aelf
Ashen One
Ever wondered how to leverage the UU of a particular civ you're playing? Do you find half the UUs lacklustre? Do you find yourself not using a particular civ's UU at all? I think you could use some suggestions.
While the War Academy has civ-specific guides involving extensive use of UUs for the Incas and the Romans, there isn't a guide to the various UUs to explain their uses. Everybody knows how to use strong ones like the Praetorians, but many are not exposed to the possibilities that the more subtle ones present. What spurred me to start this guide are the fairly common disparaging comments about some UUs, comments that are often simply wrong.
Please note that this guide is written mainly for single player games. Some tips may still be useful for multiplayer, but I can't promise that. If you have something in mind, please feel free to contribute. You can also add to the entries already written.
Arabia: Camel Archer (Knight)
Camel Archers are knights that have a higher withdrawal chance (25%) and don't require horses or iron. You could simply use them like normal knights, but the thing about them is Flanking promotions make them very good at surviving failed attacks (+55% withdrawal chance with Flanking II). This means you don't have to balk so much at attacking a city or a stack that has a defending pike, making them more reliable as an attack unit. Of course, if you end up with no horses or iron, they give you the option of building knights in the first place.
If you're playing on Warlords and are not running Vassalage or Theocracy, stables would help you build Camel Archers that start off with Flanking I and II. Also, you can improve their ability even further by attaching Great Generals to them as warlords. Give them the Tactics promotion (+30% withdrawal chance) and they would have 85% chance of retreating from a failed attack. Of course, you might get unlucky and lose your warlord unit if you often use it to attack at low odds. You should consider that 85% is far from 100%.
Aztecs: Jaguar Warrior (Swordsman)
Traditional whipping boys, these guys get 2 free promotions in Warlords now, Woodsman I as well as the Aggressive trait's Combat I. If you've built those cheap barracks, giving them Woodsman II immediately would allow you to rush a relatively cheap stack of them to enemy cities through forests and jungles. Of course, this comes at the price of not being able to give them the City Raider promotion first, but depending on how strong the target cities are, this may not be such a problem (they do get the inherent 10% bonus when attacking cities).
On a more conventional level, the benefit of the Jaguar is probably similar to that of the Gallic Warrior - better stack protection when standing on a particular terrain. Jaguars can even defend against counterattacks by axemen when positioned in forests and jungles as they get +70% terrain defense bonus there (+50% from the terrain and +20% from Woodsman I), making them good all-round defenders in this situation. Give them Woodsman II or Shock (both available immediately with barracks) and they would have no need to be afraid of axemen. Hence, if the land has plenty of foliage, you may want to bring a few of them along in any case. Note that this advantage applies only in jungles in Civ4 vanilla, where Jaguar gets +75% (+50% from the terrain and +25% jungle defense bonus). Remember, they don't require iron so you can start building them before hooking up the resource. The value of this UU greatly increases when you find yourself without copper and iron.
More on this last point, Jaguars are a sure way to rush a neighbour early in the game. You can plant your second city on the best production site in the direction of your target without waiting for copper or iron to be revealed. Then you build barracks and granary, research IW and start whipping Jaguars out without even having to bother with any resources. Get a stack of them and attack Aztec-style.
Celtia: Gallic Warrior (Swordsman)
Warlords only. The Gallic Warrior is a much-maligned UU. Most people wonder why an offensive unit is given a promotion for hill defense. How on earth is that going to help him attack cities, which is what it does best? Well, for me the answer jumped out immediately.
Attacking a city is the culmination of an offensive movement, which begins with your entering enemy territory. If you're careful, you would want to move your stack along the safest route to the target city as far as possible, which often means favouring forests and hills over flatlands. This is where the Gallic Warrior's free Guerilla I can help. While spearmen protect your stack against mounted units and axemen/xbows protect it from melee units, the Gallic Warrior is the best defender against other type of counterattacking units (eg. catapults) when your stack is on a hill. If your spearman is badly injured, the Gallic Warrior can even take over the job of defending against chariots or horse archers on a hill. Normal swordsmen may be badly injured before even attacking in these circumstances, while Gallic Warriors would probably be in a better shape.
Another neat thing about this UU is you can upgrade it to a maceman without losing the free Guerilla I, so the effect can last for some time. Also consider the fact that forests can be chopped but hills are permanent.
Egypt: War Chariot (Chariot)
The Egyptian War Chariot is an axeman on wheels with no City Raider promotions but has withdrawal chance. As such, it is a very powerful mobile unit and can make your game as early as the Ancient Era.
An Egyptian player who does not have copper has little to worry about. In fact, horses are much more important for him/her, making Animal Husbandry (AH) a priority. Since Egypt starts with Agriculture, which leads to AH, this is not a problem. In fact, both of Egypt's starting techs fit perfectly into the picture. The Wheel, the other half of the pair, is required to build chariots and would ensure that you can hook up those horses quickly. Feel free to delay Bronze Working till you wish to use slavery, unless it turns out that there are no horses within reasonable distance. If you discover horses nearby, get a settler there as soon as possible and hook it up. You can then begin preparing for your attack. Chariot rush has never been so fun or so effective.
While the standard chariot rush policy of pillaging the enemy's metal mines should still be applied, War Chariots aren't as afraid of spears as normal chariots because of their increased strength. Additionally, you can give some of them Shock promotion to help deal with enemy spears that you encounter. This would also help vanilla players who face enemy axes, since the chariot bonus vs. axes does not apply (fortunately, vanilla players are compensated by having 20% withdrawal chance instead of just 10%). That said, I have found Flanking promotions a generally better choice when up against spears. Even with Shock, War Chariots have lower odds of winning, so you might as well increase their survival rate (which can be done better in vanilla due to the extra withdrawal chance).
