The UU-A-Day Countdown

With 28 days left until Civ5, and 27 unique units in the game*, it seems like a good time to start a one-a-day UU countdown until release. It'll give a thread to discuss each UU in turn, as they're far more interesting than Civ4's (no more "+25% against <type>" Muskets!) and if nothing else, it'll pass the time until release.

Unless otherwised noted, all information comes from AriochIV's excellent site, TheMystic, Azazell, and ltarmstrong3.

Today's UU is the French Foreign Legion, an upgraded Modern Infantry. Historically formed in 1831 as a way to bring non-French nationals into the French army, the Foreign Legion is legendary for its tenacity (famously fighting to the literal last three men in the Battle of Camaron) and the rigorousness of its training. Fittingly enough, the Civ5 Foreign Legion gets a bonus to fighting outside of friendly territory, representing their use in non-domestic combat.

Operationally, the use of the Foreign Legion at first appears offensive: declare war, send out your Legionnaires, and enjoy their bonus over other Infantry. If two lines of Infantry/Artillery run into each other, the Foreign Legion could very well give the edge to the French general in breaking through lines. Similarly, if another player declares war on France, a line of Foreign Legion would make for an excellent forward defense. The best kind of enemy invasions are the ones that never make it to your borders, and the Foreign Legion specializes in that. Their pre-requisite tech, Replaceable Parts, only requires Steam Power; if Ancien Regime still ends with Steam Power, going right for Replaceable Parts will certainly make the transition out of free culture easier.

*The reason I'm off by one day (other than "ShaqFu can't count") is because I'll need a day off this coming Saturday for a convention.

The Countdown

Day 28: The Foreign Legion
Day 27: The Legion
Day 26: The Chu-Ko-Nu
Day 25: The Sipahi
Day 24: The Minuteman
Day 23: Day Off!
Day 22: The Samurai
Day 21: The War Chariot
Day 20: The Naresuan's Elephant
Day 19: The Camel Archer
Day 18: The Longbowman
Day 17: The Landsknecht
Day 16: The Janissary
Day 15: The Zero
Day 14: The Immortal
Day 13: The Companion Cavalry
Day 12: The Hoplite
Day 11: The Jaguar
Day 10: The Musketeer
Day 9: The Mohawk Warrior
Day 8: The Panzer
Day 7: The Ballista
Day 6: The War Elephant
Day 5: The B-17
Day 4: The Cossack
Day 3: The Mandekalu Cavalry
Day 2: The Ship of the Line

The Foreign Legion makes them good for warefare and combines well with Napoelon´s style in terms of the AI.

Seems very useful for the idea of a French Player that gets a mid-sized empire with lots of SP bonuses, and then pushes forward.

I can definitely see a lot of French player having the 'Honor' Tree finished out before Steam power to give them good Foreign Legions.

Krikkitone said:

I can definitely see a lot of French player having the 'Honor' Tree finished out before Steam power to give them good Foreign Legions.

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Steam Power also unlocks the Industrial Era, and with it, Autocracy. An Honor-boosted, Autocracy-driven Foreign Legion formation would be rather fearsome...

ShaqFu said:

Steam Power also unlocks the Industrial Era, and with it, Autocracy. An Honor-boosted, Autocracy-driven Foreign Legion formation would be rather fearsome...

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Will be interesting to see how that plays out. With the per city bonus that the French get, adopting the Liberty branch would be a natural choice to spam more and better cities, but that branch is incompatible with the Autocracy branch and we still don't know if you can actually switch.

Still, we're talking about helping the Foreign Legion.

It's an interesting ability. Assuming all things being equal tech-wise, it gives you an advantage if you are the attacker, but it doesn't necessarily penalize you for being on the defensive (it just makes you generic). Generally, however, you will try to keep the fight out of your territory at all costs. It's also the only Infantry replacement and one of only a couple modern UUs, so it'll keep the French relevant late into the game.

I could imagine using FFL's as an expeditionary force. land em behind enemy lines and let 'em rip the hell out of the enemy's resources.

It does seriously encourage the French to have large scale Industrial/Modern War(s) for either Conquest win or mass territory acquisition for a Space Race Win.

ShaqFu said:

...Operationally, the use of the Foreign Legion at first appears offensive: declare war, send out your Legionnaires, and enjoy their bonus over other Infantry. If two lines of Infantry/Artillery run into each other, the Foreign Legion could very well give the edge to the French general in breaking through lines.

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Most, if not all, civs will have picked up the 33% bonus for fighting on their own territory from Tradition, so going straight up against infantry won't be good odds.
Of course, we don't know what the Foreign Legion bonus is.

ShaqFu said:

...Similarly, if another player declares war on France, a line of Foreign Legion would make for an excellent forward defense. The best kind of enemy invasions are the ones that never make it to your borders, and the Foreign Legion specializes in that. Their pre-requisite tech, Replaceable Parts, only requires Steam Power; if Ancien Regime still ends with Steam Power, going right for Replaceable Parts will certainly make the transition out of free culture easier.

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On defense then they'll get the Tradition bonus! (Unless the savvy human player skipped it, figuring the AI could not mount a credible attack.)

I think the french foriegn legion, has a nice ability that will encorage napoleon to be on the offensive, and attack other civs, or if he's on the defensive, to push back as hard as he can.

I do not think that the Foreign Legion is gonna be the most powerful unit in the game or even OP but its the only UU that replaces the infantry right? And it comes right after the Musketer with its 4str bonus, which makes any war during that era against france a pain in the ass cause of one UU after another. I to be honest thinks haveing 2 UU's after eachother is better when 2 in the same era.

