Poll: Most Powerful Unit Relative to Its Era?

[Fish Man]

Cuirs lead to Cavs, which are great units.
With support they still do well vs. Infs and MGs, much better than Rifles.
Lain's Pacal video has some nice examples for that, so yup..Cuirs get stopped by Rifles, but they can become Cavs and those are useful very long.

rip Lain's winstreak...

But you do make a good point. Against industrial units rifles are particularly weak. They're about as good as cuirs against infantry when you take combat bonuses into account, and you might as well be charging a machine gun with a knight if you're throwing rifles at it. So cavs are almost a necessity if your military tech is backwards like that.

 

[krikav]

I see rifles not as awesome because of their performance on the battlefield, but because of their ability to be drafted.

 

[Deathcrush]

For me Cuirs and Cavs - i love horses man! i love horse wars and I do this in almost all of my games. Fast , strong, efficient! And what i know for sure - fast war is the best war.
Rifles are good but only for city defense, not on the field and they are slow and they are weak against grenadiers which the AI love to build - all in all I do not like slow units and rarely use them when I declare war.

 

[Windsor]

Cuirassiers are really good because the AI is really stupid. Against humans cuirassiers ain't that hot.

War Elephants on the other hand are clearly overpowered.

 

[Lexicus]

I voted Cannons and Riflemen. I know there are good reasons to consider elephants and cuirs stronker but I've found that in my games I usually don't have access to Ivory and often don't have access to Horses. Rifles and Cannons are always available (in my games, anyway, I usually quit long before Steel if I have no iron), and they are so much more powerful than everything that comes before them that getting them early is pretty much always a game-winning move.

 

[ArchGhost]

In my original state of mind when posting this poll, I wasn't really considering availability as reflective of a unit's own merits. The idea was more looking as if the unit's access was a given and comparing power/timeframe.

But you raise a good point. I wouldn't think nearly anywhere as highly as I do of say, Axemen, if adjusted by the rate at which I seem to find Bronze close by and easily accessed quickly (frustratingly rare in random games, heh). And yet while I would freely laud the awesome resourceless units like the Dog and Holkan, I'm more hesitant to grant the same weight to something like the lowly Archer or Musket, who do have their places and share this advantage.

 

[MAvL]

I really love War elephant. I am not very fond of the idea of UU tied to a civ you chose before even seing the map*, and Elephant works very well as a "generic UU". It is as OP as it should early on and even sees play along early gunpowder unit, as an archaic but not yet useless unit, as was the case IRL in India.

I think a lot unique unit are really strong, I don't know all of them, but Redcoat comes to mind. I think it was initially at an absurd 16 power in vanilla, making it stronger than its counter, grenadier, and was nerfed subsequently. But still a strong UU, and based on Riflemen, so insane drafting value, for a big impact when you get them. All that with really nice leaders, which gives them garrison upgrade (PRO), or allow you to get them quite early (FIN, keeping ahead of the tech race), along with nationalism if you are into drafting.

*oh you're roman? too bad no iron for you. You should have chosen aztec or something.

 

[Pangaea]

Tossed in some votes too, for War elephants and Cuirs, which I see have been the most popular choices. Some UUs are really strong too, like Quechuas (on higher difficulties where the AIs start with archers) and Praetorians. Cossacks are really strong too, but comes much later in the tech tree, so won't have nearly as much impact as a very good early UUs, such as the mentioned, or War Chariots.

Cannons are really good too ofc, but again comes somewhat late in the tech tree (same with rifles), so won't have quite the same impact as the earlier ones. Cuirs are somewhat late too actually, but it's such a big boost, and it's usually pretty easy to get there with bee-lining and winning Lib. Cuirs against swords and longbows makes for very fast warfare -- as we all know

Extra bonus for WEs is that they are excellent to have in the later eras too, when the AIs get Knights and beyond.

 

[Pangaea]

I’d have to disagree with the latter. The worker is clearly the unit with the most utility .

Think I'd rate the settler even higher

Tongue-in-cheek example. Next to a warrior, would you start the game with a free worker or a free settler