Most worthless unit in the game?

[brennan]

Play a 'builders' game on a huge map and see if the game is over by then...

I don't have Conquests so guerrillas don't upgrade and are c**p. Better than rifles? No, really? Tell me Marines are better than MDI and make my day.

How can anyone say Panzers are rubbish? One of the best UUs.

My point about AEGIS was really to say 'hey look boats are all useless', hence I don't bother with them until my coastal cities have nothing to build but military, then I go for Battleships since nothing else upgrades & AEGIS are useful for spotting subs.

 

[Oryctolagus]

Submarines.
They are dangerous to you when you leave them without escort.

 

[tR1cKy]

It's always a subjective thing brennan. There's no truly useless unit (except perhaps Stealth Fighters and Ironclads), every one of them may be of some use for some player playing some way.

When you aim at military conquest (and have the necessary skill) game is over in the middle ages. Industrial on huge maps, or standard maps at deity level with a bad start

Ironclads are a sad thing. They're useless because Firaxis made them to be. Who bothers to research ironclads? It's a really asinine name anyway - couldn't they come out with something better? The ironclad tech seems something made in haste with little thinking. They made frigates more useful by making another unit totally useless. If at least the tech would be mandatory for something else (say steel), the ironclad would be at least somewhat useful.

BTW, it's easy to mod the game to correct such nonsense.

 

[Calis]

I think the discussion is about Unique Units. Why are Stealth Fighters and Ironclads mentionend here?

 

[tR1cKy]

...because the thread name is "most worthless unit in the game", perhaps.

EDIT: sorry my fault, i made confusion using "UU" instead of "unit". Corrected.

 

[brennan]

UUs? The question was 'What is the most worthless unit in the game?'



Ironclads are called Ironclads because they were called Ironclads. Ships clad in Iron as a defence against cannon-fire. (I believe the unit graphic is based on an actual US design, a low profile hull with a turret on top.) This new defensive technology quickly led to the upgrading of warship weaponry and by WW1 had produced the 'Dreadnought', which was essentially a WW2 warship, with large gun turrets mounted above the hull, rather than lines of cannon along the sides. Naval warfare became a long range affair conducted by heavy artillery, whereas in the days of the ship o' the line, fleets would engage at virtually point-blank range with cannon. The technology basically remained unchanged until after the end of WW2, by which time the Battleship had clearly become obsolete with the development of Naval Aviation. Modern naval warfare is a very long-range affair, dominated by missile/anti missile and Aircraft technology.

A rough timeline:
1805 - Battle of Trafalgar, highpoint of the Ship o' the line, wooden vessels armed with cannon
1860 - HMS Warrior, the worlds first ironclad
1906 - HMS Dreadnought (the whole range of vessels based on the same design was named after her)
1944 - USS Missouri was one of the biggest and last Battleships ever built

Sorry, bit of a rant. I hate naval warfare in Civ. Each upgrade is usually vastly better than its predecessor, ships do not upgrade, ships cannot capture cities. The best ships are outrageously expensive to build and serve no purpose other than to act as transport-escorts, some people treat them as artillery, but for how many resources?!

Let the navy have a bigger role to play in Civ4, rather than just being random units to throw at eaach other. And lets have a bit more variety

 

[tR1cKy]

Ironclads are ironclads, ok. I was commenting the idea of having a separate optional tech for them and calling the tech "ironclads", this is asinine. The tech should be some advancement in metallurgy (for the little i know) that made possible the construction of such ships. Or, even better, put them under Industrialization, a tech that is essential to research.

For the rest, i agree with you. Naval warfare SUX in Civ3.

 

[Calis]

Ah ok. And I didn't read the title correctly.

Then I agree that the Stealth Filghter, Iron Clad and the chariot belong to the most useless units.

Personally I don't like all those missiles.

 

[PrinceOfLeigh]

Fighters and Stealth Fighters. I made loads of them to defend myslef against bombers but they did very little if anything!

Also all ships apart from Transport. I know it would be usefull to have a powerful navy but I can never be bothered!

