An alternative Deity Tier List (a.k.a. 'Don't Forget About Conquest')

consentient said:

Sure it's good for plain desert tiles, but those should not be worked anyway, and the city is located badly if it has too many.

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I think you just ignored everything I said.

My argument that Kasbah is terrible on flat desert because flat desert is terrible to begin with, but it is very good on desert hills and slightly less good on desert flood plains. As Manzapee noted, you can't really argue that a mine is better than a Kasbah hill because it isn't.

adcarrymaokai said:

I think you just ignored everything I said.

My argument that Kasbah is terrible on flat desert because flat desert is terrible to begin with, but it is very good on desert hills and slightly less good on desert flood plains. As Manzapee noted, you can't really argue that a mine is better than a Kasbah hill because it isn't.

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That depends on the priorities that your city may have. If your city has a production priority, then build a mine, but if your city has a general a little bit of everything priority then why not build a kasbah? You could do that because you can also build a farm if you need food for your city, particularly if you have civil service water or fertilizer even.

Manpanzee said:

Kasbahs aren't great, but they're clearly, clearly better than mines on dry Desert hills...It's ok to just admit that possibly you haven't gotten every single rating right on the first try. Nobody is going to think less of you. But if you show that you'd rather double-down on incoherent statements than seriously listen to feedback, it throws the whole exercise into question.

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Err...I think I've demonstrated already that I am listening to feedback. But that doesn't mean I have to automatically accept every argument put in front of me. Look at the Mohawk warrior argument that was made a few pages back! I simply don't think that a UI that is only better in narrow situations, is worth anything. I want UIs that are always better than nothing.

Let's put this in perspective:-

1. This UI is only 'better' on desert hills with no fresh water. Across 100 playthroughs this is NOT a very large percentage of tiles. If your city has a load of desert hills then probably its not a very good city. There are good cities with a load of desert hills AND food, but these are not on every corner, are they? Look at the production/food balance on the DCL #24. Not exactly great, huh? Do you think Harun is going to be really helped if he copies Ahmad's UI?

2. It's only 'better' for the 40 turns between Chivalry and Chemistry, if I'm willing to use my workers to build Kasbahs (which take an inordinate amount of time to build), and then build over them when Chemistry comes round.

3. Yes, 1f3h1g is better than 3h. I'm not arguing that it isn't. But given 1. and 2., I don't think this translates into enough of a difference to actually be worth anything. I'm sorry you don't like my rating of this, but rather than focus on whether I've "gotten every rating right", maybe you could look at the overall picture. Morocco's advantages have been rated against what the Neutrals have, and I just don't think this UI would make it at all easier to win given how situational it would be if the Neutrals had it.

TLDR: Can it be better in CERTAIN circumstances? Yes. Is it 1/3 as good as Terrace Farms or Brazilwood Camps, on a discrete, approximate scaling system? Not on your nelly.

Here's a simple comparison that is against the rules but for the sake of argument:

1. Are you going to build Moais on every coastal tile? Probably
2. Are you going to build BWC on every jungle tile? Definitely
3. Are you going to spam the heck out of Chateaus? For sure
4. Are you going to build Kasbahs on every desert tile? Unlikely, you will farm floodplains and river hills because Civil Service comes earlier, and not bother with the plain desert unless Petra. You can only plant them on dry hills but it kind of turns out those tiles tend to have Aluminium. Now, you can argue that giving them 0/5 is kind of harsh but the use of the Kasbah is really rather limited (only works well on dry hills innit), and its secondary passive bonus, if push comes to shove, won't save you.

No one says Morocco is amazing. But simply giving 0 to an improvement is rather inadequate.

It's like Venice being at the very bottom for no reason. Venice can actually accomplish every victory condition quite well. Obviously, you will win any world leader vote because you are swimming in gold. You can build wonders for CV and buy the rest of your buildings because you are swimming in gold. You can buy science buildings because you are swimming in gold and grow very tall with cargo ships. You can buy your military and win domination. Venice lets you buy your way to victory in a game where gold is hard to come by. It is not the best at any victory condition, hence it is in the middle of the pack in the original list. These ratings are just inadequate to me.

consentient said:

If your city has a load of desert hills then probably its not a very good city.

