Weakest [Unique] Units and Buildings?

I'm working on making a mod that does some balance tweaks to the units and buildings, particularly the unique units and buildings. Therefore, I'm curious as to everybody's opinions on what they feel the weakest unique units and buildings are. However, if you feel like non-unique units and non-unique buildings are weak, and not worth creating/building, then that would be worth editing, too. That includes wonders (like the Chichen Itza)!

If you think something is in poor performance then please recommend some changes (and why you think those said changes should be implemented). I'm fairly new to the game, so I may not be the best at recommending changes. Therefore, if you disagree with anything I have listed below, feel free to speak up.

Here is what I have so far:

Buildings (For Civ-specific building changes scroll further):
- Castles now obsolete with Corporation instead of Economics
- Recycling Center takes 250 to produce instead of 300 (sounds like a good building on paper, but it'll generally wipe away no more than 2 or 3 unhealthiness)

Greece:
- Phalanx start with Formation (+25% vs. Mounted units), and receives an additional +75% against Chariots specifically (replaces previous effects).

Japan:
- Changed Shale Plant building to [Kabuki Theater or Water Garden/Koi Pond - unsure of stats as of yet].

Khmer:
- Baray now adds 2 food instead of 1.
- I want to change the unique unit (Ivory is too rare), but don't know what to change it to. Suggestions?

Arabia:
- Camel Archer now has 20% withdraw rate (instead of 15%) and has a +20% attack and defense bonus in Desert tiles.

Russia:
- Cossacks start with the Sentry promotion (in addition to previous effects).

Spain:
- Conquistadors start with Mobility (in addition to previous effects).

I'd like to give America at least one earlier unique, though I'm not sure what that should be (and that's difficult anyway given how they're a young civilization and all).

These are just ideas... actually implementing them is a whole different story (though I doubt it'll be too hard).

the worst UU/UB combo is to the native americans. they have to research 3 techs to get maximal benefit, and by that time their soldiers are usually obselete and only their archers matter.

the worst all around UB? i would have to say the aquaduct UB is worthless.

i also think the UU dog soldier is kinda worthless, and the elephant is definitely a wild card, but as pointed out in many threads, it kind of needs the ivory pre-req.

thadian said:

the worst UU/UB combo is to the native americans. they have to research 3 techs to get maximal benefit, and by that time their soldiers are usually obselete and only their archers matter.

the worst all around UB? i would have to say the aquaduct UB is worthless.

i also think the UU dog soldier is kinda worthless, and the elephant is definitely a wild card, but as pointed out in many threads, it kind of needs the ivory pre-req.

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Any suggestions on how to improve the Dog Soldier (like reducing production cost by 5) or the Totem Pole?

Aquaduct UB... there are two: The Hammam (Ottoman; +2 happiness), and the Baray (Khmer; +1 food). I imagine you mean the latter. Would it providing +2 food make it much better?

Thanks for your opinions!

For buildings, I'd say some of the later ones like bomb shelters should be improved (maybe give extra espionage or happiness or something?) Those I never build.

For units, ironclads are usually pretty useless as well. Most games destroyers come too early for ironclads to really have much other uses.

For UU, I wouldn't call conquistadors weak. Their +50% against melee means that they easily beat pikemen, their main counter. And getting defensive bonuses means you can leave them and fortify them in a city. They're not the strongest one, but they're definitely not weak.

For the dog soldier, what about giving it 2 moves as well? You still mostly wouldn't be able to use it in a rush, but at least it would become a more potent defensive unit. The totem pole, I don't know what to give it. Giving it +5 like the citadel gives would probably make it too powerful, since then Sitting Bull could get D4 longbows or crossbows running only theocracy or vassalage. Maybe giving it +3XP, and making it give 2 culture instead of 1? That would at least give slightly faster border pops.

The only other unit I never build are explorers. They're really only useful in a terra map. And even then, not that I play Terra maps, but at that point, the barbs will start having fairly strong units. Even giving them +100% defense against barbarians means they'll be sturdy enough to survive any onslaught they'd be likely to face.

That's all I can think of for now.

The problem with the dog soldier is its low strength. Against a normal axeman it only has a small .5 strength advantage (after its modifier). It is completely worthless against other units. I would suggest that the dog soldier would come with Cover/Formation/Shock.This would give the dog soldier 125% vs Melee, 25% vs Archers and 25% vs mounted. It would basically make the dog soldier slightly better vs Melee and equally as good as a vanilla axeman vs other units. The downfall would be an axeman has the chance to be better with experience but the dog soldier is born better.

