What is the most useless unique unit?

AdamCrock said:

fast workers ..... most useless

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You forgot the ""

Workers aren't situational. Everybody needs them. The more they get done early, the better.

Previous discussions rate the fast worker the best, and I agree.

Well all they get is the movement bonus and You can't use them in a fight so yes they are getting there faster but You need to build them anyway so I would rather sacrifice the movement bonus for a cut in the hammer cost and by the way the tiles You need to upgrade are usually next to Your cities so Your workers do not actually go a hundred miles to get there so the movement bonus is a ruse

AdamCrock said:

Well all they get is the movement bonus and You can't use them in a fight

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Oh, I would say that fast workers are by far the scariest military UU. The fact that your opponent can combat-road a hill or a forest makes defending against a capable India player a nightmare. They are definitely a huge help in launching a quick attack. In Single Player they of course don't really have any military use, because AI isn't capable of doing anything too clever with them and AI also defends in a way where you don't really need to organize a real surprise attack.

Pure domestically they are of course a huge deal. Apart from simply gaining extra speed in the beginning that you can't otherwise get (move to forest and chop on the same turn) they kind of are workers with reduced hammer costs, because you need to build less of them in order to get necessary improvements done. That would actually be an interesting task to quantify.. Does their worker-turn efficiency save you 20 % of food-hammers that would go into normal workers? Maybe even more?

Thank you that noone voted for East Indiaman.. Damn.. thats one crazy unit on multiple landmases world and I hate pangea sorry.. nothing can counter it because chemistry comes much later.. and its advantage against usual galleon (+50% strength; +33% cargo; no need for OB to cross borders) is more impressive than Praetorian has on battlefield.. What game designers was thinking to make that strong civilization

elmurcis said:

Thank you that noone voted for East Indiaman.. Damn.. thats one crazy unit on multiple landmases world and I hate pangea sorry.. nothing can counter it because chemistry comes much later.. and its advantage against usual galleon (+50% strength; +33% cargo; no need for OB to cross borders) is more impressive than Praetorian has on battlefield.. What game designers was thinking to make that strong civilization

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The game is balanced around Fractal (procedually generated continents, seas, island chains, etc.) with considerably less concern for pangaea or navy maps. Like every other unit galleons may or may not be crucial. That's probably what the designers were thinking.


...Except for Fast Worker of course.

AdamCrock said:

Well all they get is the movement bonus and You can't use them in a fight so yes they are getting there faster but You need to build them anyway so I would rather sacrifice the movement bonus for a cut in the hammer cost and by the way the tiles You need to upgrade are usually next to Your cities so Your workers do not actually go a hundred miles to get there so the movement bonus is a ruse

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This sounds like a fellow marathoner. Trust me, on standard and quick the indian UU is a little monster.

Camel Archer is just... meh. How is that useful?

Tatran said:

After some thinking I've changed my mind.
The Greek phalanx is IMHO the worst UU. It only has 100% defense versus chariots.
So, it's nothing but an ordinary axeman if the enemy doesn't attack with chariots.

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This is the history of the Phalanx evolution in Civ IV.

" Kind of a long story but interesting story of how Fireaxis reads CFC forums.


The subject used to come up. Usually beginning with" Phalanxes were formations or tactics, not units."

Praets could march around the Med, Cosssacks could sweep across Asia, Redcoats could carve an intercontinental empire, but could Alex's spearmen conquer the known ancient world?! No! They were just hill defenders. They couldn't even crush Persia in this game.

I even invited people by PM from various threads on the subject into one discussion.

While phalanxes were varied, just like Greek city-states, the graphic looked like a Macedonian phalanxman. Fair enough. Alexander was the only Greek leader anyway. The idea of Greek axeman was as silly as US lancers- it just wasn't the way they equiped themselves or fought.The Macedonian phalanx was primarily an anti-melee unit, so why not an ax replacement? OK - But how do you properly represent that?

Macedonian Phalanxes were for fighting on battlefields, not hills or cover, so that hill bonus had to go. Some kind of a mounted bonus or formation promotion because they were also spearmen? No, Alex's Macedonian version was directional, 4 rows of specialized spears faced the front, but it's weakness was flanking attacks by mounted/horse archers. It was more realistic to have them supported by regular spearmen to counter that threat. The Greeks used both phalanxes and other spearmen.

