Leader do give +1 flat bonus in the xml file. I am not sure if this is their actual feature or a bug.

I guess his point is; the game never tell you that it give flat +1, only 6% bonus to pool they been assigning to. But heck, +1 global for every colony is damn powerful. You get 10 of them max so that is +10 to one specific production every colony will get. What kind of leader is this? I want one in my country.

If the only thing required for balance is, that eveyone can use it, you can get situations where the game provides ten ways to play it, one of them is superior to the others. So the only way to win is using one out of the ten ways. Players are balanced against each other alright... but game styles are not balanced against each other and there is a lot of unused potential.

To get back to the question about leaders:

Lets say I have 5 planets (which is not a lot). So, a leader will give me 5 research (and some %...). A researcher will give me 24% more research bonus than a leader to one planet. How much flat reasearch does the planet have to have in order for a reasercher to be better than a leader?

5/24% = 21

And this still does not account for the fact, that you get 6% to the 4 other planets.

It also doesn't account for the fact, that I can shift leaders to my civs most urgent needs at any time.

If I had known about this in m current game I would not have 3 out of my 25 citizens being leaders. It would be more like 20-ish.

OP is on point on this. Leaders are overpowered as compared to other citizens. Especially early game.

Only thing I can think of which might compensate a little is leveling, leaders don't level, do they? But having 40% instead of 30% after 200 turns is not enough to offset the otherbenefits of leaders.

Universal Translator you get early, so you can trade with others and lull them with open borders. The specialization you get because you need administrators soon after. And if you got something else for the specialization (whyever you would do that) you get IG for administrators. Your third or so citizen can be your first leader. And then you get nothing else for the next 9 or so citizens.

Does the AI use them like this? Still balanced vs. AI-players?

exactly, please nerf leaders

that works too

im betting the flat +1 is a bug though, I'm sure we'll hear the official word from frogboy

Why don't you nerf them in your game and play how you like rather than forcing everyone to play your way? Seriously this is primarily a single player game and is not bent in anyway for multiplayer. That excuse (nerf nerf nerf its too hard in MP)  will never fly with this game as stated years ago by Stardock. 

I'd agree with that. If they were actually giving a max of +60% globally to their allocated field as advertised that is one thing. But if they are giving potential +10 base unit per planet... Holy hell... Getting many given income types over base value of 10... For single planet... That's a full population on a large idyllic world that's been heavily specialised. Even the endgame wonders aren't that powerful, let alone flexible. For income, it's not such a big deal... But research and production, +10 base output for every planet before multipliers... Wow. Heck why even have moral in the game? With +10 base moral it's just a permanent plus 25% to all production.

Yeah, leaders all the way. AI can use them but it won't be programmed to use them that way... There is no way they could compete with that...

Open up the Civilization tab, and look at the Economy tab within that.  On the left you'll see a "Civilization Priorities" column in different categories like Approval, Research, etc. Each Leader citizen appears there as a yellow icon.  When created, they are automatically assigned to whichever priority happens to on top at the time. You can click on them, which removes them from where they are and places the icon at the bottom under "Unassigned Leaders".  You can then click on an empty spot in one of the other priorities, which will then assign one of the leaders to that priority.