nations-leader,UU,UB synergy?

The Native American civ has a leader with protective trait. A UB that gives XP bonus to archer units. Based on these aspects you would expect NA to be played has a defensive nation. Yet the NA UU is an offensive unit. Would it not make more sense to give NA a UU that correlates to it's inherent characteristics? Would a defensive UU such as an archer be over powered? Curious as to what other players think. Does anyone else feel other civ/uu/ub have odd combinations?

Zara is Creative but His UB provides extra culture. Unless you're going for a culture victory, overkill.

I find the French UB (salon) having a free artist a weird combination.

This is nitpicky, but I've always been irritated that both Mongol leaders are AGG (and of course they should be) and their UU/UB both improve mounted warfare (which makes sense) but AGG does nothing for mounted units. Takes some of the fun out of Keshik-stomping for me.

I guess that the designers thought that giving Sitting bull a UU that would benefit from the Totem pole and PRO would make it OP (There is no UU based on longbows, so they could have designed one).

Similar with the mongol leaders. One could have been CHAR to get faster promotions which would probably be historically as well founded as AGG.

The salon makes some sense historically because it was a culture/science thing. And both Louis and De Gaulle are not bad for culture games, so there is some synergy with traits. It's rather useless for non-culture-victories, of course.

Gilgamesh and Hammurabi give also odd combinations. Gilgamesh is the strongest protective early game civ (unrushable with CRE and PRO), but the vulture would probably have been OP with the AGG boni. Hammy has archers with a bonus, but the AGG trait that doesn't really go well with it.
Especially in warlords Wang Kon could in resourceless situations use the Hwacha with Pro-promoted longbows. Of course these stacks are still vulnerable to mounted units, but when siege could kill the Hwacha was devastating against ancient and classical melee. It is still an interesting UU, but very situational.

As for UUs, they are oddly distributed, many more ancient and classical than later ones:
Warrior Inca
Archer: Babylon, Mali
Axe NA, Sumer, Greece
Spear Maya, Zulu (Greek Phalanx in Warlords)
Sword Rome, Celts, Aztecs
Chariot Egypt, Persia
HA Carthage, Mongol
Catapult Korea
Elephant Khmer
Maceman Viking, Japan
Pikeman HRE
Xbow China
Knight Arabia, Byzantium (Spain in Warlords)
Musket: France, Ottoman, Ethiopia
Cuirassier Spain
Rifle England
Cavallery Russia
Caravel Portugal
Galleon Netherlands

Missing: Longbow, Treb, Cannon, Grenadier, all air, all other naval, all recon units, all industrial/modern except for Marine/Seal and Armor/Panzer

Interestingly, one of the least popular/weakest units, the Musketman has no less than three UU improvements (perhaps because it was so easy to improve...)

A late lincoln as Chm and navy seal invasions with march matches but isn't so OP since marines and navy seals are better vs. artillery anyways. Imho, I would rather use them in areas where there are a lot of rivers than amphibious invasions from oversea transports (mech inf). The berserker and Ragnar as Agg matches as well, except when muskets start appearing.

Qin Shi Huang's Protective trait helps the Cho-ko-Nu, but as PRO is so weak I wouldn't use it. Julius Caesar's traits both synergise with the UU because IMP helps with GGs (and settlers to get iron) and ORG reduces economy crash from the city captures. Augustus's IND trait helps the Forum.

FIN helps Hannibal quickly tech to HBR, and if there's no easy target to trample underhoof FIN plus Cothon he can support a large NC standing army whilst quickly teching to Cuirs then raising the funds to upgrade en masse for a lv3 stampede.

rah said:

Zara is Creative but His UB provides extra culture. Unless you're going for a culture victory, overkill.

Click to expand...

ORG also means less upkeep whilst buying Culture, and Oromo can obviate the usual teching as far as rifling for protection in the final rush.