Best Ancient/Classical Unit

[ttfno]

Whats your favortie unit for the BCs?

 

[NineOneSix]

Whats your favortie unit for the BCs?

Quechua, war chariots and immortals are my favorite unique units for early rush. I have never played a roman leader but I think I know what can be achieved with praets

Setting aside unique units I don't really like any ancient units for rushing. But war elephants with catapults and horse archers (if beelined) would be my favorites for non-unique units.

 

[NineOneSix]

Funnily enough, the one time I played Sury my neighbour was Genghis Khan. He sent a number of stacks at me that were at least 50% keshik. My ballista elephants became super promoted which was quite beneficial when I started taking his cities. 3 cheers for ballista elephants! Is useful unit

A stupid thing about Genghis. He builds his cities in a straight line toward a neighbour and leaves gaps next to the capitol. Often his other neighbours rex right up next to it. I also sometimes see empty land above/below him filled with barbs that he just ignores. Improvements in the capitol end up pillaged by barbs and he is completely stunted by it

 

[lymond]

Fast worker

 

[ttfno]

I was actually going to put fast worker, but I just didnt.

 

[ttfno]

Wow actually using ballista elepants? Those things are crazy! I also like quecheas, just spam after first city, take captial and rushs somebody else. Than just rex a little bit. War chariots and immortals are awesome! War chariots are earlier since Egypt comes wuth The Wheel! Immortals are crazy, one of the best! Praetorians are awesome, swordsmen with 2 more strength, but no 10% attack bonus, thats sad. I will go with Chariots, Quechea, and Vulture! Also Phalanx suck so, yeah.

 

[Sun Tzu Wu]

War Elephants with Catapults are an optimal rush combination for the Era they become available in. The Spearman is its only counter and they typically get decimated by the Catapults.

 

[Sun Tzu Wu]

Other than Elepult, the Vulture is a very strong unit. Has the strength of a Swordsman, yet holds its own versus Axemen.

 

[Sun Tzu Wu]

Early mounted units like War Chariots, Immortals and Horse Archers are very powerful due to their strength and speed. Immortals are better on Monarch and above, since only on these higher levels can their bonus versus Archers be used.

Of them, War Chariots are the best, since one needs only Animal Husbandry and a connection to Horse to built them. They also have strength 5, which can kill almost any unit of their Era.

 

[Sun Tzu Wu]

The optimal Ancient/Classical Era unit is the Quechua on Monarch difficulty level and above. Settle a PH with optional Stone/Marble on it and work a PHF. Then spam Quechua like crazy. You should be able to capture many capitals before the Quechua becomes obsolete.

 

[ttfno]

Early mounted units like War Chariots, Immortals and Horse Archers are very powerful due to their strength and speed. Immortals are better on Monarch and above, since only on these higher levels can their bonus versus Archers be used.

Of them, War Chariots are the best, since one needs only Animal Husbandry and a connection to Horse to built them. They also have strength 5, which can kill almost any unit of their Era.

Yep, because of the starting techs and all, and everything else you said is true! Thanks for posting here, its good to see people so into it and giving us info!

 

[frippy72]

Love quecheas because it means I don't have to think about delaying better techs to grab archery, and then war chariots + immortals are very good for actual combat especially considering the limited techs needed to use them(you just have to hope you have horse).

 

[frippy72]

Love quecheas because it means I don't have to think about delaying better techs to grab archery, and then war chariots + immortals are very good for actual combat especially considering the limited techs needed to use them(you just have to hope you have horse).

 

[ttfno]

Love quecheas because it means I don't have to think about delaying better techs to grab archery, and then war chariots + immortals are very good for actual combat especially considering the limited techs needed to use them(you just have to hope you have horse).

Definetly correct with me! Same reasons, there just good.

 

[escream]

I'm nitpicking, but best is not neccessarily equal to favorite, which again, is different from power-level.
For example, I love Axemen because they always get the job done.
But for power level, I would have to go to a UU, either quechuas or war chariot.
I also have a soft spot for Holkan, for reasons similar to why I love Axemen: they always work! (and much more so than Axemen) The lack of need for a resource means that the map won't screw you! In my experience, not having horses nor copper is much more common than you'd think. And Iron doesn't always come to save the day. Sure, you can either reload the map or go for Archers for minimal defense, but researching Archery for any other reason than Horse Archer rush or very late backfill (for Cho-Ko-Nus for example) seems like such a waste! Let alone actually building those archers, that will upgrade to mighty Longbowmen...

 

[Gumbolt]

Love quecheas because it means I don't have to think about delaying better techs to grab archery, and then war chariots + immortals are very good for actual combat especially considering the limited techs needed to use them(you just have to hope you have horse).

Why would you even consider archers?? At best that is a last resort unless you plan an HA rush?

Quechua's are great. No techs required! No resources required. Simply a strength 2 unit that gets 100% bonus against archers. Tried them today on immortal and I pretty much wiped out 1 Ai and took down 1 city from another Ai. If the Ai had been much closer I could of done much more damage very quickly. 10-20 tiles was not great for 1mp units. Plus fact they do pretty well against barb archers..

 

[Quoth the Raven]

Praetorians. Warlords Phalanxes were just as good, until BTS. Vultures, War Chariots, and Ballista Elephants are pretty good too.

 

[Jivilov]

War Elephants with Catapults are an optimal rush combination for the Era they become available in. The Spearman is its only counter and they typically get decimated by the Catapults.

Indeed, yet whenever this player (Warlords on Emperor level) gets the combo things fall apart after destroying/capitulating the first civ. Usually find myself behind in tech and hemorrhaging money for units. Even after winning the Liberalism race my tech lead dissipates after choosing Printing Press as the free tech and the "beeline" to Rifling turns into a long slog playing catch-up.

Recall that super players like Seriael said they didn't bother much with Courthouses or most any other improvements except Forges so yours truly would continue cranking out Elepults even with distant cities costing 10-20 maintenance per turn. Isn't there some middle ground when your empire expands to, say, 15-plus cities? Maybe I shouldn't have traded PP my last game but how else to "fill in the blanks" of all those bypassed techs (Metal Working, Machinery, Guilds, etc.)? Had to do Engineering myself anyway since nobody would trade it. Gets really frustrating when you do all the whipping and war-mongering but lose anyway.

Thanks for reading and advance Happy New Year!

 

[ttfno]

Why would you even consider archers?? At best that is a last resort unless you plan an HA rush?

Quechua's are great. No techs required! No resources required. Simply a strength 2 unit that gets 100% bonus against archers. Tried them today on immortal and I pretty much wiped out 1 Ai and took down 1 city from another Ai. If the Ai had been much closer I could of done much more damage very quickly. 10-20 tiles was not great for 1mp units. Plus fact they do pretty well against barb archers..

Indeed!

 

[ttfno]

Praetorians. Warlords Phalanxes were just as good, until BTS. Vultures, War Chariots, and Ballista Elephants are pretty good too.

I like Vultures and War chariots but Ballista Elephants are pretty much normal elephants. But yeah normal elephants are good!