Reviews: Unique Units

[Carl5872]

I pillage relentlessly on offense. Punishes them if they do manage to hold onto the city, gets me some gold, and I generally have a few workers around to clean up the mess by the time the city is out of Resistance.

How much gold do you get per pillage roughly? Also what difficulty do you play on?

 

[Harv72b]

I think I'm failing to grasp the strengths of this unit. I never really see pillaging as overly useful. On one hand, if youre invading to conquer, you don't want to pillage because it will damage the land you intend to keep. I also don't see a purpose in DOWing for the purpose of pillaging because of the negative diplo penalty. If youre DOW'd without wanting the war, I would imagine you would just turtle up until the AI lost interest, and the pillaging doesn't come in handy.

If you intend to raze the city then it makes perfect sense to pillage improvements first. Even if you're looking to puppet the city, pillaging improvements you intend to change anyway is basically free money...and it only take a worker 2 turns (on standard) to repair a pillaged improvement IIRC.

As far as the faith per kill thing goes, since the Pictish Warriors do not retain that ability when promoted it really comes into play at exactly the time where it's most needed--the early game. Also keep in mind that it applies to barbarian kills as well other units; when considered alongside the fact that most empires are only producing 2-3 faith per turn (or less) at that point in the game, getting all that bonus faith is a real difference-maker. Also I think the 600 you're mentioning is on marathon speed...on Standard you get your first GP for much less.

 

[Drawmeus]

How much gold do you get per pillage roughly? Also what difficulty do you play on?

I believe 10-20, and I play on Prince through Immortal, my last two games were on Emperor. It's not a ton of gold, but 10-15 pillages in a war will get you a RA or a city-state donation.

Note that I wouldn't keep workers around JUST for repairing pillaging, as the workers themselves cost gold. But given that I want workers hanging around my empire anyway, seems like a good use of their time. It's only a couple turns to repair improvements.

 

[Hpuk]

You'll want to pillage as many farms as you can if you are going to puppet the city, to keep them from growing.

 

[on7green]

Camel Archer. Good range unit with 4 moves per turn and can move after attacking.

 

[tyrael233]

Camel Archer. Good range unit with 4 moves per turn and can move after attacking.

Thanks for this in-depth review.

 

[Prophet Skeram]

I think I'm failing to grasp the strengths of this unit. I never really see pillaging as overly useful. On one hand, if youre invading to conquer, you don't want to pillage because it will damage the land you intend to keep. I also don't see a purpose in DOWing for the purpose of pillaging because of the negative diplo penalty. If youre DOW'd without wanting the war, I would imagine you would just turtle up until the AI lost interest, and the pillaging doesn't come in handy.

Regarding the faith, that is useful early on to get your pantheon, and to help speed up the founding of a religion. I don't think you would get too much really since you need 600 for a religion, and youre getting around 10 faith per kill, each kill will give you under 2% towards that goal. I suppose it would stack nicely with the culture from honor for barb kills.

The foreign lands bonus is nice though +20% in foreign lands to facilitate early rushes.

Am I missing something here?

The "free" pillaging seems to be more for flavor, I barely ever pillage at all.

The real strength of the Pictish Warrior comes from the foreign land bonus (20% is INSANE) and the faith generation.

Celts are perfect for early religious warfare as you will easily make the 1st or 2nd pantheon 9/10 times.

Just pick a faith generator first, then some happiness/gold, Holy Warriors (buying units with faith) and Just war (+20% against cities with your own religion) and BAM - you can buy Pictish Warriors for faith and then let them generate even more faith for you when they attack foreign countries, letting you buy even more Pictish Warriors etc.

It's a great way to zerg down some opponents early on and I highly recommend it when using the Celts.

 

[triheptyl]

I think I'm failing to grasp the strengths of this unit. I never really see pillaging as overly useful. On one hand, if youre invading to conquer, you don't want to pillage because it will damage the land you intend to keep. I also don't see a purpose in DOWing for the purpose of pillaging because of the negative diplo penalty. If youre DOW'd without wanting the war, I would imagine you would just turtle up until the AI lost interest, and the pillaging doesn't come in handy.