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No wonder those Petra cities with a lot of hills suck! Kasbah basically makes every hill a Petra hill, and we all know how absurdly strong Petra cities are. It's just instead of an extra hammer, you get extra gold, which further gets multiplied by markets, banks, and policies.

stormtrooper412 said:

Here's a simple comparison that is against the rules but for the sake of argument:

1. Are you going to build Moais on every coastal tile? Probably
2. Are you going to build BWC on every jungle tile? Definitely
3. Are you going to spam the heck out of Chateaus? For sure
4. Are you going to build Kasbahs on every desert tile? Unlikely, you will farm floodplains and river hills because Civil Service comes earlier, and not bother with the plain desert unless Petra. You can only plant them on dry hills but it kind of turns out those tiles tend to have Aluminium. Now, you can argue that giving them 0/5 is kind of harsh but the use of the Kasbah is really rather limited (only works well on dry hills innit), and its secondary passive bonus, if push comes to shove, won't save you.

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Moais require other Moais for get the maximum effect, so you are expected to build chains of them. BWC is a little trickier: would you rather have a BWC on freshwater jungle tile or build a farm if your city lacks food? Chateaux are also hardly spammable. They can't be adjacent, and ideally you want a grassland Chateau because a desert, hill, or plains Chateau is strictly suboptimal.

adcarrymaokai said:

Moais require other Moais for get the maximum effect, so you are expected to build chains of them. BWC is a little trickier: would you rather have a BWC on freshwater jungle tile or build a farm if your city lacks food? Chateaux are also hardly spammable. They can't be adjacent, and ideally you want a grassland Chateau because a desert, hill, or plains Chateau is strictly suboptimal.

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Chain of Moais is definitely not an issue. You don't necessarily have to work every Moai tile (ice/tundra) but nothing stops you from chaining them together to get the good ones even better.

I usually have little problem with food with Brazil so I simply BWC everything and food caravan when needed, because the BWC itself makes up for some of the gold/science you'd get from a foreign trade route so it's a good trade off. Makes the Carnival even more useful because it adds one more coin per BWC

As for Chateaus (Chateaux, duuuh, I forgot my French ) I have to disagree, planting them on hills is definitely not a bad idea. Now they might be unworkable AT FIRST but once you upgrade them, I mean jeez, it goes boom from there

adcarrymaokai said:

It's like Venice being at the very bottom for no reason.

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It's hardly for 'no reason'. You're insinuating that I am biased against them or something. There are civs that I don't like at all that are really strong. But Venice have one major handicap (the CS UA) and one bonus which comes nowhere near making up for it.

Playing as Venice does not make it easier to win, it makes it harder. Of course you can win with Venice. But you could have won more easily with the Neutrals in almost all cases. Give me a map where Venice have a strong position, and we can compare T200 saves, and my empire will have more GPT, CPT, BPT, etc. Why am I so confident about this? Because I can build settlers for a much stronger start, because I can annex cities and make the most of them, and because I can dominate (in the loose sense) without having to rely on keeping a certain GP alive and without worrying about my neighbours not taking me out before I get started.

Spawn as Venice 10 tiles from Oda. Spawn the Neutrals in the same position. Who has a better chance of fending off the T40-60 DoW?

You wanna grow your city tall via cargo ships? Let me grow 4-6 cities just as tall. You think Venice has a load of money with its trade routes? My Indian empire on the recent DCL had nearly Deity AI levels of income with the usual 10 trade routes.

adcarrymaokai said:

And when you build it on a desert hill, it adds food to it. I do not argue that it is amazing, but 0/5? 0 means it is absolutely useless.

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With this rating system, I think 0/5 for Kasbah is fair for the same reason the Sweden Hakka gets a 0/5 (even though it has a couple buffs over a Lancer). With Kasbah only being useful on dry dessert hills, a player just cannot get enough of them to make a difference. OTOH the point was made that UI are more important than UU, so it may make sense to be more generous with UI.

consentient said:

Dromon ... UU rating = -1/5, since Triremes are actually better for scouting and surviving numerous encounters with barb galleys and enemy units.

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Sorry, but this summary justification is incoherent.

Dromons have the same move speed and reach as Triremes, but they are actually better for scouting because the ability to take pot-shots for xp at remote barb camps means they get the +1 vision faster than Triremes.

A virgin Dromon can encounter (and kill) barb galleys without getting hurt at all. That requires some luck, but being unscathed is not an option at all for the well promoted Trireme. In head-to-head battles the Dromon is not taking damage on its turn, so the strength of 8 versus 10 hardly matters, especially if it gets the first shot (not hard). All told, the Dromon spends much less time healing than the Trireme. Personally, I have no trouble getting range+logistics on Dromons, but it is quite rare for me to get even a third promotion on Triremes.

