Most average trait pairing, UU, and UB

[MilesBeyond]

Endless discussion on what are the best and worst, but what do you consider to be the exact middle of the pack? Not good, not bad, and in fact "good" is defined as "better than this" and "bad" is defined as "worse than this."

And you know what? Let's do most average starting tech combo while we're at it. Why not?

 

[danjuno]

HRE: Pretty Mediocre across the board.
Charlmagne: Imp is weighed down by how crap Pro is.
Landsknecht: I never though it was terrible, but with the low base of a pike, it doesn't really solve the main issue of mid-game wars, which is smashing through city defenses.
Rathaus: Good once you build it, but with no discount you're going to be whipping a lot.

 

[MilesBeyond]

HRE: Pretty Mediocre across the board.
Charlmagne: Imp is weighed down by how crap Pro is.
Landsknecht: I never though it was terrible, but with the low base of a pike, it doesn't really solve the main issue of mid-game wars, which is smashing through city defenses.
Rathaus: Good once you build it, but with no discount you're going to be whipping a lot.

You might be alone in that one haha. "Pretty mediocre across the board" is maybe the most generous and optimistic thing I've ever heard said about Charlie and the HRE.

I'd say more something like:

Julius Caesar: IMP/ORG is not weak by any means but both traits can be situational and sometimes a little tricky to fully leverage.

Musketeer: Kind of neat, fairly helpful on occasion, mostly unremarkable.

Apothecary: A Grocer but it gives more health.

To me, that's a real faction for eliciting no strong response one way or the other. If you made that into a civ in game, people would say "Truly that is one of the civs of all time." It seems like something whose existence people would forget about until they roll it as a random leader and think "Huh, I guess I can work with this."

 

[danjuno]

"Truly that is one of the civs of all time."

Burger King Charlemagne and the HRE certainly elicit that reaction from me.