Least Important Unit?

[NonPrayinMantis]

If the damn subs had another use besides scouting and sneaking missiles up to the coast, I'd be all over them. It's why I make the suggestion that they should first have a useful life as anti-ship weapons before they settle into their missile carrying role.

Subs do have an anti-ship role, you just aren't using them correctly. Put a few subs with tactics 2 (total of +30% withdraw to their already high 50% base) in your stack with destroyers and/or battleships, and use them like water-based horse archers. Attack with the subs first, then follow with the main ships. If you did any damage in the sub attack, the main ship can have a much better chance of success.

The chances are at least 4 to 5 that the sub will live to fight another day, and there is a slim chance that the sub could win the battle outright. When that happens, the sub can get 6 or more experience and all of that adds up to more generals.

NPM

 

[NonPrayinMantis]

I voted for the anti-tank because the only "role" that it has is to upgrade to mechanized infantry with a free ambush promo. They suck at killing tanks because their strength is so low that with the inherent bonus the AT and Tank are only on even ground. With a properly promoted tank, enemy AT is not usually a problem. I find that my AT's in my city either die to enemy infantry or die to the enemy tanks!

NPM

 

[DMOC]

Explorers.

Oh, they're not on the poll ... ironclads then.

Or I'll just select nukes for fun.

 

[nanomage]

i guess from the replies the most utter useless unit would be a submersible ironclad carrying anti-tank explorers.

 

[z0wb13]

ironclads have some use, sort of. just not past the age of sail.

paratroopers are the worst, because once you drop them behind enemy lines they are cannon-fodder. and not even inexpensive cannon-fodder.

 

[nanomage]

i use paratroopers to heal tanks stacks in captured cities.
i have usually some GII, some WII, and some Medic II paratroopers.
i drop the later into captured city, and the former two before attack directly on tank stack if it is on hills/forests.
i understand i could do without them, still they seem to accelerate healing a bit and they get damaged on the defence instad of tanks. they shred antitanks, too.

 

[PieceOfMind]

Are you kidding, paratroopers are fantastic units! Just like other specialist units, they're not gonna do well if you use them without thought, just dropping them behind enemy lines for the hell of it.

Drop them in newly captured cities so you don't have to walk through 4 tiles of enemy territory. Use them as medics. Use them as instant city garrisons, especially for PRO leaders. Drop them in enemy territory to help your advancing mech infantries capture cities, because they can't keep up with mech infantries normally. Use them to pillage critical enemy resources.

At the very least, paratroopers are a unit that is interesting enough in its unique abilities that it's hardly worth calling the most useless unit.

 

[ParadigmShifter]

Attacko visited me in a dream last night and suggested explorers could be improved if they could also perform espionage missions against civs you have open borders with.

 

[Laurwin]

you know, on second thought, great spies really are useless. Useless in the sense that they are the most useless GPs, they can't bulb any techs, (they can build scotland yard though or some kind of spy academy?) and you can settle them in cities (which is only really good if its either early game or you're running representation.

cant they like... do useful spy missions like city revolt? If you could do such things with 100% odds then they'd be nice in my opinion. Infiltration mission helps jack . .. .. .. ., why would I want to view an enemy city's production queue if I can't do anything about it, I can't do DAMAGE.

so considering that they are "great" persons, they are essentially just expensive land scouts.

 

[nanomage]

^you are either laughing or mistaking gravely.

additional EP's from infiltration really help you do damage: it's easier to incite city revolts when you have a lead in EP's, and you can incite much more of these revolts. You can steal techs massively, which requires crazy amount of EP which is long and hard to accumulate in cinventional way. And of top of that, you see his production queue. I'd say it's at least more useful than an artist in most cases.

 

[Draco Spirit]

Hmmm...

Well, I never build Explorers - so I'd call them pointless rather than useless. It's just a scout in a fancy hat isn't it?

I've certainly found a use for ironclads before now (esp. popping one out to own all those annoying AI frigates which have been ruining my sea improvements!)

So my vote has to go to...the musketman, with special mention to the machine gunner.

Machine gunners...well, they just die. That's what they seem to do which is pretty useless. Can't attack with them, only defend (but NO defensive bonuses available?!) And when they defend...they die.

As for my 'winner', the Musketman - No thanks (waits for rifles...)

It very possable you have them when your oppoment only has rifiles and grenders... which they slaughter. Infortry doesn't do too well against them either. Plus the immunity to collatral damage is rather handy when the AI swarms you.