A little later in the game, a combination of War Chariots and axes would be good to guard against counterattacking spears, since War Chariots don't get defensive bonuses and would almost certainly lose all the time. Often, axes (and maybe swords) should gradually replace them as the premier city raiders anyway. As enemy cities accumulate more defensive ratings, those defending spears become more and more costly to dislodge with War Chariots alone. The loss in mobility that would result from this shift is usually nothing to worry about, since it roughly corresponds to the need to slow down expansion until you can get upkeep costs down.
On that note, a little caution must be taken not to over-expand with War Chariots. It's easy to fall into this trap since they pack such a punch so early in the game. While judicious use of them can make your game from a very early stage, their careless use can conversely break it as you fall far and hopelessly behind in terms of technology and development, especially on the higher levels. This and the lack of close neighbours are the greatest adversaries of the Egyptian player.
France: Musketeer (Musketman)
Although they are 1 strength point weaker than knights, muskets have no hard counter in their time, which is the whole point of this unit. Also, knights don't get defensive bonuses. So, assuming production and tech are not problems, when you need a unit to protect your stack at this stage of the game, which one would you pick? You probably want pikes to defend against mounted units, but against all the others? And when you defend a threatened city, would you want to do it with only longbows and pikes? Wouldn't it be good to have some versatile units that can both defend and counterattack?
Admittedly, these situations don't always come up, and the few times they do in a game might not be worth investing in enough musketmen to prepare for (but do take note that muskets can be drafted). However, Musketeers have 2 moves. That means they can reinforce any threatened city quickly, which makes them potentially better defenders than longbows. And when you need stack protection during a campaign, Musketeers, besides being an insurance that covers you against almost everything except knights (against whom you can simply bring pikes), are also able to pillage along the way. Not just that, their 2 moves mean you can have reserves catching up with your stack to take over the role of their wounded comrades should your stack come under attack. Musketeers can also do clean-up work when all your siege weapons and CR units have spent their turn, since they have 9 base strength and aren't afraid of pikes that may still be defending the city. Of course, Musketeers are great for a pillaging campaign, if you go for that kind of thing. Mix them with pikes in small stacks and they can move and pillage within a single turn and with near impunity. Musketeers are thus very versatile units.
A major gripe that people have about Musketeers is the fact that they obsolete too quickly since Chemistry is only 'a few techs away'. Their two moves actually help with this, since you can get them to the frontline to be used a lot more quickly compared to normal musketmen. Also, switching to Nationhood and drafting some can help you get enough of them out in time to be used effectively, especially since nothing upgrades to muskets and you have to build them from scratch otherwise. Of course, whether or not it's worth switching civics for this depends on the situation, but keep the option in mind. You can stay in Nationhood and research towards Rifling next so that you can soon start drafting riflemen.
On this note, there's another interesting use for Musketeers. Have you ever tried postponing Chemistry and beelining to Military Tradition for early cavalry? With Musketeers, this strategy is even better. Research techs along the Education route, be the first to get Liberalism, grab Nationalism as the free tech, research Gunpowder (which is also needed for cavalry), start drafting/building Musketeers (and use them first if you want), research Military Tradition, start building cavalry, escort your cavalry with Musketeers and launch a lightning campaign or pillage with impunity. Only Musketeers can keep up with your cavalry and protect them against costly counterattacks by enemy pikes. And Flanking cavalry are only afraid of the toughest longbow-defended cities, so there is often no need to bring slow moving siege weapons along. If you do this right, you can finish off one or two neighbours just like that before riflemen start appearing.
Greece: Phalanx (Spearman)
I think the Phalanx is in fact one of the stronger UUs in the game. With 5 strength and +25% hill defense bonus (not to be confused with free Guerilla promotion) it has enough going for it to be a league above its ordinary counterparts. Don't forget that they also get free Combat I from Alexander's Aggressive trait.
The Phalanx is essentially a super spearman, but if you build them early enough in single player, chances are the AI might not have anything except archers. Thus, they would do just as well as axemen when used as a rush unit, except that they aren't afraid of chariots in Warlords (which gets +100% attack vs. axemen).
Besides this rather unorthodox use, the Phalanx also boasts a very long lifespan of more than two eras. Elephants give normal spearmen cause to worry and knights are too strong be really countered by normal spears. Phalangites, however, are able to counter elephants effectively and hold their own against knights. If they are defending on hills, no mounted unit before cavalry can beat them without luck or promotions (with the exception of Conquistadors). Their hill defense bonus also means they are good at defending on hills against everything except anti-melee units. A solid package for a UU.
Korea: Hwacha (Catapult)
Warlords only. If you like axemen, you'd love the Hwacha. It is a catapult with 50% bonus vs melee units, making it an axeman with collateral damage, bombard ability and withdrawal chance for a mere five hammers more (Normal speed). The only downside is the Hwacha doesn't receive defensive bonuses like an axeman, so you might want to use your Hwachas offensively and turn up the heat so the enemy is forced to defend in his beautiful cities.
The Hwacha has some interesting synergy with Wang Kon's Protective trait. Protective really shines when you have no metals and are forced to adopt a defensive position with archers in the early game. Construction represents the departure from such a stance, since you're now able to build catapults and attack. Hwachas, being super catapults, puts you in an even better position to go on the offensive, with Protective archers/longbows for support as defenders.
If you have iron, Protective crossbows and spears/pikes are perfect companions to Hwachas. They eliminate the threat of enemy melee and mounted units and help defend new possessions while your Hwachas take down enemy defenders. You don't need axemen. A few swords to help clean up can complete your arsenal.
When macemen and trebuchets come into the picture, Hwachas gradually take a back seat, but not before you can deal some serious damage to a neighbour or two. Nonetheless, a Korean player would benefit from picking up Construction as quickly as possible. Why not put these weapons into use as early as you can? And Wang Kon's Financial trait can certainly help with that.
