Underrated UUs/UBs

[Calouste]

Odeon. 3 extra and 2 extra Artist slots mean that you can culture flip cities and juicy resource tiles at 2 distance (specially of course with Pericles) before the AI can get any cultural resistance up with Drama.

[Antilogic]

Originally Posted by Calouste

Odeon. 3 extra and 2 extra Artist slots mean that you can culture flip cities and juicy resource tiles at 2 distance (specially of course with Pericles) before the AI can get any cultural resistance up with Drama.

The Odeon was obviously designed as a theatre replacement, and thus gives a huge number of benefits, and was then switched at the last moment to a Colosseum. The result is you get a double theatre plus extra happiness, which is just an awesome bonus. Combined with Philosophical for multiple Great Artists, the Greeks are my favorite civ for culture victories.

[naterator]

am I the only one who likes east indiamen? They are rarely even mentioned on these boards, but they are a galleon that fights like a privateer (6 strength), carries as much troops as transports, and can explore rival turf like caravels.
Situational, yes. Map dependant, yes. But you have a nice option of building less ships for the invasion, or building more units to go in the usual number of ships.
And of course being financial and creative with a production boosting UB is nice too.

[FriendoftheDork]

Originally Posted by TheMeInTeam

Their better ability is anti-melee (pikes are pretty weak there). No true counter until rifles and even defensive abilities makes them impressive.

They don't have good synergy with the UB though, since with the UB you will want siege and with siege you forgo the powerful 2move advantage of the UU.

I thought the citadel was rated decently but if not then it is underrated too. Even if you blow right by the spanish UU, engineering is easy enough to trade for and with a UB like this one can be tempted to go steel/avoid economics for a long time. CR III siege is strong enough to encourage using it as the primary tool of destruction.

Citadel can be realistically carried until arty/rifle/machine gun quits working (well you COULD go all the way to flight but there's no point as the UB does nothing there). Corp is a pre-req on AL so you'll need it then. I like infantry and factory/power very much so this tech path deviation is hard for me though I'm willing to do it in spain's case.

I think I'm a sucker for castles - I seem to think that if all my cities don't have them I've failed somehow :/
With Spain is a no brainer, but even with other civs I often do castle+TGL+TC for a very nice trade for my often coastal cities, and always go the Steel route if I can.

Of course when it is time I go for AL just like everyone else but not before I feel I need to and by that time I have a sizable army of Artillery.

I've even modded the game to allow castles to last longer, having them obsolete by Artillery instead. I just hate giving up the trade route to get free market so that after the revolution I gain nothing And when I get Corporation I even lose out because of TGL.

Besides walls and castles are cheap with stone so they're easy to build IMO.

[Antilogic]

Originally Posted by naterator

am I the only one who likes east indiamen? They are rarely even mentioned on these boards, but they are a galleon that fights like a privateer (6 strength), carries as much troops as transports, and can explore rival turf like caravels.
Situational, yes. Map dependant, yes. But you have a nice option of building less ships for the invasion, or building more units to go in the usual number of ships.
And of course being financial and creative with a production boosting UB is nice too.

The additional troop-carrying capacity is nice, but they still get chewed up by frigates and ships of the line. I typically have my maps made by the time galleons come around (after all, that's what caravels are for...so that benefit doesn't help me at all).

I like the Dutch traits and the UB is pretty solid. If I decide to play the Dutch, it's for other reasons than their UU.

[TheLazyHase]

Originally Posted by Antilogic

The additional troop-carrying capacity is nice, but they still get chewed up by frigates and ships of the line. I typically have my maps made by the time galleons come around (after all, that's what caravels are for...so that benefit doesn't help me at all).

Well, building 25% less transport to make more escort is definitely solid, and they are not chewed by frigate and ship of the line. Actually, escoring full Est Indiamer with empty East Indiamer work pretty well if you can have the number with you - after attacking a 6 strength boat usually they need to heal up, and you can then destroy them.

[naterator]

Originally Posted by Antilogic

The additional troop-carrying capacity is nice, but they still get chewed up by frigates and ships of the line. I typically have my maps made by the time galleons come around (after all, that's what caravels are for...so that benefit doesn't help me at all).

I like the Dutch traits and the UB is pretty solid. If I decide to play the Dutch, it's for other reasons than their UU.

