Are early UUs basically worthless?

[bcaiko]

Folks -

Since the technology/culture eras in Civ6 process so quickly, I can't help but wonder if early era unique units are basically useless compared to later era units.

Here's my logic: By the time you're able to build enough of the early UUs to make a difference, the AI has already moved on in eras and population. Cities - what you're probably after - will be more difficult, maybe impossible, to take. And unlike in Civ5, UUs don't keep their unique attributes when promoted. An awesome Jaguar could become awesome Jaguar Infantry in the late game. A potentially awesome Eagle Warrior gets promoted to....just a Swordsman. There's no opportunity to snowball, and the game progressing so rapidly seems to make early UUs completely outclassed by mid and late game uniques that are more viable to stick around.

What do you think? Does the current structure of the game create a bias against early UUs?

 

[Uberfrog]

I think there are pacing issues in terms of technology in this game for sure, but I don't agree with your point.

Early conquest is the snowballing opportunity in itself- having more cities early on confers you a distinct advantage, particularly given the capture of districts. An early UU like Eagle Warriors helps you take cities early in the game. Sure, you have to get them out quickly, but they outclass their competition. Building enough units in Civ V and VI is a lot simpler than in Civ IV where you needed death stacks. A handful of powerful early UUs is enough to make a difference, so there's not a real risk of your enemy being super far ahead if you prioritise correctly.

I understand that their value is limited to the era, but frankly in Civ V the idea of having ex-longbow machine-guns with ultra long range was a bit unbalanced and not quite the intent behind the unit design.

Conversely, I thought late UUs (like the German U-Boot) tended to be considered weaker, as their advantage comes too late to be of much use in terms of snowballing. They help in late game wars, but if you're planning on conquering, you should already be well on your way by the time they enter the scene.

 

[Siptah]

Quite the contrary. Earlier UUs are way better than later ones. There's much more warring in the ancient and classical era in my games, so brining a UU to the field hier helps a lot.. And the earlier eras don't last shorter than later eras. It's a good thing that UUs loose their specialities when being upgraded in my opinion, otherwise early units like the war wagon with no counter needs to be really, really bad if this feature sticks around the whole game.

 

[Gorbles]

War-Carts and Ngao Mbeba are extremely useful, in my opinion (the latter due to a lack of resource constraints, the former due to their availability twinned with Civic cards).

Also, what Uberfrog said r.e. lategame UUs.

 

[DizzKneeLand33]

Some of them I find pretty worthless, depending on the situation. Greece comes to mind. But one that I'm having a blast with is the Eagle Warrior. Its usefulness really lasts, and the true key is the ability to convert some kills into workers, workers who can build districts at 20% per charge. So, no need to fret about infrastructure. You want more infrastructure? Build more EW's and find something else to kill.

The only problem is that if you don't play like a complete warmonger, then all of this ability is wasted. And then, there's the time you start on your own little island somewhere....

 

[antimony]

I agree that keeping the bonuses through time seems incredibly unbalanced in favor of the early UUs. At least in the current state there are mid-game and later units, like the Mamluk, Redcoat, and Cossack - and perhaps even Brazil's battleship - that can shine in certain situations.

With respect to the eagle warrior specifically, they'll need some support to take cities, but their ability to turn enemies into free workers is just so strong, and synergizes so well with the Aztec's other bonuses, that it's worth delaying the upgrade to swordsman.

 

[Eagle Pursuit]

Some of them I find pretty worthless, depending on the situation. Greece comes to mind. But one that I'm having a blast with is the Eagle Warrior. Its usefulness really lasts, and the true key is the ability to convert some kills into workers, workers who can build districts at 20% per charge. So, no need to fret about infrastructure. You want more infrastructure? Build more EW's and find something else to kill.

The only problem is that if you don't play like a complete warmonger, then all of this ability is wasted. And then, there's the time you start on your own little island somewhere....

I have found that even if you like to play peacefully, it's a good idea to take out at least one close neighbor during the Ancient Era when there's no hate. However, AI civs like to send their units out wandering around, so you aren't able to secure a great many builders during your Ancient Era expansion gambit. On the other hand, City-States keep their units close, like electrons orbiting a nucleus. So with the Eagle Warriors, it's more effective to reap a city-state's electron shell than to attack neighboring civs, if you are looking for a bounty of builders.

 

[Canadian Bluebeer]

Also depends on your play speed. One of the reasons I prefer Marathon. Units retain usefulness for longer.

 

[UWHabs]

I have found that even if you like to play peacefully, it's a good idea to take out at least one close neighbor during the Ancient Era when there's no hate. However, AI civs like to send their units out wandering around, so you aren't able to secure a great many builders during your Ancient Era expansion gambit. On the other hand, City-States keep their units close, like electrons orbiting a nucleus. So with the Eagle Warriors, it's more effective to reap a city-state's electron shell than to attack neighboring civs, if you are looking for a bounty of builders.

