Civ IV Tactics

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I may be wrong here, but I believe that if you do a customized game you can pick your leader's starting traits. I haven't done this, so I don't know for sure, but I imagine there would be a bunch of very powerful combinations. One combo that was eliminated with the advent of Warlords was Organized and Financial. It was quite easy to run a 90% science rate throughout much of the game with low upkeep and high income.

I do agree with your points though. For one, if either of the Roman leaders were aggressive, no that wouldn't be particularly fair.

I also agree that the Malinese Skimisher would be absolutely sick if the Malinese were say, financial and protective. A Skimisher would start with THREE first strikes, which I think is more than any base unit in the game could get. Of course, their huge advantage would still be limited to defense. They still only have a base 4 for an attack, so it's not like they'd be more powerful than a swordsman attacking a city.

Defending a city would be a whole other story however. They would be 4 + 2 (in city) + 1 (fotified) + 0.8 (CG1) + 1 (assuming walls) = 8.8 with three first stikes to boot. And that doesn't even factor in the likelihood of having something in the way of a cultural defense. In other words, even macemen would be underdogs.

Another quite powerful combination that DOES exist in the game is Agressive and Protective - it's the Japanese. Almost every land based combat unit gets something to start off with (I suppose siege units would be the exception). All of your offensive units get Combat 1, and all of your defensive units get Drill 1 and CG 1. Add in that they have an excellent UU in the samauri, and a not so bad UB in the shale plant (+10% production) and you have yourself a pretty good choice on your hands.

When you look at UU and UB combination, I think a few stand out above the rest. In addition to the Japanese, I think the Mongols have an excellent combination, in that the UB compliments their UU. The Chinese aren't bad either with the Cho-Ko-Nu and the Pavilion.

Some UU seem extremely underpowered to me. I've already bemoaned the Gallic Warrior, but another one that seems quite lacking is the Numidian Cavalry, depending on which description in the manual is accurate. In the front of the manual, it states that the unit has a strength of 4. In the glossary in the back it states that it has a strength of 5. If it's still strength 5, a +50% vs. melee is a pretty good UU, as it gives it a huge advantage against both axemen and swordsmen, and even lessens the disadvantage against spearmen. But reducing it's strength to 4 is not a good tradeoff.

I also don't like the Jaguar Warrior for the same reason. I suppose not needing iron is nice, but reducing strength from 6 to 5? And all I get is +25% in jungles? No thanks - I'll just make axemen. And if I don't need iron, then why the heck is the tech requirement to make Jaguar Warriors iron working? I much prefer something like the camel archer that removes the need for iron and horses, and still keeps the camel archer at strength 10, just like other knights.

That having been said, for how poor I feel the Gallic Warrior is, I must also point out that the Musketeer is just dire. All you get is 2 movement instead of 1. If you're going to have a UU like a musketman - something that already has a very limited lifespan as you can get rifling so quickly after gunpowder - you have to give it some pretty good bonuses - like the janissary that has bonuses against just about everything. And don't even get me started with the Fast Worker - if it built things quicker it would be a fast worker - moving 3 instead of 2 makes for an extremely marginal UU.

As far as my favorite UU goes, I'm not sure. I certainly have no complaints about the Praetorian, but I also really like the Samauri and the Keshik. I also think the Immortal is extremely underrated. +50% vs. archery makes for an (arguably) better UU than the War Chariot. Sure, the War Chariot is a little bit better against warriors, but you can easily beat them anyway. I'd rather have the bonus against archers.

[ August 21, 2006, 15:49: Message edited by: Aldeth the Foppish Idiot ]

 

Tokugawa is nasty. Their Archers can stand up to early rushes, Longbows and Crossbows holding off Maces. Their Gunpowder units get Combat I, CG I and Drill I. The problem is that the temptation to war early is too strong (I don't play well with others for some reason), and upkeep kills me.

What makes Qin viscious is cheap forges (Industrious trait) and Protective giving his Cho-Ku-No units the free First strike (they get 2 first srtikes to start with) and their collateral dammage (not to mention the bonus against Melee units).