I used to never pillage, then I played a game as Harald where I tried to pillage as much as possible, and now I can almost not imagine going to war without pillaging. If you plan to raze a city, just pillage everything. You'll get 80-150ish gold a city just from pillage, and its not like the improvements do any good sitting out in unclaimed land anyway.

If I'm planning on puppeting a city, I'll pillage all the farms and mines (that aren't on resources), since I'm probably going to replace them with trading posts anyway. I will generally leave improvements on resources alone, even bonus resources, as these will generally be good tiles for even a puppet to work. I think these ones should probably be worth more gold to give greater incentive to pillage.

Some great ways to effectively pillage, I find, is to create one or two cavalry type units, and generally avoid combat with them. Instead have them run around the cities pillaging everything will your foot soldiers are shored up around the city taking hits and distracting the army and your siege units are firing. This is also a great way to get used to using cavalry to flank enemies and attack weak targets. Also, before you fire a shot with your catapult, or tell your swordsman to attack, pillage the improvement it is on top of first. You have 2 movement points anyway, and you only need one to do either of those things, might as well make a little profit while you are at it.

EDIT: Oh yeah, and if the war is looking to be a long one, try and send some fast units, or maybe paratroopers if its late enough, deep into enemy territory and pillage their strategic resources. The -50% combat penalty that their units will give you a huge advantage and might just win the war for you.

 

[ggmoyang]

I always pillage farms if I have spare , which will be replaced by trading posts anyways.

 

[Carl5872]

That actually sounds promising. Ill have to try it out. Thanks guys!

 

[Halcyan2]

I think I'm failing to grasp the strengths of this unit. I never really see pillaging as overly useful. On one hand, if youre invading to conquer, you don't want to pillage because it will damage the land you intend to keep. I also don't see a purpose in DOWing for the purpose of pillaging because of the negative diplo penalty. If youre DOW'd without wanting the war, I would imagine you would just turtle up until the AI lost interest, and the pillaging doesn't come in handy.

Pillaging is underrated.

I rarely pillage but I should do it a lot more often.

In many warmonger games, I start bleeding gold and am constantly in the red. Pillaging (especially early on) can yield quite a lot of gold.

Also, if you want to micromanage, you should really pillage all those farms if you are puppetting (I rarely do this even though I should).

 

[Gucumatz]

In multiplayer I have found the Elephants pretty useful. I will war an early city state and use 2-3 elephants as tanks to take damage and get my first great general. Once I take the city state I consolidate and with my mountain crossing ability unlocked (this works on Pangaea maps since with Carthage I seem to always spawn near large mountain ranges) and building a road through the mountains I can engage in a war that can be hard to stop. If the attack fails, I can just retreat over the mountains without any threat to my empire. If it works, my workers can connect the new territory pretty easily. If one side is attacked in the late game I have 2 strongholds. And without the GGII promotion this early rush strat would be hard to accomplish.

Add a Keshik/Camel Archer/Cho-ko-nuh city state and I can hit and run on mountains

 

[Lance of Llanwy]

I think it's vital to note that African Forest Elephants don't require any resources, so you don't need to worry about grabbing horses and you still have access to a big, meaty unit in the event you don't have iron, which can be a god-send.
It also means you can build as many as you want, but the significant increase in hammer cost kind of curbs your ability to spam them. A good production-city with a stable is your best bet, but stables can be pretty iffy buildings, and aren't exactly cheap themselves. And come on the same tech.

 

[Marshall Thomas]

Is there a similar thread which ranks and analyzes Unique Abilities instead of Unique Units? Thanks in advance

 

[Thibaulthc]

yes I always pillage a lot also; especially mines and trading posts: good punishment if they hold the city, and if I take it, half the population will be killed: so before I grow up my new pop, I wil have plenty of time ti repair all the improvements; that's why I don't pillage too much farms.

