Best Gunpowder UU?

Thry said:

You're missing the point. There is no reason to play the Ottomans, they're currently the 2nd most useless civilization right after England. If not for the Janissaries, they'd be #1. That's going to massively change with gods & kings though, since ships can now (OH MY GAWD) capture cities.

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I hate to gang up on you here, but i cant believe you just said England was the most worthless civ. Dude long bows are op. Especially if you build archers and get the promotions from an early war. My last deity game i randomed England and survived an Alex and Siam right next to me because i was able to hold them off long enough to bulb longbows. After that those longbows made short work of the entire continent. Most people dismiss the extra naval movement because most people play pangea maps. its huge imo. Are they the best? no ... but they're certainly not the worst


In regards to the actual Op's question. I went with jans as they upgrade to nice rifles. I allmost never actually use gunpowder units though. Longswords to Rifles usually.

Tabarnak said:

No, you are missing the point. England's UA makes their UU pretty powerful(for exploration too). And longbowmen are pretty effective on land. Janissaries are the best melee units.

No civs can match England on continent and water maps for fast domination games.

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England's UA is useless until ships can pose a credible threat. As the firaxis guy said, I'll be sitting on my lawn chair waving at the passing ships. Longbowmen are supposed to be redeeming, but unfortunately don't upgrade well (or at all).2 extra moves is extremely underwhelming.

The only people who find England's UA semi-useful are those that play archipelago maps, which is a great way of marginalizing every other civ's UA due to the lack of land / resources.

I don't care how awesome the longbow feels, but the unfortunate reality is that it's good, but there are better choices out there, with better UAs, and better UU/UB/UI. Korea, Incas, Songhai, France and Siam come to mind.

I can only vouch for SP games but I'm with Tabarnak on this. No matter which level, how good the AI, it simply does not know how to beat a volley of range attacks and amphibious landings, hence I do find longbows, SOTLs and England the worst AI offender. Which is strange when you see AI plays Lizzy - it makes her look so pathetic.

Hence my question about janissaries in MP - will they ever have the chance to mow-instaheal? It'd seem to me that minutemen would be more practical.

I like Janissaries though I got completely humiliated by Pachacuti in one of my early games. Built a force of about 10 janissaries and some cannons, figuring I'd have no problem taking out Pachacuti who was only fielding some pikes and crossbows. I confidently came into his territory and tried attacking, only to be frustrated as his crossbows kept retreating, I kept chasing him in deeper figuring I'd catch them eventually, as he continued to peg me off one by one. Little did I know at the time that Incas have slingers which withdraw from combat and turn into crossbows while retaining the promo, which if you aren't prepared for it can be pretty challenging to counter.

Longbows upgrade to gattling guns and carry the +1 range with them. That makes them very killing machines...