Mongolia should kick more ass than it seems to. The Barracks/Ger combo means your Keshiks start 7 exp (flanking II anyone? It makes a big difference), but Keshiks don't carry the load for you. You still need Axes/Swords to take down cities, and Spears to protect your stacks from mounted units...

As for Musketeer (and Jannisary for that matter), the advantage is in getting Gunpowder early and rushing. Musketeers have a movement of 2, which means that they get to the front as fast as mounted units. They make it easier to defend your cities under siege, garrison cities you keep, escort your settlers to rapidly re-colonize cleared areas. Musketeers make excelent pillagers too. Jannisaries are good all-round city defenders for the Ottoman Empire. They get the +25% againsr Melee, Missle and Mounted units, and enough base power to stand up to siege units. Give them CG promotions (they should start with at least 5 exp by that time), and they rule the roost until Chemistry or rifling...

I've only tried Cyrus once in Warlords. Immortals were not a factor because I didn't pick a fight early enough. With Imperialistic and Charismatic, I should have started the Immortals and pick a fight...

 

Upkeep is always a potential pratfall, but I find that the Japanese are able to deal with it better than most. You're obviously going to want to samauris as early as possible, and you'll get Code of Laws along the way to Civil Service. My typical tactic is to get Code of Laws as early as possible, and then go back and get Iron Working, Metal Casting, and Machinery before finally picking up Civil Service (you'll need all of them anyway, so unless spreading irrigation is a priority, there's no reason to get Civil Service before the others). The other thing I highly recommend is to wait for Samauris before you pick a fight. Rushing with axes and swords still work, but that's a resource intensive way to fight a war, especially if your neighbors are protective.

By the time you get Civil Service and start building Samauris, you can usually do a few tech trades and get Construction so you have catapults for support. Even longbowman won't stand up to samauris if you take a couple of turns to eliminate their defenses, and then sacrifice a catapult to reduce the effectiveness of all of the city's defenders. Actually, I find that the Sacrifice a catapult/trebucet/cannon/artillery is one of the most effective tactics in the game. The seige weapon does collateral damage to all of the city's defenders regardless of whether the siege weapon wins, loses, or withdraws from combat. Obviously, winning isn't a particularly realistic hope, so you're rooting for a withdrawal. Taking a city is so much easier when all of the defenders have their strengths reduced by 20%.

One thing that I didn't realize was that their gunpowder units get CG1, Drill 1 AND Combat 1. That's probably because I build so few of them. The vast majority of my musketerrs, riflemen, infantry and mech. infantry are upgraded from lesser units. In fact, it's not unusual for the mech inf. in my capital to have been an archer originally.

I agree that the Mongols are not as tough as you'd think. That's because on the higher difficulty levels (Noble and beyond) it's damn hard to get out a significant number of Keshiks prior to your opponents getting spearmen. For how good Keshiks are against archers, they still get owned against spearmen. In fact, the existence of spearmen and pikemen make any mounted unit useless for attacking cities unless you are technologically superior and have a better equivalent unit (for example, knights don't have a problem against spearmen, and cavalry doesn't have a problem against pikemen).

As for the musketmen, it's just not a unit I have used often at all. After you get gunpowder, you need all of TWO technologies to get riflemen - specifically replacable parts and rifling. My point was only that a Janissary with it's 25% bonus against just about everything, is far more useful than getting an extra movement point. I think the musketman is a poor unit anyway - the 9 strength makes them poor attackers, and longbowmen have a strength of 9 behind city walls, so they aren't even that great as defenders. Add to it that within 10 turns you're going to have riflemen, and I don't see the point.

Regarding Cyrus, it is essential to get the fight started quick. As soon as your opponent gets spearmen, immortals are worthless. Stength 4 attacking a strength 8 unit tends not to work well. However, their 50% against archery counters the 50% bonus that archers get for being in the city, meaning you still have an advantage (effectively strength 6). So don't worry about getting horseback riding to build stables (you may not even have time to build barracks). It takes too long, and it's a superfulous addition considering an immortal with 0 exp is still a favorite against both warriors and archers. The biggest problem with this strategy is that it hinges on having horses available somewhere near your capital. The latest you can wait to hook up horses is your second city to have immortals be worth it.

