My favourite is definitely Oda Nobunaga, but I've always played more militarily than anything else. The Bushido bonus and Samurai always seem to be available (and the best units) exactly when I'm beginning my aggressive strategy.

Toss up between Napoleon and Siam, I mainly try for cultural victories though, I find that manipulating the AI is easier than trying to combat it.

Right now, I would probably say Roman. They have that nice balance between early warmonger with the two unique units for the Roman empire, and also appeal to the city builder streak in me too. Can't knock back a 25% bonus build if the building is already built in Rome. That said, I haven't played the Romans past Prince difficulty yet, so I'll see just how well the Roman trait really works.

I just played my latest game with Greece. I focused on cash production research and defense units. I enjoy long walks on the beach, building up my defenses and researching my way to a cultural or techno/conquest victory. usually you can get a bit ahead of them via research if you get some decent defenses up early enough. if you keep friendly with the militaristic city-states they produce units JUST often enough to keep stray units off your land while you garrison your best defensive unit in the city.

2.5c given.

Generally, I favour bonuses that will be in effect all game or end/late game.

Civ exclusive buildings fall into that catagory, as none of them appear to go obsolete and most are better than their non-exclusive equivilents.

I kinda dislike exclusive military units - they are wasted if I'm not involved in a war during the period they are in use, and the only unit that isn't obsolete in the Modern/Future era is the American's B-17... and that is only because the stealth bomber can't base on aircraft carriers!

I seriously hate the idea of Civs that have no bonuses later on (like Napoleon/France - both units are obsolete later on and the bonus ceases to have any affect after steam power is discovered)

Also not fond of the leaders that give bonuses to dealing with Barbarians (Bismark/Germany, Askia/Songhai and Suleiman/Ottoman) due to Barbs are a non-issue after a fairly short amount of time in most games... and even then those leader bonuses are pretty weak.


As for the leaders I actually LIKE...

Well, Catherine/Russia has a pretty handy leadership bonus that is useful at all stages and the exclusive building is pretty handy too.
Probably my favourite all up - the production bonus alone can be incredibly powerful.

Elizabeth/England, Oda Nobanaga/Japan and Augustus Caesar/Rome all have pretty useful bonuses aswell, although they suffer from eventually obsolete exclusive units.
Elizabeth's bonus makes that Civ VERY useful on archipelago and other maps with lots of water.
Japan seems best for general warmongering playstyle, able to do pretty well in all wars.
Rome is best for larger maps that are likely to involve lots of cities... but the bonus will be wasted on smaller faster games or if pursuing a small city number strategy.

Wu Zetian/China has a bonus that sounds good, but I don't know just how great an effect it has - hell, I don't even know how much of an effect Great Generals normally have.
They do get a fairly useful building though, so even if the bonus is only average China is probably still worth using.

Egypt might be good - the bonus to wonder production is likely to count for a LOT on higher difficulties or MP games (where most players will go for Wonders whenever they can).
The exclusive building makes them even better, so probably nearly as good as Catherine as an empire building Civ.

Arabia's bonus is only half decent, but have a good exclusive building, making them a viable option, but far from the best.

America has a really weak bonus, and as I mentioned above the B-17 exclusive unit isn't obsolete late game... but only barely (I suspect just using Jet Fighters from a carrier would work better at anything but city attacks).

Irequois is an odd Civ - their bonus encourages them to not cut down forests and jungles, while their exclusive building isn't actually better than the one it replaces - it has different bonuses entirely.
They'd be powerful when defending their own territory in a war, provided they don't cut down forests and jungles, but lose those bonuses if they go on the offensive... plus any conquests are likely to have limited forest and jungles.
Since those tiles can't be built or replaced, that is likely to put that Civ at a disadvantage in the long run... but pretty interesting to fight a guerilla war in the forest and jungles!

Anyway, I currently rank my favourite Leaders/Civs like this:

1: Catherine/Russia
2: Ramses II/Egypt
3: Elizabeth/England
4: Oda Nobanaga/Japan
5: Wu Zetian/China

Honorable Mention: Irequois (for giggles)

Maelstrom nice work and good logic.

Oda Nobanaga/Japan - military victory

I'm disappointed with the amount of leaders there actually are... in the previous Civs there was soooooo many to choose from.

That being Said, I like the Aztecs, cause they're awesome

also Tenochtitlan is fun to say!

Ana Aryani is my fav leader to choose