Most worthless unit?

[Bast]

The Explorer can be useful on huge maps.

The jaguar is the most useless.

 

[Shoot the Moon]

The Jaguar is not useless, it is just less useful than the unit it replaces. (which is different, but still stupid)

 

[Boom22]

Explorers should have some sort of land-claiming mechanism ("I claim this land in the name of Spain"), which would make them more useful since you can put them on caravels.

When fortifed, they exude cultural border influence the same as a new city with zero culture, and act like a city for purposes of where any civ can have settlers found a new one (not within two tiles of him). The explorer is acting as a placeholding outpost until proper settlement can occur.

A rival can usurp the claim, but it would be an act of war (enter the borders and eliminate the explorer). The natives (barbarians) can also kill the explorer and destroy the "outpost."

Maybe it could also be included as a trade item somehow in diplomacy, a la the Louisiana Purchase.

An rival can still found a city in the area around the explorer without war, but results in a severe dipolmatic penalty(of course only if open borders is in effect they can, war any time else)... I sense a mod

 

[Spearthrower]

I vote for worker or settler... who really builds those things?

 

[Sephlock]

Ballista Elephant. First off, its conditional (you need Ivory), although thats a downside to many UUs (and units in general).

Secondly, it only applies to combat outside of cities, which just sucks. Sucks sucks sucks sucks sucks sucks sucks.

 

[Bast]

I vote for worker or settler... who really builds those things?

Why build workers when you can steal them?

 

[BYC]

Guided Missiles.

They are cheap, but unless the front is VERY close, it's really hard to get them loaded back on a sub or cruiser to keep shooting. The range is just way too short. It does do a ton of damage, but unfortunately, tact nukes aren't far behind it.

 

[sagelnarg]

Guided Missiles: I think the whole point of them is that they can't be intercepted (as others already said in this thread). So if you didn't build/bring enough artillery (or don't have mobile artillery yet), and the target city is full of fighters/SAM, they are an option. Especially for amphibious operations, now that i think of it
Edit: Dumb idea, now that I think of it again. You could just bomb with the ships. so conclusion: LIMITED uses.

They could use a range buff though.

Explorers: I too got the idea to use them as medics from this forum. Advantages: 1) cheap to build 2) get attacked last in the stack 3) MOBILITY.
(if you group them with tanks and mechs).
But I never used them as they were intended to be used. Though I didn't have in mind you could load them on caravels (I play Terra a lot)

Ironclads: I too like them to use for fishing defense. They are good for guarding a single tile.

 

[Hawaiian]

I say explorers. I know people love the supermedic strategy, and that's fine and all, but it doesn't fit the theme of what they're supposed to be. Again, I like the creative use of them, but jeez, shouldn't they have some other ability in line with their whole persona?

If they could help settlers in some way that would be great. Maybe they can create outposts on resources not within cultural borders? (reminescent of Civ III colonies) And if you connect a road to it or a river you can then use the resource?

This would allow us to be able to use these resources until we can afford to build a city to get them. (Like those tundra iron resources that you are forced to build a city nearby early in the game because you absolutely have to)

 

[Nay]

Caravelle.
Other than circumnavigating the globe, i have no uses for it.

Ironclads are nice though, 1-2 on my fishing boats and the marauding galleons can go suck a fish.

Tac nukes have their moments (homeland defense, retaking fallen cities), but there was another thread for this.

 

[onedreamer]

Trieme is the most usless unit in my opinion. That advantage over galley's aren't that big of a difference. Doesn't make up for the fact they can't transport units. I say there nice to have, but not really neccicary as Galley's are.

Trireme can blockade a port. Galley can't, Caravel can't, Galleon can't... you have to wait all the way to Frigates to be able to do it. You CAN'T vote for trireme to be the most useless >_<
IMHO the most worthless are Marines. They aren't worthless, but I certainly can live without them. Maybe the major problem with them is that they should be so much better, and have a decent upgrade.

 

[sagelnarg]

Hehe, seems to be a tough discussion. For every useless unit that one brings up, there are two other posters that have actually found a use for it

 

[Angst]

guided missile.

 

[gunter]

If the guided missile seems to be one of the most cosmetic unit why don't you tweak it a bit inside xml conf files to pump it up a bit ?

I assume that the AI will use it in the same way than before,so the slight tweak should be considered fair gaming..isn't it ?

 

[petey]

Tank, hands down.

They cost a lot to build, come late in the game and all your opponent has to do is keep one Spearman sitting around to wipe them all out.

 

[DilithiumDad]

Explorer. I use other units as medics, especially Machine Guns! I use them as lookouts on hills in wastelands or border areas. In a war, they can be used to draw fire --the AI kills them then I kill the much more expensive AI unit.

Ironclads are great. They defend your squares, take out frigates and their ilk, and upgrade cheaply to destroyers.

I haven't built guided missiles. I suppose that means they're not crucial to the game.

 

[jimbob27]

I've found good use for pretty much all the units. Certain units are very situational, but i've found good use for all of them in one game or another.

My personal least favourite unit is the SAM infantry. They have their uses, but I don't like the fact they're weaker than regular infantry.

 

[Lorteungen]

Does anyone build submarines? I've tried to find a use for them but with little succes. In my latest game I made small wolfpacks of subs with one sub having flanking II (I think that's what it's called) and the others combat plus a medic. Still, they just can't kill anything. Even with guided missiles, it's still a pretty good chance the destroyer will take 1 or 2 of my subs with it. It's just too much trouble to even bother when I could've just build a superior unit in the first place. Then there's the attack submarine. Why on earth would you build a unit whose sole purpose is to take out an already weak unit that can easily be killed by just about all other naval units? I guess it can be useful to deliver spies to nations on other continents that you don't have open borders with, but I've never really had that urge. I don't understand why the rock-paper-scissors system has not been applied to naval units. Subs should get a +50% bonus against battleships and carriers so that you would have to defend them with destroyers. That would make sense to me and it would be nicely balanced.

I kinda like the machine gunners though. They don't take collateral damage which makes them excellent city defenders. They shouldn't stand alone but they're nice to have in a city that is threatened by a large stack with cannons/artillery.

 

[weregamer]

Subs become vastly less useful when the opponents have destroyers; changing them to carry missiles but not spies, plus adding Attack Subs to take over that role plus have a bonus against subs, really killed them. (Not to mention that missile subs should come much later than attack subs; BtS is mixing Apples and Oranges with that sequence. The really right thing would be three unit types - a WWII-era Submarine like in vanilla but much slower, followed by a Missile Sub much like the BtS submarine but slower, and an Attack Sub with a higher base combat value.)

All that said, I do build a few in most games because before the AIs have destroyers they make good covert scouts and can be prepositioned to take out fishing boats and blockade coastlines the first turn of a war. As blockaders in particular, an opponent without destroyers is in for a world of hurt.

 

[Slobadog]

Ballista Elephant. First off, its conditional (you need Ivory), although thats a downside to many UUs (and units in general).

Secondly, it only applies to combat outside of cities, which just sucks. Sucks sucks sucks sucks sucks sucks sucks.

They're not supposed to just simply attack cities. They are supposed to attack any stack containing mounted units that invades your land, gain easy XPs, promote up, then attack cities.