 

[Luthor_Saxburg]

Useless units? Most of naval units, I guess. Ironclad, Carrack, Privateer ship...

Does anyone uses those Pirat ships (Privateers)? By the time they are available they are extremly weak!

 

[BigNHuge]

Does anyone uses those Pirat ships (Privateers)? By the time they are available they are extremly weak!

Check out this game, we used privateers to take out random ships in a april fools variant. also work to take out random naval units w/o declaring war. Vpr5

 

[brennan]

There's no truly useless unit (except perhaps Stealth Fighters and Ironclads)

You contradict yourself well Tricky

The point perhaps, is that there are units which are redundant either when they become available or shortly after, i think Ironclads last for just as long as Frigates/MOW, longer probably in terms of effectiveness. The AI certainly likes building the damn things, isn't it great how many thousands of resources they spend to destroy a few tiles of road?

The dead-end Ironclads tech is a Conquests thing isn't it? Makes no sense to me either, in vanilla/PTW they come with Steam Power.

I like to have fighters in border cities in preparation for war, when the AI starts sending bombers over, rebase them in the cities they are bombing around and then set them to Air Superiority, a stack of just 5 or 6 in a city will destroy all incoming bombers in a couple of turns, which is pretty punishing for the AI in terms of resources spent.

I've tried using Privateers but really they are just too weak to be any good, how about a Buccanneer upgrade for them, they are useless against Frigates.

 

[MonRiverMonarch]

I've never built an F-15, (even when using the Americans), so I'd say that's the most useless. I've never seen a good use for chariots either, but that might be my fault.

 

[Shujaa]

Never used an explorer, by the time they're available there's not much left to explore...

 

[Jeremy Tusant]

I never build warriors soon after I've got spearmen and horsemen.

And explorers, well my horsemen have have already covered the continents by the time i get access to them.

 

[Doc Tsiolkovski]

Explorers aren't in the game to explore (well, that may have been the intention) - but to pillage.
And if you're able to keep up producing Spears during initial expansion instead of Warriors...you're making something wrong .

 

[Jeremy Tusant]

Look the offensive prowes of a warrior is 1 the horse man is 2. Makes sense to me, plus they move 2 instead of one square. Plus when all the military and foreign minister says all the civs fear your horseman, then i've got the strongest unit on the board. Now, the spearman is only for defense, keep e'm in your Cities. Until you have something more stronger keep using them for defense. I'm not doing something wrong.

 

[Tomoyo]

Spearmen cost 20 shields. And aren't very good at what they do. They're supposed to defend your cities, but they just sit around watching the AI pillage your lands.

I think horsemen in the expansion phase aren't bad, but I'd rather have three warriors as MP or blockaders.

The point is that, in the expansion phase, you're not likely to need to fight, and if you're attacked, you have plenty of time to prepare.

 

[Doc Tsiolkovski]

Look the offensive prowes of a warrior is 1 the horse man is 2. Makes sense to me, plus they move 2 instead of one square. Plus when all the military and foreign minister says all the civs fear your horseman, then i've got the strongest unit on the board. Now, the spearman is only for defense, keep e'm in your Cities. Until you have something more stronger keep using them for defense. I'm not doing something wrong.

Uh, you are .
Look, I'm one of the small minority of Deity (+) level players who actually likes Spearmen. I will build them later - but in the verly early game, you just need a warm body as MP, and to prevent the AI from stumbling into an empty city. You can by no means afford to build a 20sp unit for every Settler - unless you build too few Settlers. And that's what you seem to do wrong.

 

[Admiral Kutzov]

Somebody made the point already, but I'll reiterate and expound - hopefully

The most useless unit is situational.

Spears? Try AW without them.
Nukes? Try 80% pelago on a higher level where you have to stop a SS launch or deny a resource.
Panzers? Try panagea when you've got tech parity.

Try comparing apples to apples and throw out consideration of any variants. Straightforward whatever version of Civ. What is in general the most useless unit? My vote goes to the 2 movement spear, the impi.