Why does Korea have worthless UU?

[Trackmaster]

I like their UA fine, but does anybody ever find any use for Turtle Ships or the Hwach'a?

Turtle Ship: The whole point of a Caravel is supposed to be to have a unit that specializes in map exploration once Navigation is researched. Everything about the unit is designed for exploration: its speed, withdrawal, cheapness, weakness, and timing. Why would I want a strong Ironclad-like unit when I'm trying to discover the map? I pretty much have to send horses out and manually tell them where to go until I discover Navigation. Then I'm pretty much skipping over the Turtles to go to Privateers. I could see the trade-off of really strong early melee ships if the AI actually used their navy or invaded with their navy regularly maybe. But still, nothing carries over for the promotions, so I really don't see why you don't wait for Ironclads if you want strong melee sea units.

Hwach'a: Why would I want a siege unit that's really strong against units other than buildings? I have the archers/gattling units for that. Or I would just use cavalry or infantry to wipe out the other units. Why commandeer my ability to attack cities for that? I know that Korea is a defensive civ, but I like to go on the offensive if I'm attacked by a hostile neighbor if I survive.

 

[binhthuy71]

The Turtle Ship's inability to enter ocean tiles makes it borderline annoying to me. Add to that the fact that it's two upgrades from being able to sail into ocean tiles and it just isn't worth the hammers.
You build Hawach'as because the firing animation is cool and then you upgrade them to Cannons ASAP.

 

[Cerilis]

Because their UA is very strong.

 

[phillipwyllie]

OP obvoiusly hasn't been on the recieving end from them

 

[Sclb]

If you play Korea and went for war, you will likely be an era ahead if you played a solid science game, so those UU will destroy whatever they hit anyway. Turtle ships don't need to enter ocean, since you can use privateers for the job at Navigation, which you will get anyways for frigate, so I don't see the problem with that. They're for tanking hits for frigates and capturing.

 

[binhthuy71]

If you play Korea and went for war, you will likely be an era ahead if you played a solid science game, so those UU will destroy whatever they hit anyway. Turtle ships don't need to enter ocean, since you can use privateers for the job at Navigation, which you will get anyways for frigate, so I don't see the problem with that. They're for tanking hits for frigates and capturing.

It's good to keep in mind that there are units which can bring down a city without siege weapons. Longbows, Cho-Nu-Kos, and H'wacha among them. Backing those with Frigate-class vessels can lead to mid-game fun on a water map.

 

[Matthew.]

Most of the UU's don't really work well with the meta, because war in general is frowned upon and the AI sucks at it.

In another world where you actually need more military than two crossbows for defense, what Korea has isn't terrible.

 

[beetle]

I know that Korea is a defensive civ...

That answers your question, no? It is about the theme.

Trebuchets are pretty terrible, so what is the harm of an alternative? It is pretty rare to send Trebuchets against cities, since XBs or cannons do the job so much better! OTOH, for defense, Trebuchets are worse than XB, but Hwach'a better than XB. So that is a decent enough niche to make them marginally useful.

I agree that the Turtle ship is a downgrade. It is rare to have coastal cities under threat until later in the game, and I really like unfogging the map with a couple caravels.

 

[inthesomeday]

In my experience turtle ships are better, as are Hwachas; the latter is as terrifying on defense as a cho ku no if not much more terrifying, and the former is strong enough with brute strength to slam cities and hold off ships of the line.

If you want to explore with caravels then you must be on a primarily ocean map or one in which the coast is important to your civilization, in which case navigation can't be terribly out of reason to research next. In which case sure you're maybe 10-15 turns later on exploration, but at the expense of having a monstrous defensive naval unit in a game where if there's any warfare at all it'll likely be naval.

If you want to conquer cities in the medieval you're likely not going to miss the trebuchet anyway. The Hwacha in my opinion is pretty much all around much better than the trebuchet without much backlash at all. The case could be made that the turtle ship loses exploratory capabilities but overall I think it more than makes up for it with the military advantage.

 

[Trackmaster]

In my experience turtle ships are better, as are Hwachas; the latter is as terrifying on defense as a cho ku no if not much more terrifying, and the former is strong enough with brute strength to slam cities and hold off ships of the line.

