Did anyone find ironclads useful?

[kungfool]

I love Iron clads and build them all the time--but only because of that cool chugging sound they make.

 

[Mordack]

absolutely, positively the worst change made when C3C was released

nobody's perfect I guess

 

[Oryctolagus]

I find researching the Ironclads tech useful. The AIs usually don't research it immediately, so it can be traded around. There is a chance of getting a SGL, too (it happened to me once or twice when playing a non-scientific civ). Ironclads are slow, but they are good in bombarding and give a better defence for Galleons than Frigates (a veteran Galleon is always attacked first when it is protected only by veteran Frigates). And, as it was mentioned, they upgrade to Destroyers.

 

[Renata]

They're very useful for cutting down on the successful enemy landings in an Always War game. Their attrition rate is much lower than frigates, they can range much farther out to sea than contemporary (or even later) artillery units, and destroyers are just so far away when you have to research absolutely everything yourself.

Renata

 

[gunkulator]

absolutely, positively the worst change made when C3C was released

nobody's perfect I guess

Well, yes and no. Since nobody ever bothers with ironclads, the age of sail has been extended dramatically in C3C. There used to be absolutely no point to frigates whatesoever. By the time you built a few, the AI would have ironclads. Now, in C3C, I do build some frigates for galleon protection.

If you play the English, you get a UU that is absolutely dominant on the seas for quite a long time. They are the only civ that have decent odds attacking those 3 frigate/1 galleon stacks. On pangaea, not so great of course.

 

[Darwin420]

Very rarely do I research the tech, and even more rarely build ironclads. BUT, I've had a few games where they've saved my patookis.

 

[DBear]

In my games, Ironclads seem to be a "red herring" tech, in that the AI will research it while I'm researching more important things like Sci Meth.

 

[lord42]

Useless to me, but I near always play England so they would be no matter what.

 

[gskyes]

I have had a few (but rare) games where I needed ironclads to defend my shores. Those pathetic AI naval invasions and their stupid bombarding frigates because such a nuisance that I researched ironclads to keep them away. They dominate the age of sail units (except possibly Man-of-War). So rarely do I research the tech, but it can be useful when you don't feel like waiting until combustion. The fact that they upgrade to destroyers is nice, so they don't feel like wasted shields.