And at higher levels, you can't really play peacefully. My last game, Egypt ended up settling a city (their 3rd city) in the exact location I wanted to settle my 2nd city, and then proceeded to declare war on me about 5 turns later. I just made sure to build enough archers to take it out, and then now I had my 2nd city already up and running.

And in a lot of cases, the early UU can be a life or death thing. I need to play Monty on the newer patches - my first eagle warrior game they were strong enough to take out 1.5 neighbours, giving me way more builders than I could use, and I even kept them around for a long time. Heck, they got a benefit from fast culture, since I zoomed along and could use eagle warrior armies to take down opposing musketmen that had been damaged down by crossbows. Eagle corps is dirt cheap and really not a ton worse than higher level units, especially if your eagle troops have a few promotions on them.

 

[ShakaKhan]

What do you think? Does the current structure of the game create a bias against early UUs?

As a general "yes" or "no," I disagree with your argument. But there is some merit to it.

By the time you're able to build enough of the early UUs to make a difference, the AI has already moved on in eras and population.

This is the part that I agree with the most, especially in cases where the UU, while stronger, is more expensive. Early build orders are important, there's things that you have to prioritize and allocating that much production to get enough of the units that you feel like you're cashing in on that bonus of the civ can be costly, even detrimental. The quintessential example of this is Egypt's MCA; it's an absolute monster that's stronger, more durable, and (often) faster than ranged unit at the time, but the cost is more than double the cost of its replacement unit, and just shy of triple the cost of the standard ranged unit of the time. I've just been experimenting with a few Egypt starts that utilize MCAs heavily for early conquest, trying to get as many of them as possible while still getting a good mix of the other important builds in, and you really can't do it They are better than archers, no doubt, but is one MCA better than three archers? I don't think so, and that's very close to how much they cost.

I don't mind the UUs not holding on to their promotions. One reason is that the UUs are supposed to/intended to (I believe it was stated at some point by the development team, can't quote it though) give that civilization a considerable advantage during an era, which implies a certain window of opportunity that should end. Another reason is that, as a heavy, heavy Aztec player in civ5, keeping the promotions can make the unit almost too valuable. Jag-fantry, as I call them, jaguars that have been upgraded to infantry, are incredibly effective, especially if you rush the tech and they're fighting GWI's or riflemen; they're nearly one-shotting opponents, healing to max most of the time while doing so, and moving through rough terrain quicker. But they are irreplaceable. By that point in the game, certain facepalm or rage moments have caused you to lose some long jag-smen and jag-flemen, and the amount that are remaining are too few and precious to put in situations you might lose them, so you (or at least I) end up under-itilizing them.

 

[Victoria]

Mid game UU's are pretty good, especially those 3, mamalukes, Cossacks and redcoats.
I play a lot of redcoats because they are just friggin awesome because they dovetail nicely with Pax Brittanica.
They last a long time because of the +10 and you never even have to build one, it is proper scary done right.

 

[Jaybe]

Rome's legions don't lose their ability to build a fort or repair improvements after they are upgraded.

 

[Rosty K]

Some of them I find pretty worthless, depending on the situation. Greece comes to mind. But one that I'm having a blast with is the Eagle Warrior. Its usefulness really lasts, and the true key is the ability to convert some kills into workers, workers who can build districts at 20% per charge. So, no need to fret about infrastructure. You want more infrastructure? Build more EW's and find something else to kill.

The only problem is that if you don't play like a complete warmonger, then all of this ability is wasted. And then, there's the time you start on your own little island somewhere....

You can choose a couple of more useless city-states and attack them from time to time, if you have no neighbors. I got an island of my own, but fortunately there was Alexander on the next island, so I didn't even need to sail anywhere - slaves just keep coming themselves

On the subject of the thread - I'm on the side of the late game UUs being useless.

 

[bcaiko]

This is the part that I agree with the most, especially in cases where the UU, while stronger, is more expensive. Early build orders are important, there's things that you have to prioritize and allocating that much production to get enough of the units that you feel like you're cashing in on that bonus of the civ can be costly, even detrimental....

I don't mind the UUs not holding on to their promotions. One reason is that the UUs are supposed to/intended to (I believe it was stated at some point by the development team, can't quote it though) give that civilization a considerable advantage during an era, which implies a certain window of opportunity that should end.

The problem is that window of opportunity is very, VERY small. The timeframe for the Ancient and Classical Eras might as well be seconds. Even the Medieval period doesn't last very long in my games. You're better off just creating an archer rush to take cities than to try and weaponize an early UU. The current design of the game makes using early UUs mostly impractical.

