Civ 7 Leader Tier List: Every Leader Ranked with Best Mementos Builds

Putting Every Leader Through The Gauntlet

Twenty four leaders at launch and I have run all of them through Deity, some of them ten or more times by now. Here is where they actually land after all those hours.

This is not theorycraft, not spreadsheet math, not something I theorycrafted before the game even released. These rankings come from actual games where I either won convincingly, scraped by with two cities left, or got absolutely flattened by turn sixty. The kind of losses where you just sit there staring at the defeat screen wondering what you did wrong. You know the ones, and honestly they happen more than I would like to admit.

A quick note before the rankings because tier positioning in Civ 7 is genuinely weirder than in previous games. Leaders persist across Ages but civilizations change completely at each transition, so a leader who dominates Antiquity can become useless in Modern if their bonuses do not scale with the later game systems. And conversely, a leader who struggles early can become an absolute monster once their specialist bonuses or trade route multipliers finally kick in. My rankings account for full-campaign performance across all three Ages rather than just the first hundred turns where most players form their impressions.

S Tier

These three are in a league of their own and it is not particularly close.

Hatshepsut is the best leader in the game overall and I do not think there is a serious argument otherwise. Her economic bonuses work in every Age with every civ regardless of map or neighbors or anything else the game throws at you. Extra trade route capacity, bonus gold from trade routes, improved yields on certain terrain tiles that almost every start has. You start strong, you stay strong, you finish strong. She is flexible enough that you can pivot at any Age transition without penalty and forgiving enough that a mistake does not cost you the game. If I had to pick one leader for a tournament match or a bet or just a game I actually wanted to win, it would be her every single time without hesitation.

Confucius is the best science leader and honestly the second best leader overall once you understand how to survive his weak early game. His specialist bonuses look completely unimpressive in the tooltip because they are small percentage increases rather than big flashy numbers. But in practice, by the Modern Age your cities are generating thirty to forty percent more science than anyone else at the table, and that gap only widens the longer the game goes. The catch is that you are vulnerable in Antiquity and if an aggressive neighbor rushes you before turn eighty you probably die before your bonuses ever matter. Survive that window and you win, it really is that simple.

Genghis Khan is the best military leader and if you know what you are doing he represents the fastest win condition in the entire game. His cavalry combat bonus is overwhelming in Antiquity and Exploration and you can conquer two or three neighbors, effectively ending the game before the Modern Age even starts. But the downside is real and punishing because if your rush fails or stalls or hits an unexpected wall of spearmen, you are left with a pure military economy and no science or culture infrastructure to fall back on. High risk, highest reward, and honestly the most fun I have had losing games in this entire series.

A Tier

Solid leaders who can win on any difficulty without feeling like you are fighting the game itself.

Machiavelli is the best diplomatic leader and plays completely differently from everyone else on this list. His Influence generation is higher than anyone else which means you control city states and the world congress from very early, and by the Exploration Age you will have every city state on the map allied to you. You will not have the biggest army or the fastest science but you will have every external lever of power at your disposal and that counts for more than most players realize. He requires a different playstyle entirely and if you try to play him like Genghis you will lose badly and quickly. But if you actually play the diplomatic game he is borderline S tier and I mean that literally.

Harriet Tubman has the fastest expansion in the game by a wide margin thanks to her bonuses to settler production and civilian unit speed. By the end of Antiquity you should have eight cities while everyone else is sitting on four or five, and that city lead compounds across Ages in ways that are not immediately obvious. Her military is weak so you need to play defensively or diplomatically and avoid wars you cannot win. But the expansion advantage is enormous and it translates into more science, more culture, more gold, and more of everything that wins games.

Amina is the best economic leader that nobody seems to talk about and I genuinely do not understand why. Her bonuses to resource extraction and city development mean your cities grow faster and produce more of everything, and she pairs beautifully with any civ that gets bonuses from having large, well-developed populations. Underrated by basically every tier list I have seen.

Augustus gets bonuses to city development and building production that are consistent and reliable in every game regardless of map or neighbors. Not flashy and not exciting but always solid and always competitive. A good pick if you want a balanced game without specializing too hard in one direction.

B Tier

These leaders can absolutely win games but you are working harder than you need to for the same result.