Bonescorpion said:

The problem with the dog soldier is its low strength. Against a normal axeman it only has a small .5 strength advantage (after its modifier). It is completely worthless against other units.

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It's excellent also against normal Swordmen and the best counter to Praetorians in its era.

thadian said:

the worst UU/UB combo is to the native americans.
i also think the UU dog soldier is kinda worthless

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IMO it's a good UU on emp+ -levels and maps that have significant amount of barbs. It gives a good barb defense without need to connect Bronze/Horses or tech Archery ASAP. This can be a nice economical benefit.

Bonescorpion said:

The problem with the dog soldier is its low strength. Against a normal axeman it only has a small .5 strength advantage (after its modifier). It is completely worthless against other units. I would suggest that the dog soldier would come with Cover/Formation/Shock.This would give the dog soldier 125% vs Melee, 25% vs Archers and 25% vs mounted. It would basically make the dog soldier slightly better vs Melee and equally as good as a vanilla axeman vs other units. The downfall would be an axeman has the chance to be better with experience but the dog soldier is born better.

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you subtract multipliers when attacking, meaning that the dog soldier would get a 50% bonus against the axeman (100% against melee from DS - 50% against melee from axeman), meaning it would be 6 vs 5 str in favor of the dog soldier. and worthless against other units? it still gets its 100% bonus against swordsmen and spears. plus it fights evenly with praetorians. pretty good, if you ask me.

the dog soldier becomes much stronger the higher difficulty; the ability to know you will have barb defenses no matter what is unbeatable.

+2 food, that's a free specialist. The Baray is strong enough as it is. +1 food is huge.
The only other UB I can thinks of that provides you with a free specialists is the French, and that is an artist, this is half a specialists or a free pre-bio farm so it also can be used for growth (the same net growth as a citizen working a grassland farm, quite good I'd say).
Their UU could use some tweaking though. A resource free regular elephant would be awesome, though perhaps a bit overpowered. Otherwise, give it some anti siege to beef it up. It's useless in SP, or rather, it's not really better than the regular elephant, in MP however, it's fantastic (because warfare is run on siege, and mounted units are used to counter those).

Both the aqueduct UBs are fantastic. Food or happy? Yes please!

The Native Americans uniques are for defence, not for offence. Which means that for most human players, they are useless. The dog soldier is a decent stack protector, but little else and the totem pole is a nice addition to it's archers, but if a human have to resort to his archers, then he/she is in trouble. Wars are won on the offence, and a counter attack with siege units is IMHO always preferred.
If you want to make those better, make the dog soldier more offensive.

It's pretty much impossible to balance things across the board.

If you play at a level where a rush is practical most of the time you might prefer no UU at all to Dog Soldiers. If you play on a high level with Aggressive AIs and Raging Barbarians you might rate it very highly.



Most of the changes referred to in the opening post make things worse rather than better. Uncounterable Phalanxes that will utterly smash anyone without metal (rather than simply making their life hell)? A Baray that will be an incredible production boost in filler cities that make the most out of low-size whipping?
Conquistadors are the only offensive unit that can defend well and take out siege. They also wtfpwn what would normally be their only reliable counter (cuirassiers can be beelined EXTREMELY well so Rifles aren't an issue and ivory is rare). Now they are supposed get better speed thrown in so they can reliably take down 3 civilizations before the AI can catch up?

In my opinion, the natives should have the ashi bowman instead of the dog soldier. the current owners of the ashi bowman would be given a sling-wielder.

otherwise, the natives tech could be worked to start with one of the 2 techs:

mysticism
hunting

natives werent farmers, they were hunters. i understand they shouldn't start with both because they could research archery for a rush. but they should start with one of the 2 techs OR have an archer UU. one or the other would be great.

the problem is not the unit, its the civ. lets have ceasar start with pottery and mysticism, lets have Saladin start with fishing and agriculture. get my point?

If the natives started with hunting, OR mysticism (they were tribes of spiritual hunters) they would be much better, maybe even playable without adjusting the dog warrior. for many reasons they should NOT start with both, but at least one of them.

The American UU could be the Minuteman. The problem being it should really be a musket man unit for accuracy, but because the Redcoat was made a rifleman, no musket based unit can stand up to it. So either a musket or a rifle. Give it maybe Guerrilla I and Woodsman I to start. The UB should be the Town Hall, which would replace the courthouse and give +1 Happiness and -75% maintenance.

