Best/worst units in Civ 5

[TommyVern]

Chiming in a second time here for another bad unit. The fighter.


Anyone here ever see an AI bomb somebody? I certainly haven't.

So if no one is bombing me, why would I ever build a fighter?

Now that I think of it, I have never built a fighter.

 

[SemperFi2382]

Chiming in a second time here for another bad unit. The fighter.


Anyone here ever see an AI bomb somebody? I certainly haven't.

So if no one is bombing me, why would I ever build a fighter?

Now that I think of it, I have never built a fighter.

AI with Bombers? No, not that I can recall, but many of my games are over before they come up, or I avoided war with someone that did have the tech.

However, I have been bombed hundreds of times by enemy fighters. So having some up for intercepts has certainly been worth the

 

[Chong Warrior]

Cho-Ku-Nu is devatating with it's two strikes per turn. Add a Chinese GG for +35% and it can cause useful damage. Throw in Military Tradition so it gains experience twice as fast 'per attack' and you now have a unit gaining experience four times as quick as normal units. Being ranged it attacks without reply so rarely has to withdraw to heal which again adds to them leveling up very quickly. I've had several tricked out, fully upgraded units laying waste to enemy troops during a single game.
Their only downfall is when gunpowder arrives as the 'aim' upgrades aren't carried over to melee.

As already said the Artillery with it's range of 3 is a must have unit that anyone can use.

I've never built a Lancer or a fighter, they seem pointless.

 

[turtlefang]

Best

Jaguar Warriors - Cheap, multiple promotions, upgrade through the infantry line making them useful all game, creating a superior infantry line

Art/Rct Art - simply a game changer with thier range and ability to kill anything

Keshink - Nothing compares for the time period and a game winner. Might be the best unit in the game.

Worse

Indian Elephant Archers - too expensive and too slow, extra defensive strenght doesn't make up for it

Slinger - even with the buff in the last patch, I don't find them that useful

Fighters - literally, no real place in the sun (use in the game). Maybe Aircraft carriers as they use fighters and I've never actually built an aircraft carrier.


Regarding lancers. Actually useful as scouts until Heli arrive. Then they promote to Helis and make one of the deadiest upgrade paths in the game. An upgraded lancer to heli lets the heli attack then retreat - and heli have a very high attack ability. Especially with a couple of promotions. An upgraded heli from a lancer is about twice or three times as effective as a built from scratch heli.

 

[Louis XXIV]

Best:
Artillery for non-UUs. They just open things up.

Most units just scale well (crossbows are nice for medieval units at the same level as archers for ancient units).

I'll vote Lancers for worst non-UU. Mostly just because it can be easily skipped and isn't in a very important position. I'm sure if I were fighting the Mongols, I would beeline to them, however.

For best UU, I agree Janissary is the answer. I think NElepehant deserves mention as well, although I haven't heard people talk about them in a long time.

 

[svett89]

Great units in no particular order:

Longbowmen - 3 range unit in the medieval era? Oh yeah! Sure, you can argue that you could just as well have a Crossbow with the range promotion, but since Longbowmen start with it they are very easy to keep alive and crank them up in levels. With ca 4 Longbowmen and a Horseman or Swordsman you can conquer that whole world during the Medieval era (at least on Emperor )

Keshik - Probably the best unit in the game. Again, with a small army of Keshiks and a Horseman or two you can wreck the entire world in record time.

Janissary - Full heal when killing a unit is just amazing. If you upgrade an army of Janissaries to rifles/infantry/mech infantry you have a nearly unstoppable army.

Tercio & Musketeers - Two very underrated units in my opinion. While the Musketeer only get the increased combat strength and no special promotion they can really be game changing when they appear. With the recent nerf to Longswordsmen there are really no units in that time period that can stand up to them, except for Knights. Which brings us to the Tercio with its 100% bonus VS mounted units. It basically means that until Rifles starts appearing you can dominate the Renessaince battlefield.

Mandekalu Cavalry & Conquistador - With the nerf to Longswords Knights have become much better units recently, and both the MC and the Conquistador are good at capturing cities, removing one of the problems with the regular knight.

Immortals - Double healing means you can crush cities in the Ancient era. Just park your Immortals outside the city with a few archers for support and you can wreck a lot of havoc.

Other great ones are Companion Cavalry, Chu-Ko-Nus, Hwa'Chas and Berserkers to name a few.


Bad/underwhelming units in no particular order:

Lancer - Defense penalty in addition to the regular lack of defensive bonuses for mounted units? Ouch. Hard to keep alive which makes them even worse than Knights in my opinion. The Sipahi is better, but still pretty terrible.

Fighters/Zero - Rarely needed against the AI. Probably a lot more tactical usage in multiplayer though.

Slingers - The only good thing about these in my opinion is that they don't get a penalty attacking cities. The "retreat" promotion is wasted as if your ranged units do get melee attacked you are doing it wrong.

Indian War Elephant - Not really a bad unit, just underwhelming. I tend to see it as a more expensive version of the regular archer as it has the same movement but more strength. As its promotions are wasted when you upgrade though I don't really see the point in building a lot of these. One or two are good for defense, but apart from that I don't really like them.

 

[awesome]

keshiks do seem pretty weak on paper, so i guess i can understand why someone might not like them before trying them out.

but, uh, i like archers the most out of the early stuff because of the ranged attack. and probably spears the least because i don't usually like specialized units.
as for the modern era, i like mechanized infantry the most because it's resourcesless and mobile sams the least for the same reason as spears.