That said, waiting for Frigates to come online is painful. Even Galleasses with range+logistics are useless...

I think you inadvertently proved my point, beetle.

Having to risk battle to get a scouting promotion doesn't make a better scouting unit. Being able to deal damage without being damaged is not much of an advantage when you MUST end your turn 2 units from the unit that can attack you again. With land ranged units you can park a meat shield between the ranged unit and the enemy melee.

At the time that Dromons are in play, barb galleys can often spawn out of control because the AI hasn't cleared the camps yet. This they generally do when they get Astronomy ca. T100. It is my experience that unless you have a whole load of triremes (and why would you?), it is really not worth the cost OR the opportunity cost to get involved with barb ships, because they generally don't come one at a time but have 2 or more floating around the same area.

Clearance-wise, you generally don't need to clear barb ships with anywhere near the same urgency you want to clear barb camps because if you can run a Cargo Ship, you want to run it to your own city. In the event you want to send one to a CS or AI for science or quests, then it's probably the case that the AI cleared the channel for you. The ones they don't clear are further away, therefore the scout ships need to be able to absorb hits they can't always stave off. We all know that the biggest downside of land Scouts is that they are quite weak. Having to heal them is a chore, since you are losing out on ruins, worker steals (which I know you deplore anyway, but most of us do it), CS gold, etc. Similarly, on maps where water comes into play at all, you want the Trireme to get past the barb galley, not fight it, so as to get around the whole map before culture borders mean that you require OB treaties. The idea of building naval units AT ALL, pre-Navigation is to find out how many capitals are coastal, and therefore to plan your tech path. If you're going to build something to go have a look, it needs to be as strong as possible. Sending a unit out there which has to dodge around and is 20% weaker does not achieve this goal. [EDIT: 40% corrected to 20%]

In the very end, lists like these are always subjective. You can ask 100 people for their opinion, integrate it into your list, but still, it is not objective. I enjoy looking at your list, it is interesting what your and other peoples experiences with Civs are.

Players have different experiences with different Civs, yeah thats the conclusion. For me, Venice is on the same level like Greece but by far not bottom Level 5 Civ. Persia is more like Level 2 Civ, not better than Sweden for me. America is more like Level 3 or 4, there are actually better ones down there in my opinion.

That's not critic on the list here, or telling someone to change his opinion... only what i thought when looking at it.

consentient said:

My ears are open to a weighting system, if anyone should devise one, but quite how this could be done I can't even imagine.

I mean, I've instinctively weighted conquest and science boosts the most, and I've quite obviously weighted UAs that last all-game, like Alex's above those that are for a shorter period, like Pedro's, but beyond instinct and experience, any numerical system is going to be slightly imperfect.

As for Paper Makers, I really don't see why you picked this example. They are quite mediocre, AFAIC.

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Civ is just a snowballing game, so things that help you snowball faster (free yield, especially early yield) or adjust the threshold you need to reach (exceptional UUs that change what is possible) are really the only things that matter. If I were devising a list those are the things I would emphasize.

Early yield is so strong that Spain with 1 NW first-discovered before ~T20 is the best civ in the game, even if it never settles on it and never builds a single Conq or Tercio. And Babylon would still be high upper tier even with no GPP boost and no wall/bowmen. Paper Makers and Ancient Harbors are basically lesser versions of these, and there are many other examples.

beetle said:

Sorry, but this summary justification is incoherent.

Dromons have the same move speed and reach as Triremes, but they are actually better for scouting because the ability to take pot-shots for xp at remote barb camps means they get the +1 vision faster than Triremes.

A virgin Dromon can encounter (and kill) barb galleys without getting hurt at all. That requires some luck, but being unscathed is not an option at all for the well promoted Trireme. In head-to-head battles the Dromon is not taking damage on its turn, so the strength of 8 versus 10 hardly matters, especially if it gets the first shot (not hard). All told, the Dromon spends much less time healing than the Trireme. Personally, I have no trouble getting range+logistics on Dromons, but it is quite rare for me to get even a third promotion on Triremes.

That said, waiting for Frigates to come online is painful. Even Galleasses with range+logistics are useless...