Mali: Skirmisher (Archer)
Skirmishers are archers with 4 strength and 1 extra first strike chance, making Mali more than half a Protective civ until Feudalism. With them, Malinese cities are certainly not ones that are taken easily early in the game.
The normal use of Skirmishers is pretty straight forward. Defend your cities or hill improvements with them. As such, they play a rather passive role as a UU. This puts into question the rationale of going straight for Archery even when playing Mali. Firstly, you don't start with Hunting (required for Archery). Secondly, the threat of barbarian or enemy axes make axemen a better unit to defend with, since they are able to counterattack and prevent your improvements from being pillaged. Lastly, Bronze Working is needed for Slavery and whipping anyway, and if you find copper nearby after researching it you can simply build axes soon. Skirmishers can help with defense if you don't find copper around, but in that case you might want to beeline to Iron Working anyway (so you wouldn't be researching Hunting and Archery). Of course, in the worst case scenario where you have neither copper nor iron around, Skirmishers become quite important.
Warlords improves Skirmishers a little by making chariots a counter to axes. Now you don't have to fear barbarian/enemy axemen if you don't have copper but have horses. Barb spearmen, if they do appear, can be countered somewhat by Skirmishers. Hence, you can sit peacefully with your cities and chariots and Skirmishers for defense without having to beeline for the rather expensive (at this stage) Iron Working. If you want to be aggressive, you can rush a neighbour with a stack of chariots and a few Skirmishers. The latter can help secure newly conquered cities.
That said, a less conventional use of Skirmishers may warrant beelining to Archery from the beginning. Skirmishers don't require resources, so you can technically rush a neighbour with them Aztec-style. Get Archery as quickly as possible, build a barracks, maybe settle a second city and start building Skirmishers. After you have enough of them, rush the nearest neighbour's capital. Skirmishers are better than normal archers, so with a ratio of 4:1 in your favour, you may be able to overwhelm the defending archers. The surviving Skirmishers would then help you hold on to the conquered city.
If you whip to build Skirmishers for this tactic, becareful of the overflow. You might very soon begin to whip them out for one population point each and run into serious happiness issues. If you want to try this rush, you should have a food-plenty and hilly area (i.e. a good production city site) as the site of your capital. You need the hammers because you'll be building most of the Skirmishers the slow way.
Mongolia: Keshik (Horse Archer)
Keshiks are horse archers that ignore terrain movement cost and get 1 first strike, but aren't immune to first strikes. Hence, they are extremely adept at raiding and pillaging, but aren't as good at attacking archers/longbows with Drill promotions. This has a few implications on a Mongolian player.
Surprise is the best asset of the Keshiks. Ignoring terrain movement cost means they can traverse forests/jungles and hills as easily as flatlands. Thus, it is easy for a Mongolian player to strike across difficult terrain at the unlikeliest of places, grabbing unguarded workers and lightly-defended cities or pillaging improvements (especially on strategic resources). However, this advantage relies on the enemy's inability to counterattack immediately with spearmen or a superior force, so good intelligence would be needed to know where exactly the enemy places his spears and the bulk of his units. If you do not have this luxury, you could always send more Keshiks in case you meet spears, but be prepared to lose quite a few of them. In addition, you could pillage enemy roads to eventually cripple his ability to counterattack. However, at the end of the day, the strategic advantage you gain from your harassment must outweigh the lost hammers you spent on the dead Keshiks
The Keshiks' first strike, meanwhile, makes them better than normal horse archers at picking off non-spear units in your territory or in the enemy's. Combined with their terrain movement advantage, this makes them good empire defenders and hit-and-run units. Unfortunately, the enemy can easily counter them by having spearmen guard his units, so this might only work effectively against the AI. There's also a limitation on how good Keshiks are in fighting non-spear units compared to normal horse archers. The immunity to first strikes that normal horse archers get makes them better at fighting archery units with Drill promotions or units with Drill III/IV. The Keshiks' own first strike can only negate one of the enemy units' first strikes. To remedy this, you have to give your Keshiks Flanking II so that they get immunity to first strikes as well.
This, in turn, highlights the Keshik's relative weakness (compared to normal horse archers) in attacking cities defended by Drill-promoted archery units. In Warlords, this means Protective civs are better covered against attempts to take cities with Keshiks. The 10% city attack penalty that the horse archer unit-type gets in Warlords makes them even less desirable as city raiders. Thus, the only hope Mongolian player might have in using Keshiks to conquer in Warlords is to rely on speed, Flanking promotions and numbers (also applies to vanilla, but not to such a large extent).
With barracks and Ger in the city, a Keshik gets 7 exp upon being built. Unfortunately, none of the Mongolian leaders are Charismatic, so that will only allow for 2 initial promotions, just like if you have a normal stable instead of the Mongolian UB (of course, Gers mean they could be promoted to the next level sooner). But, at any rate, 2 initial promotions are good enough. Give most of the Keshiks Flanking I and II to give them 50% withdrawal chance each (including the natural 20%) and immunity to first strikes. Give Combat I and Medic I or Combat I and Shock (for defending against spearmen) to the rest. Have at least one Medic I Keshik and one Shock Keshik in each stack. If you get Compass early enough, you can use explorers (strength 4, ignores terrain movement cost and starts with free Guerilla I and Woodsman I) to help protect your stacks when they stop on hills or forests/jungles. 3 or 4 cities with Gers pumping out Keshiks would usually be good enough to amass a sizeable army in reasonable time.
As your Keshiks attack enemy cities, some will die, some will withdraw and some will win. The medics will ensure that the withdrawing and winning Keshiks heal up more quickly. If you manage to overwhelm a prepared enemy with numbers, your speed advantage (from ignoring terrain movement cost and faster healing) will ensure that the enemy cannot fight back or resist as effectively, hastening his destruction. If the enemy is unprepared in the first place, your speed advantage will ensure his quick defeat. Note that this strategy can only work if the enemy doesn't have longbows yet.
