Strongest UU excluding the Praetorian?

[phungus420]

Well the main point of this thread seems to be that jaguars are utter crap. All other UUs someone somewhere loves, and has used to good effect. But the Jag just downright sucks, in fact, most people would rather have the default swordsman then the Jag, I don't think any other UU is that bad.

 

[Angst]

Heh, actually Jag's the only one who got 0 votes

 

[BYC]

Jags are better than before, but they still require MP and jungles/forests to really shine. It's unfortunate they replace such an important unit as the swordsman, or else they'd be good.

 

[alpaca]

I am not going to reiterate what Antilogic has already said quite eloquently with regards to the Phalanx. Here are the highlights of his thoughts:

Point taken but I still disagree. I don't think that the all-phalanx Greek will have a decisive advantage above the two-spearman rest-axeman Japanese or Viking player. This factor is overruled by far through luck and other factors like production capabilities which means it's not important enough. You'll almost never see two large stacks pounding on each other at the time before Swordsmen come around.
And after they do, my aggressive armies largely consist of swords and take Axemen and Spearmen mainly as auxiliary forces because the latter usually don't stand a large chance when attacking cities.
It could be a matter of taste more than anything, I guess both positions have their arguments. For me, the unit is simply not good, for you it is. I guess I'll have to put up with it

 

[civ_king]

oromo warrior hands down.... there seems to be something wrong with the odds calculator........ oromo's have better odds then listed

 

[Öjevind Lång]

The fast worker. They are a marvel at the beginning of the game and never go obsolete.

 

[Monkeyfinger]

Voted Quechua. Now the war chariot is the best UU if you manage to get them (rapes everything in its age except spearmen, and a good player isn't going to let an attractive rush target hook up the right resource to build those, hooray for pillaging with a throwaway warrior) but getting the horses needed to build WCs is far from a sure thing. There's never any such restriction against rounding up a band of Quechuas, bonking someone over the head, taking their inevitably awesome capital, and leaving whatever land they'd have expanded into ripe for your peaceful settling.

 

[mike p]

Jaguars are much better than Conquistadors, Ballista Elephants, and Gallic Swordsmen.

Conquistadors get their big bonus against melee and since they've been moved back in the tech tree from Guilds, they usually will be facing gunpowder units anyway. I guess they're great against the HRE, compared to regular Curaissers but their bonuses are a lot more fluff than substance.

Ballista Elephants are barely an improvement over regular elephants - it's not like it's hard to kill mounted units anyway, and they are resource dependent. You still need axes, swords or maces to deal with those pesky spears and pikes.

Guerrilla I isn't as good as Woodman I, and the fact that Jags are cheaper and don't require resources makes them great for rushing. Gallic Warriors are great if you have copper but not iron, but so are Jags, and if you have no metals, Jags are the best all around melee unit in the game. (Though Dog Soldiers beat them heads up, but then rushing Sitting Bull early isn't one if the brighter game plans.)

With Jags, you can take over an enemy city, and cheaply turn their population into your troops. It doesn't matter what resources are hooked up - you don't even need a trade route to your capitol, and Jags are pretty cheap. Jags are uniquely suited for a snowballing slavery powered rush.

I don't think much of the Phalanx myself either. Possibly because I generally prefer to attack with swords and catapults. Let's face it, in BTS the Greek UU's special power is that it's the same as a pre-Warlords axeman. Which makes it a small improvement over axes, but I have a hard time getting excited about them.

 

[Öjevind Lång]

I don't think much of the Phalanx myself either. Possibly because I generally prefer to attack with swords and catapults. Let's face it, in BTS the Greek UU's special power is that it's the same as a pre-Warlords axeman. Which makes it a small improvement over axes, but I have a hard time getting excited about them.

In addition to that, the Phalanx is too similar to the Spearman unit, except that it looks less distinguished. That can't be right.

 

[alpaca]

Jaguars are much better than Conquistadors, Ballista Elephants, and Gallic Swordsmen.

Conquistadors get their big bonus against melee and since they've been moved back in the tech tree from Guilds, they usually will be facing gunpowder units anyway. I guess they're great against the HRE, compared to regular Curaissers but their bonuses are a lot more fluff than substance.

Ballista Elephants are barely an improvement over regular elephants - it's not like it's hard to kill mounted units anyway, and they are resource dependent. You still need axes, swords or maces to deal with those pesky spears and pikes.

Guerrilla I isn't as good as Woodman I, and the fact that Jags are cheaper and don't require resources makes them great for rushing. Gallic Warriors are great if you have copper but not iron, but so are Jags, and if you have no metals, Jags are the best all around melee unit in the game. (Though Dog Soldiers beat them heads up, but then rushing Sitting Bull early isn't one if the brighter game plans.)

With Jags, you can take over an enemy city, and cheaply turn their population into your troops. It doesn't matter what resources are hooked up - you don't even need a trade route to your capitol, and Jags are pretty cheap. Jags are uniquely suited for a snowballing slavery powered rush.

I don't think much of the Phalanx myself either. Possibly because I generally prefer to attack with swords and catapults. Let's face it, in BTS the Greek UU's special power is that it's the same as a pre-Warlords axeman. Which makes it a small improvement over axes, but I have a hard time getting excited about them.