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I wouldn't call them useless. You can start taking capitals with Dromons & one melee unit on Deity early, and clear the map with Galleas before you even tech Frigates. I've done it, and it works, but it only works well on water maps.

Actually, it can even work on Pangaea if you get lucky with capital placement. There was a Deity gauntlet a while back where I tried clearing a Pangaea using mostly dromons. It requires some map luck but it works.

Basically the strategy is, immediately DoW a neighbor CS to earn promotions for the dromon, (plant an expo next to it if you don't start close to one, because you need to be healing in your borders)

If you didn't plant an expo, considering capturing that CS early to ensure you have two adjacent coastal cities.

Most pangaeas are ice-locked in at least one place on the south and north pole. So you need one small land army to capture a city on the other side of the ice. The strategy falls apart if you're completely ice-locked (IE at the pole) or have no neighbors on your side of the Pangaea. (And can't take at least 2 coastal capitals with your original dromons)

I used a scout, warrior and one worker to lure enemy units out of the city into dromon attack range. This ensures that your dromons can attack the city without getting killed. If there is an archer in a city it will ignore your melee (even at 95 health) and focus fire on the dromon.

After clearing a couple cities, you need to wait until Compass, because around t70 the AI cities can one-shot dromons. But, this coincidentally gives you time to send your CB army to capture a city on the other side of the polar ice and start building dromons there as well. Then, when you hit compass, boom you have range/logistics galleas, which, FYI, are totally badass. You can then finish the map with Galleas, using your CB army to tackle remaining inland capitals. If that stalls out, finish at Navigation around t150.

EDIT: To be clear, what makes dromon bad-ass is the ability to *upgrade them into galleas, which no one else can do*... The difference between teching compass on T90 with Byzantium and any other civ is about 6-8 extra galleas on t90.

Yes, this is somewhat artificial, because it requires at least 4 AI coastal capitals for it to work well, not a likely thing on Pangaea, but... in an archipelago domination game? Well, in that case, Byzantium just flat out RULES. Honestly, I'd put them in the top 5 for fast archipelago wins. Not easiest, but fastest. They might even be #1. Considering it's the ONLY ranged vessel in the ancient (or classical) era, well, that says it all. I'd probably put Denmark, Attila, Polynesia and Dido higher for "ease of early war victory", and Suleiman is fighting for a spot in that top 5 too, but man, nothing chews through an archipelago like a fleet of promoted dromon... (Half promoted to double-tap, half promoted to range, because usually there aren't enough firing positions for the whole fleet to attack from within 2 tiles of the city)

Arguably Denmark is better because CBs can come in from out of range and fire from rough terrain in one turn. Arguably Attila is better if there's enough land around the city, but that varies by map. However, once you manage to build or capture GLH, open Exploration, and your recently upgraded Galleas have logistics.. at that point they're unbeatable. Which you should be able to achieve by t100 in most games. (even t85 compass if you burn a liberty GS)

(Re: That Gauntlet - I ended up not submitting that game because it wasn't going to win best time)

Cromagnus said:

it only works well on water maps...it can even work on Pangaea if you get lucky with capital placement...It requires some map luck...plant an expo next to it if you don't start close to one, because you need to be healing in your borders...Most pangaeas are ice-locked in at least one place on the south and north pole...The strategy falls apart if you're completely ice-locked...or have no neighbors on your side of the Pangaea...And can't take at least 2 coastal capitals with your original dromons...I used a scout, warrior and one worker to lure enemy units out of the city into dromon attack range. This ensures that your dromons can attack the city without getting killed. If there is an archer in a city it will ignore your melee (even at 95 health) and focus fire on the dromon...After clearing a couple cities, you need to wait until Compass, because around t70 the AI cities can one-shot dromons...You can then finish the map with Galleas, using your CB army to tackle remaining inland capitals...it requires at least 4 AI coastal capitals for it to work well, not a likely thing on Pangaea...once you manage to build or capture GLH, open Exploration, and your recently upgraded Galleas have logistics...Which you should be able to achieve by t100 in most games...even t85 compass if you burn a liberty GS

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This sounds like a feasible strategy on some water maps. But there are a lot of prerequisites, and this thread is aimed at Pangaea, Continents and Fractal where the prerequisites will seldom be met. That's why Dromon have been deemed so poor.

Let me say this: If someone can show me a video of a BNW game on one of the three valid map types, random roll, where this strategy is used to decent effect, then I'll revise my opinion and bump Dromon up to 2 or 3/5. Can't say fairer than that

Until then, I'll say that I find it fitting that the Mac auto-corrector turns 'dromon' into 'drown', because IMO that is what they are best at.