You should be prepared to build courthouses and marketplaces to help you keep your winnings. But even if you're not, you can just resort to razing and pillaging for some barbaric fun. Long live the Golden Horde!
Persia: Immortal (Chariot)
It seems odd that Immortals are chariot-replacements, and you may miss the ownage days of playing as Persia with their Civ3 incarnation. Fortunately, they are still very effective in Civ4.
When you have horses and a neighbouring civ nearby, you know you're in for some fun. Immortals get 50% bonus vs. archery units, as well as an innate 30% withdrawal chance. No AI I've seen can resist them very early in the game. Hook up those horses quickly, build/whip out some of these creatures and head straight for the neighbour. If you managed to build barracks, you can give them Flanking I for an extra 10% withdrawal chance. If you have time to kill some barbs as well, before heading for your neighbour's cities, you can promote some with Flanking II for immunity against first strikes and a total of 60% withdrawal chance. This would give them a high survival rate against archers. Don't they sound like excellent AI city busters? What's more, they do get defensive bonuses, making them less vulnerable to counterattack and decent garrison units.
If or when your enemy gets spearmen, however, Immortals lose much of their power. Even one spearman in a city you're attacking can give you a lot of trouble. You really have to count on the withdrawal chances if you want the first few Immortals to survive a direct attack on the city. In Civ4 vanilla, enemy axemen would be a problem too, since chariots don't get the 50% bonus when attacking axemen like in Warlords. To help prevent difficulties from arising, you should pillage any AI mine that you see sitting on a metal resource. If a city is on top of one, pillage the roads around it to limit spear production to that city. You would thus prolong the effectiveness of your Immortals. Until your enemy gets Feudalism, that is. If he can. Although the 50% bonus also applies when fighting longbows, the latter are too strong when defending in cities to be dislodged by Immortals alone. The same may be said of enemy crossbows. But with the help of siege weapons, Immortals can still take them down quite easily.
The biggest problem is when there is no neighbour near you. In that case, you can't use Immortals to their full potential. However, they are still quite handy against barbs, since the latter usually take the form of archers. In Warlords, they are also great for dispatching barb axemen. Clearly, the expansion has given this solid UU even more oomph.
Vikings: Berserk (Maceman)
Warlords only. Hate them or love them, Berserks are a popular UU. Although, not as powerful as their Civ3 incarnation, these guys can really be useful. Their 10% bonus vs. cities is certainly nice. However, for many people the problem is finding a good use for their free Amphibious promotion.
The Vikings have a higher potential to rule on water maps than any other civ. Ragnar is Financial, which means coastal tiles produce 3 commerce instead of 2, and his UB allows his ships to move further earlier in the game by giving free Navigation promotion. Combined with the Berserk's ability to attack amphibiously with no penalty and its city attack bonus, a Viking player on a water map can fast tech to Civil Service and Machinery and have fun raiding enemy coastal cities with Berserks on fast galleys. One method to do this early is building the Oracle and grabbing Metal Casting as the free tech (which, by the way, gives access to Colossus for a further boost to those coastal tiles). Then build/whip a forge and run an engineer in a city without the Oracle. Research your way to Code of Laws and Civil Service a.s.a.p. (in the pre-patch version you can use a prophet generated by the Oracle to lightbulb CoL/CS by not researching Masonry). In the meantime, build several galleys to prepare for your sea adventures. You'll get a Great Engineer as your 1st or 2nd Great Person from the forge city. Use him to lightbulb Machinery and start building Berserks. You could also put your research slider at 0% for a few turns and upgrade some axes to Berserks (being Financial helps with accumulating money for that). If you catch your opponents without longbows yet, you've done really well.
There are limitations to your Berserks' ability to raid cities from the sea, though. If a city is defended by longbows, on a hill, has high cultural defense and/or walls, it could be difficult to take and might render an attempt not worth the cost. To attack such a city, you probably need to bring siege units along as galleys/triremes are not able to even bombard the city's defenses. Having to land siege units to bombard/deal collateral damage nullifies the Berserks' amphibious advantage. As such, you would need to look for softer targets to strike at. You don't have to keep the city. Find a weak spot (a lightly defended coastal city), raid, raze and pop back into the galleys before the enemy can counterattack. Landing a spear with the Berserker that has to land on that turn would help the latter survive a counterattack by mounted units (the most likely reaction you'll get from an AI). But becareful not to attack too close to an AI capital. AIs tend to stack more units in their capitals and can easily counterattack with a stronger force from there. Humans in MP will be wary of a sea attack, so watch out for axes/xbows in or within reach of coastal cities.
Even if you're not playing on a water map, Berserks present some interesting options. With them, you have the advantage when laying siege to a city across a river if the enemy doesn't have Engineering. His non-mounted units cannot counter attack from the city without suffering a 20% penalty for attacking across the river. With their free Amphibious promotion, Berserks get no such penalty attacking the city. The only downside is your siege units do suffer from the penalty if you want to cause some collateral damage first. Conversely, this idea works in defense as well. When enemy units are across a river beside one of your cities, you can attack them with your Berserks with no penalty while they would suffer it when they attack. At the very least, Berserks always get their 10% bonus when attacking cities.
Perhaps the most valuable thing about the Berserk is the fact that he keeps the Amphibious promotion when upgraded. This allows a Viking player to build Berserks (especially City Raider ones) and upgrade them later on to grenadiers or riflemen with free Amphibious. Frigates are able to bombard city defenses, so you can get yourself an elite amphibious attack force long before marines make their appearance. The free Amphibious also works the opposite way, allowing your older units to benefit from it when upgraded to Berserks. Hence, it makes sense to do so with all of your more experienced axemen or swordsmen. It would almost certainly be worth the money.
Looking forward to getting your ideas to add to this list
Thanks to Robo Kai, kniteowl, Cabert, Wodan, johnny_rico, gusi, UncleJJ, Bjorn190 and dime for your contributions and Thedrin for your correction.