Imagen starting a war with musketers and end it with Foreign Legion that will be epic and half of the world will probly be yours.

whipflash said:

I do not think that the Foreign Legion is gonna be the most powerful unit in the game or even OP but its the only UU that replaces the infantry right? And it comes right after the Musketer with its 4str bonus, which makes any war during that era against france a pain in the ass cause of one UU after another. I to be honest thinks haveing 2 UU's after eachother is better when 2 in the same era.

Imagen starting a war with musketers and end it with Foreign Legion that will be epic and half of the world will probly be yours.

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They're not immediately consecutive; the Rifleman is between them.

I think its odd that the Foreign Legion is an Infantry replacement rather than a Riflemen replacement, if the whole intent was to encourage Napoleonic era conquests. Its very odd for the French UU to be in the 20th century, when historic French power was more medieval->Napoleon.

I would think that superb chivalric knights, or Levee en Masse/Grande Armee Napoleonic riflemen would make more sense as Fren UUs.

It would be very thematic for a rifleman replacement to have a bonus in foreign territory. Less so for an Infantry replacement, since every modern war the French fought was a defensive one: Franco-Prussian, WWI, WW2, Algeria, Vietnam.....

Foreign Legion sounds really intense. Decisive wars are fought on the offensive so it's like having a boost to a mainline unit. I'd guess the main use would be in WWI style combat where massive amounts of infantry and artillery would be used before anyone gets more advanced tanks or planes. Though it might be a short window since Flight and Combustion are only one tech away from Replaceable Parts.

They also seem to prefer giving the major powers 2 UUs

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China? Russia? India?

Not sure we can make that much of a blanket claim.

Anyway, having two UUs which immediately follow each other and which upgrade into each other seems simply too powerful

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Probably. But the height of French military might is medieval and Napoleonic, not 17th and 20th centuries.

It also full-fills the "oooh, I've heard of this before!" criteria.

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This is 95% of the reason for the choice.
And Musketeers are there for Three Musketeer purposes.

But of course, those are early 17th century guys, not Napoleonic. Nearly 200 years difference.

I would have liked to see Ultimo Ratio Regum make an appearance, a la CivRev, but c'est la vie.

27 days left, and 26 more UUs to go! For today, we'll look to the namesake of the French Foreign Legion and go back 2000 years to the Roman Legion, a Civ favorite. Past Civ games have seen the Legionary (+1 defense) and the Praetorian (+2 strength), and Civ5 continues this tradition with a Swordsman upgrade. The Legion was the backbone of arguably the finest military of antiquity, renown for its effectiveness in combat, organization, and ubiquity across the European frontier. Fittingly, the Civ5 Legion gets +2 strength (13) over Swordsmen (11), giving it a crucial edge in early wars. Furthermore, as the Legions were renown for their engineering prowess (many Roman roads/bridges still being in use today), their in-game version builds Roads and Forts as if it were a Worker.

The strength bonus hearkens back to the Roman UUs of old, where Legionaries/Praetorians ruled ancient combat; while it's unlikely that Civ5 will bring back the dreaded "Praet Rush," the Legion will certainly have the edge in classical warfare. Paired with Rome's other UU, the Legion makes up half of one of the two most fearsome classical formations, and not something a neighboring civ would like to deal with early. A beeline to Iron Working will certainly pay off for the Roman general. Their second bonus, fort/road building, is tougher to judge; it allows for the Roman player to easily establish a guarded frontier, and may allow for Legion/Worker stacking for quick roads. Given the number of techs needed for Engineering after an Iron beeline (6, not counting Mining), it appears to be more useful as a post-invasion ability: take out a neighboring civ, then establish Forts/hook up cities to get your empire online again. Engineering is only 3 techs away from Mathematics+Iron Working, so the Fort-building isn't completely out of the Legion's relevant age.

The European powers tend to have two specific UUs, such as "Foreign Legion" or "Landschnecht", and the other ones have very general UU's and UB's such as "Papermaker" or "War Elephant".

The French will be able to dominate by grabbing land early all the while social policy-ing up for late game domination, and then going crazy with their unique units.

The Foreign Legion seems like an excellent UU. It's a bit weird how the French will be grabbing up Honor and Autocracy for late game bonuses, but whatever. We'll have to see how it measures up to all the other UUs.

EDIT: Looks like you just posted the most recent one, I'll go ahead and comment on it.

The legion looks very good. Obviously not as insane as Praets now that one point is worth less and you have ranged attacks to deal with, but it will still give the romans somewhat of an edge in early combat. I'd argue that beelining isn't a good idea, since you'll need to have quite an economy to support it. You need to connect enough iron to train an army, which takes time and road maintenance, and then build up and maintain that army without much development. And without researching and using other military techs you will be a sitting duck against range. I'd say the legion is a good unit, but will likely be used as part of a Classical Age war machine than a rush. The Romans aren't a crazy pillaging civ like the Mongols in Civ4- they need to support their military with an economy and vice versa. Though their UA will certainly help them do that.

I'm gonna love this UU. Put up some forts with garrisons at a chokepoint with some ranged units behind the forts. That would make a mean defense.

Maybe Legoins can build forts even if you don't have Engineering yet, although I don't think we have confirmation one way or the other.

The fort and road building abilities are going to be awesome! I always thought it would be a cool ability for the Legions to have. I wonder if the forts could be used effectively for sieges like at the Battle of Alesia?