Most useless units?

6K Man said:

Your logic convinces me right up to the part where expert Woodspeople are better at fixing damaged Tanks than anyone else

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Seeing as how any Military Unit in Civ 4 can be completed directly using wood (Forest Chops) or indirectly via regular wood harvesting (having one's citizens work in Forests, Lumbermills, Forest Preserves, and Forested Camps as a means of earning "production"), I would think that Woodspeople would be some of the most suitable repair technicians of our produced units.

6K Man said:

IOW, it totally makes sense to allow Recon units to get Woody 3... but it doesn't make sense that Woody3 should provide better healing than Medic does.

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Well, the Medic II and Medic III Promotions allow for healing in adjacent squares, whereas Woodsman III does not; presumably, it takes a subject-matter expert to repair our wooden creations, while the nurses and doctors can hand out bandages and delegate others in nearby areas to help with the healing of flesh wounds.

Lazteuq said:

I believe airships can see submarines, although no other air unit can?

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I can confirm that Airships, Submarines (24-strength ships with a 50% chance to withdraw), Destroyers (30-strength ships), and "Attack Submarines" (30-strength ships with a 50% chance to withdraw and a 50% bonus against Submarines) have this ability:
Can See Submarines

EDIT: Interestingly, Submarines cannot be upgraded to Attack Submarines, presumably because Submarines have 3 cargo spaces and Attack Submarines only have 1 cargo space and the Developers didn't want people to cry that 2 of their missiles disappeared when "upgrading" their ship.


For ships, it appears that you must walk within "visible range" of another ship for it to be revealed. So, once you have Optics (which I didn't initially have in the World Builder), it appears that a Submarine or an Attack Submarine can spot other Submarines or other Attack Submarines from 2 squares away. I suppose that the point about the Optics tech might only matter if you gifted a Submarine to an incredibly backward AI in order for it to use Submarines against a different AI.

With Flanking II + Sentry Promotions (plus the obvious Optics tech), a Submarine or an Attack Submarine can spot Subs that are 3 squares away.

That said, Airships are probably much better, since they can perform a recon mission, covering a wide area of squares where Submarines and Attack Submarines get revealed, instead of wasting your own Subs' movement points running around hunting.

If an Airship doesn't perform a recon mission, it can spot Subs that are one square away from where the Airship is stationed.


Bombers, Fighters, Jet Fighters, and Stealth Bombers are unable to reveal Submarines and Attack Submarines.


"Stealth Destroyers" can reveal other Stealth Destroyers, although Airships cannot reveal them (nor can the other types of planes that I just listed).

^^ Weirdly True. A reason no to upgrade a couple of airships, perhaps.

EDIT: X-post. Weirdly true about submarines and airships.

Lemon Merchant said:

Cuirassieurs - I usually jump from knights to cavalry for some reason, and cuirs are never available. If I get to build them at all, it's very few of them.

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Single best non-UU combat unit in the game, Lemon

Lemon Merchant said:

Rifles - Drill line promoted rifles will take out tanks by Drill IV (easy to get with Toku)

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Some have gone so far as to call Toke's Rifles a second UU

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I hail the Woodspeople! the real secret behind Civ IV success

Privateers are amazing. Park one in every coastal city and fort. Every few turns, look for enemy Galleons and Caravels and snipe appropriately. You can easily get two GGs without ever being at war, and you'll set back your opponents' attempts to settle the New World or get Shrine gold from a heathen continent. Also, I've had a couple of games where a Caravel found a half dozen Galleons heading for my lands, and whipping a few Privateers means only a couple of trebs made landfall.

Crossbows are good because not only do they counter enemy maces, they give your own CS/Mach beeline a Str6 CG unit way before you get Feudalism. Also: get CGIII on a few of them, and after you get Cannons, get Railroad and upgrade them to Machine Guns. Laugh as enemy SoDs banzai charge the city you've just captured and get wiped out to a man by three siege units that don't take collateral. If you can also get them Guerrilla II and TGW, then an enemy hilltop city will be your Stalingrad and generate several GGs.

