Praetorian Poll

From my view the praetorian is rediculously overpowered. It's just common sense, it has no counter, and nothing beats it 1v1 until crossbows, no other unit is like this in Civ4, except the battleship, which everyone can build. But there seems to be a big debate on this, so wanted to know the oppinions of others, without the guise of asking a definition of overpowered, just how civ4 players see it in common sense terms.

i'd prefer if they were str7+combatI

I voted "top tier UU, nothing more" mostly because Im and idiot and hit the wrong button. I meant to vote "overpowered, needs a nerf". But since I voted already I am going to attempt to defend my positon like the idiot that hit the wrong button would.

I have actually never had a problem playing against them. That is the beauty of civ. Oh I have had my a$$ beat back to my first 3 cities by preats several time. But ya know what I did? I payed my tribute and rolled over like a good little pupper state. Then when preats were gone and I had enough time to rebuild I steamrolled Rome. Partially through military tactics and partially through cleverly cutting them off in certain places and staunching thier growth.

So now I make my move before or after they get preats, if Rome is my neighbor. Usually after since I dont play smaller maps and some times its hard to get a rush through before they get iron working. The whole time I tell whichever Ceasar it is, how cool they are and give 'em stuff so they wont beat me down like the barbarian swine that they think I am.

One on one in a steel cage they are ******edly powerful. But civ gives you more options than that. Of course the AI probably cant handle them like I can, so thats a strike against my theory.

Hey I got an idea! Maybe they should be like Str 6, with +25% vs Axes, and +25% vs Swords, and get Drill 1. And while were at it we should change thier name, since preats were just a small royal body guard. Legionaire, that would be a good name. Cant remember where I saw that.... oh well mustve been imagining it.

Reduce Strength to 6.

Give them +20% VS city attack, and free Combat 1 promo.

Gamebreaking. Playing as Rome is an exploit due to this one unit. Unless you make some miserable mistake, you can't really go wrong with them. And they last for such a long time, especially if you get Iron Working, and a resource hooked up, early.

Owerpowered. If playing AI not a big deal. You can counter them with lots of archers with city def in towns (2/1 ratio is enough to stop them). Playing against human player with praetorians, no way, you are dead meat.

Yeah prats/legionaires are silly. Of course tho they are str 8 they are more expensive than a normal sword so they do have a drawback. In my mod i use my legionaire model (with custom anims that lets him thro a pilum (javelin) and dig roads/make forts also he stabs with his gladius rather than slashes) so he actually looks like a legionary and give him str 7, 1 first strike and the ability to make roads and forts. Still quite powerful but not unbalanced and more unique.

Does this model throw a pilum and then close to melee? If so, can you upload the unit, cause I wants

phungus420 said:

Does this model throw a pilum and then close to melee? If so, can you upload the unit, cause I wants

Click to expand...

Yes first throws pilum then gets to stabbing with the gladius. it is already uploaded. you can find it in the download database under ancient units. or click link in my above post. glad you like it.

Top tier unit, nothing more.
The nicest thing is their ease of use. No narrow time windows. No need to disconnect a victim's resources to deprive them of a hard counter. No need to cover their weaknesses. However, with good play, I believe you can get an equal or bigger advantage out of many other units.

On low levels where warrior rushes still work reliably and the early archer killers are pointless, they might indeed be problematic... coming at the earliest time a military edge matters, and lasting long enough to conquer one's home continent.

*

I don't have too much human vs. human experience... but axemen hold off Praetorians just fine and they should be available in time unless the victim is very unlucky with resources. A rush with War Chariots, Skirmishers or Quechuas would be vastly more unfair... especially since preparing to fend off War Chariots makes one easy pickings for a conventional Axe rush.

How do you rush w/ Quechuas? Warriors defend just fine vs them. You mean rush the AI? Yes, it works. Against something smart they are not magnificent, basically the aggressive trait does the same.

