I just finished a game with Japan where the UA helped significantly more than it used to.
In the old vanilla game, it was fairly rare that the AI concentrated their fire to take down single units, and often you could charge in and take a city without siege units (at least at Emperor on down). Back then, charge in, attack the city, use promotions to heal, win the battle with almost no casualites.
Now, cities have more HP, gain even more from walls, and the AI seems to concentrate fire better (though sometimes it'll concentrate it on my wounded scout rather than my trebuchet). This makes it difficulty to even get a unit next to a city, and wounded units aren't normally too great at attacking cities.
In comes Japan. The civ that everyone loved to hate in vanilla, myself included, is in the new era of G&K and suddenly a lot more useful. The Samurai has always been great, but the UA is more important than ever, especially since units last longer. Units last longer, cities are tougher to take, and Japan is the one civ where units always do regular damage even when wounded -- and the way things are going for most people, units are getting far more damaged in attempts to take cities.
To recap:
Japan is a fair amount more useful because attacking cities is much more likely to get your units damaged before they are in range of the target.
In the old vanilla game, it was fairly rare that the AI concentrated their fire to take down single units, and often you could charge in and take a city without siege units (at least at Emperor on down). Back then, charge in, attack the city, use promotions to heal, win the battle with almost no casualites.
Now, cities have more HP, gain even more from walls, and the AI seems to concentrate fire better (though sometimes it'll concentrate it on my wounded scout rather than my trebuchet). This makes it difficulty to even get a unit next to a city, and wounded units aren't normally too great at attacking cities.
In comes Japan. The civ that everyone loved to hate in vanilla, myself included, is in the new era of G&K and suddenly a lot more useful. The Samurai has always been great, but the UA is more important than ever, especially since units last longer. Units last longer, cities are tougher to take, and Japan is the one civ where units always do regular damage even when wounded -- and the way things are going for most people, units are getting far more damaged in attempts to take cities.
To recap:
Japan is a fair amount more useful because attacking cities is much more likely to get your units damaged before they are in range of the target.