Shock promo out of the box? Strength 6 ? Overpowered. We concluded that maybe the best way to represent it was....

The March promotion, to represent their relentless forward push/march across Persia and Egypt into India.


So... It sorta happened. Cossacks and Redcoats were nerfed, but not Praets. Phalanx became axmen replacements rather than spearmen replacements ( but they reversed the graphics ala Kublai/Quinn...oh well ), and if you looked in the civilopedia , it said they had the march promotion. They didn't, they had a bonus against their counter ( chariots), which incidentally happened to be the archnemesis Persia's UU.

My guess is that the march promo was overpowered that early in the game, and useful long afterward in a Berserker -sort of way, so it was abandoned in play-testing, but they forgot to update the civilopedia."

-http://forums.civfanatics.com/showthread.php?p=9197198&highlight=march#post9197198

As the persian troops fought by either Miltiades' hoplites or Alexanders phalanges were not mainly chariots (or light cavalry), it seems somewhat strange to argue with any kind of historical accuracy here. The essential thing should have been to create some kind of elite infantry unit, regardless of name (hoplites or phalanx) and base unit (axe/spear).
Neither vanilla nor BtS phalanx can be considered a striking elite unit for gaining an early empire. Although I don't remember vanilla well enough, I think the old one was better (mainly because of longer shelf live with a decent chance against elephants and even knights)

The Greek phalanx/hoplite was a spear based unit according to Wiki.
So, civ4 vanilla had it right. (The Greek phalanx was a spearman with 5 strength and +25% hill defense.)
And it never had the march promotion. (What's the % of healing anyway with march ? Is it 10% ?)
Although, I don't think it would be overpowered to have a spear unit, which only can be upgraded to a pike unit, with the free march promotion.

Also, it's hypocrite to use the overpowered argument, because in civ5 the Persian UU, the immortal, heals at double speed.
And the Fountain of Youth (natural wonder) also gives every unit the double healing promotion for free.
Both come early in the game and double healing is very powerful.
(Btw, I can't remember if FoY stacks with the Persian immortal ability.)

Yes, the historical phalanx was spear-based. But it was also good against other melee. (At least the earlier hoplites were.)
So the historical unit does not fit very well within the Civ system that makes spears a counter to mounted, but very vulnerable to ordinary axes.
A compromise would have been to make the ancient phalanx similar to a Landsknecht, but this probably would have been to powerful (and still not as useful as an axeman with its higher base strength against the standard city defenders, archers). And of course with the introduction of the landsknecht it would be kind of lame to have a very similar early unit.

I totally agree that the vanilla phalanx was better. But still not all that great and weak against axes. Compared with uber-powerful Praets and also vultures both vanilla and BtS phalanx are disappointing.

Panzys Seals and Blistas all blow.

nfw said:

That's not true though, knights ignore first strike and I think, can get pinch so they counter Oromo hard (bet the Italians feel silly now)

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One should be beelining Gunpowder through oracling/bulbing Theology, bulbing/oracling Paper and double bulbing Education such that Gunpowder is completed far earlier that any AI can complete Guilds. When well played, one will not have Oromo Warriors facing Knight before one has Cannon support.

Pinch on a Knight is actually quite rare, since one needs Military Science to even promote to Pinch. Also, I'm not entirely sure that Knights can even promote to Pinch.

Sun Tzu Wu

Knights can get Pinch, and Pinch only requires the Gunpowder tech so its reasonable to see it. Oromos do get early access to Formation however, so they are better against Knights than other Muskets that aren't Jans.

Fintourist said:

What sinimusta wrote before, and:

In MP you often don't want to create a situation where you march in with a big mixed ancient stack of 1-movers, because that means you have used quite a bit of your resources that could have gone into expansion. However, you might want to cripple your neighbor or try your luck with a smaller amount of units and surprise attack. Phalanx reduces the possibility that your axe-attack fails miserably, because your opponent has chariots online.

That said, I would not consider Phalanx as an especially great UU, but still useful.

