Can I use your post as an example of a spun argument for my literature class? Its a textbook example, list every advantage of those other units, while not listing drawbacks. Then list all the downsides to legions, but not their strengths. I'm not going to respond to grammar nit picking
There's no grammar nitpicking at all aside from one tongue-in-cheek sentence which I did call nitpicking myself and it doesn't really make sense for you to ignore the rest based on that, though it's my fault I gave you such an easy excuse to not answer my questions I suppose? I did mention Legion's strengths before. Building roads, while not useful for me at all, is a strength. Having +2CS, even if it's not much, is a strength. So is me mentioning they have Cover, even if this promotion doesn't matter much. They're small strengths imho, but they're strengths - it's not my fault Legion doesn't have anything more interesting.
Also I don't know what you expect. They are unique units, they do not have drawbacks. Either they're much better than the stuff they replace which is good, or they are slightly better which is not good. What, am I meant to make up flaws of something like a Hoplite? I did admit it loses to a Swordsman and that it is significantly better than Spearman which is the case for all Spear replacements, what else do you expect? I won't say it's worse than a Warrior to the point I delay Bronze Working as much as possible, that'd be incorrect.
If I were to be unpleasant, I'd ask you if I could suggest that you instead use your own posts as textbook examples of doubling down, straw manning and some other things but I'm not an unpleasant person. I just like making big posts and discussing.
I really like having cover on swordsmen, its often exactly what I want at that time period. I have never found myself in situations it wasn't helpful. I always find opportunities to lay a few turns of road down. I think Rome is very strong, I very rarely lose with Rome, the AI does well, and others seem to like him too. If Rome is weaker than a civ like Songhai, I think its more of an argument for Songhai being out of line that Rome needing a buff.
I never said it's never helpful, just that it's situational and not important to me due to the fact ranged units aren't dominant (which is good). It doesn't matter to me if I can take more ranged fire when it's so easy to pick off ranged units with mounted stuff unless I'm facing Inca, and Rome doesn't magically make their terrain easily beatable.
I also don't lose with Rome but then I never really lose on Emperor anyway no matter the civ (okay, I lost like a month ago when three civs ganged up on me when I was building Artemis with no army, but it's rare), I probably should go up a difficulty but that'd be less comfortable. I like Rome too, but I really dislike the Legion - from your previous comments indicating you don't use it that much and hold off with warfare until medieval/renaissance which explains how you always find time to build roads with Legion, I would've assumed the same about you.
Wow I didn't think a UU could ever warrant a post like that.
Alright, Rome is easily one of the strongest civs in the game. I'll drop in to say that I don't see them in need of any sort of buff whatsoever, regardless of how small it is. Their UU is boring, but it's useful for its purpose. I wouldn't complain if the ability to build roads and forts with melee units stuck around the whole game though.
I like making long posts, I've liked it when I first got internet 14 years ago and I still like it now. I've made long, long posts for no reason before, it doesn't trouble me nor is it hard.
Also that's impossible IIRC, there's no road-building animation for non-Legion units though that'd be also a neat solution.
First time I tried any kind of swordsmen for taking cities was with Legion. Their cover promotion just make them survive under a city fire. If you start with a cover promotion, there's just this thing you can do differently. It's not that situational when you attack a tall civ which is likely to have archers for defense and stronger City RCS.
Are the other civs with potentially better units in this age, much better than Rome at the other uniques? (so far you try to make good points on the worthiness of the unit, but we must consider all uniques) If so, wouldn't be just better to nerf one of those too good civs? I don't see Rome as one of the worst civs, so I don't think it deserves to be buffed at this point.
You speak sense as I don't see it as one of the worst civs either, but every time I look at Legion, my willingness to play Rome often disappears because it's so unappealing. To be honest, I don't even know what the worst civ is now or if it could be easily pointed out. What's the point of that nerfing though? Unless civ UA/UB are similar in some way or another, they're rather hard to compare unless benefit of one over other is obvious, like I doubt many would say they prefer Danish UA over Carthage's or... any other UA, really. Same with UBs that give really good yields but only for killing - how do you compare them with UBs that give better yields regularly but are way worse after it scales post-medieval/renaissance? Or how do you compare UBs with UIs? It all is very hard to say at this point which is likely why General Leader Discussion was full of people disagreeing with each other over civ placement. Like, I am certain I underestimated Persia some time ago, they're sincerely good and I've always thought so, it's just hard to focus on so many civs at once and seeing one better at X might make you inclined to put the civ that's worse at the X thing below it, even though that might be incorrect.
Greece seems slightly better than Rome as in a vacuum nearly all its uniques can be said to be either different and hard to compare like their UAs (though I'd likely prefer Rome's) or arguably better but perhaps worse at X/Y in the case of the rest, but I can easily point at several better civs than Greece or ones that'd be very hard to make a comparison of because they depend on different stuff. One gives +CS% for units and better influence, one grants you buildings from conquest in this case as well as some production, very hard to compare though I'd probably rather have Rome's. There'd be no end to that until every civ ended up being weak when it's okay there's some top tiers imho. The only ones that often seem nuts to me now are Songhai, Inca and Arabia I guess, but two of those depend on terrain to turn so and one is at least not very versatile.