 

My problem is that I tend to try to conquer or re-colonize to quickly instead of settling for a few rounds of bloody Knuckles with my neighbours that want to crowd me out of contention.

What I like to do is get Gunpowder early then backfill the technological void (you'd be surprised how many techs you can skip on the way to Gunpowder). This extends the life of musketmen (and Musketeers and Jannisaries) significantly. If I have no Copper or Iron, I beeline for Gunpowder in hopes that I don't get totally hosed!

I believe that Warlords does focus more on fighting. You need the units to fight early, and keep some form of hostilities going all game long. Even playing bloody Knuckles will generate Great Generals...

 

That actually works? Even sometimes? I believe you when you say you can skip technologies and go straight for gunpowder, but how many are we talking about here? What are the minimum number of technologies you need in order to get gunpowder? If you are skipping iron working and bronze working, I can only assume that you are skipping horseback riding and archery as well. I'm just trying to figure out what you have to work with.

You would have warriors, and I suppose you may be able to produce chariots if animal husbandry is somewhere along the path (besides probably wanting that tech anyway for things like cows, sheep, and pigs that you probably have some access to.

It seems like a risky strategy, but one with a potentially big pay off. I just need to figure out what the quickest path to gunpowder gives me (or more importantly, what I DON'T get by going straight for gunpowder). I have to admit, I never used the strategy before. In fact, I'm just the opposite - by the time I get to gunpowder, I usually have all the prequisites for rifling already fulfilled, with the exception of Replacable Parts. So a lot of times I don't even build a single musketman, as rifling is right around the corner.

Also I now see the appeal of the Musketeer and the Janissary. A unit that is superior to everything in the world that also moves two is powerful for the French, and Janissaries have bonuses against everything making them extremely useful when attacking cities - you'd even have an advantage over longbowmen. Plus, Napoleon and Mehmed are organized, which will limit the upkeep costs for when you don't have courthouses.

Out of curiosity, what the heck do you build in your cities for the first couple millenia of the game? I can't imagine going straight for gunpowder gives you too many practical technologies. In addition to having few military units, what can you actually build in your cities except barracks?

[ August 23, 2006, 14:13: Message edited by: Aldeth the Foppish Idiot ]

 

Bronze working is actually on the path for Gunpowder, but if you have copper, Ironworking can be skipped.

Animal husbandry can be delayed until you have a resource that needs a pasture. I'm not really enamoured with Mounted units.

AS such, Horseback riding also goes by the wayside.

Depending on which path you take, you'll get either Feudalism or Theocracy.

I actually counted out 23 techs to get to Rifling once during a round table discussion on England. If my ISP wasn't so tempermental, I'd fire up Warlords and check it out.

Hey, I found my information on Gunpowder. technically 13 techs, going through Theocracy to paper to Education to Gunpowder. This one technically skips Bronze working. This can be cut to 12 by going Code of Laws to Civil Service, but this forgoes Mining and Masonry...

The other way is trhough Guilds. this one requires 15 techs, which does call for Bronze working, and gives Feudalism on teh way to Guilds.

Either way, I would hold off on most worker techs (Animal Husbandry, Hunting, Fishing) until I actually need them. This also skips Alphabet and Code of Laws...

Building? Barracks, Granary and Library are available no matter what. Taking the education route, Masonry is researched early, so the Pyramids are worth an attempt (specialist economies would rock with France or the Ottoman Empire).

 

I tried it last night and quickly gave up. I just clicked on gunpowder and it gave me the path through paper and education. However, theology took 45 turns to research, paper 31, and education was 68. I labored through theology and paper, but there was no way I was waiting 68 rounds for education. Especially considering I was probably looking at another big number for gunpowder. Even with an organized government, you simply can't have 6-8 cities without building courthouses. The other issue I had was these techs took so long, I could probably research 4 or 5 lesser techs in the time it took me to learn the ones I was attempting. In almost every case, there was a list of 4 or 5 other techs that I'd rather have.