My least fave unit? Either Landsknechte, whose bonus is redundant on the defence as Crossbows are better (and in Charlie's hands have instant access to Shock), and on the offence their S6 will be against Longbows. Or else Chariots, which whenever I rely on them against barbs always seem to end up finding a Spearman. I build a few to acts as medics and scouts and that's it.

lindsay40k said:

Or else Chariots, which whenever I rely on them against barbs always seem to end up finding a Spearman. I build a few to acts as medics and scouts and that's it.

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That's my experience using chariots as barb defense as well.

Lexicus said:

Aw man, you are missing out on Cuirassier-driven 17th century-style pwnage. I didn't use Curs for the longest time, then I did and now I'm a believer

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I just never seem to get to them in the tech tree. I sort of jump over them for some reason. Although in a current game, I'm actually building them to stave off a war. We'll see how I do.

6K Man said:

You don't like Trebs or Cuirs? In my games, I either go for one or the other, and if I have neither, medieval war is almost impossible. Goes to show how many ways there are to play the game.

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Oh I like them just fine. I just never build them.

lymond said:

Single best non-UU combat unit in the game, Lemon

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So I've been told. I'll try to use them more.

probably already covered...

Triremes are necessary if you have barbs and coastal seafood (duh). Also, they are useful if you want to circumnavigate the globe first. Build two before researching optics, then a cheap upgrade once you have optics so that you can start traveling immediately.

Ironclads - I usually build these as soon as I can because they defend well. Often the AI will just leave them alone. They defend the seafood leaving destroyers free later on to keep in a traveling stack (if I'm warring) or to keep sentry for defense.

Weird that no mentions swords (that aren't praetorians. )

Most other units have some small benefit in certain conditions. Ironclads are the most powerful water unit until oil comes around, so if you end up assaulting a close by continent, they are crucial for defending your galleons. Scouts and explorer can make for decent medics. Musketman are decent seige unit support.
However, swordsman are just so useless. They cannot attack alone at that point in the game any more, and catapult rushes without elephants are almost just as well off with just axes and spearman. They are kinda similar to musketman in that they aren't really that needed in the situation you would use them in, but differ in that the situation you would use them in comes up much less: catapult rushes with both IW technology and a connected iron source, but without copper, not something that occurs often.

Nothing wrong with Swords if your target lacks metal

lindsay40k said:

Nothing wrong with Swords if your target lacks metal

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When does that even happen? You having IW without them having any metal? Also, without metal, I'd prefer HA. So you need a situation without horses or elephants, while having steel, with an opponent without any metal at all.

That seldom happens.

Usual game Swords are weak (just because of low priority of IW early when possible to get better stuff for trades.. and by that time most AI will get iron or copper connected for sure).
If its no-tech trading game (like I do for last few months ) than early IW can give some advantage and Swords can be fine. Still early Axe rush works better; later HA or WE+Catapults.. but here Swords can have more options (cause everyone has to tech everything and any beeline can give wider window of oportunity)

ConfusedCounsel said:

They are kinda similar to musketman in that they aren't really that needed in the situation you would use them in, but differ in that the situation you would use them in comes up much less: catapult rushes with both IW technology and a connected iron source, but without copper, not something that occurs often.

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If you have iron hooked up, you can make axes and spears even without copper.

ConfusedCounsel said:

When does (enemy lacking metal when you have Iron) even happen?

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When their metal is in a location easily camped by two axes and two spears

Take a bunch of axes to throw at their own, and you've got a pretty free run

No unit is truly useless. All units have use, but some of them are more defensive (triremes, ironclads, musketmen come to mind). Also there is marathon speed, where some units make even more sense (Explorer on Marathon large+ Terra).

The unit I never build is longbowmen.
Playing no tech trading I always have gunpowder before feud.
I did once try a Sitting bull longbowmen rush but it was Meh. Crossbows worked better.

