Best UU overall

[cpm4001]

MKDELTA3 I've personally never experienced playing with the Carolean but from what I've read it seems that the only difference between it and the Rifleman is the March promotion.

Yeah, that's true, but the difference is huge. Getting a free March promotion right out of the gate is an amazing bonus that really helps with conquest (which you actually should be doing as Sweden once you hit the early Industrial Era).

 

[zukenft]

march promotion out of the gate is very powerful, especially when you train and bring some medic units with you. healing 15 per turn even after attacking is awesome.
just yesterday I tried this, 7 caroleans, all have medic. could even capture strength 74 city without a casualty.

 

[OnceAKing]

I've never played as Byzantium but I once played a TSL as Rome and marched an army of meele and CBs to take back Constantinople, because, I mean it's technically mine right? And caught her,off guard. With 3 dromon and 1 CB she easily destroyed my 3 triremes fended off half my meele and CBs who couldnt get into a position that didn't mean getting hit by the city, the CB, and the dromon. And the other half of my military was traveling by water to encircle the city. Needless to say they never made it that far, had to disembark on the coasts of Greece because she had control of the Mediterranean by that time. So she may have the best naval unit by way of being light years ahead of any other naval unit in her era.

However I give the crown the Keshik. Not only because of their specific stats and 5 movement. But combine that with the fact that you can cut their teeth and sharpen your units skills as chariot units against unsuspecting city states. All of a sudden they have 3 promotions turn into Keshiks and are only a turn away from any Civs major outlying city. With the help of any equally fast moving khan who heals them. You can take a border the city and then the Capital in less then 12 turns and it's all downhill from there.

The only thing is, because of where they are in the tech tree you don't have time to stop in between wars for recovering diplomacy. You want to use them before there outdated. But that adds to the immersion because you rush across the continent destroying everyThing along the way save the capitals. Knowing that if you leave anyone alive they may take back your bloated empire once the Keshiks are outdated. So raze them all and make everyone your enemy.

 

[Hoplite191]

Might try Sweden and see how good the Carolean is. Never know could surprise me.

 

[kaspergm]

Just did a short test-game of Arabia yesterday, and have to say I was pretty surprised about just how powerful Camel Archers are. Alexander was my nearby neighbor, and he spammed units but completely neglected improving his cities, and a handful of CA completely eradicated his empire without a single loss.

I do love Caroleans, but to my experience they come so late that they won't make a huge difference. When you're close to Artillery and GW Bombers, being able to pump out units starting with March doesn't really turn the tides from my experience.

 

[Hoplite191]

Kaspergm you make a good point on Caroleans. Anyone experienced the Pathfinder unit of the Shoshone Civ? Cause his abilities sound pretty good.

 

[MKDELTA3]

MKDELTA3 I've personally never experienced playing with the Carolean but from what I've read it seems that the only difference between it and the Rifleman is the March promotion.

Yeah, it is. But it's a huge difference. You can totally ignore the normal promotion paths unless you're aiming for Blitz. Cover II Caroleans are very difficult to get rid of. Alhambra'd Brandenburg Gate'd Autocracy Caroleans are the Holy Grail of land gunpowder units.

 

[Troll4Hire]

Kaspergm you make a good point on Caroleans. Anyone experienced the Pathfinder unit of the Shoshone Civ? Cause his abilities sound pretty good.

As long as you have ruins turned on it's OP, but i play most of my multiplayer games without ruins.
It costs a bit more hammers, so popping out two of them at start might set you back at granary/library/whatever you're planning to build, BUT you get one of these guys instead of the standard warrior.
In case if you find a ruin a screen pops up which reveals you all the optional lucky findings. After you picked one, there is a short delay on that specific type of bonus, so you cannot pile up e.g. culture every time you find something. One more thing, to be able to choose faith points as a bonus, you will need pottery researched previously.
In combat the pathfinder has similar performance as the good ol' warrior, so in the early years you don't have to worry about losing your PFs as much as you do when you roll with normal scouts.
The other UU isn't extraordinary, it is a basic cavalry with an extra movement or whatever. It does the job, but do not expect too much.

One more thing. The UA not just gives you extra land, but you also get 15% combat bonus inside your own territory. Perfect civ for turtling up and/or if you're planning to bring your own borders near the enemies'. Pick order's patriotic war (or something like that, also gives you a combat bonus % in friendly territory), plus if you can pick the Defenders of the Faith belief - in multi you might also wanna get the Himeji Castle, and after that all you have to do is to bomb the sh*t out of your opponent's units, cities, whatever you can see - while you're standing on your own ground. Keep his towns as puppets, and pave your own black-n-blue highway 'til you reach his capital.

Epic civ if you prefer/enjoy trench-warfare situations.

 

[Hoplite191]

I liked the Pathfinder ability because at the start of the game if you can choose to get extra pop or settler it can really set you up for a great win.

 

[Loucypher]

In terms of sheer utility, the pathfinder might just be the strongest UU. It is, however, highly situational based on finding those ruins first, and it thrives mostly on being there before other scouts given it being the Shoshone starting unit, which means you can't really call it the BEST UU.
One that I love myself is the Sea Beggar. 3 promotions right out of the gate means that you'll dominate the seas for a long time to come, especially if you managed to snag Brandenburg (Which, in my experience, isn't all that commonly taken by the AI).

 

[poooh]

No one of above can beat German UU. Panzers from barbarian camps are really cool.

 

[Xiao Xiong]

That Hun battering ram...