As things stand right now, the American UU and UB are so worthless I won't even consider playing one of them.

the navy seal is good in its era, and the mall is also good in its era. but at that point in the game, your not going to spam grocers just so you can place malls, and the navy seal isn't THAT much better than the marine. i mean sure it is, but... it would be better if the seal could have extra movement point. SOMETHING, as of now it is barely different aside from the graphic.

for the modern era, the american, germans and japanese are all potent but the germans are the best.

Edit: Civ3 was so much better for america, with a unique jet. then again the AI hardly uses air combat anyway and always beelines rocketry.

Cutlass said:

The American UU could be the Minuteman. The problem being it should really be a musket man unit for accuracy, but because the Redcoat was made a rifleman, no musket based unit can stand up to it. So either a musket or a rifle. Give it maybe Guerrilla I and Woodsman I to start. The UB should be the Town Hall, which would replace the courthouse and give +1 Happiness and -75% maintenance.

As things stand right now, the American UU and UB are so worthless I won't even consider playing one of them.

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When i put in a 2nd uu, i used a significantly cheaper musket for the american uu. It also has Guerilla I. The Redcoat was used for hundreds of years, so it can be flexible.

However, the navy seal is awesome, even if it comes so late. However, the big problem is the Town Hall you suggest. It would just be a clone of the Rauthus, with a bonus to happiness.

thadian said:

the navy seal is good in its era, and the mall is also good in its era. but at that point in the game, your not going to spam grocers just so you can place malls, and the navy seal isn't THAT much better than the marine. i mean sure it is, but... it would be better if the seal could have extra movement point. SOMETHING, as of now it is barely different aside from the graphic.

for the modern era, the american, germans and japanese are all potent but the germans are the best.

Edit: Civ3 was so much better for america, with a unique jet. then again the AI hardly uses air combat anyway and always beelines rocketry.

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2 first strikes and march is barely different? No way. Imagine if that came on a unit that had utility before the last 10-20% of the game, it'd be one of the best UUs ever.

Rating the dog soldier poorly is iffy, it's the #1 anti barb unit guarantee and will protect vs rushes too. It's also an extremely powerful choke unit.

Baray is already good. I put the ballista elephant out of the game entirely or give it some first strikes or something so that it's actually more useful than a normal elephant in more than 2% of games or so. The bowman is pretty weak too.

Edit: I'd love to see an ocean worthy ironclad UU.

mechaerik said:

When i put in a 2nd uu, i used a significantly cheaper musket for the american uu. It also has Guerilla I. The Redcoat was used for hundreds of years, so it can be flexible.

However, the navy seal is awesome, even if it comes so late. However, the big problem is the Town Hall you suggest. It would just be a clone of the Rauthus, with a bonus to happiness.

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Then give it the -50% maintenance and +2 happy. I can't think of anything else that's more notably American.

And the SEAL might be cool, but it comes so late, and is so much little better than a Marine, there's really no point to it.

The SEAL is alot better than marines. Try a modern start game as the Septics aiming for conquest with tanks and SEALs and see for yourself.

thadian said:

the navy seal is good in its era, and the mall is also good in its era. but at that point in the game, your not going to spam grocers just so you can place malls,

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Sure you are. By that point in the game you should be spamming factories and coal plants everywhere as soon as possible. And that'll create unhealthiness problems, and grocers/supermarkets are the best health buildings you can build!

Also malls are really great, but it's true that the game is unfortunately decided way before they're relevant. Though they sure helped that one time where I had to defy the U.N. twice to keep my civics.

Conquistadors are ridiculously powerful as it is; they don't need any buffing.

Bowmen are pretty Meh, but the human isn't really going to value an Archery UU anyway.

I'm pretty happy with most of the UU's already. I think the only dud, like pretty much everyone, is the Ballista Elephant.

bestbrian said:

Conquistadors are ridiculously powerful as it is; they don't need any buffing.

Bowmen are pretty Meh, but the human isn't really going to value an Archery UU anyway.

I'm pretty happy with most of the UU's already. I think the only dud, like pretty much everyone, is the Ballista Elephant.

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during last nights game i beat back a invasion of conquistadors by iszzy with my calvary.

Cutlass said:

The American UU could be the Minuteman. The problem being it should really be a musket man unit for accuracy, but because the Redcoat was made a rifleman, no musket based unit can stand up to it. So either a musket or a rifle. Give it maybe Guerrilla I and Woodsman I to start. The UB should be the Town Hall, which would replace the courthouse and give +1 Happiness and -75% maintenance.

As things stand right now, the American UU and UB are so worthless I won't even consider playing one of them.

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the minuteman is a good idea but i keep the mall.