***EDIT***
You know, after thinking about it, I decided to remove all of the "snark" and semi-insulting bashing that littered my post. It's not conducive to a debate, and it's too confrontational. I apologize for the previous version, should you have read it before I modified it.
I would ask, however, that in the future you do me the same curtesy, and leave the snark out of your own posts.
Let’s start at the beginning, shall we? It seems to me that you (as well as one other poster who has since bowed out) are unfamiliar with the phrasing I used in my OP. In common parlance, the statement: “Resolved: X is Y” is meant to communicate that the subject is asserting the validity of a proposition. This is a widely used format for phrasing opening terms in a debate. It is implied (and my case has demonstrated this) that this assertion is not meant to stand on its own, but rather to lead to an explication as to why the original resolution is correct. In a formal debate setting, my opponent would make his own case, starting with the proposition “Resolved: X is not Y”. In this medium, communicating anonymously on a message board, it is left to the individual poster to decide for himself whether he agrees or disagrees with the proposition and, if he is in disagreement, to present his case as he sees it. This, you have not done.
Here's the problem with that. If you say "Resolved: The Sun is Black", it does not provide any evidence that the sun is black. It makes an assertion, yes. But in order for that assertion to be shown to have any validity, you need to have evidence to support it. So far you've presented your opinion on it, but opinion isn't evidence. Of course, it's very hard to present evidence to support a subjective claim.
This is the first sentence of your initial reply to my OP. Right off the bat, you’ve shown a disinclination to even engage in honest terms of debate. At this point, the well-mannered individual would refrain from posting further in this thread, as you have clearly demonstrated your contempt for the explicit reason for its existence. Much like most would find it to be poor form for an art critic for the New York Times to attend a Jackson Pollock exhibition on invitation and loudly exclaim: “Dood! It’s just a bunch of f*cking squiggles! ROFLMAO!”
In order to have a debate, one needs to be very clear on exactly what is being asserted. You have asserted that the Ballista Elephant is the "crappiest" UU. I chose to take issue with your use of the word "crappiest", as it's an entirely subjective word. There is no way for you to objectively prove that something is the "crappiest", especially when it's as situational as it is here. More specifically, however, we need to share a definition on what "crappiest" means, if we are to agree at all on whether something is "crappiest".
You’re absolutely correct. I wish I had said something like that. Oh wait – I did:
No, what you said and what I said aren't the same at all. What you said is that certain UUs will be more powerful because the situations where they are useful are more common. What I said is that situations where they are more useful depends entirely on the game experience of an individual. What you consider "common" under the game settings you employ aren't necessarily common for me and my game settings. Therefore we can't really compare "situational commonality" because we don't have a common framework.
Oh, and I have take issue with your statement on another front. If you look at the cronology of the posts, it's quite clear that my post came
before yours did. Yet your statement here makes it sound as if you'd already made your post previous to mine. While it's certainly true that you did make your post, it wasn't until
after I made mine - and not being a mindreader, there is no way I could have predicted you would say it. Implying that your post preceded mine
is intellectually dishonest, something I'll hope you'll refrain from in the future.
you have also omitted mention of the Jaguar’s free Woodsman I promotion, the Dog Soldier’s non-requirement of Copper or Iron, and the Numidian Cavalry’s free Flanking I promotion.
You're right, but I wasn't trying to form a comprehensive list of their attributes. I was merely pointing out significant negatives that you left out of your list. These have a large impact on any analysis of their relative strengths.
Given your haphazard analysis of merely three of the UU’s presented, I find it surprising that you would use the word “arbitrary” in any critique of my proposition.
It wasn't "haphazard" at all. I was simply pointing out that in your "classifications", you left out important information that results in UUs not being nearly as impressive as you make them sound.
I have classified the UU’s into 7 groups. While the last two groupings are indeed somewhat arbitrary (as I conceded in my original analysis) I stand by the validity of the first five groupings. Are you seriously going to tell me that there are no templates or patterns into which the UU’s can be classified and sorted? Can you really not see that the bonus the Praetorian gets is similar in nature to the bonus the Cataphract gets, and that neither bonus is similar to that which the Impi receives, which is in turn similar to that of the Musketeer? Really? If that is indeed the case, then I can’t see how you and I are playing the same game.