It's certainly not a game changer, i wouldn't bring it up in a thread about best UU's, but the extra strength and troop capacity means more troops being sent over and less ending up on the seafloor.
They have a 90% chance of sinking (or NOT being sunk by) galleons and have a 50/50 survival rate vs privateers instead of 10%. Plus their odds against a frigate are 21%, whereas a galleon is >1%; which still probably won't save you, but it really increases the odds of getting lucky with a few. And caravels have a 21% chance of sinking a galleon, >1% of sinking an east indiaman.
If frigates are around, you're probably going to send some escorts of your own, but i've seen some surprisingly large AI frigate stacks (or frigate/caravel stacks usually), so having the odds improved significantly is a nice boost. Even if overmatched, if it can save the next ship (and the units within) it's not a waste, though i admit that by the time you're worrying about this, the invasion has probably failed anyway, but it's nice to get some home.

I agree it's not the reason to pick the dutch, like most underrated UU/UB's, but for no extra hammers, they're certainly nice to have. (even if the explore territory ability is pretty useless)

[mechaerik]

I like East Indiamen. When I play Hemispheres, they are quite useful. I can sail them up to the coast, declare war, then dump my troops. At 6 they are also amazing if you have a decent tech lead. Most of the time, my enemies are still using triremes and caravels and such when my stack lands.

[Antilogic]

Originally Posted by naterator

They have a 90% chance of sinking (or NOT being sunk by) galleons and have a 50/50 survival rate vs privateers instead of 10%. Plus their odds against a frigate are 21%, whereas a galleon is >1%; which still probably won't save you, but it really increases the odds of getting lucky with a few. And caravels have a 21% chance of sinking a galleon, >1% of sinking an east indiaman.

In reference to TheLazyHase above, this is why I say they still get chewed up by frigates: 1 in 5 is not a good chance of survival. While it's true that more of them will survive a frigate attack than galleons, bear in mind each one potentially has more units aboard and thus each time you lose it is more costly.

If frigates are around, you're probably going to send some escorts of your own, but i've seen some surprisingly large AI frigate stacks (or frigate/caravel stacks usually), so having the odds improved significantly is a nice boost. Even if overmatched, if it can save the next ship (and the units within) it's not a waste, though i admit that by the time you're worrying about this, the invasion has probably failed anyway, but it's nice to get some home.

I agree it's not the reason to pick the dutch, like most underrated UU/UB's, but for no extra hammers, they're certainly nice to have. (even if the explore territory ability is pretty useless)

Oddly enough, since I tend to see so many AI frigate stacks, I tend to avoid direct amphibious landings. Instead, I sign open borders with a third-party Civ on the continent I'm attacking, and then unload a load or two of troops in their borders under the auspices of peace, and then launch my attack. The only time this doesn't work is if the entire continent has been conquered/vassalized by a single AI, a rarity in the games I've played. In other cases, I'm playing Pangaea, and naval invasions are thus unnecessary.

I can't argue with your final line--although I think that applies to most, if not all, unique units--they are nice to have.

[TheLazyHase]

Yes, they have 20% chance to survive. And a great chance to leave a wounded frigate or ship-of-the-line, unable to sink other ship for some time. In this regard, they work as escort, and if you put the same hammer in your navy you will lose less - less chance per boat, and the first is likely to be empty.

I would add that if you have to sink a bunch of ship-of-the-line, IIRC they are the second best choice : better than frigate for lake of malus, and cheaper than privateer. But that's nitpicking, SotL are among the more useless unit of CivIV

[Antilogic]

Originally Posted by TheLazyHase

Yes, they have 20% chance to survive. And a great chance to leave a wounded frigate or ship-of-the-line, unable to sink other ship for some time. In this regard, they work as escort, and if you put the same hammer in your navy you will lose less - less chance per boat, and the first is likely to be empty.

I would add that if you have to sink a bunch of ship-of-the-line, IIRC they are the second best choice : better than frigate for lake of malus, and cheaper than privateer. But that's nitpicking, SotL are among the more useless unit of CivIV

So let's do a quick calculation with average values (admittedly not good with such a small sample size, but still): (1) 5 frigates attack 5 indiamen carrying 20 units against (2) 5 frigates attacking 7 galleons carrying 21 units (numbers chosen because they were close).

In (1), we expect to lose four out of the five attacks, meaning we lose 4 indiamen and 16 units. In (2), we expect to lose all five battles, which means we lose 5 galleons and 15 units. Total unit loss is the same, and hammer loss is going to depend on the identity of that last unit against the hammer cost of the galleon, which is not likely to skew the results significantly. I might value my land units more because they are more likely to have good promotions (after all, nobody likes losing their elite troops with 4+ promos), so I actually might be more angered by the situation in (1) than (2).