Also provides you a decent amount of Another powerful unit about that is the Ottoman Sepahi, 5 moves, no pillaging cost: might provide you 70-80 in one turn

Sometimes you might want to just pillage one important enemy road (to cut his capital from many trade routes) and not stay under the city fire. No pillage cost useful here as well.

Receiving Faith also stay when you upgrade the unit if I remember well. Gatting 70 faith when killing an enemy infantry can help to buy one Great Scientist (1500 for the first one in epic)

And +20% in Foreign land is a bonus. (also remain after upgrading)

So I really liked my Pictish Warriors. Strongest one is the Janissary (Ottomans) imo. +50hp when u kill a non barbarian enemy. I don't know if it's a bug or if it is because of my Fountain of Youth, but mines were recovering FULL heal after each kill. Just Un-killables. OP.

 

[Rebel Fighter]

Please correct it. Atlatlist is only 10% cheaper, costing 36 instead of archer's 40. I would rate it 7/10. If it would be as cheap as u mentioned then I would probably rate it 8.5/10.

Are you sure? I'd have to double check this in the in-game civlopedia. I've looked at several websites, however, and they all confirm the same thing I posted earlier. Perhaps you might be mistaking production required for units on Quick speed vs. a longer speed? Again, I will check this soon.

I think it's vital to note that African Forest Elephants don't require any resources, so you don't need to worry about grabbing horses and you still have access to a big, meaty unit in the event you don't have iron, which can be a god-send.

This is a really good point I forgot to include. Thanks for pointing it out! Yes, the African Forest Elephants don't require strategic resources like the Horsemen so that is a pretty decent advantage.

 

[ggmoyang]

Archer costs 40.
It was 70 when CiV first came out but patched soon.

 

[Colonel Travis]

Love the Battering Ram. Hate what happens when you lose it, but if you didn't lose that stuff it would be ridiculous on advanced weapons. Never played a game as the Huns in which I didn't lose a tremendous amount of steam after the early stages of the game and paid for it later, never read anyone on here who hasn't had the same experience. The best suggestion I've read is to start with Catapult first, then get the Ram. Same with the Horse Archer and perhaps finagle with the potency/defenses of both. This would make sense historically, too. I wouldn't say it's completely backwards as things in the game stand now, because there is overlap between the general use of the Catapult and Ram, but it's definitely backwards because of when the Huns became an empire and threat to Rome.

 

[Furycrab]

I think I'm failing to grasp the strengths of this unit. I never really see pillaging as overly useful. On one hand, if youre invading to conquer, you don't want to pillage because it will damage the land you intend to keep. I also don't see a purpose in DOWing for the purpose of pillaging because of the negative diplo penalty. If youre DOW'd without wanting the war, I would imagine you would just turtle up until the AI lost interest, and the pillaging doesn't come in handy.

Regarding the faith, that is useful early on to get your pantheon, and to help speed up the founding of a religion. I don't think you would get too much really since you need 600 for a religion, and youre getting around 10 faith per kill, each kill will give you under 2% towards that goal. I suppose it would stack nicely with the culture from honor for barb kills.

The foreign lands bonus is nice though +20% in foreign lands to facilitate early rushes.

Am I missing something here?

Yes, I'm 95% sure that when you promote it, it loses it's Faith per kill, which means you really have to make something happen with them early but you can't hang on to them too long.

I don't know what to think of Boudica, not improving 1-3 forest tiles is a serious kick in the production. However she kicks everyones ass on getting a religion going.

 

[Thibaulthc]

Yes, I'm 95% sure that when you promote it, it loses it's Faith per kill, which means you really have to make something happen with them early but you can't hang on to them too long.

I don't know what to think of Boudica, not improving 1-3 forest tiles is a serious kick in the production. However she kicks everyones ass on getting a religion going.

You might be right about that.
But they keep the +20% out of your territory and that's strong.
Forest trick and Faith per Kill are there to ensure you first religions (after Ethiopia) and best beliefs. Right, useless later.