Master of Orion II: Battle at Antares/Colony Leaders

This page lists all the Leaders who may appear in the standard version of Master of Orion II, with our recommendations about which are worth hiring and in what circumstances. You'll notice that the usefulness of a leader often depends on your race design: the Spiritual skill is useless to a Unification empire because Unification never gets morale penaties or bonuses; the Environmentalist skill is useless to a Tolerant race unless it conquers some non-Tolerant colonies; the Farming skill is useless to a Lithovore race unless it conquers some non-Lithovore colonies; the Diplomat and Trader skills are useless to Repulsive empires, and Repulsive is the standard negative pick in race design.

Generally you should start hiring Colony Leaders before you hire Ship Leaders - unless a Ship Leader is Famous or has Megawealth, since both these skills improve your finances significantly in the early game.

Note that you need only 1 Famous Leader (Colony or Ship) and 1 Instructor Leader (Colony leaders only).

The lists of Colony and Ship Leaders is in alphabetical order and the following format:
 * Image of the leader
 * Leader's name
 * The Leader's statistics; these normally include (where known):
 * Costs
 * Starting experience level in "experience points". 60 is the most basic.
 * For each skill, how powerful that skill is and how much it improves per additional experience level. Skills marked with an asterisk will increase more per level than skills that are not.
 * Our comments and recommendations.