 

Actually, I had to do that today. No Copper, Iron or Horses, and restricetd to 4 cities.

Napolean declared war while researching Gunpowder, but I had it and my first Musketeer soon to repel the attack, and take one of his cities in a counter attack. I'd have pressed it had Montezuma not stabbed me from the other direction. I was able to retake the lost city before Monty backed off as well. Now to rebuild my infrastructure and repay the treachery of both neighbours. I'll be gunning for Chemistry in the process as well. My offense won't be great, but I'll have superior units, so I think I can take a domination win...

I like Combat I, CG I and Drill one on Musketmen while Napolean and Monty still had Archers...

 

I've been trying like hell to win a game on Prince with the Japanese, with no success. (Or whatever the name of the difficulty level past Noble is.) I'm just taking a screwing after screwing on this. TWICE after expanding my civilization as far as I could without conflict I had no iron access. This past game was especially annoying as I had access to six fully connected cities. With that much land area, you'd think I'd have iron. While the computer hasn't been able to eliminate me (as I still had archers and later longbowmen) the whole crux of my strategy was to go in with Samauri and trubecets and expand mid-game. Plus, not having iron on that difficulty level is extremely difficult, as the computer seems to "know" I don't have iron, and builds tons of chariots to take out my axemen.

 

Yeah, being denied key resources really blows. If you has copper, you could have at least used axes to fight to get your iron.

Combat I, CG I and Drill I on gunpowder units really helps...

 

Do the dance of joy!

I think - let's say I'm cautiously optimistic - that I'm going to win this attempt with the Japanese. The year is 1920, and I've been at war with somebody since I got Samauris. I started off sharing my continent with the Greeks. The Greeks fell to the Samauri/Trebucet combination - they were completely destroyed. Next I went to Egypt, and completely took over thier main continent. I just accepted a peace treaty from them, as the only cities they have left are on two remote islands, and I really can't be bothered to capture them - they are of no further threat to me, and are probably sufficently fearful of my military superiority that they will not bother me further. I had considered accepting a capitualation from them, but decided against it, as vassal states tend to be more trouble than they are worth - especially considering they could pull me into a war with both France and India simultaneously - and I definitely don't want that. The only two remaining noteworthy civs are the French and Indians. I have just got infantry units and artillery - so I'm militarily superior to both of them at the moment, as the best they can do is riflemen. However, I'm debating if I should go for a space victory. I have oil, so I can build tanks (or even mechanized infantry), but I don't have aluminum, so I can't build modern armor.

I'm way ahead of them both in points. I'm also far enough ahead of France in technologies that I'm really not worried about them building a spaceship. The Indians, on the other hand, are only a couple of technologies behind me. I have more cities than them, so I can certainly out-produce them. The main problem I have with a war is that since they are only a few technologies behind me, they are going to soon have infantry. I'm only one tech away from mechanized infantry, and while you certainly CAN use mechanized infantry and arillery support to take out regular infantry, it's definitely preferable to do it with modern armor. In fact, I probably won't even bother building regular tanks. Both tanks and mechanized infantry have a strength of 32, but the only things tanks do is attack. Mech inf gets march, have 20% defense against arial units, and receive defensive bonuses based on terrain and being in cities. Other than having blitz, there's nothing a tank can do better than a mech inf, and a whole lot of things it does worse.

 

I'd say go to war with India while working on the spaceship. India is always a threat in a space race, so if you can distract them--or hobble them--then the space race is as good as yours.

 

I didn't have a chance to play last night, and I probably won't play tonight either as I have my fantasy football draft. So I likely won't be able to get back to this game until Wednesday night. I have spent some time thinking about this, and I have pretty much came to the same solution you have.

