Praetorians and Keshiks are worse than jaguars and skirmishers

[noto2]

Yes, you read that correctly. Yes, I am saying that I'd rather have jaguars or skirmishers than praetorians, keshiks, immortals, or war chariots. No, I'm not kidding. I don't like to use the world builder in any game. I like to play the start I roll. I just had 3...yes, 3, not 2, not 1, but 3 games in a row of playing Rome without iron. I don't mean I'm crying because iron wasn't in the BFC, I mean there was NO WAY to get iron in time to use praets. I re-rolled twice and the third time just played it out. Then, right after that, I rolled Ghengis (I play random leaders) and there were no horses AT ALL. There were literally no horses on my side of the continent, there was no way to get them. So I restarted the game and rolled Ghengis again, randomly, so I thought okay, time to do this again. YET AGAIN NO HORSES ANYWHERE AT ALL AT ALL. Man... you know, video games are about having fun and I just don't see the point in playing a game as the Mongols without horses. If I were trying to prove something or if it were tournament of course I can play as Ghengis without horses, but I'm just sitting down to relax and play some Civ and I just don't feel like playing a horse-less Mongolia. I tell you, I'm reall F@#%@#% sick and tired of these UU's that are worthless because I don't have the proper resource. When I play Monty I make use of jags nearly every time, they actually make the game unique and interesting. Resource dependent UU's suck. Sure, 50% of the time they are powerful and fun, and the other 50% of the time they are non-existent. No thanks.

 

[lymond]

Jags are kinda underrated. Besides resourceless, they are cheaper so you can whip out a bunch very quickly to make up for their lack of strength. Great choke unit like the Skirm and you get some medics out of it. However, the one issue with Monty is his starting techs are below sucky so it can take a while to get to IW if you have poor starts.

Iron and Horses though I find a more common on maps than copper. I've certainly have cases where I miss out on them, but more often that not I'm able to get them if needed.

I'm not a big fan of Praets though and have mentioned that many times. Keshiks on the other hand are very nice.

 

[shakabrade]

So you random everything and want iron and horses to use UU no matter what instead of playing the map.

Although whole concept is totally WTH to me, there still are at least two options in your despair: balanced resources or map finder.

Balanced resources guarantees your praets will fight some fortified axes and keshiks will meet spears. So that might not be fun too.
Map finder then.

Edit: Xpost with lymond the golden.
I think copper and iron have the same chance of being generated. And horses have half of their chance. Was in some thread.

 

[lymond]

I thought mapfinder only shows visible resources

 

[bhavv]

Praetorians and Jaguars are worse than Dog Soldiers

No rush tactic is reliable in CIV due to RNG trolling and gambling on starting resources.

Keshiks and HAs only work so well because they abuse a flaw of the AI where it doesn't build units appropriate to defend against whatever you are attacking with. The AI will always prioritize defending mainly with archery units and axemen, making it a sitting duck for a mounted unit rush.

In PVP HA and Keshik rushes would fail hard if the other player has copper and builds stacks of axes and spears for defense.

 

[bhavv]

So you random everything and want iron and horses to use UU no matter what instead of playing the map.

Although whole concept is totally WTH to me, there still are at least two options in your despair: balanced resources or map finder.

Balanced resources guarantees your praets will fight some fortified axes and keshiks will meet spears. So that might not be fun too.
Map finder then.

The AI still rarely builds spears even with copper. And most people consider balanced resources to be cheating, and its also not allowed if you play under HoF rules.

Everytime you use the map editor for any purpose other than testing things, you are not improving as a player. At the same time, most players still start a new game of CIV with a prefferance of which tactic and strategy they want to play. 'Playing the map' is incredibly boring when you have a favorite strategy you want to pull off instead.

 

[shakabrade]

If you want specific things, nothing's better than map finder. Cause it is specific too. I don't use it since it is not my cup of tea but I do think it is possible to improve. Although nothing beats retrying and reloading in terms of learning (but not for combat odds).

Balanced resources aren't cheating. They just make things less mysterious and remove marble from map. BR gives strat resources to all and make cultural VC more difficult. There is no logic in calling it cheating. BR is banned from HoF while Map Finder isn't. But I don't like BR too.

If you wan't to improve, you must leave your comfort zone and improve in every segment of the game you dislike. I found out many segments I hated are fun when you learn to do them right.

 

[noto2]

No... what I'm saying is...it's not fun. I can play a game without horses or iron as Ghandi...I can play a game whatever the map provides me while playing as Cid, with no traits or UU or UB. It just bugs me when I'm playing Mongolia and I have no horses...it's like, why be Mongolia? It just feels like a wasted game for me. The thing is it seems to happen a lot to me because I play on crowded maps, I guess that's why. Yeah, now that I think about it, that's probably it, so on crowded maps, early UU's that require resources really suck.

 

[bhavv]

Balanced resources aren't cheating. They just make things less mysterious and remove marble from map. BR gives strat resources to all and make cultural VC more difficult. There is no logic in calling it cheating. BR is banned from HoF while Map Finder isn't. But I don't like BR too.

I meant the in game map editor sorry, not map finder.

Map finder is just a quicker method than clicking regenerate map all the time.