Wow, I wish I could use Dromon’s like Cromagnus! I can have 3-4 double tap +1 range Dromon’s (latter galleasses) and still could not take cities with the damn things. I could only every get two in range on any given turn. The restriction to shallow water is too much for me. But getting those promotions was fun and easy!

consentient said:

Being able to deal damage without being damaged is not much of an advantage when you MUST end your turn 2 units from the unit that can attack you again. With land ranged units you can park a meat shield between the ranged unit and the enemy melee.

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[SARCASM]Right, that is why lone archers don't dare take on lone brutes.[/SARCASM]

it is really not worth the cost OR the opportunity cost to get involved with barb ships, because they generally don't come one at a time but have 2 or more floating around the same area.

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I work to get my triremes two promotions from barbs and then scout with them while avoiding barb ships. Am I doing it wrong? The Dromon can do the same thing, but if early barb ships are rare, the Dromon can level up on a remote barb camp.

Clearance-wise, you generally don't need to clear barb ships with anywhere near the same urgency you want to clear barb camps because if you can run a Cargo Ship, you want to run it to your own city. In the event you want to send one to a CS or AI for science or quests, then it's probably the case that the AI cleared the channel for you.

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All that just argues for the Dromon being 0 rather -1.

The ones they don't clear are further away, therefore the scout ships need to be able to absorb hits they can't always stave off ... on maps where water comes into play at all, you want the Trireme to get past the barb galley, not fight it, so as to get around the whole map before culture borders mean that you require OB treaties.

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So you like the Trireme because it can take a hit, run away (wounded, and not heal for a long time) and keep exploring? Rinse / repeat maybe?

Sending a unit out there which has to dodge around and is 40% weaker does not achieve this goal.

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How is 8 vs 10 result in 40% weaker? I think you could use the Dromon exactly the same way. Maybe the 5th barb hit sinks the Trireme but the Dromon goes down after 4 hits? I agree with avoiding battles while scouting, I just don’t see how the Dromon is so much more vulnerable to bards ships than the Trireme that you think it deserves a -1 rating. On the plus side, the Dromon can fulfill a wider range of missions, and has excellent xp opportunities.

If the Neutrals had a strength 8 Trireme would even that be a -1? I think that alone would be 0, just because it is not important enough to rate. I am not arguing for 3/5, just 1/5.

beetle said:

[SARCASM]Right, that is why lone archers don't dare take on lone brutes.[/SARCASM]

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Let's make sure we're comparing like for like. Most of the time the Archer is firing on a Brute in an encampment, who does not leave the encampment unless it knows it can one-shot the Archer. So it just sits there soaking it up until it dies (stupidly). But if you meet a barb brute with an archer and it fights back, it does have the ability to kill you. Sure, you can evade & fire, evade & fire, but this is not directly comparable with a Dromon since the archer has significantly greater mobility (the Dromon is limited mostly to a single strip of coast tiles) and can heal wherever it likes. Usually backing away from a Brute so it can't see you is enough to heal for a few turns then go looking for it again. Dromons cannot heal outside of friendly territory, and when you withdraw, barb galleys are a little more tenacious about finding you and wiping you out. They also tend to spawn more than 1 ship, and 1 Dromon vs. 2 galleys is a tougher spot to be in than 1 Archer and 2 Brutes, 1 of whom is tasked with guarding the encampment.

I work to get my triremes two promotions from barbs and then scout with them while avoiding barb ships. Am I doing it wrong?

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I don't know. Show me your screenshots so I can judge your scouting. There is literally no other use to Triremes/Dromons other than scouting, on Deity, IMO. Even then, on many maps it isn't worth using the ships at all because the land scout can get there faster and more easily (no OB needed before culture borders swell).

So you like the Trireme because it can take a hit, run away (wounded, and not heal for a long time) and keep exploring? Rinse / repeat maybe?

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I don't like Triremes, no. But when I use them, I try to go past/around the Barb galley/coastal archer and keep going, scouting as much as possible before it's done one lap of the continent/pangaea, or (as is more common) I disband it. Which is easier to do with a Trireme because...

How is 8 vs 10 result in 40% weaker? I think you could use the Dromon exactly the same way. Maybe the 5th barb hit sinks the Trireme but the Dromon goes down after 4 hits?