Ashoka has religious bonuses that are genuinely strong if you commit fully to the Religious Legacy Path, but the problem is that the Religious Path is just slower than the other three and you cannot change that fact. On Deity the AI will outpace you in science or military before your religious engine gets going no matter how well you play. On lower difficulties he is perfectly fine and can be fun if you enjoy the religious game.

Catherine the Great gets science bonuses from great works which sounds like a fun hybrid playstyle combining culture and science. In practice it is simply too slow because by the time you have accumulated enough great works to make her bonuses matter, the pure science leaders have already won or are about to. Fun concept but bad execution.

Ben Franklin has science bonuses that require entirely too much setup with specific buildings in specific cities staffed by specific specialists, and if every single piece lines up perfectly he is powerful. It almost never lines up perfectly and you spend most of the game waiting for bonuses that arrive too late.

Charlemagne is a military leader whose bonuses are tied to specific unit types that simply do not scale well across Ages no matter how much you invest in them. Fine in Antiquity, mediocre in Exploration, and largely irrelevant in Modern where the war is actually decided.

Frederick the Great has production bonuses that look strong on paper but production is less important in Civ 7 than in previous games because you can just buy most things with gold. Not terrible by any means but simply outclassed by any economic leader who generates more gold.

Himiko has religious and cultural bonuses that are situationally useful on maps with lots of natural wonders, generating a lot of faith early. But faith is probably the weakest resource in Civ 7 right now and if they buff it in a future patch she goes up a tier immediately.

Ibn Battuta gets exploration bonuses that help you find other civs and city states faster, which is genuinely useful on large maps. On standard maps the bonus is barely noticeable and you are basically playing without a leader ability.

Isabella has religious and expansion bonuses that work together nicely if you are going Religious. But Religious victories are slow and slow is bad in Civ 7 where tempo matters more than almost anything else.

C Tier

These leaders have fundamental problems that make them hard to recommend for serious play.

Jose Rizal has cultural bonuses that are simply too small to move the needle in any meaningful way. The numbers look fine in the tooltip but in practice they do not add up to enough.

Napoleon is a military leader whose bonuses are strictly worse than Genghis Khan in every single category and there is literally no reason to pick him over Genghis if you want to fight.

Pachacuti gets mountain bonuses that are entirely map-dependent: on a mountain-heavy map he is B tier and competitive, but on a flat map he has almost no bonuses at all.

Tecumseh has bonuses tied to alliances that the AI breaks constantly on higher difficulties, and on Deity his bonuses might as well not exist for most of the game.

Trung Trac gets combat bonuses in specific terrain types that are simply too narrow. Maps are too varied to rely on terrain bonuses consistently.

Xerxes has economic bonuses that are outclassed by both Hatshepsut and Amina in every way, and there is no niche where Xerxes is actually the best pick.

Mementos For Each Tier

For S tier leaders you can run almost any Mementos and still win comfortably because the leader bonuses themselves are strong enough to carry. I personally run the movement Memento plus the goody hut Memento for faster starts, since the only thing that stops an S tier leader is a genuinely bad first twenty turns.

For A tier leaders you should specialize into what makes them good rather than trying to patch weaknesses. Machiavelli wants the Influence Memento and the city state bonus Memento to double down on his diplomatic advantage. Harriet Tubman wants the settler production Memento and the civilian speed Memento to make her already fast expansion even faster. Lean into strengths rather than patching holes.

For B and C tier leaders you need every edge you can get because the leader bonuses themselves are not going to carry you. Run the combat strength Memento even if you are not going Military because the early defense helps you survive long enough for your mediocre bonuses to actually matter. The second slot should shore up your weakest area directly. Bad science means run the science Memento. Bad economy means run the gold Memento. You are patching holes and hoping it is enough.

I also change my Memento loadout based on difficulty level. On Deity defensive Mementos are basically mandatory regardless of leader because the AI starts with so many extra units. On King or lower you can get greedy and run all economic or science Mementos. Greedy is fun and feels great when it works. Greedy on Deity gets you killed by turn fifty, as I have learned the hard way more times than I can count.

At the end of the day you should play who you enjoy because tier lists are guidelines not laws. But if you are struggling on higher difficulties and genuinely wondering why you keep losing, your leader pick might be the entire answer. It usually is.