If you want to explore with caravels then you must be on a primarily ocean map or one in which the coast is important to your civilization, in which case navigation can't be terribly out of reason to research next. In which case sure you're maybe 10-15 turns later on exploration, but at the expense of having a monstrous defensive naval unit in a game where if there's any warfare at all it'll likely be naval.

If you want to conquer cities in the medieval you're likely not going to miss the trebuchet anyway. The Hwacha in my opinion is pretty much all around much better than the trebuchet without much backlash at all. The case could be made that the turtle ship loses exploratory capabilities but overall I think it more than makes up for it with the military advantage.

I like for my maps to be analogous to our world, so I usually do continents. Ergo, exploration is a must.

And somebody mentioned how Korea is strictly a defensive civilization. I pointed this out, but I also pointed out that in the higher levels, you'll probably need to take some cities too at some point. If I get betrayed and attacked, I like to push them back and take a city or two of theirs, just to create some buffer.

As a check-in, I actually made good use of the Hchawa last night, and I can see its value. I was betrayed by an attack from Rome, and I had never seen so many units sent. The tiles were filled as far as the eye can see with Legions and siege units. Through my strategy, units, spamming cheap Landsknechts, and the AI's dumbass-ery, I was able to hold them off, and then push back into their territory. The Hchawa were actually very pleasant to take their cities with. Their strength made them hard to bring down, and I could focus on clearing their units out before turning on the cities with them. I was able to take their city next to mine, raze it, take Rome (full of wonders), and then leave them a token small city in the north in Eskimo territory. I like to leave them at least one city to be trading partners with and so I'm not getting the big war mongering penalty.

 

[fau78]

According to Zigzagzigal's Guide, these UU are for defending. I never try Korean but I think it makes sense. If a player wants to pursue science, rather than disabling others to pursue science, he/she may want a small size troop. However, the AIs are real brutal in Civ 5 that even Gandhi will attack his weak friendly neighbours. So these huge strength UUs are helpful then.

Of course if you play offensively, they are useless generally. High mobility is the key for attacking in my perspective. Korean UUs are awkward.

 

[beetle]

…I also pointed out that in the higher levels, you'll probably need to take some cities too at some point.

I agree with your other points, but this is not correct. Yes, taking a cap early smooths every VC. But at the higher levels of play you can just do a four-city turtle to win by diplo or SV. And at the higher levels of play you can expect to need to defend against a Carpet Of Doom (and the Korean UU are great for that of course).

 

[inthesomeday]

I like for my maps to be analogous to our world, so I usually do continents. Ergo, exploration is a must.

Right, but on these sorts of maps, at least in my experience, as soon as astronomy is done navigation is next. Frigates are too vital of a military innovation for this era and map setting to go anywhere else. In fact, on a continents map in which I have much coastline, I'll beeline frigates because of their importance. If I'm worried that the game may only be able to resolve violently I may pop Ox for frigates.

Of course, all this is multiplayer experience. I'm just saying that on maps with lots of ocean, where exploration is vital, astronomy is rarely far behind navigation in tech, because as a military tech navigation is just too important in these situations. In these cases it's worth the time it takes to grab privateers for exploration to have such an OP coastal defender. Turtle ships can sometimes go toe to toe with modern era navies with the right conditions.

And then of course they're far superior on Pangaea or other such mostly-land maps.

 

[Morningcalm]

Korea's UUs are not "worthless" especially the hwacha, which is far more flexible than a regular trebuchet, since you *will* encounter units along the way the hwacha can tear down before reaching the enemy cities. Korea is more a turtler than many other civs due to its science ability. I suppose the hwacha is *less* valuable than a trebuchet if you plan on using it solely to siege enemy cities, but that's more for offensive players (or defensive players who lost their cities, I suppose).

The turtle ship is mighty indeed. Yes, it sucks that they can't enter deep ocean, but they are good at defending to crazy amounts, and can complement a defensive navy with more range or raid other coastal towns if you're on a map that has multiple shallow water pathways (island maps).