The point with Jags is that there's no sensible reason to build more than one or two of them unless you neither have copper nor iron because Axemen are more versatile. Ok, they have 10% city attack, big deal... I'd argue that you get Iron in almost every game so in fact the Jaguar for me is worse than the unit it replaces, contrary to the Ballista Elephant (which will still take out knights and cuirassiers in a full stack for thousands of years but is admittedly very resource-dependent), Gallic Swordsmen retain their 6
I agree that the Conquistadores battle them for the slot of worst UU but they are at least not worse than the unit they replace in a lot of games. The whole Military Tradition thing has become completely useless in BtS in my opinion. Before, it was too strong. Now, it's too weak.

 

[tomaalimosh]

Weeeee... Immortals are still in the lead!!

Go go go !!!

 

[Nay]

After last nights game, id like to change my vote from Landsknecht to Oromo.
Goddammit, 4-7 First strikes with barracks and vassalage!

In a time, where everyone else hase musketmen (pity those who build them), 4-7 first strike musketmen are certainly..... awesome

 

[Diamondeye]

After last nights game, id like to change my vote from Landsknecht to Oromo.
Goddammit, 4-7 First strikes with barracks and vassalage!

In a time, where everyone else hase musketmen (pity those who build them), 4-7 first strike musketmen are certainly..... awesome

You misspelled Samurai.
Barracks and vassalage = Drill II + Drill II (starts with Drill I, and Combat I if you have restricted leaders off due to aggressive), 2 free firststrikes = 3-6 First strikes maceman. Whoop-Whoop. Usually finishes 5 and below without taking damage

 

[Nay]

I misspelled "Samurai" with "Oromo" ?

Samurai would be nice, but the civ is just so bad that the UU doesnt make up for it, much less the building.
Ethiopia on the other hand, has culture to feed pigs with, and that nice Musketman.

(musket- musket- man....... i want to be - a musket man!)

 

[Diamondeye]

I've never played Ethiopia, so I am on loose ground here, but the Japanese civ is not bad, much closer to good than mediocre. Perfect for late wars as gunpowder units starts out with CI,CGI and DI, and their UB is a coal plant w/o need for coal - very handy in last game I played / am playing with them!
And Samurai are monsters - don't know about Oromos...

 

[slobberinbear]

What unit is as game-changing and powerful as the Praetorian (my definition of "best") ... ?

Put me down for the Jaguar Warrior. Played aggressively, the Jag can let you take down 1-3 other civs very early in the game. How, you ask?

With a barracks and Theology or Vassalage running, Jags start with Combat I, Woodsman I, and 5xp for two more promotions. Give 'em all Woodsman II, and you have a very speedy invasion force on most maps. Combined with the Sacrificial Altar (courthouse) UB, Monty can whip out a huge force of fast Jags very early, razing everything in sight. You then have 2-4 capitol city locations and are in perfect position to conquer the world!

 

[SlipperyJim]

Put me down for the Jaguar Warrior. Played aggressively, the Jag can let you take down 1-3 other civs very early in the game.

Yes! I really don't understand all of the Jaguar-hate on these forums. Jags are cheaper, resourceless Swordsmen. They're the perfect zerg-rush unit in Civ4. Add in the synergy with Monty's traits and the Aztec UB (as slobberinbear described), and the Jaguars are really very good. You just have to know how to use them.

No, Jaguars aren't quite as obviously-overpowered as Praetorians, but they're much better than most of the posters on these forums seem to realize....

 

[Ahimsadharma]

Fast worker.
THE strongest UU in the game.
The fast worker trait is what makes me do so well, since if you wage 'total war' ( not as in i raze cities, but as in i conquer a civ completely), particularly early on in the game ( in BC times), your production & research suffers in comparison to the rest and you often fall behind the rest, thereby making you a target of others.
Its the Fast workers who can just go on a blitzkreig mission of ' cottagification and plantification', generate $$ faster, thus boost research (thus gain better units & civics) all in the matter of 300-400 years to close the gap.

IMO, Fast worker is a better UU than any other combat UU in its overall effect on the gameplay and its decisiveness.
The fast-worker UU also means that when you go conquering civs and you run into their workers, their workers automatically get upgraded to fast-worker status and you've effectively increased your UU bonus by netting some free fast workers- that is impossible to do with any other UU and thus the 'force multiplier' scenario does not pan out with other civs.

 

[Silence101]

Yeah, or an axeman... Or a horse-archer
Or even an archer when you try to attack cities.

I wouldn't call axemen or archers "counters" to phalanx anymore then I would call them counters to other axemen. (Archers in a city will counter almost anything in their time 1:1 - but that's all they're good for.) The bottom line is this: If I'm neighbors with Pericles (no AGG trait) and lets even say that I've got IW with access to iron, horses - I've got an army of chariots, swordmen, axemen, archers, spearmen - you name it... and Pericles declares war and sends his stack of Phalanx at me, I'd be getting pretty nervous... my best basic (promo free) offensive counter is at best going to have 50/50 odds on attack. The first real counter to phalanx, I agree, is the horse-archer, but HBR doesn't come early and this counter assumes you've got horses in the first place.

Antilogic's post quoted eariler was well said.

 

[weregamer]

The fast worker. They are a marvel at the beginning of the game and never go obsolete.

Something I have never done the experiment on. Does movement matter when building improvements, or are Fast Workers just quicker to get to the job?

If they actually get 1.5x as much done, they are awesome, but if they just get the same amount of work done but are better if you like to run your workers all over the map or put them on "automated" early, they are nowhere near as good as any other UU. (And I just can't bring myself to play India because their UB comes so late and is a minor-looking improvement on the building I almost never build...)