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My bad. It's 20%. Just a typo. But again, you're making my point for me. The Dromon is worse in this category, which is, I feel, the only category we can judge these two terrible units.

On the plus side, the Dromon can fulfill a wider range of missions, and has excellent xp opportunities.

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Like what? What can a Dromon do that a Trireme can't? Outside of the extremely unlikely scenario that Cromagnus described. (Unlikely given the parameters of this list)

If the Neutrals had a strength 8 Trireme would even that be a -1? I think that alone would be 0, just because it is not important enough to rate. I am not arguing for 3/5, just 1/5.

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If the Neutrals had a strength 8 Trireme it would not be -1. It would indeed be not enough to make much difference. But if it also didn't have the ability to capture a city, then it would be a -1. Very, very occasionally, a Trireme can capture a city on Deity. Some of us sometimes see that an Archer rush is going to be enough. In my last game, I rush-bought a Trireme to capture a rare coastal Onondaga after my 3 archers had whittled it down while my Spearman with Cover 2 soaked up the hits. For these occasions, and for the scouting strength it is 1 better than a Dromon.

joe_the_dead said:

In the very end, lists like these are always subjective. You can ask 100 people for their opinion, integrate it into your list, but still, it is not objective. I enjoy looking at your list, it is interesting what your and other peoples experiences with Civs are.

Players have different experiences with different Civs, yeah thats the conclusion. For me, Venice is on the same level like Greece but by far not bottom Level 5 Civ. Persia is more like Level 2 Civ, not better than Sweden for me. America is more like Level 3 or 4, there are actually better ones down there in my opinion.

That's not critic on the list here, or telling someone to change his opinion... only what i thought when looking at it.

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There is a certain amount of subjectivity involved, of course. But if you have arguments about why I have, in your view, misplaced Venice, Persia or America, I'm willing to listen to them. I have already been persuaded by some people's views. Of course, I want arguments not just 'opinions'.

The guy who, a few pages ago, just said 'But Mohawk Warriors are great!' couldn't back it up because, obviously, they aren't. Not on Deity.

To all: If you can bring to my attention things I haven't considered, or give me a new perspective on an existing point of analysis, I welcome it.

consentient said:

Spawn as Venice 10 tiles from Oda. Spawn the Neutrals in the same position. Who has a better chance of fending off the T40-60 DoW?

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Venice? Since you are not buildings settlers, you can grow and get 3-4 extra archers in the meantime. Moreover, you don't piss off the AI by expanding. In the DCL Persia, Oda got upset when I settled on Uluuru.

consentient said:

You wanna grow your city tall via cargo ships? Let me grow 4-6 cities just as tall. You think Venice has a load of money with its trade routes? My Indian empire on the recent DCL had nearly Deity AI levels of income with the usual 10 trade routes.

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Any civ can get rich lategame with buildings, specialists, external routes once your cities have grown. Venice gets early gpt, which is really important. That early gold can buy you a lot of things early on to guarantee snowballing. Going for Domination, Venice won't have gpt issues like many other civs by sending trade routes to city-states.

joe_the_dead said:

In the very end, lists like these are always subjective. You can ask 100 people for their opinion, integrate it into your list, but still, it is not objective. I enjoy looking at your list, it is interesting what your and other peoples experiences with Civs are.

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Of course, everything is subjective, but this list is also rather inadequate and grew from the sentiment "i like sweden why aren't they top tier." The original list was gauged towards civs' performance on various starts. The reason why Arabia was not the top tier on the original list is because if you place Arabia on tiny islands or grassland/jungle, suddenly they have no bonuses. This list places Arabia in the top tier, even though they obviously don't perform well on non-optimal starts. The entire tier two consists of military civs, which, again, don't perform well at other victory conditions and can even have difficulty with domination on certain maps. The original list is 1.5 years old, but I still find it relevant and pretty objective.

consentient said:

Like what? What can a Dromon do that a Trireme can't? Outside of the extremely unlikely scenario that Cromagnus described. (Unlikely given the parameters of this list)

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Two things:

1. Attack land units
2. Upgrade into a Galleass, and eventually into a Frigate

This list includes Continents maps, right? Both of the above things should be useful in basically every Continents map. It's not situational at all -- If you're on a map where Galleasses or Frigates would be useful (i.e., if you are on Continents), then having access to the Dromon is a hugely unique and very useful thing.