 

[Babri]

Sipahi The Ottoman empire SUCKS really bad!!! Their trait is historical, yet useless, both units stink, especially the Sipahi. 1 extra sight, are you kidding me!! It's just as useless as the lancer, still even worse. The Ottomans stinks, and needs a big makeover.

Janissary heals completely when it kills a unit + it gets bonus when attacking so I have to disagree.

Best
Keshliks : IS there any need for explanation ?

Worst
Slingers : They suck. They are weaker than archers & their ability to retreat is luck based which can put u to a great risk in early game if u rely on it.
Zero : A useless UU, there is no purpose for building it. Usually I don't start building Airforce until Bombers are available.

 

[Babri]

keshiks do seem pretty weak on paper, so i guess i can understand why someone might not like them before trying them out.

U can't kill what u can't catch + u can get march & blitz insanely fast. That makes Keshlik the best unit.

 

[awesome]

the phrase "on paper" means that something sounds a certain way in theory, but might not be that way in practice, so when i say, "keshiks do seem pretty weak on paper," i'm saying that they sound like they'd be weak, but you can see their strength once you use them.
that being said, i still wouldn't say they're the best unit in my opinion, they're just one of the best.

 

[ShahJahanII]

the phrase "on paper" means that something sounds a certain way in theory, but might not be that way in practice, so when i say, "keshiks do seem pretty weak on paper," i'm saying that they sound like they'd be weak, but you can see their strength once you use them.
that being said, i still wouldn't say they're the best unit in my opinion, they're just one of the best.

I would say they are the best.

 

[awesome]

well, you know, opinions and such. give me a b17 any day.

 

[Louis XXIV]

Has anyone checked to see if Horsemen (not knights) are effective at all in countering Keshiks? It seems the weakened melee strength should be a factor, but I've never actually tested it out.

 

[ShahJahanII]

Has anyone checked to see if Horsemen (not knights) are effective at all in countering Keshiks? It seems the weakened melee strength should be a factor, but I've never actually tested it out.

the Mongol AI is terrible with Keshiks.
A human player with them is unstoppable.
No, the -10 melee strength makes no difference because they have 5.
This can't be countered with units because Keshiks can just bombard units or avoid them.

 

[Louis XXIV]

Well, bombard takes one move. If they move in two, bombard, and move out two, that's four tiles away and in range of a Horseman.

 

[snarzberry]

Focus attack with multiple keshiks to kill all units that are in range. But you're right that if the AI could use horseman better then they'd be a headache for keshiks as sometimes they'd be out of sight and if the AI could scout ahead, see the keshiks and then use remaining move points to attack then they'd be able to trade units a lot of time time which would severely reduce the keshiks awesomeness. As things stand it's rare to ever have to leave a keshik on a tile where he's in danger of being attacked next turn.

 

[G Viceroy]

Best: Artillery, Bomber, Paratrooper (one of the most underrated units in the game, IMO)

There's a lot of useless units, but I think the submarine has to be the worst, mainly because of the AI's ineptitude for naval combat. It's a shame because it was such a terror in the 20th century. There's at least some situations with flat terrain where I can justify building a lancer.

 

[PreLynMax]

Best: Artillery, Bomber, Paratrooper (one of the most underrated units in the game, IMO)

As are Spearman (because I have the repetitive inability to draw up a single piece of iron sometimes and they are the only ones avaliable), Fighters (Really? Fighters? Are you guys nuts?), Horsemen (better and can be upgraded from Chariots) and Trebuchets (better than Catapults, and faster, too).

Ok, I will admit. Lancers are... *sigh* crap. I rather keep my Knights. And Slingers? No. You can kill that mess.

 

[Roxlimn]

Louis XXIV:

That wouldn't signify. If I had to worry about Horseman counterattacks, I'd just post a Pikeman somewhere where it would interfere with the Horseman's movements. The Pikeman itself is not completely vulnerable, since any unit that attacked it would then be destroyed by the Keshiks next turn. You could use the Knight in a similar fashion (and the Mongol Knight has move 4).

Babri:

You can't get Blitz with Keshiks. Blitz is a melee promotion. You could get it as a legacy promotion, but I don't know that Blitz would make a Keshiks attack twice with a ranged attack.

svett89:

The Lancer's a little whacked, but the Sipahi is actually pretty okay. It'll perform MUCH better if you stop trying to use it as a Better Knight and instead treat it as a Better Scout. It's got 5 movement, so rough terrain's not a problem (it still moves 3), it has the extra sight range packaged in (no need to waste promos on it), and it can off the odd isolated unit or so. Of course, if you happen to be fortunate enough to find key strategics within range of a Sipahi, the ability to impose -50% on all the enemy's key troops just pays for itself.

On Topic:

Most of the units are good by me, save many of the naval ones and the air ones. The Zero is really bad in that the AI doesn't know how to do Air Combat any better than it does Naval Combat, the interception mechanic for Fighters seems to be bugged, and it's not really that much better than a regular Fighter anyway. Rubbish.

The Zeros, aside from being deadly Fighters in the East Asian sphere, were also renowned for demolished the American Battleship fleets in Pearl Harbor. Removing the Weak Ranged Attack limitation that Fighters usually get will go a long way towards making the Zero totally kick ass the way the B17 does.

 

[Babri]

Well, bombard takes one move. If they move in two, bombard, and move out two, that's four tiles away and in range of a Horseman.

But you can use multiple Keshliks to badly wound horses making them unable to attack you.