The first thing I decided was standing pat and going for the space race victory isn't a particularly good option. As previously stated, I don't have aluminum, and therefore constructing things like the space elevator and spaceship parts will take twice as long without that resource. (And how is it possible that I don't have any aluminum - I have all the land on two significantly sized continents, and there's no aluminum anywhere? Are you kidding? It's aluminum for gods sake - that should be a lot more common than uranium which I have two sources of - and of course it's not like I NEED uranium - the Japanese unique building is the shale plant which replaces the coal plant, so I'm not even going to building nuclear power plants - end rant/)

Since a space victory isn't guaranteed, I must attack. Attacking the French is the easier option, but not necessarily the better strategic option. Unless I'm going for a domination victory (and I doubt I have enough time left), taking over a big chunk of the French empire does not really bring me any closer to winning. And I would still have to worry about the Indians building a space ship. So I very well may have to attack the Indians. If I do it before they acquire the technology to build a space ship, they may be less inclined to actually build one if they are in the middle of a war.

There is a diplomacy aspect to consider as well however. Ghandi and Louis are annoyed with each other. Louis is cautious towards me, while Ghandi is pleased with me. If I play my cards right and attack one of them, I may be able to get the other one to help me out.

 

Yes. Get Napolean to gun for Ghandi as well. Double the distraction, double your chances to get the spaceship...

 

Ghandi was one tough SOB. After taking a couple of his cities, HE got mech inf. While it is more than possible to use mech inf as the brunt of your attack force when you're attacking regular infantry. Mech inf vs. mech inf is quite another matter entirely. Especially when he started using stealth bombers to slow the advance of my troops.

I did win via spaceship victory, which was less than especially fulfilling, as that's the only way I can win on Noble difficulty or greater (well that and the one time I cheesed my way to a UN victory by subjugating two other civs).

Still, it was fulfilling to finally play a warlike civ properly using an exclusively military path. Still, the more I play the more I find that UU are overrated, as most of them are not all that useful for very long. It's more logical to pick a civ based on the leader traits that most play to your strengths, or even have a good UB rather than a good UU.

For example, my playing style definitely favors a technological approach. As such, one would think I would favor philosophical leaders for faster university construction. However, I have found that having more money to put towards research is far more efficient than building research related buildings faster. So I go for financial or organized over philosophical - unfortunately, I do not think there is a financial/organized combo.

 

No, there is not Organized/Financial combo. Frederich of the Germans is Organized and Philosophical, and Elizabeth of the English is Financial and Philosophical. That hits two of your top three traits that you like.

I'm just starting my first Warlords PBEM game. I have Tokugawa. Another player has been singing their praises in MP. He says that early Samurai are a huge key...

 

What is PBEM?

I know about Elizabeth and Frederick. I just think that Philosophical is a rather weak trait of choice overall. First, only giving a bonus to university construction is super weak IMO. If they gave it to libararies and universities, that would be more fair, as most traits give two buildings that they construct quickly, and almost always one of them is a building available early on. In fact, I'd replace library with university as the fast construction over having universities at half cost, simply because I typically have many more libraries than universities.

Second, the other bonus is faster production of great people. I've never had a problem getting a decent number of great people. All you really need are a couple of wonders and a few specialists in your larger cities. Plus, my playing style doesn't lend itself to needing a lot of great people. I like a few great prophets early in the game for holy cities (I usually have two, and it's usually Buddhism and Confucianism), and after that I concentrate my specialists towards great engineers. Specialists engineers fit well into my playing style as I spam cottages, so specialist engineers make up the production gap (especially once acquiring democracy that gives towns +1 production). A couple of great scientists and entertainers are fine, but great merchants are usually more trouble than they are worth (espcially considering I hardly ever have open border agreements with anyone). It would make much more sense if philosophical gave you a bonus to science, kind of like financial gives you a bonus to money.

Thirdly, it is very important to stike a balance in the game between domestic upgrades and expansion, with the latter requiring a military. Therefore, if you take one trait that helps with domestic building (like financial or organized) it only makes sense that the second one is towards military (like charismatic or aggressive). Now, if there was a way of getting someone who was both organized and financial, I'd be all over it. When such a combination was possible, it was easy to run a science rate at 80%+ for the entire game, so you always were top dog on the science race.

 

PBEM means Play by E-mail. Basically you receive the file, play the turn then e-mail it to the next player. It takes a while for these games to play out, but they can be interesting.