There is a window with swordman (preatorian) and catapult, where there is no, I mean NO defence against 3 catapultes and 4 preatorians. Simple as that. There is no unit that can kill 4 preatorians (or you would need something like 15 axes) so that you can stop these catpultes from doing their worest on your city. In my last game Cesar was my neighbour. I was sucking up is ass till got the maceman and even than I had some bad experiances against the preatorians. There is no unit in the game that can match them. It would be like having a 20 xp knight.

@bestsss: Still works against humans. If you can't take over in a straightforward warrior rush, you can choke them and prevent them from connecting strategic resources until you can clean up with axes.
While you can shut an opponent down with AGG warriors, they can break out with archers even if they can't connect resources... or at least make eventual conquest so costly the whole affair wastn't worth the effort. Not so against quechuas.

@ Patak: 4 Praetorians and 3 Catapults are trivially easy to beat. 9 Axes will slaughter that stack on the offense, at less hammer cost and considerably easier tech requirements... even if they are on a hill (you want to attack first in order to avoid collateral hell, even if they can remain on forests or hills. If they can approach your cities while staying on forested hills, you deserve everything you get).

In single player, the prats are overpowering. In MP, not so much.

I do however think that given the strength of the roman leaders already, 8 str is a bit much. Although the AI is bad at war in general the prats *really* highlight it. I actually like the unit ZenSpiderz created a lot as a replacement.

I don't consider them to be gamebreaking whatsoever. They're a top-tier UU that could perhaps use a minor nerf, if anything. If you're playing the AI, you can easily exploit the use of Praetorians... but then again, you can also do-so with Quechuas, Immortals, etc. Against other humans, Praets tend to be somewhat less effective as everyone is likely to have pretty strong anti-infantry defense in preparation for the inevitable Praet attack.

everyone keep saying the prats have no counter. did everyone forget the Dog Soilders, Str4, +100% vs Melee and they are cheaper/earlier to make then prats. A prat is a better unit as Dog Soldiers still need Spears and Swords to defend against horse and attacking archers in a city.

Praets are a top tier UU, nothing more. Even in single player.

Whoever said that Praets have no counter forgot about Aggressive leaders' axemen. 5str +85% vs. melee (innate 50% melee, 25% from shock, 10% from combat 1) = 9.25 strength which is > 8.8 (Praet with combat 1). That's not including any defensive bonuses. Also, Praets can still have a hard time against Protective archers on a hill if the AI has sufficient #s (+50% city defense +25% hills defense + 1 first strike +45% CGI/II +25% tile bonus + 25% fortify + 20% culture + 0-1 first strikes (drill 1) = 8.7 with 1-2 first strikes). And if you attack pre-catapults vs. a city with walls, you'll lose a LOT of Praets before taking a city with 3 PRO archers in it.

That being said, if an IW "rush" doesn't work (IE all neighbors have copper/iron), a Praet/Catapult war will never fail. Ever. Even vs. longbows. Just bring double the siege if the enemy has longbows. Many Praets will survive to upgrade along the CR line. Hoorah!

In short: I love praets, but they are simply a top tier UU. A UU is only gamebreaking if the AI is able to utilize it successfully in a large portion of games they are in. The AI has never properly utilized praets in my games (Monarch and below).

Actually JC on high levels is not a pushover. I've seen him roast other AIs alive and get huge, fairly consistently. Augustus is just too much of a sissy so games where 1) RNG rolls Rome AND JC 2) JC has iron and 3) hidden modifiers don't prevent him from attacking are quite rare. In the games where JC does actually gain access to his UU, he's QUITE powerful from it.

Praets help to make the Romans a dominant or, at least, a significant military force in the Classical Age.

What's wrong with that??

No such thing as an overpowered unit, only overpowered Civs, and neither Roman leader has an overpowered Civ. It's a bit hard to separate the idiocy of the AI with actual game mechanics, but multiplayer is a reasonably good approximation, and Rome is not a top tier Civ there.