 

[Dirk1302]

+ you can upgrade guns from grens, in this case they can have CG promotions. They're very useful then. Entrenched CG3 guns are almost invincible.

 

[PieceOfMind]

In MP, a great spy is a spy that cannot be caught. Only problem is it doesn't get the normal road movement bonus, which sucks if the enemy empire is very spread out.

 

[Elkad]

Ironclads are useful. If you are playing Ragnar and get circumnavigation.

Otherwise they are just too slow. I rarely build Ship of Line because of the speed issues too. Yay, it beats frigates. Except it can never catch them.

I actually do build an explorer or 3 fairly often. Since by that time you should be building 5xp units somewhere, a move2 unit with W2/G2 can be stuck on auto and cover a huge amount of ground to clean up those dark corners on your map.

 

[ston]

It very possable you have them when your oppoment only has rifiles and grenders... which they slaughter. Infortry doesn't do too well against them either. Plus the immunity to collatral damage is rather handy when the AI swarms you.

+ you can upgrade guns from grens, in this case they can have CG promotions. They're very useful then. Entrenched CG3 guns are almost invincible.

Cheers, that's given me some food for thought re: gunners...perhaps I'll give 'em another go...

 

[mirthadir]

I'm going to go with stealth destroyer.

Ironclads make for good point defense and work well as stack protectors. One or two navigation ironclads make it much easier to run an amphib assault on an AI with SoL. Also you can get insane mileage out of parking a few and blockading the AI; if you can stop him from making frigates via resource denial you can start to get some insane kill counts when his armada of useless ships suicides into your ironclad.

Stealth destroyers are not so limited, but let's be honest even for a late game guy like me, stealth is way down the tech tree. I have no real need for a new stealth unit, subs work fine and the whole doesn't provide stack defense sucks just a bit. I rarely go to stealth, I rarely need stealth naval units, and even then subs are more cost effective IMO.

I find myself building more ironclads (though even that is rare) than stealth destroyers.

 

[Dirk1302]

@ston, i really learned about this recently and applied the technique to duckweeds deity warmonger game that was played with Tokugawa. Since there had been a lot of fighting already i got insanely strong gunners from the gren updates. The only thing a a gunner'll always miss is the inherent bonus gunpowder units get. But a mix of a infantry/guns in a hill city is probably more or less unbeatable, i think MP players have known about this all along btw, SP, defense is a bit underrated.

 

[TheMeInTeam]

Massed CR arty can beat MG's but they're definitely a useful unit when used properly. Can't say I've tried the ironclad brigade/lockdown but on many maps they can't even get over there .

The stealth destroyer is a good point though. I don't think I've ever actually built one of them.

 

[mirthadir]

@ston, i really learned about this recently and applied the technique to duckweeds deity warmonger game that was played with Tokugawa. Since there had been a lot of fighting already i got insanely strong gunners from the gren updates. The only thing a a gunner'll always miss is the inherent bonus gunpowder units get. But a mix of a infantry/guns in a hill city is probably more or less unbeatable, i think MP players have known about this all along btw, SP, defense is a bit underrated.

Marines and CR arty can take them down relatively cheap.

In terms of period counters, though the only decent shot is flanking cav in quantity, though a few charge grenadiers or rifles (promoted) can sometimes be had to deliver the final punch. Infantry and MGs means you pretty much have to hit them with arty, though again arty and flanking cavs work great.

I've had CGIII/DIV mgs wipe out >50 cav from shaka though.

 

[JTMacc99]

Let's see...

TMIT: I see. If you use Sixty-Eight tactical Nukes in a single turn, I see how they could be extremely useful. Heh.

NPM: But what you are describing is the ideal use for the Attack Submarine, and not the 24 strength ordinary sub. To me, what you are describing is like using flanking horse archers to attempt to damage longbows fortified in cities when the real weapon for that job is a knight.

By the way, the guide I'm looking at says that the requirements for an ordinary sub are Radio and either Oil or Uranium. Question: does that mean I could beeline Physics, then research radio and fission (which I assume I need to actually gain access to the uranium) and have submarines before I double back and pick up combustion? It would be unusual, but I suppose it could happen.

At least then I could get my dream of destroying wooden navies with subs.


Lastly, this thread has given me a couple good ideas. I really need to remember to build some CGII grens with the specific intent of turning them into Machine Guns. You know when this strategy would really work? If I'm a protective civ. That's potentially a CGIII Drill I machine gun out of the gate, and then the next three promotions bring it up to Drill IV. Heh. Bring it on Shaka!

ETA: WHOA! Talk about great minds thinking alike. I even got the Shaka thing.