While the War Academy has civ-specific guides involving extensive use of UUs for the Incas and the Romans, there isn't a guide to the various UUs to explain their uses. Everybody knows how to use strong ones like the Praetorians, but many are not exposed to the possibilities that the more subtle ones present. What spurred me to start this guide are the fairly common disparaging comments about some UUs, comments that are often simply wrong.
Please note that this guide is written mainly for single player games. Some tips may still be useful for multiplayer, but I can't promise that. If you have something in mind, please feel free to contribute. You can also add to the entries already written.
Arabia: Camel Archer (Knight)
Camel Archers are knights that have a higher withdrawal chance (25%) and don't require horses or iron. You could simply use them like normal knights, but the thing about them is Flanking promotions make them very good at surviving failed attacks (+55% withdrawal chance with Flanking II). This means you don't have to balk so much at attacking a city or a stack that has a defending pike, making them more reliable as an attack unit. Of course, if you end up with no horses or iron, they give you the option of building knights in the first place.
If you're playing on Warlords and are not running Vassalage or Theocracy, stables would help you build Camel Archers that start off with Flanking I and II. Also, you can improve their ability even further by attaching Great Generals to them as warlords. Give them the Tactics promotion (+30% withdrawal chance) and they would have 85% chance of retreating from a failed attack. Of course, you might get unlucky and lose your warlord unit if you often use it to attack at low odds. You should consider that 85% is far from 100%.
Aztecs: Jaguar Warrior (Swordsman)
Traditional whipping boys, these guys get 2 free promotions in Warlords now, Woodsman I as well as the Aggressive trait's Combat I. If you've built those cheap barracks, giving them Woodsman II immediately would allow you to rush a relatively cheap stack of them to enemy cities through forests and jungles. Of course, this comes at the price of not being able to give them the City Raider promotion first, but depending on how strong the target cities are, this may not be such a problem (they do get the inherent 10% bonus when attacking cities).
On a more conventional level, the benefit of the Jaguar is probably similar to that of the Gallic Warrior - better stack protection when standing on a particular terrain. Jaguars can even defend against counterattacks by axemen when positioned in forests and jungles as they get +70% terrain defense bonus there (+50% from the terrain and +20% from Woodsman I), making them good all-round defenders in this situation. Give them Woodsman II or Shock (both available immediately with barracks) and they would have no need to be afraid of axemen. Hence, if the land has plenty of foliage, you may want to bring a few of them along in any case. Note that this advantage applies only in jungles in Civ4 vanilla, where Jaguar gets +75% (+50% from the terrain and +25% jungle defense bonus). Remember, they don't require iron so you can start building them before hooking up the resource. The value of this UU greatly increases when you find yourself without copper and iron.
More on this last point, Jaguars are a sure way to rush a neighbour early in the game. You can plant your second city on the best production site in the direction of your target without waiting for copper or iron to be revealed. Then you build barracks and granary, research IW and start whipping Jaguars out without even having to bother with any resources. Get a stack of them and attack Aztec-style.
Celtia: Gallic Warrior (Swordsman)
Warlords only. The Gallic Warrior is a much-maligned UU. Most people wonder why an offensive unit is given a promotion for hill defense. How on earth is that going to help him attack cities, which is what it does best? Well, for me the answer jumped out immediately.
Attacking a city is the culmination of an offensive movement, which begins with your entering enemy territory. If you're careful, you would want to move your stack along the safest route to the target city as far as possible, which often means favouring forests and hills over flatlands. This is where the Gallic Warrior's free Guerilla I can help. While spearmen protect your stack against mounted units and axemen/xbows protect it from melee units, the Gallic Warrior is the best defender against other type of counterattacking units (eg. catapults) when your stack is on a hill. If your spearman is badly injured, the Gallic Warrior can even take over the job of defending against chariots or horse archers on a hill. Normal swordsmen may be badly injured before even attacking in these circumstances, while Gallic Warriors would probably be in a better shape.
Another neat thing about this UU is you can upgrade it to a maceman without losing the free Guerilla I, so the effect can last for some time. Also consider the fact that forests can be chopped but hills are permanent.
Egypt: War Chariot (Chariot)
The Egyptian War Chariot is an axeman on wheels with no City Raider promotions but has withdrawal chance. As such, it is a very powerful mobile unit and can make your game as early as the Ancient Era.
An Egyptian player who does not have copper has little to worry about. In fact, horses are much more important for him/her, making Animal Husbandry (AH) a priority. Since Egypt starts with Agriculture, which leads to AH, this is not a problem. In fact, both of Egypt's starting techs fit perfectly into the picture. The Wheel, the other half of the pair, is required to build chariots and would ensure that you can hook up those horses quickly. Feel free to delay Bronze Working till you wish to use slavery, unless it turns out that there are no horses within reasonable distance. If you discover horses nearby, get a settler there as soon as possible and hook it up. You can then begin preparing for your attack. Chariot rush has never been so fun or so effective.
While the standard chariot rush policy of pillaging the enemy's metal mines should still be applied, War Chariots aren't as afraid of spears as normal chariots because of their increased strength. Additionally, you can give some of them Shock promotion to help deal with enemy spears that you encounter. This would also help vanilla players who face enemy axes, since the chariot bonus vs. axes does not apply (fortunately, vanilla players are compensated by having 20% withdrawal chance instead of just 10%). That said, I have found Flanking promotions a generally better choice when up against spears. Even with Shock, War Chariots have lower odds of winning, so you might as well increase their survival rate (which can be done better in vanilla due to the extra withdrawal chance).