Philosophical is mainly for a strategy that can exploit Great people. Any time you can get a super specialist, free tech, free wonder, Free Culture boost, Shrine or whatever, you take it. This gets them to you faster. Philosophical is a mid to low end trait.

Financial was my second favourite in Vanilla, but it drops to fourth with Warlords.

My list goes:

Aggressive
Charismatic
Priotective
Financial
Industrious
Philosophical
Organized
Imperialistic
Spiritual
Creative
Expansive.

That makes Tokugawa and Winston Churchill some of my favourite leaders...

 

I'm surprised you rate Organized so low. I think I would rate that as my favorite. I'm a big fan of large civilizations, and so reducing upkeep costs is something that's very important to me. Likewise, having half price courthouses also helps.

If I were to make a list, it would look like this:

Organized
Financial
Charismatic
Aggressive
Protective
Creative
Industrious
Expansive
Philosophical
Imperialistic
Spiritual

IMO, Charismatic is the much better choice over Aggressive if you are someone who favors combat. The -1 XP required for promotion is CUMULATIVE. So you need 1 less XP for your first promotion, 2 less XP for your second promotion, etc. This makes a huge difference, especially for getting level 6 units required for West Point. The +1 happiness for monuments is just a bonus. You pretty much have to build monuments if you aren't playing a creative civ anyway. As an aside, is there any difference between the Pentagon and West Point (well, other than being a world and national wonder respectively? Do they do anything other than +2 XP for starting units?) Aggressive is nice, but by the time you get to a unit with 7 XP, Charismatic becomes superior.

I like Protective, but it also annoys me a little bit. If you are playing a Protective civ, then it is absolutely necessary to get archers ASAP. Archery is frequently something I ignore in the early going, but it just doesn't make sense to with protective civs. Archers from protective civs are even decent attack units with their bonus first strike ability. The other nice thing is until gunpowder hits, your cities are virtually indestructible. Archers and later longbowman fortified behind city walls are pretty much permanent fixtures. I've had an archer successfully hold off attacks by two axemen in the same turn (to be fair they were attacking across a river, so I got a bonus 10% tacked on to all the other bonuses I had). I don't understand any reason to lose a city with a protective civ before gunpowder.

I don't really have anything negative to say about creative and industrious. They are more "convenience traits" for lack of a better word. I don't really like imperialistic, simply because I don't build settlers really early anyway (I like my city to be at least size 3), and by then they don't take that long to build, and since I'm rather warlike in most games, I generally don't have a hard time getting Great Generals.

Spiritual is extremely weak IMO. Unless you're the type of person who makes wholesale changes to your civics, the "only one turn of anarchy" stipulation saves you exactly ONE turn. I imagine if you change three or four civics at once that you might be in anarachy for a while, but I've never experienced changing more than two civics simultaneously, and never had more than two turns of anarchy. Building temples at half price is also nothing to me, because I generally don't build temples. For me, temples are way down on the list of things to build. In fact, you only get a temple if the city is unhappy. Since there are so many other things you can do to make people happy (luxuries, units in city with monarchy, etc.), most cities don't get a temple.

Here's a bit harder of a task for you - how would you rank the UU of the civs? I took a stab at it, and here's what I came up with:

Praetorian - 8 stength just too good that early
Samurai - 2 first strikes great for longbowmen
Cho-Ko-Nu - Great for weakening defenders (collateral damage)
Conquistador - much better than expected - try it if you haven't yet
Redcoat - almost unfair until infantry arrive
Keshik - especially with Ger
Immortal - +50% against archers - pwnage until spearmen
Janissary - too many bonuses to say no
Numidian Cavalry - also better than advertised
Berserker - not as good as advertised, but still quite useful
Skrimishers - these guys are even decent when used offensively
War Chariot - not as good vs. Archers, so not as good as Immortals
Quechua - actually useful early on
Panzer - 50% vs. armored is useful if you don't have aluminum
Hwacha - better than the catapult it replaces, but not better than trebucet, which requires only one more tech
Navy SEAL - I don't use many marines, but potentially very useful if playing on an archipelgo map
Cossack - 50% vs. mounted sounds great until you realize that you don't really face many mounted units
Phalanx - overkill - spearman already pwn against mounted, now you just pwn more
Musketeer - I think they should be given something besides 2 movement
Impi - mobility is nice, but not enough to make them an offensive unit
Gallic Warrior - Guerilla I no advantage, considering you probably already have walls at this point
Camel Archer - exactly the same as a knight - only useful if you are missing horses or iron
Jaguar Warrior - actually worse than a swordsman, and only an advantage with no iron
Fast Worker - even though they aren't fast - they just move a little further

