I go to war, generally all veterans, and I never want to "waste" an elite on a direct city attack, so I keep cranking out veterans and using them, and by the end of the war, I have tons of elites, but at most 1 GL out of the whole deal.

I play on a huge war, and the principle of perpetual war is a little tricky there, as I can have up to 6 borders to worry about at a given time, if I'm on the big continent...

...so in other words, I think my problem is actually something that I saw recommended as a GL-generating technique on this thread: oversaturation of troops.

It's a possbility, ne c'est pas?

[Arrian]

Yahweh,

I tend to generate many (if not most) of my leaders using obselete units.

That may sound odd, but bear with me.

My first round of wars will typically be with swordsmen and horsemen. Sometimes I will use archers even earlier. Anyway, with my most common approach (large sword/horse attack), I will often end up with a goodly number of elites by the time my early waring winds down. So when I continue fighting with Knights, I keep my old elite horsemen & swordsmen around to knock off weak targets, and often get a slew of elites out of that.

I almost never upgrade elite units until they generate a leader. I've generated leaders from using elite horsemen alongside Cavalry. I often end the game with leftover elite Knights, Cavalry, etc alongside my Modern Armor. To me, an elite unit that lacks an asterisk is a unit that hasn't done its job yet.

-Arrian

[Yahweh Sabaoth]

Trust me, Arrian, I do the same thing. I just don't seem to get the same results.

I've kept elite archers up until the age of tanks, or later.