Is it possible you could get lucky and have two or more indiamen survive? Sure. The probability for that to happen can be calculated by .21^2 + .21^3 + .21^4 + .21^5 (for the miracle), which is roughly 5.57%.

Your point with empty ships is good, but an empty galleon serves the same purpose of absorbing an enemy attack so your others can drop off their troops. And if you need to absorb attacks for multiple rounds so your forces can land, who planned this attack, what were they smoking, and where can I get some?

[Calouste]

Using antilogic's example 5 East Indiamen instead of 7 Galleons means you can build 2 more frigates to defend your fleet, which also gives you some extra capacity to bombard city defenses.

If you do beeline Astronomy, you can use East Indiamen to start a sea war, beating up your opponent's Caravels, destroying their fishing boats and blockading their trade routes. As naterator pointed out, there is little they can do to East Indiamen. Makes me wonder how effective it is to beeline Astronomy really early, forgoing the Liberalism beeline altogether. In the end you only need Optics and Calendar. You could severely cripple an opponent's seafood heavy capital for a few centuries.

[Badtz Maru]

Originally Posted by mechaerik

I like East Indiamen. When I play Hemispheres, they are quite useful. I can sail them up to the coast, declare war, then dump my troops.

THIS. Being able to deliver your troops right to the enemies shore BEFORE declaring war gives a great advantage in surprise attacks when the enemy has cities that are not within one turn's sailing of their cultural borders.

[Antilogic]

Originally Posted by Calouste

Using antilogic's example 5 East Indiamen instead of 7 Galleons means you can build 2 more frigates to defend your fleet, which also gives you some extra capacity to bombard city defenses.

If you do beeline Astronomy, you can use East Indiamen to start a sea war, beating up your opponent's Caravels, destroying their fishing boats and blockading their trade routes. As naterator pointed out, there is little they can do to East Indiamen. Makes me wonder how effective it is to beeline Astronomy really early, forgoing the Liberalism beeline altogether. In the end you only need Optics and Calendar. You could severely cripple an opponent's seafood heavy capital for a few centuries.

...what? 5 Indiamen instead of 7 galleons? Did I read that right?

This was an example solely to show that using East Indiamen as transports doesn't necessarily save your land armies (or hammers spent on land units) if your transports are attacked by frigates. Either way, you lose about the same number of units. While it is true that with the extra production you could have built frigates, if an enemy navy is attacking your fleet you should have built a proper navy anyway.

Also, I'm pretty sure frigates are more expensive than galleons.

I'd like to see a game where you try to pull off this Astro beeline (literally get Calendar and Optics as soon as possible and then start on Astro, trading for the rest). My gut feeling says your sea war idea isn't going to do as much damage as you think it will. After all, it requires you to target an AI with a seafood capital and who is behind in technology, the target AI can still trade overland, and you aren't destroying his strategic resources like iron and such so he can still fight effectively on the land.

If anything, you will tempt the AI into building masses of useless ships, but you can do that with ordinary privateers.

Originally Posted by Badtz Maru

THIS. Being able to deliver your troops right to the enemies shore BEFORE declaring war gives a great advantage in surprise attacks when the enemy has cities that are not within one turn's sailing of their cultural borders.

What's to stop you from using ordinary galleons to get up to your target's sea borders? Next turn, declare war and land your forces within one move. If you declare war with your Indiamen inside the enemy borders, they will be returned outside just like caravels are.

[naterator]

Well, it would have to be a really fantastic UU to warrant a true beeline that deep into the tech tree. No naval unit in the game deserves a beeline and this is no exception, i mean, what would you even put in them, crossbows? You WOULD be pretty unsinkable until someone got chemistry though, so if you wanted to be an archipelago war-monger it would be pretty sweet. Considering improvements over the unit it replaces, it has not one. not two, but three, so i think it deserves some love.

Originally Posted by Antilogic

If you declare war with your Indiamen inside the enemy borders, they will be returned outside just like caravels are.

Are you sure?

Those east indiamen will be out of luck if rostov is razed.

[Calouste]

Originally Posted by Antilogic

...what? 5 Indiamen instead of 7 galleons? Did I read that right?

Yep. 20 units in 5 East Indiamen, 21 units in 7 Galleons

Originally Posted by Antilogic

This was an example solely to show that using East Indiamen as transports doesn't necessarily save your land armies (or hammers spent on land units) if your transports are attacked by frigates. Either way, you lose about the same number of units. While it is true that with the extra production you could have built frigates, if an enemy navy is attacking your fleet you should have built a proper navy anyway.

Also, I'm pretty sure frigates are more expensive than galleons.