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it works cause mass axes beat all ancient units on the attack (except horse archers). Meaning ideally you want a army of 100 % axe if you are against say praets(but really anything to be honest) . That is only really viable with phalanx, or you risk them getting offed by humans who know how to follow your stack around.

also alexander is agg so they are shock axes with no counter, unless you tech very weirdly.

^
Sure. Even if the enemy only has archers (3 or more defenders) + city on hill + walls (+ maybe PRO trait too),
a phalanx rush is waste of resources that early in the game.

Tatran said:

^
Sure. Even if the enemy only has archers (3 or more defenders) + city on hill + walls (+ maybe PRO trait too),
a phalanx rush is waste of resources that early in the game.

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archers don't work in mp in general, they can't attack leaving your enemy free to pillage everything.
to be honest they don't work in sp either ....

How do archers not work in SP ?

drewisfat said:

How do archers not work in SP ?

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Because a lot of people (normally on HOF games) reroll until they get copper and good food and commerce. If you have no copper/iron/horse, archers are the best unit you can get until Feudalism/Construction/Gunpowder.

I think the navy seal could be useless. The march promotion on the other hand is useful though..

Sun Tzu Wu said:

Oromo Warriors are definitely not the worst unique unit. They are actually the best Gunpowder based unique unit. As already mentioned, they are best promoted to Drill IV which is possible with Barracks and Theocracy, Vassalage or Great Military Instructor. They dominate all pre-gunpowder units and are a great complement to Cannon seige units. There is no need to wait for Rifling to upgrade them to Riflemen, although such an upgrade is one of the best.

Jaguars are also not the worst unique unit. They can be promoted to Woodsman II with just a Barracks, which allows them to easily steal Workers via a jungle/forest plot. In sufficient numbers, they can "surprise" attack weakly defended cities jungle/forest plots. Promoted in the field to Woodsman III they provide 15% healing per turn compared to Medic I's 10%. When attached to a Great General (as mentioned earlier in this thread), they can easily be promoted to Woodsman III and Medic III which heals 40% per turn versus Medic III's 25%, assuming Medic I in both cases.

In my opinion, the Panzer is the worst unique unit. The Panzer does have a great bonus of +50% versus Armor, but it will rarely be able to use it. Not only will the game be effectively won before any AI can build significant numbers of Tanks, the Panzer will almost always end up targeting a non-Tank unit like an Infantry rather than a Tank due this combat bonus.

Sun Tzu Wu

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This

If Panzer bonus matters, something weird is going on. Collateral damage rules by that point of the game. I love the Oromo Warrior for the reasons cited. Drill II ain't much, but Drill IV on 5 XP's IS much. I used to regard the Jag as useless, but enough good players have explained why it's good. I never Sword Rush anyway, unless I'm Rome.

Thoughts on some others:
Seal - not the worst, just close. That's about as late as the Panzer. occasionally useful, however. Put these improvements on a mid-game unit and you have a great UU.
Camel Archer - lower tier. I refuse to consider a resourceless UU with no loss of base strength useless, however.
Bowman - not useless, just nearly so.
Numidian - not horrible. Great choke unit if nothing else.
Gallic Warrior - bottom tier but can save you once or twice. Besides, Copper or Iron? That's an improvement right there.
East Indiaman - devastating on water maps. Bulb Astronomy and pillage all water improvements and cut off trade for your enemy. It has NO counter until your enemy gets Astronomy AND Chemistry.
Phalanx - you don't need spears in your stack. Not great but it has value.
Landeshnect (or whatever) - a real bottom feeder. Still underwhelmed by the Panzer.
Ballistaphant - See above.
Hwacha - occasionally better than stock. Not worst but poor.
Skirmisher - somebody voted for THIS?!?! It's one of the best UUs!
Holkan - See Camel Archer. Lower tier but resourceless.
Dog - I hate it but enough players have convinced me it has uses.
Janissary - it doesn't measure up to Oromo but not bad. You might change your tech path slightly.
Conquistador - see Skirmisher.
Cossack - I don't care for it but can't put it dead last.
Berserker - lower tier but the 10% attack and Amphibious is useful. You can really hurt an enemy on water maps with this thing and the Viking's fast ships.
Impi - somebody doesn't use this right.

I just can't see any of these being worse than the Panzer except possibly the Ballista Elephant. I admit to hating Dog Soldiers but they have uses.