A little later in the game, a combination of War Chariots and axes would be good to guard against counterattacking spears, since War Chariots don't get defensive bonuses and would almost certainly lose all the time. Often, axes (and maybe swords) should gradually replace them as the premier city raiders anyway. As enemy cities accumulate more defensive ratings, those defending spears become more and more costly to dislodge with War Chariots alone. The loss in mobility that would result from this shift is usually nothing to worry about, since it roughly corresponds to the need to slow down expansion until you can get upkeep costs down.
On that note, a little caution must be taken not to over-expand with War Chariots. It's easy to fall into this trap since they pack such a punch so early in the game. While judicious use of them can make your game from a very early stage, their careless use can conversely break it as you fall far and hopelessly behind in terms of technology and development, especially on the higher levels. This and the lack of close neighbours are the greatest adversaries of the Egyptian player.
France: Musketeer (Musketman)
Although they are 1 strength point weaker than knights, muskets have no hard counter in their time, which is the whole point of this unit. Also, knights don't get defensive bonuses. So, assuming production and tech are not problems, when you need a unit to protect your stack at this stage of the game, which one would you pick? You probably want pikes to defend against mounted units, but against all the others? And when you defend a threatened city, would you want to do it with only longbows and pikes? Wouldn't it be good to have some versatile units that can both defend and counterattack?
Admittedly, these situations don't always come up, and the few times they do in a game might not be worth investing in enough musketmen to prepare for (but do take note that muskets can be drafted). However, Musketeers have 2 moves. That means they can reinforce any threatened city quickly, which makes them potentially better defenders than longbows. And when you need stack protection during a campaign, Musketeers, besides being an insurance that covers you against almost everything except knights (against whom you can simply bring pikes), are also able to pillage along the way. Not just that, their 2 moves mean you can have reserves catching up with your stack to take over the role of their wounded comrades should your stack come under attack. Musketeers can also do clean-up work when all your siege weapons and CR units have spent their turn, since they have 9 base strength and aren't afraid of pikes that may still be defending the city. Of course, Musketeers are great for a pillaging campaign, if you go for that kind of thing. Mix them with pikes in small stacks and they can move and pillage within a single turn and with near impunity. Musketeers are thus very versatile units.
A major gripe that people have about Musketeers is the fact that they obsolete too quickly since Chemistry is only 'a few techs away'. Their two moves actually help with this, since you can get them to the frontline to be used a lot more quickly compared to normal musketmen. Also, switching to Nationhood and drafting some can help you get enough of them out in time to be used effectively, especially since nothing upgrades to muskets and you have to build them from scratch otherwise. Of course, whether or not it's worth switching civics for this depends on the situation, but keep the option in mind. You can stay in Nationhood and research towards Rifling next so that you can soon start drafting riflemen.
On this note, there's another interesting use for Musketeers. Have you ever tried postponing Chemistry and beelining to Military Tradition for early cavalry? With Musketeers, this strategy is even better. Research techs along the Education route, be the first to get Liberalism, grab Nationalism as the free tech, research Gunpowder (which is also needed for cavalry), start drafting/building Musketeers (and use them first if you want), research Military Tradition, start building cavalry, escort your cavalry with Musketeers and launch a lightning campaign or pillage with impunity. Only Musketeers can keep up with your cavalry and protect them against costly counterattacks by enemy pikes. And Flanking cavalry are only afraid of the toughest longbow-defended cities, so there is often no need to bring slow moving siege weapons along. If you do this right, you can finish off one or two neighbours just like that before riflemen start appearing.
Greece: Phalanx (Spearman)
I think the Phalanx is in fact one of the stronger UUs in the game. With 5 strength and +25% hill defense bonus (not to be confused with free Guerilla promotion) it has enough going for it to be a league above its ordinary counterparts. Don't forget that they also get free Combat I from Alexander's Aggressive trait.
The Phalanx is essentially a super spearman, but if you build them early enough in single player, chances are the AI might not have anything except archers. Thus, they would do just as well as axemen when used as a rush unit, except that they aren't afraid of chariots in Warlords (which gets +100% attack vs. axemen).
Besides this rather unorthodox use, the Phalanx also boasts a very long lifespan of more than two eras. Elephants give normal spearmen cause to worry and knights are too strong be really countered by normal spears. Phalangites, however, are able to counter elephants effectively and hold their own against knights. If they are defending on hills, no mounted unit before cavalry can beat them without luck or promotions (with the exception of Conquistadors). Their hill defense bonus also means they are good at defending on hills against everything except anti-melee units. A solid package for a UU.
Korea: Hwacha (Catapult)
Warlords only. If you like axemen, you'd love the Hwacha. It is a catapult with 50% bonus vs melee units, making it an axeman with collateral damage, bombard ability and withdrawal chance for a mere five hammers more (Normal speed). The only downside is the Hwacha doesn't receive defensive bonuses like an axeman, so you might want to use your Hwachas offensively and turn up the heat so the enemy is forced to defend in his beautiful cities.
The Hwacha has some interesting synergy with Wang Kon's Protective trait. Protective really shines when you have no metals and are forced to adopt a defensive position with archers in the early game. Construction represents the departure from such a stance, since you're now able to build catapults and attack. Hwachas, being super catapults, puts you in an even better position to go on the offensive, with Protective archers/longbows for support as defenders.
If you have iron, Protective crossbows and spears/pikes are perfect companions to Hwachas. They eliminate the threat of enemy melee and mounted units and help defend new possessions while your Hwachas take down enemy defenders. You don't need axemen. A few swords to help clean up can complete your arsenal.
When macemen and trebuchets come into the picture, Hwachas gradually take a back seat, but not before you can deal some serious damage to a neighbour or two. Nonetheless, a Korean player would benefit from picking up Construction as quickly as possible. Why not put these weapons into use as early as you can? And Wang Kon's Financial trait can certainly help with that.
Mali: Skirmisher (Archer)
Skirmishers are archers with 4 strength and 1 extra first strike chance, making Mali more than half a Protective civ until Feudalism. With them, Malinese cities are certainly not ones that are taken easily early in the game.