No... what I'm saying is...it's not fun. I can play a game without horses or iron as Ghandi...I can play a game whatever the map provides me while playing as Cid, with no traits or UU or UB. It just bugs me when I'm playing Mongolia and I have no horses...it's like, why be Mongolia? It just feels like a wasted game for me. The thing is it seems to happen a lot to me because I play on crowded maps, I guess that's why. Yeah, now that I think about it, that's probably it, so on crowded maps, early UU's that require resources really suck.

Then try to capture / trade for horses. Same with iron for Rome. I've never played a standard rules game where I didnt start with any one of horses, copper or iron nearby. Even if you have none of them, you can capture cities with catapults + archers. Take an enemies resource if you lack it yourself, makes the game a lot more fun.

 

[Defiant47]

One time, I flipped a coin and it landed heads 3 times in a row. This occurrence was totally nonsensical and stupid.

 

[calibur]

No... what I'm saying is...it's not fun. I can play a game without horses or iron as Ghandi...I can play a game whatever the map provides me while playing as Cid, with no traits or UU or UB. It just bugs me when I'm playing Mongolia and I have no horses...it's like, why be Mongolia? It just feels like a wasted game for me. The thing is it seems to happen a lot to me because I play on crowded maps, I guess that's why. Yeah, now that I think about it, that's probably it, so on crowded maps, early UU's that require resources really suck.

My favorite part of C2C, that which is most realistic in a sense, is that you don't have that problem. If you're Mongolia and you have silk but no horses, then you're not Mongolia, you're China. Chocks are a fine UB (IDK if chocks are still the Chinese UB in c2c, but the point comes across)

 

[jarhead_leif]

I played a game as the Carthaginians, not long time ago, where I got horse-less dilemma. And I was neighboring with Persians. The funny thing is they got no horses, too. No Immortals. So I rushed 'em out of the game.

I understand what you feel. Sometimes, it's a bit frustrating when you're expecting for something where there is nothing.

 

[TheWilltoAct]

I would venture to say, and the pros can dispute this, certain leaders have a large portion of their appeal hinge on an especially powerful unique unit. This is especially true of leaders with warlike traits, and their relative utility seems greatly diminished when those potentially game changing units are absent. This could cause those civilizations to be devalued in the eyes of a jaded player, who might prefer a leader with safer traits. IDK.

I understand what you feel. Sometimes, it's a bit frustrating when you're expecting for something where there is nothing.

True.

 

[damerell]

I don't think it can be helped. Victory is sweet because defeat was a possibility; if you're going to sometimes have satisfying games as Rome where you struggle your way to Iron and then build Praets, you've got to accept sometimes that means games where you don't get it.

 

[Mylene]

While i dun agree with all your points, it's why i rate Conquistadors higher than all these early UUs.
Never had any game where i could not get horsies from someone or somewhere by that time, well maybe 1..

 

[Manco Capac]

While i dun agree with all your points, it's why i rate Conquistadors higher than all these early UUs.
Never had any game where i could not get horsies from someone or somewhere by that time, well maybe 1..

Personally, I rate UU according to the difficulty levels. And also I don't do and care $hit about rating UU's anyways.

On deity, like your favorite level, indeed, the conquistadores are quite strong and fitted for max efficiency (better to let the deity AI's do the job of upgrading their lands given their bonuses) and let the human to care about its fragile economy given the high maintenance cost and race against beefed up AI's. On lower levels (EMP and less), earlier stages UU's are definitely better. Would you let the AI upgrade their lands and do funky stuff with their production outputs. No.* And given maintenance starts to decrease starting Monarch for a minimum at settler, conquer, conquer and conquer and make something intelligent of their lands instead of random $hit. And there shines early UU's.

*Unless you got extremely good lands by yourself and everyone else swamps.

 

[Little Faith]

Jaguars' biggest problem is that the civ who gets them starts with freaking Hunting and Mysticism.

 

[bhavv]

Actually no, Jaguar's biggest problem is that they are weak to most other classical era units. They lose to HAs, Axes, Swords, they are even significantly weaker than a regular Axeman.

Rushing with Archers at a much earlier date would be better in most cases.

 

[Iranon]

Jaguars make it easy to get good medics, allow easy worker stealing and forking, give us a guaranteed unit to support a catapult-driven war or defend against overaggressive neighbours.
Given that regular swordsmen require iron and aren't a terribly important unit in the big picture, I consider Jaguar decent but not great. For all their tricks and reliability, they simply aren't powerful enough.

Skirmishers are better overall than Praetorians in my opinion.
Resourceless, excellent defenders, evil chokers, adequate rushers, cost-effective to the point of being uncounterable.
They are great at cleaning up after siege and holding on to conquests, an army consisting mostly of Skirmishers and catapults can be preferable to an equal-hammer force built around a nominally more powerful UU of the era.

 

[noto2]

honestly I've owned games with jaguars more often than I have with praetorians. Jags are amazing at choking, so you will never have to fight horse archers, axes, or swords with them...or at most you might have to deal with 2-3 of these units. From then on, you're fighting nothing but archers. CR jags destroy archers. They're so cheap that more often than not I can completely wipe out a civ with them. Praetorians are expensive and will be facing axes...and that's if you have iron.