Best Unique Unit?

[Harbringer]

I have thus far used the camel archer, the navy seal,the conquistador and the unique unit for persia(cyrus) and I must say that the conquistador is next to useless,the camel archer is fair, the navy seal is alrite but the unique unit for persia simply rocks.And I cant remember its bloody name.

 

[Dantius III]

The Immortal? Yes, I am playing a game as Persia and they are pretty fair. Especially, as I am in this game, if you do not have horses early on. But they get eaten alive by horse archers.

I liked them a little better the way they were in Civilization III, with the Arabian sword and as a powerful upgrade of the swordsman. But they are still a pretty strong thing to have.

Overall, I feel like the unique unit of civilizations, because of a diversification of the combat system, has been marginalized a bit. Meaning, the unique unit is not as important to a civilization as it was in Civilization III. It still helps though.

 

[OG_Pieps]

I haven't tried all yet but so far the romans have the strongest UU in my opinion.
The camel archer is very similar to the knight but it does not need ressources. But in Civ4 iron and horses are more common than in Civ3 and so it's not very useful, I think.

 

[M0nsta]

From what I've seen so far, Praetorians by a mile. A stack of those and a few catapults can dominate any city with archers/longbows.

 

[Mujadaddy]

Early? "Praetorians by a mile"

Mid to late-mid? I think Cossacks are going to be UBER... (Cavalry have 15, Cossacks have 18! The percentages on upgraded cossacks are INSANELY good, plus they get +50% vs. other mounted, too!!)

Haven't played around with modern UUs much...I usually play Egypt

 

[Rabbit_Alex]

Camel Archers for Arabia are awesome! Strength 10 (like a knight) vs. strength 8? for horse archers? that they replace.

 

[Mujadaddy]

Camel Archers for Arabia are awesome! Strength 10 (like a knight) vs. strength 8? for horse archers? that they replace.

Uh, no.

Camel Archers replace KNIGHTS. Their bonus is that they get a 25% withdrawal chance AND that they don't require EITHER Iron OR Horses, while Knights require both resources.

 

[Dracleath]

The thing about praets that really make them overpowered (and yes they are overpowered, if you don't believe it I'll show you my last standard/pangaea game on prince where I killed or reduced to 1 city 5 other civilizations and got a domination game using nothing but praets and archers for city defense) is that praets don't need anything else. Until feudalism pops up they'll happilly walk over archers defending in cities without even needing to bombard the city down. Even when feudalism pops up all you need is to make 3 or 4 cats, bombard to 0, then mop up with praets. The first city defenders that can reliably stop them are xbows, and the first ones that are really good at it are muskets.

It's so extremely insane that a romans player can just completely ignore military tech after iron working until gunpowder shows up. All you need is to pick up mathematics which is necessary for other stuff anyway and you are set. No variety is necessary like with other civs, just praets preats preats for the win.

 

[Mujadaddy]

Axemen, Drac? Nobody had Axemen?

 

[Dracleath]

sure they had axemen, my praets just ran over them .

5 base +2.5 melee bonus = 7.5, praets = 8.0

They were the hardest thing I had to deal with until war elephants showed up, but they weren't so bad.

If the AI had massed them it would have been more of a problem though.

And also of course I mean pick up construction above, too much civ2

 

[Mujadaddy]

Yeah, I was just saying that Axemen are the ONLY viable (early) counter to Praets... and if *I* knew you were playing Rome, I'd sure have some extra Axemen hanging about

 

[Harbringer]

That camel archer is very circumstantial, in the game I was playing as Arabia I started out in an area with horses but no Iron whatsoever. The irony was that I conquered a neighbor for Iron before I realized that camel archers were Arabias unique unit and that I didnt really need it.

 

[Venger]

When using Praetorians it's a good idea to pop them out with dual promo's early - usually Combat 1 and Shock, or Combat 1 and City Attack. I usually go the former, because you never know when you'll have to tap a frosty keg of whoopass out on the open plains...

Venger

 

[Mujadaddy]

When using Praetorians it's a good idea to pop them out with dual promo's early - usually Combat 1 and Shock, or Combat 1 and City Attack. I usually go the former, because you never know when you'll have to tap a frosty keg of whoopass out on the open plains...

Venger

 

[Gromblmompf]

Don´t underestimate the egyptian war chariot... it comes early, builds quickly, is fast and has a nice strength of 5.

 

[madviking]

Fast Worker

 

[Mujadaddy]

Don´t underestimate the egyptian war chariot... it comes early, builds quickly, is fast and has a nice strength of 5.

I play Egypt


...I always get screwed on horses though ... wait, that didn't come out right

 

[GreenMonkey]

Praets are good, agreed. But not that much better than the slightly-later macemen or slightly-earlier axemen. I mean, you still need catapults with praets IMO - and Rome doesn't have the super-strongest early game combo of abilities.

I personally like Japan's Samurai. Dbl first strike macemen basically

My best games so far were still Japan.

 

[abbamouse]

Praetorians, hands down. They make ancient war easy. I'm also a fan of the Indian Fast Worker, although I wish they'd come up with a more creative name for that one...

I used to think the Malian Skirmisher was useless, but starting next to the Malians has changed my mind. It's quite a good defensive unit for when you get it (ie immediately). One skirmisher can defend a city until the opponent gets catapults or Swordsmen (and even then, a Skirmisher can often fend off severl Swordsmen in a row). So if you want to build instead of fight, Skirmishers are useful.

 

[Dracleath]

You don't need cats until longbowmen come out, prats are perfectly capable of taking out archers, axemen, and spearmen in cities and winning in equal numbers. And the macemen are hardly slightly later, it requires code of laws which costs one and a half times as much to research as ironworking, and itself costs more than twice the cost of the entire iron working line.

You can easilly get iron working by 2000 bc, you'll be lucky to get civilservice by 500 AD unless you completely neglect everything else and straight shot for it.

Against each other axemen are slightly worse than praets, against anything else in the game you're going to need two axemen to do the damage of one preat.

I think a much more fair value for the praetorian would be 6 str but 25% attack bonus to archer and 10% to raiding cities or something of the like. It would be as good at it is now at city assaults but there would actually be suitible counters such as axemen or war elephants whereas now there simply is no counter, Praets just win vs everything, nothing else stands a chance until macemen, xbows, and knights.