Atzec Jaguars suck!

Frostyboy

Frostyboy

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When comparing the different unique units the civs have received, Jaguars must be the worst. Just look at the stats.

Strength 5 (1 less than swordman), 25% jungle defence, no iron required.

Actually Jaguars have a lower defence than Swordmen in the jungle!!!

Jungle gives +50% defence anyway, so the total defence for swordmen in jungle is 6 x 1.50 = 9

Jaguars on the other hand get 75 % in total defence in jungle (50%+25%),
but because of the lower strength only end up with 5 x 1.75 = 8.75.

In addition to this the jaguar fights with 1/6 less strength than the swordman elsewhere (or when attacking in the jungle)

So is this major setback worth producing units without iron? I don't think so.

A more fair deal would have been 6 strength ad 50% jungle defence for a total of 12 when defending in their natural environment, and no iron needed.

Comments?
 
This has been discussed when the game came out. Depending on the circumstances, being able to produce units with strength 5 without any resources can be a huge advantage.

Also, keep in mind that Jaguars get an automatic Combat I promotion because of Monty's traits. So they never actually have strength 5, but 5.5.
 
Also keep in mind that the 1.52 patch reduced the cost of Jaguars to 35 hammers (so 5 less than swords, and 10 less than the now-45-hammer Praetorian Guards).
 
As Psyringe has said, this has been discussed. Try them the way Firaxis intended before complaining. The way they used them was to immediately build a barracks, beeline for iron working, build a stack of 10 or so jags and kill your neighbors who were doing things like building settlers and cities and neglecting their defenses. I've always killed of my nearest AI opponent with this strategy before they realized that I could be a threat. Against a human it might not work as well, but then again...
 
I couldn't first find a thread with this subject with Google.

@Psyringe: Still I think they are simply not good enough. At least they should have better jungle defence. If you don't have iron, you can develop axemen or horse archers since you probably get one of three resources.

@Oda: I did't know about the 35 cost in 1.52, so that makes it a bit better.

@warpstorm: This means you must play very agressive to have good use of them. The way you describe is quite extreme, but I can see your point :)
 
warpstorm said:
As Psyringe has said, this has been discussed. Try them the way Firaxis intended before complaining. The way they used them was to immediately build a barracks, beeline for iron working, build a stack of 10 or so jags and kill your neighbors who were doing things like building settlers and cities and neglecting their defenses. I've always killed of my nearest AI opponent with this strategy before they realized that I could be a threat. Against a human it might not work as well, but then again...
Click to expand...
Same tactic can work against some human players. the ones not used to MP games.
 
Frostyboy said:
When comparing the different unique units the civs have received, Jaguars must be the worst. Just look at the stats.

Strength 5 (1 less than swordman), 25% jungle defence, no iron required.

Actually Jaguars have a lower defence than Swordmen in the jungle!!!

Jungle gives +50% defence anyway, so the total defence for swordmen in jungle is 6 x 1.50 = 9

Jaguars on the other hand get 75 % in total defence in jungle (50%+25%),
but because of the lower strength only end up with 5 x 1.75 = 8.75.

In addition to this the jaguar fights with 1/6 less strength than the swordman elsewhere (or when attacking in the jungle)

So is this major setback worth producing units without iron? I don't think so.

A more fair deal would have been 6 strength ad 50% jungle defence for a total of 12 when defending in their natural environment, and no iron needed.

Comments?
Click to expand...

Absolute nonsense.

Given iron isn't a done deal for your Civilization to have a strength 5 unit, good in the jungle/forest and great against cities without requiring a link-up of a resource is very significant, in both multiplayer and singleplayer.

That you consider it puny shows only that you don't play ladder multiplayer and don't stretch yourself on singleplayer. When the NEED is there for a good unit and now with patch 1.52 very cheap as well without the need for a worker having gone out there and linked something up...THEN you'll appreciate the merits of the Jaguar. A worthy sequel to the Civ3 Aztec dangerman.