The normal use of Skirmishers is pretty straight forward. Defend your cities or hill improvements with them. As such, they play a rather passive role as a UU. This puts into question the rationale of going straight for Archery even when playing Mali. Firstly, you don't start with Hunting (required for Archery). Secondly, the threat of barbarian or enemy axes make axemen a better unit to defend with, since they are able to counterattack and prevent your improvements from being pillaged. Lastly, Bronze Working is needed for Slavery and whipping anyway, and if you find copper nearby after researching it you can simply build axes soon. Skirmishers can help with defense if you don't find copper around, but in that case you might want to beeline to Iron Working anyway (so you wouldn't be researching Hunting and Archery). Of course, in the worst case scenario where you have neither copper nor iron around, Skirmishers become quite important.
Warlords improves Skirmishers a little by making chariots a counter to axes. Now you don't have to fear barbarian/enemy axemen if you don't have copper but have horses. Barb spearmen, if they do appear, can be countered somewhat by Skirmishers. Hence, you can sit peacefully with your cities and chariots and Skirmishers for defense without having to beeline for the rather expensive (at this stage) Iron Working. If you want to be aggressive, you can rush a neighbour with a stack of chariots and a few Skirmishers. The latter can help secure newly conquered cities.
That said, a less conventional use of Skirmishers may warrant beelining to Archery from the beginning. Skirmishers don't require resources, so you can technically rush a neighbour with them Aztec-style. Get Archery as quickly as possible, build a barracks, maybe settle a second city and start building Skirmishers. After you have enough of them, rush the nearest neighbour's capital. Skirmishers are better than normal archers, so with a ratio of 4:1 in your favour, you may be able to overwhelm the defending archers. The surviving Skirmishers would then help you hold on to the conquered city.
If you whip to build Skirmishers for this tactic, becareful of the overflow. You might very soon begin to whip them out for one population point each and run into serious happiness issues. If you want to try this rush, you should have a food-plenty and hilly area (i.e. a good production city site) as the site of your capital. You need the hammers because you'll be building most of the Skirmishers the slow way.
Mongolia: Keshik (Horse Archer)
Keshiks are horse archers that ignore terrain movement cost and get 1 first strike, but aren't immune to first strikes. Hence, they are extremely adept at raiding and pillaging, but aren't as good at attacking archers/longbows with Drill promotions. This has a few implications on a Mongolian player.
Surprise is the best asset of the Keshiks. Ignoring terrain movement cost means they can traverse forests/jungles and hills as easily as flatlands. Thus, it is easy for a Mongolian player to strike across difficult terrain at the unlikeliest of places, grabbing unguarded workers and lightly-defended cities or pillaging improvements (especially on strategic resources). However, this advantage relies on the enemy's inability to counterattack immediately with spearmen or a superior force, so good intelligence would be needed to know where exactly the enemy places his spears and the bulk of his units. If you do not have this luxury, you could always send more Keshiks in case you meet spears, but be prepared to lose quite a few of them. In addition, you could pillage enemy roads to eventually cripple his ability to counterattack. However, at the end of the day, the strategic advantage you gain from your harassment must outweigh the lost hammers you spent on the dead Keshiks
The Keshiks' first strike, meanwhile, makes them better than normal horse archers at picking off non-spear units in your territory or in the enemy's. Combined with their terrain movement advantage, this makes them good empire defenders and hit-and-run units. Unfortunately, the enemy can easily counter them by having spearmen guard his units, so this might only work effectively against the AI. There's also a limitation on how good Keshiks are in fighting non-spear units compared to normal horse archers. The immunity to first strikes that normal horse archers get makes them better at fighting archery units with Drill promotions or units with Drill III/IV. The Keshiks' own first strike can only negate one of the enemy units' first strikes. To remedy this, you have to give your Keshiks Flanking II so that they get immunity to first strikes as well.
This, in turn, highlights the Keshik's relative weakness (compared to normal horse archers) in attacking cities defended by Drill-promoted archery units. In Warlords, this means Protective civs are better covered against attempts to take cities with Keshiks. The 10% city attack penalty that the horse archer unit-type gets in Warlords makes them even less desirable as city raiders. Thus, the only hope Mongolian player might have in using Keshiks to conquer in Warlords is to rely on speed, Flanking promotions and numbers (also applies to vanilla, but not to such a large extent).
With barracks and Ger in the city, a Keshik gets 7 exp upon being built. Unfortunately, none of the Mongolian leaders are Charismatic, so that will only allow for 2 initial promotions, just like if you have a normal stable instead of the Mongolian UB (of course, Gers mean they could be promoted to the next level sooner). But, at any rate, 2 initial promotions are good enough. Give most of the Keshiks Flanking I and II to give them 50% withdrawal chance each (including the natural 20%) and immunity to first strikes. Give Combat I and Medic I or Combat I and Shock (for defending against spearmen) to the rest. Have at least one Medic I Keshik and one Shock Keshik in each stack. If you get Compass early enough, you can use explorers (strength 4, ignores terrain movement cost and starts with free Guerilla I and Woodsman I) to help protect your stacks when they stop on hills or forests/jungles. 3 or 4 cities with Gers pumping out Keshiks would usually be good enough to amass a sizeable army in reasonable time.
As your Keshiks attack enemy cities, some will die, some will withdraw and some will win. The medics will ensure that the withdrawing and winning Keshiks heal up more quickly. If you manage to overwhelm a prepared enemy with numbers, your speed advantage (from ignoring terrain movement cost and faster healing) will ensure that the enemy cannot fight back or resist as effectively, hastening his destruction. If the enemy is unprepared in the first place, your speed advantage will ensure his quick defeat. Note that this strategy can only work if the enemy doesn't have longbows yet.
You should be prepared to build courthouses and marketplaces to help you keep your winnings. But even if you're not, you can just resort to razing and pillaging for some barbaric fun. Long live the Golden Horde!