I just popped my warrior into one from a ruins on about turn five, then it single handedly(!) captured the first three CS's I met, sacked and burned rome's two annoyingly forward settled cities, and eventually with the help of three horse archers and a pair of sacrificial scouts, took down rome.

I just met Indonesia, he is pissed about my war mongering. I can probably take him out of the game with a couple more of these rams before he gets the chance to blab about it to anyone else.

It is so good it revealed an aggravating "bug" in the game. One of my free monuments from legalism burned when I took down rome's forward city. It was technically my fourth. What's going to happen to my free aquaduct later on? Never captured cities so fast and so early to have noticed that before.

 

[budweiser]

Camel Archer is best.

 

[sh3baproject]

Overall I would go with the Hwacha. Just love it when people go up to it and get their butts kicked >

However,I generally don't compare UUs unless if they replace the same thing. To me,to compare an immortal to a Keshik is like comparing GTA V to skyrim. They share only one thing in common: they are video games.

 

[Navelgazer]

Overall I would go with the Hwacha. Just love it when people go up to it and get their butts kicked >

However,I generally don't compare UUs unless if they replace the same thing. To me,to compare an immortal to a Keshik is like comparing GTA V to skyrim. They share only one thing in common: they are video games.

Well this is the beauty of the game though (obviously.) The defensive capabilities of the Hwacha are only comparable to the city-capturing skills of the Keshik or Barb-Farming abilities of the Dromon in the eyes of the player. For all of the elimination threads and everything else, it is pretty remarkably well-balanced, and in the Extra Credits way of incomparables.

 

[Hoplite191]

sh3baproject we're comparing the UU to the unit it replaces and then after deciding how much better it is than the unit it replaces we can see how good it is compared to other UUs. We also look at the era in which it comes in. It doesn't matter how they match up face to face but how much of an improvement they are to the original unit.

 

[Xiao Xiong]

sh3baproject we're comparing the UU to the unit it replaces and then after deciding how much better it is than the unit it replaces we can see how good it is compared to other UUs. We also look at the era in which it comes in. It doesn't matter how they match up face to face but how much of an improvement they are to the original unit.

In that case the battering ram wins. You cannot go capture every city state you meet with a single spear.

As atilla if you get a ram from a ruins you get the nearest three or four cs, and a good start on the nearest capital. You get to raze any AI forward settled cities, and with the UA they burn quick.

 

[Hoplite191]

In that case the battering ram wins. You cannot go capture every city state you meet with a single spear.

That is true however the Battering Ram is given penalties on defence and visibility. It also has lower defence than the Spearman and can only be used for City-Attack. It also costs more production at 75 compared to Spearman's 56. These penalties balance out its 300% against Cities attack. Thus making it not as good as a Camel Archer that costs just as much as the Knight and that has no bonus against it being a cavalry unit for the pikeman and spearman. The Ram is also lesser to its fellow Hunnic Unit The Horse Archer which costs the same as Chariot Archer yet has higher defence, no terrain penalty and Accuracy I. Therefore the Battering ram cannot be considered the best unit as the difference between it and the spearman is not that great once all the factors are taken into account.

 

[Babri]

I am puzzled why some people prefer camel archers over keshiks due to slightly higher strength. Camel archers CAN be fought in rough terrain & you may be able to catch them using clever tactics.

Keshliks on the other hand can easily move through ANY type of terrain (5 moves!) & are extremely difficult to catch as they move so fast. Coupled with that they also gain experience faster which makes them even more powerful.

And to clarify a misconception, all mounted ranged units are immune to spear bonus against cav, this is not a camel archer exclusive attribute.

In hands of a seasoned civ player I think keshik wins by a long margin. Although for rookies or multiplayer games with simultaneous turns, camels can have the edge.

Sent from my HTC One V using Tapatalk 2

 

[Troll4Hire]

That is true however the Battering Ram is given penalties on defence and visibility. It also has lower defence than the Spearman and can only be used for City-Attack. It also costs more production at 75 compared to Spearman's 56. These penalties balance out its 300% against Cities attack. Thus making it not as good as a Camel Archer that costs just as much as the Knight and that has no bonus against it being a cavalry unit for the pikeman and spearman. The Ram is also lesser to its fellow Hunnic Unit The Horse Archer which costs the same as Chariot Archer yet has higher defence, no terrain penalty and Accuracy I. Therefore the Battering ram cannot be considered the best unit as the difference between it and the spearman is not that great once all the factors are taken into account.

I don't get the point why you guys are trying to separate / compare the horse archer from/to the battering ram. Talking about Keshiks vs Horse archers or Keshiks and Camel archers makes a lot of sense, but comparing the two Hun UUs, especially while both of them are used at the same time seems incredibly pointless to me.

If you're building up a Hun army to besiege another player, you WILL bring Battering Rams to finish the job what your Horse Archers started.
It's the same if'd say that the Khan is better or worse than a Keshik - you probably won't use Keshiks without one of two Khans hanging around, or Khans without ANY support EVER.

Same goes to Rams. Rams cannot attack other units, only cities (but they very good at it). On the other hand, it will cost you more than a few horse archers if you're trying to capture a full grown capital city with only horse archers and a random melee unit.
The best thing to do is to use your Horse Archers to mop up the place, providing enough space for the Rams, so can just slide in a start knocking on the gates without getting ripped apart by enemy units.

Both the HA+Ram and Khan+Keshik are legendary unit combos, working like clockwork - making the specific civ so terrifying when they hit a certain era. especially if they happen to show up in your neighborhood. I see no point in comparing these units.