I consider it arbitrary because you completely overlook offsetting penalties in your classification. Take the Vulture for example. You list it as a "Strength Bonus", which is true. But what you don't mention is that it suffers a 25% loss in attack strength vs Melee. This presents a false impression of its inherent strength. But you don't have a classification for "Strength Decrease" (which I mentioned before), or "Bonus Decrease", or anything similar. So in that way I consider your classification system to be arbitrary. To truly have a detailed enough classification system to allow for relative comparison, I believe you need to take more facets of UUs into consideration.
Given this framework, there certainly will be a non-insignificant proportion of games where you will face a lack of Iron and a prevalence of forest or jungle. In these circumstances, are you sincerely telling me that if you’re playing as Montezuma, you’re not going to appreciate the situational advantage of the Jaguar?
There will certainly be an insignificant proportion of games where I don't have copper or iron with a prevalence of forest/jungle. You're right, not having both is semi-common. Not having either is not. But yes, in those unlikely circumstances, having the Jaguar would be advantageous.
Please keep in mind – this thread was an attempt to classify the utility of various UU’s across a wide spectrum of situations. Your experiences with your admittedly atypical set-up (i.e. double the number of AI opponents) have no bearing in this case – because they are atypical.
I'm not sure what you've quoted aids your argument. Yes, I play "atypical" games (although how "atypical" they are is also open to debate), but because I use more AIs, the crowding should make it less likely for me to end up with Copper/Iron, not more. That should make the Jaguar more valuable in my games, but I'm not seeing that.
Personally, I think the Jaguar sucks. But then again, I’m the kind of player who will re-start if he gets a crappy starting spot. I’m also no fan of the Keshik, as pillaging just isn’t my style. However, I can see through my personal prejudices to recognize that, given a random environment which I can not pre-select, in many situations, having the ability to deploy those UU’s (and others) represents a significant augmentation of my war-making capability.
I'm not going to comment on the Keshik, because I don't really have any problems with it, I wouldn't consider it a stellar UU, but certainly not the crappiest imo. However, while I can imagine a situation where the Jaguar is useful, to me, that situation is extremely unlikely. I have a much easier time imagining a situation where the Ballista Elephant is useful.
Furthermore, looking at it in the reverse is equally enlightening. I can
easily imagine a situation where the Jaguar is worse than its base unit (most of the time, imo). I have an almost impossible time imagining a situation where the Ballista Elephant is worse than its base unit (since it's only bonus is purely advantageous). Which is precisely the crux of my argument. How can you possibly consider a unit that is always at least as good as its base unit to be "crappier" than a unit that is usually worse than its base unit?
Actually, the burden is on you to disprove my assertions by making a comprehensive counter-argument. Which you have failed to do.
I don't believe it is. In formal argument, it is up to the person making the assertion to prove it. If I were to make a counter-assertion (say, "The Jaguar is the crappiest UU"), then yes, I would be required to prove that. But I'm not required to try to disprove your assertion. In formal argument, all assertions are untrue until proven.
Your counter-example of a “super-scout” is ridiculous and irrelevant, because Firaxis would demonstrably not include such a worthless UU.
No, it's not irrelevant, nor ridiculous. It has two purposes - first, to demonstrate that your classification system doesn't take enough into consideration. If one were to place the fictional Scout UU on your list, would it not place highly?
The second purpose is to illustrate the fact that one cannot ignore the base unit when making a comparison of a UUs usefulness.
Second, your assertion that the relative value of a UU can in any significant way be based upon the usefulness of the base unit is simply false. Base units are those which any civ possessing the required techs and/or resources can build. Any civ. We are looking at relative, not absolute, advantages here. Otherwise, Modern Armor FTW, d00d!
I'm not sure what you are trying to accomplish here - Modern Armor is not a UU, nor is there a UU based on it. How exactly does saying "Modern Armor" disprove my point?
I agree about using relative advantage, but I don't think you are interpreting it correctly. The whole point of a relative advantage is that it takes more into consideration than absolute does. Once again, having a UU that improves on a crappy unit makes for a crappier UU. Having a UU that improves on a superior unit makes for a superior UU. At least, as a general rule, there certainly are units that break that mold by having superior bonuses, I won't deny that's the case (the Quechua for example, is much superior to the default Warrior).
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I think my main point would have to be the one I mentioned previously about imagining pro and con scenarios. It's too easy to imagine negative scenarios for a significant number of UUs. To me, that really downgrades their overall usefulness. Even if the positives for the Ballista Elephant are not stellar, the lack of negatives vaults it ahead.
Bh
(I don't care for Rome, sorry).