I just used the numbers for transport capacity (5 vs 7).

Frigates are only slightly more expensive than Galleons/East Indiamen (90 vs 80)

Originally Posted by Antilogic

I'd like to see a game where you try to pull off this Astro beeline (literally get Calendar and Optics as soon as possible and then start on Astro, trading for the rest).

You can bulb Astro if you have Calendar, Optics and Alphabet, and don't have a few other techs.

Originally Posted by Antilogic

My gut feeling says your sea war idea isn't going to do as much damage as you think it will. After all, it requires you to target an AI with a seafood capital and who is behind in technology, the target AI can still trade overland, and you aren't destroying his strategic resources like iron and such so he can still fight effectively on the land.

It will be interestng to try, I don't say it is a massively good allround strategy.
The idea would be mostly useful on an Archipelago map or something similar, that's quite obvious. But you are not going to fight him on the land, just cripple him and reap the gold from the blockade. Or if you are in isolation.

Originally Posted by Antilogic

If anything, you will tempt the AI into building masses of useless ships, but you can do that with ordinary privateers.

But you need Chemistry for Privateers, and that's 9 or 10 techs more than a Astronomy beeline.

[Badtz Maru]

Originally Posted by Antilogic

If you declare war with your Indiamen inside the enemy borders, they will be returned outside just like caravels are.

If this is ever true, it's only when you have open borders with an enemy when you declare war (but I didn't test that). Units that can enter another civs territory without open borders are not expelled when you declare war. I just tested this in Worldbuilder, I stuck a Caravel, an Indiamen, and a Privateer inside the cultural borders for another civilization and then declared war. All three remained in place.

[Antilogic]

Originally Posted by Calouste

I just used the numbers for transport capacity (5 vs 7).

Frigates are only slightly more expensive than Galleons/East Indiamen (90 vs 80)

All right, if you were launching your invasion with exactly 7 ships, then this might be an issue. The point I was trying to emphasize was that if you got caught with your pants down or if you were transferring troops mid-way through the war, using indiamen is not going to save more troops than using galleons. However, as I mentioned before, you better build more than a handful of ships for invasions if you suspect they have frigates.

You can bulb Astro if you have Calendar, Optics and Alphabet, and don't have a few other techs.

It will be interestng to try, I don't say it is a massively good allround strategy.
The idea would be mostly useful on an Archipelago map or something similar, that's quite obvious. But you are not going to fight him on the land, just cripple him and reap the gold from the blockade. Or if you are in isolation.

But you need Chemistry for Privateers, and that's 9 or 10 techs more than a Astronomy beeline.

I'll admit I'm a heavy pangaea player. But I don't think that changes the argument that its more effective to directly invade and take cities instead of a prolonged sea-siege.

Originally Posted by Badtz Maru

If this is ever true, it's only when you have open borders with an enemy when you declare war (but I didn't test that). Units that can enter another civs territory without open borders are not expelled when you declare war. I just tested this in Worldbuilder, I stuck a Caravel, an Indiamen, and a Privateer inside the cultural borders for another civilization and then declared war. All three remained in place.

I could have sworn they fixed this in a recent patch. But I suppose I'm wrong if you just tested it and it worked.

Even still, did you gain much over just waiting with your galleons on their sea-border for a turn so you have full maneuverability, and then declaring war and landing on your next turn?

[Badtz Maru]

Originally Posted by Antilogic

Even still, did you gain much over just waiting with your galleons on their sea-border for a turn so you have full maneuverability, and then declaring war and landing on your next turn?

Depends on the map. On a Pangaea map, all coastal cities are probably going to be within the movement range of a Galleon of the cultural border. On a more watery map, it is quite frequent to have a coastal city that is a long way from the borders. Even on a Pangaea with small islands it is possible, as you could build a city on an island off the shore of your city to push your borders further from it.

[Antilogic]

Originally Posted by Badtz Maru

Depends on the map. On a Pangaea map, all coastal cities are probably going to be within the movement range of a Galleon of the cultural border. On a more watery map, it is quite frequent to have a coastal city that is a long way from the borders. Even on a Pangaea with small islands it is possible, as you could build a city on an island off the shore of your city to push your borders further from it.

Can you just pick another landing site if you can't directly reach it in one turn? Or does this situation come up regularly where there is a veritable wall of barrier island cities preventing you from striking at any decent target (and I don't just mean the capital, I mean any decent coastal city that has good resources around it).

I guess I'm confused as to where this would be an issue. Do you have a screenshot from one of your games to show this situation occurring?