 

I like to fight. I like to have my first war early. That's why I put Aggressive first. Having the first wave of axemen coming out with Combat I free makes a huge difference. The fewer axemen I lose, the more Veteran Maces I have to finish my second/start my third war.

Charismatic is better in the long run, I will agree, but that early jump is the ONLY reason Aggressive is 1 and Charismatic number 2. In the Chinese Unification scenario, and the Genghis Khan scenario, you have access to Aggressive AND Charismatic...

Protective again, I like being able to defend against a counter attack or a sudden stab. Free Drill on Crossbows makes them a good stack buster as well.

Financial works well for Cottage spam, letting you run higher science while fighting. That can be huge.

Industrious? Cheap wonders are nice, but cheap forges in your military producing cities is what keeps the war machine rolling along.

Philosophical reduces the cost of Libraries and Universities, and produces more GL as the game progresses.

Organized is this low because it doesn't add anything, but it just reduces the cost of your empire. That said, I do like four of the Organized leaders. Napolean (Charismatic, Musketeers), Memhed (Jannisaries), and the two roman leaders (Praets Baby!) all kick ass because of their UU.

Imperialistic helps the land grab, helping to make sure that you have the resources you need/want and that extra city pumping out units (especially if you have JC and his Praets) can turn the tide of a war. Further, the sooner a city is built, the sooner it's making the difference for you.

Spiritual is where it is because you sometimes need to change civics on the drop of a hat. Some specialist economies run Representation, Free Speech or Beaurocracy, Code of Laws, Mercantilism and Pacifism, but when going to war, they need to switch in a turn to Police State, Feudalism, Slavery and Theocracy. That tends to run 5 plus turns on Marathon...

Creative is nice for border expansion, but it doesn't give you an edge like Aggressive or Financial.

Expansive does give you health bonuses, but it's happiness that caps your cities more often than health.

Now tackling UU?

Praetorian. They dominate early, with almost no counters (Combat I+shock on an Axeman comes close)
Redcoat. 16 strength, bonuses against Cavalry and gunpowder units, that's nasty.
War Chariot. Stronger than regular chariots. They can rush for deadly results.
Samurai. The two first strikes do make a huge difference.
Cho-ko-Nu. Collateral damage is a very good weardown already. Protective is overkill.
Quecha. I've taken out 3 opponents with them on an 18 civ ring map. Then I got my copper connected...
Jannisary. Like you said, too many bonuses.
Phalanx. With Shock, they can slow down an axe rush.
Skirmisher. Also nerfs axe rushes.
Fast Worker. They get to start on projects a turn faster on hills/forest/jungle.
Cossaks. They rave about them on the net.
Keshik. Ignoring movement penalties is nice, but even the Ger can't lift them over the hump.
Immortal. Bonus against Archers is huge if they don't have spears, but the lack of City Raider will slow them down.
Camel Archers: Resource denial doesn't slow them down.
Musketeer. Good pillagers and rapid response defenders.
Impi. Can provide medics for mounted assault stacks and pillagers.
Conquistador. I'll take your word for it, but I wasn't impressed when I last played with Izzy.
Panzer. If you're still going that late, you need something to turn the tide.
Berzerker. Amphibious has it's uses, especially with invasion.
Navy Seal. Too late for me in most games, but I imagine they'd be cool.
Gallic Warrior. Yeah, I'd like something more substantial, but it can be exploited.
Numidian Cavalry. I'm sorry, they suck.
Jaguar warrior. I think they intentionally nerfed these guys so that Monte wouldn't kill off players that wanted to use something different...