My 2p... Clearly it's very situational for a lot of units. The great thing about Civ is that you have to switch up your strategy from game to game. So here are some situations I'd use those units:

Triremes: Fending off raiding barb galleys (whip-on-demand); defending my galleys if I'm doing a coastal invasion (rare)
Crossbows: Very strong against melee - build if your enemies don't have horses or are heading towards your with a huge stack of axes and swordsmen. When you get Civil Service you'll probably want to switch production to Maces though.
Musketmen: Decent defensive and stack-protection units; sometimes useful say if I don't have horses and my opponent has a lot of crossbows. Usually build Maces instead for dat CR promo though.
Airships: I'm usually quite slow to Physics since I'm preserving that 10% Monastry research bonus and delaying the research of Scientific Method. But they are useful if you happen to be at war at the time.
Guided Missile: I never build these.
Ship of the Line: Pretty useless and the AI seems to agree.
Ironclads: I play K-mod, where they get a buff to 3 , but yeah, still not very useful.
Privateers: I usually build one or two for fun, but they get killed pretty quickly as soon as other civs get Frigates, and there's not much reason not to just build Frigates yourself. They would be good if they came slightly earlier in the tech tree.
Bombers: Most of my games don't last until Radio, but Bombers can be pretty good in conjunction with Fighters (which you use to take out your enemy's air defences first). Also for softening up stacks of enemy ships. It's situational, but it's good to have them when you need them.
Tactical nukes: My games get to this stage even less often.

I'd say the most useless units are the very late game ones like Mobile Artillery and Stealth Destroyers, because I never get to use them! If you're still fighting important battles at that stage then it's an odd occurrence.

Things like Cuirassiers being useful depends on what's going on, and whether you happen to be at war at that window in history when they are useful. They're a big step up on Knights because they stand a decent chance against Pikemen, mow through Longbows, and ignore Walls because they're post-Gunpowder.

These days I rarely build Grenadiers. Military Science doesn't lead anywhere, and Rifles then Infantry are usually a better line.

Lennier said:

If you have iron hooked up, you can make axes and spears even without copper.

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Yeah, I know, I meant more that if you have copper, you might just as well have build axes earlier.

When their metal is in a location easily camped by two axes and two spears

Take a bunch of axes to throw at their own, and you've got a pretty free run

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I suppose that if you squeeze an opponent and trade for iron early on, they are better city attackers... Fairly rare occurrence though.

The unit I never build is longbowmen.
Playing no tech trading I always have gunpowder before feud.
I did once try a Sitting bull longbowmen rush but it was Meh. Crossbows worked better.

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Well, if you change the settings enough... Even then though, feudalism is useful for the capitulation option and is needed if you ever use knights...
They are also the cheapest medieval unit and quite a useful garrison unit to hold the cities you capture...

Longbows with Guerrilla II make great chokers and situational stack defenders. A couple of them can escort a chariot through enemy territory (avoiding likely routes for reinforcement stacks, which will attack and overwhelm them), sit on a hill next to a critical herd or mine, throw away the chariot to pillage it, and it's not getting back online until the war's over. If you have to walk them in the open, add a crossbow and a spear. Maybe a medic and a mace, too. Given that the LB hill bonus and Guerrilla are actually deductions from enemy strength, LBs are better at this than Muskets.

I used Ironclads in an AW game recently, where I was doing an invasion to a different island. Ironclads killing frigates and galleons is very efficient hammerwise.

Longbows are also great in AW.

ConfusedCounsel said:

Yeah, I know, I meant more that if you have copper, you might just as well have build axes earlier.



I suppose that if you squeeze an opponent and trade for iron early on, they are better city attackers... Fairly rare occurrence though.



Well, if you change the settings enough... Even then though, feudalism is useful for the capitulation option and is needed if you ever use knights...
They are also the cheapest medieval unit and quite a useful garrison unit to hold the cities you capture...

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Considering it's an option I don't really consider it that. Some say that BTS was a change of settings.
But I guess that explains it. I play with no vassals either. It makes Feudalism really unnecessary until you go for rifles. And I never build Knights since Cruis are so much better and I get to them first.

Currently doing always war with k-mod. Quite the adrenaline rush.