P.S In your calculation you missed out that the Aztecs come with aggressive so you have a 10% bonus to the Jaguar straight up.
 
You think Jaguar units suck? I thought so too at first, until I saw Montezuma declare war on me almost immediately after I found him (he seems to enjoy declaring war on everyone under the Sun). I was still defending my small towns with warriors as I was trying to push out stonehenge and other culture boosting improvements, figuring that the most I'll have to worry about is the occasional barbarian. Soon enough though, my innocent defending warriors found themselves being overrun by Jaguars. One restart later, I realized that even though Jaguars have a severely small window of advantage, those units are not to be trifled with very early on ingame, unless you are also going early warmongering.
 
OK, sorry I started this thread without searching good enough.

I can see your points now regarding early warfare - it is a specialication. I also concidered jaguar the best unit in civ3 (as long as the price was 10).
I am a bit fed up with warfare as I have only played for conquest victories in Civ3, and to be able to use the jaguars well, you have to be a savage in the beginning. Still they should be able to defend better than swordmen while in the jungle. Swordmen are still better there (9 vs 8.75) Give them 50%.
 
jaguars should replace axemen, when you have jaguars, opponent already have axes and kill them easily... I remember once Monty declared war on me with stack of jaguars(6-7 of them) ... just I killed them with my axes easily. +50% against melee units is jaguars big disadvantage. The only situation when they would be useful is when you have problems with barbarian warriors, but at time when you have iron working... usually barbs will kick you with axemen so jaguars will be dead meat.
 
Desert-Fox said:
jaguars should replace axemen, when you have jaguars, opponent already have axes and kill them easily...
Click to expand...

Not against the AI they won't. The AI likes to builds archers as defense and won't start on the the axes for quite a while (I can't say at the highest difficulty becuase I don't play there).
 
So why are we balancing units around an ai flaw rather than just doing the obvious and making ai research and build axemen earlier?:rolleyes:
 
Dracleath said:
So why are we balancing units around an ai flaw rather than just doing the obvious and making ai research and build axemen earlier?:rolleyes:
Click to expand...
Because then anybody who did NOT rush to swords would have a big economic and expansion advantage over the AI.
 
And yet this doesn't seem to happen in multiplayer games where people generally pick up bronze working as one of thier first 2 or 3 techs and build an axeman or two.

The ai should be getting BW early for chop rushing access alone if nothing else.


Edit: To make this clearer, in general picking up mining and bronze working early (the only reason I can think of putting it off would be to grab a religion) will make you expand and build your economy FASTER than not doing it.

Now of course there's a good chance they might not have copper in which case it makes sense to then grab archery ASAP, then switch to iron working or go for horses or whatever, but in that case generally they're still better off than they would be if they'd have gone straight to archery without access to chop rushing.

Especially since the AI starts with a worker and archer anyway.
 
Oda Nobunaga said:
Also keep in mind that the 1.52 patch reduced the cost of Jaguars to 35 hammers (so 5 less than swords, and 10 less than the now-45-hammer Praetorian Guards).
Click to expand...

You have a small mistake. Hammer cost doesnt work at the combat circumstance. Because Only Jaguar has an advantage when they build a lot.

For instance,

Let me guess, if your city has 10 hammers par turn, during the first 4-5 turns, they are 1 on 1.

after 10 turns (100 hammers), you have 2 Jaguars (not 3 Jaguars), your rival has 2 Praetorians. so 2 on 2.

after 100 turns (1,000 hammers) 28 Jaguars vs 22 Praetorians

Do you understand what I am trying to say? What is the combat result of "28 Jaguars vs 22 Praetorians"? who will be a winner?
 
Yushal said:
IMO, they should get free woodsman2.
Click to expand...

Why should the Jag get 3 free promotions? They already start with Combat I!
 
So in your point of view the only adventage is movement of Jaguars, right? (actually i hardly choose Aztec)
 
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