Persia: Immortal (Chariot)
It seems odd that Immortals are chariot-replacements, and you may miss the ownage days of playing as Persia with their Civ3 incarnation. Fortunately, they are still very effective in Civ4.
When you have horses and a neighbouring civ nearby, you know you're in for some fun. Immortals get 50% bonus vs. archery units, as well as an innate 30% withdrawal chance. No AI I've seen can resist them very early in the game. Hook up those horses quickly, build/whip out some of these creatures and head straight for the neighbour. If you managed to build barracks, you can give them Flanking I for an extra 10% withdrawal chance. If you have time to kill some barbs as well, before heading for your neighbour's cities, you can promote some with Flanking II for immunity against first strikes and a total of 60% withdrawal chance. This would give them a high survival rate against archers. Don't they sound like excellent AI city busters? What's more, they do get defensive bonuses, making them less vulnerable to counterattack and decent garrison units.
If or when your enemy gets spearmen, however, Immortals lose much of their power. Even one spearman in a city you're attacking can give you a lot of trouble. You really have to count on the withdrawal chances if you want the first few Immortals to survive a direct attack on the city. In Civ4 vanilla, enemy axemen would be a problem too, since chariots don't get the 50% bonus when attacking axemen like in Warlords. To help prevent difficulties from arising, you should pillage any AI mine that you see sitting on a metal resource. If a city is on top of one, pillage the roads around it to limit spear production to that city. You would thus prolong the effectiveness of your Immortals. Until your enemy gets Feudalism, that is. If he can. Although the 50% bonus also applies when fighting longbows, the latter are too strong when defending in cities to be dislodged by Immortals alone. The same may be said of enemy crossbows. But with the help of siege weapons, Immortals can still take them down quite easily.
The biggest problem is when there is no neighbour near you. In that case, you can't use Immortals to their full potential. However, they are still quite handy against barbs, since the latter usually take the form of archers. In Warlords, they are also great for dispatching barb axemen. Clearly, the expansion has given this solid UU even more oomph.
Vikings: Berserk (Maceman)
Warlords only. Hate them or love them, Berserks are a popular UU. Although, not as powerful as their Civ3 incarnation, these guys can really be useful. Their 10% bonus vs. cities is certainly nice. However, for many people the problem is finding a good use for their free Amphibious promotion.
The Vikings have a higher potential to rule on water maps than any other civ. Ragnar is Financial, which means coastal tiles produce 3 commerce instead of 2, and his UB allows his ships to move further earlier in the game by giving free Navigation promotion. Combined with the Berserk's ability to attack amphibiously with no penalty and its city attack bonus, a Viking player on a water map can fast tech to Civil Service and Machinery and have fun raiding enemy coastal cities with Berserks on fast galleys. One method to do this early is building the Oracle and grabbing Metal Casting as the free tech (which, by the way, gives access to Colossus for a further boost to those coastal tiles). Then build/whip a forge and run an engineer in a city without the Oracle. Research your way to Code of Laws and Civil Service a.s.a.p. (in the pre-patch version you can use a prophet generated by the Oracle to lightbulb CoL/CS by not researching Masonry). In the meantime, build several galleys to prepare for your sea adventures. You'll get a Great Engineer as your 1st or 2nd Great Person from the forge city. Use him to lightbulb Machinery and start building Berserks. You could also put your research slider at 0% for a few turns and upgrade some axes to Berserks (being Financial helps with accumulating money for that). If you catch your opponents without longbows yet, you've done really well.
There are limitations to your Berserks' ability to raid cities from the sea, though. If a city is defended by longbows, on a hill, has high cultural defense and/or walls, it could be difficult to take and might render an attempt not worth the cost. To attack such a city, you probably need to bring siege units along as galleys/triremes are not able to even bombard the city's defenses. Having to land siege units to bombard/deal collateral damage nullifies the Berserks' amphibious advantage. As such, you would need to look for softer targets to strike at. You don't have to keep the city. Find a weak spot (a lightly defended coastal city), raid, raze and pop back into the galleys before the enemy can counterattack. Landing a spear with the Berserker that has to land on that turn would help the latter survive a counterattack by mounted units (the most likely reaction you'll get from an AI). But becareful not to attack too close to an AI capital. AIs tend to stack more units in their capitals and can easily counterattack with a stronger force from there. Humans in MP will be wary of a sea attack, so watch out for axes/xbows in or within reach of coastal cities.
Even if you're not playing on a water map, Berserks present some interesting options. With them, you have the advantage when laying siege to a city across a river if the enemy doesn't have Engineering. His non-mounted units cannot counter attack from the city without suffering a 20% penalty for attacking across the river. With their free Amphibious promotion, Berserks get no such penalty attacking the city. The only downside is your siege units do suffer from the penalty if you want to cause some collateral damage first. Conversely, this idea works in defense as well. When enemy units are across a river beside one of your cities, you can attack them with your Berserks with no penalty while they would suffer it when they attack. At the very least, Berserks always get their 10% bonus when attacking cities.
Perhaps the most valuable thing about the Berserk is the fact that he keeps the Amphibious promotion when upgraded. This allows a Viking player to build Berserks (especially City Raider ones) and upgrade them later on to grenadiers or riflemen with free Amphibious. Frigates are able to bombard city defenses, so you can get yourself an elite amphibious attack force long before marines make their appearance. The free Amphibious also works the opposite way, allowing your older units to benefit from it when upgraded to Berserks. Hence, it makes sense to do so with all of your more experienced axemen or swordsmen. It would almost certainly be worth the money.
Looking forward to getting your ideas to add to this list
Thanks to Robo Kai, kniteowl, Cabert, Wodan, johnny_rico, gusi, UncleJJ, Bjorn190 and dime for your contributions and Thedrin for your correction.