There are some really good UUs out there in every time period. But I'd wager that the mid-game UUs get the most bang for their buck.

 

[Eliminator_Sr]

The problem is that window of opportunity is very, VERY small. The timeframe for the Ancient and Classical Eras might as well be seconds. Even the Medieval period doesn't last very long in my games. You're better off just creating an archer rush to take cities than to try and weaponize an early UU. The current design of the game makes using early UUs mostly impractical.

There are some really good UUs out there in every time period. But I'd wager that the mid-game UUs get the most bang for their buck.

I think most people here will tell you that the advantages of an early UU far outweigh the disadvantages. I'm not really sure the window is even smaller. Maybe, but IME most of these units retain usefulness far into the classical age and later. There are no warmonger penalties in the ancient age so you can conquer with impunity and anything that helps you gain even a minor advantage in the early game (like a few extra cities) generally snowballs to a major advantage later on. Personally - I love an early UU and I consider the Aztec Warrior, Legion, double horse archers, and War Cart to be almost game-breakingly good and you can easily conquer your entire continent with them.

 

[The Highwayman]

The early UUs are the best, if for no other reason the early game is far more important than the late game. The War Cart is the best without question; the Legion is top 5 IMO with its strong offensive and defensive options, with no units having bonuses vs. melee. The Ngao Mbeba is almost as good, especially with the AI now building ranged units. Macedon's Hetairoi are great, Mamluks are great, Eagle Warriors are great, even the Hoplite is pretty good when used correctly. The Cossack is a mid to late game UU that's game changing, as it replaces a superior unit with its 1UPT defying ability.

 

[gettingfat]

Eagles are amazing, but they are best at epic or marathon. Also if you can't find AI early enough, don't be shy from attacking CS even you love its bonus. Just trade it back later to your enemy, Dow and liberate it. Keep a few as the finishers in mid game, may still be useful

 

[craney1987]

my primary objective in those first two eras is to pump out units and dominate my neighbours. This is so much easier with an ancient/classical uu.
I spend the next couple of eras building settlers/developing existing cities.
then I spend the late game either turtling and waiting for victory, or knocking on the remaining capitals doors. But by this time I've enough cities that I've progressed to a point that I'm technologically far enough in front for uu's to not be necessary

 

[Victoria]

I had a look through the tech tree and did some analysis because I know how strong redcoats are but never really beeline them directly in the most efficient way because the analysis was complex.

I think I am going to have to try it straight there and via universities but if Incan keep on track they steamroll so much and survive so long and I never have to build any that it's worth seeing just how scary they can be.

A lot of UU's need flat terrain, I.e. Gilgas carts to get the real benefits

 

[TurboJ]

Technology advances too quickly in Civ VI, this is known and already the devs altered the late game eras to make the progress a little slower. But still we have medieval era at 2500 BC which is just absurd. The game as it is does not represent a plausible alternate history - at least to me it's immersion-breaking to have muskets when Archimedes used to do his research. They should make the tech progress rate slower but production rates faster - that way the game would be much more dynamic.

I just played the Viking scenario on deity and this was my first experience of actual warfare in Civ VI (AI builds about five times as many troops as in in the normal game mode). In the regular game even a deity AI will struggle to build things as technologies sweep by too quickly and production rates lag behind. Of course a simple mod could fix all this but I don't want to go that route just yet.

The way the game is right now - I play on epic speed only. Normal speed just feels funny and it feels like epic is what should have been the normal game speed. Epic speed makes early game more fun and certainly gives early UUs more use. Marathon is too much for me but if they made a speed mode between epic and marathon, that would be just about perfect.

Oh, and the best early units are the War Carts and the Eagle Warriors. Maryannus are way too expensive and Hoplites you won't be building because anti-cavalry get no production bonus policies. Eagle warriors are a blast when enemy build a lot of troops - how about getting 12 free builders before your first settler is even built? And the war carts are just good at everything as they don't even have to worry about anti-cavalry and as heavy cavalry they get "barding" so archers can't hurt them either. Really nice stuff.

And then there's the Roman Legion of course. But some UUs are funny like this: you don't need iron to build legions but you need iron for the eureka - so on deity you need iron if you want to utilize legions - which kinda sucks (yeah i know you can upgrade your warriors but the same problem still goes with many UUs.)

However, there is a thing to be said about later era UUs. On higher difficulties you will be playing tech catch-up a lot. So when you get your later UU, it's not as bad as you might think. Your later game UU can be just good enough to match the AI's next-era unit so you can now fight the AI who's an era ahead and succeed. So even later era UUs can be useful.