The Least Appreciated Unit

[XDrake]

I'd have to say in games that both sides are developed the carrier pays for itself. If the AI used them they would be much more nastier, but they come in handy for two scanerios I run into commonly...

1. If I don't have 'jump cities' to transport my nuclear missles within range of the enemy nothing is more helpful than bringing a carrier full of them close to your enemy's cities.

2. When civilizations are par technologically in the end and you want to establish a strong invasion and avoid nuclear weapons. You can transport a legion of bombers and fighters to get rid of any bombers and empty out a port city to give you a safe landing spot.

Often I'll send one settler over (sometimes before the conflict) to make a fortress.

 

[hellas]

I love carriers and bombers - I think they really give the human player a leg up at the end game because the computer civs don't build them enough.

I think militias are pretty underrated - if you build a mass of them in the early game, you can fence in opponents, fence off land, they are cheap scouts (if they pop barbs from a hut, no loss), and they are good cheap units for keeping big cities happy when in despotism. All that for 10 shields? A steal.

 

[Gav Melville]

can't beat the Diplomat - sneaky, quick & deadly. Leads other units through opposition terrain, destroys opposition buildings and takes cities on its own (given some cash)

 

[Whelkman]

Calvary: they're quite decisive when you get them from huts early on.

 

[Bloodwing]

I think you mean "Cavalry", Whelkman. haha.

I also think diplomats and cavalries are underrated, but I'd have to add phalanxes to the list (for me at least). They make me feel secure about my cities at the very beginning and sometimes they still do their job late if I forget to replace them in some town.

I don't credit them as much as they should in my mind.

 

[jpciv]

This is all I usually use...
1. "NONE" cavalry from huts, use them to explore and to find more cavalry. I always try to build my first city from a hut too, even if it takes forever, to save my "NONE" settler for free work
2. settlers to grow
3. diplomats to invade other civs using money, not weapons
4. transports to cross water

 

[C1v1l1z@t10n]

Carriers (bombers) are nice! however when you reach that part of the game you are often in a winning situation...

Cavalry in my opinion doesn't fit in the list, I just don't like them, the NONE once are nice but the others.. no no no.

Diplomats change everything, they are a favorite.

Last game I played (finished today hehe) used this with ranking 1-10 where 10 is the best!: Militia (3), Phalanx (2), Trireme (4), Transports (5), Battleship (10), Cruiser (1), Carrier (4), Bomber (4), Chariot (7), Knights (5), Musketeers (2), Riflemen (4), Cannon (3), Diplomat (7), Cavalry (1), Legion (1), Armour (5), Catapult (3), Caravans (4).

Basically make peace with enemy.. use Diplomat to take areas with shields/food and put any crap I got such as militia... if the peace stays I throw in some Catapults and if needed diplomats to remove CityWall.
If in war take Mountains and Hills with defense units and kill of attackers with Chariot/Knights.
Use Diplomats to spy where their troops are.
When someone beat me in Tech I wait until they research Steel.. put ALL my resources to take one of their cities and now I can build Battleship and I know I can take ANY city

Caravans for this game I used only for building Wonders...

writing the crap above gave me a new idea for The Least Appreciated Unit: The Caravan!

Caravan: When you don't want to lose shields for troops and you know sooner or later you have the tech to build a cool Wonder.. build many Caravans and stock and when you can build a Wonder build it on one turn before the enemy.
They are good for trades to.. strangely I always fill my ships with soldier when I visit "friends"

 

[Whelkman]

There are a lot of Caravan fans around here, so I'm not sure they fit the bill.

 

[Theov]

I think the Caravan is the MOST appreciated unit...

 

[jpciv]

I never build caravans for trade routes until I have railroad - too much trouble moving them around.

 

[RaT666]

jpciv, you are just right. it is not very useful to move your cavalry for x moves.

 

[CivCro]

Bombers. They reach the unreachable...

 

[flobi]

I never thought so highly about the caravans until reading about them on here this past week. I've been working a lot lately, but in my next game, I plan on trying them out more heavily.

 

[jpciv]

Bombers. They reach the unreachable...

Bombers can be reaaaaaaaaaaallly cool.

Try this, but you need TerraForm to do it.

1. Fortify one or more of your existing (militia) units - make sure it's outside of its city somewhere
2. Open the game file with Terraform.
3. Edit the unit(s) to change its type from "militia" to "bomber" and its assigned city to NONE (so it won't upset your democracy)
4. Still using Terraform, move your new bomber(s) to a strategic isthmus and they will protect your flank for a couple thousand years (since they're pre-fortified, they never run out of fuel!)

Voila! You now have an indestructible unit that no other civ can defeat (until they get fighters, way in the future), nor can they use it to talk to you, nor can they get past it to sneak attack you.

Perfect one-way gate, LOL.

 

[blessern]

One might wonder why this thread isn't named "The most appreciated unit"

And if that was the case my vote definitely goes to the diplomat. It gets around, it conquers cities, it steals and trades knowlegde, it blocks resource squares and otherwise sabotages (city walls etc.), it doesn't upset citizens in republic/democracy, relatively cheap (relative to what stage you are at in the game).

It's a game winner, especially if you (me) like to play a high tech, low military kind of game with early established republicism. (If thats a word... (if not it should be))

My least one?

The submarine! quite surprised noone mentioned that yet. By the time you developed Mass Production, you have Cruisers and Battleships out there already. Shouldn't there be some stealth effect/bonus to go with that unit?

And thanks for a great forum by the way. CIV 1 has been my favourite ( is there supposed to be a "u" in that?) game since I was a kid, still play it a lot.

 

[GibsonS]

Personally I would say the least appreciated unit is the Knight. Mainly because it's crap and pointless; only a marginal improvement on the chariot. To be honest I only ever get Feudalism/Chivalry when gifted/captured, or no other Advances are offered.

Most under-appreciated unit is probably the Sail. The Trireme is irritating, especially because the other civs can cheat and cross oceans without them sinking. The Sail makes intercontinental travel possible, and isn't significantly superceded until Transports.

 

[Whelkman]

Knights are okay given that they're the most dominant all around unit until the Armor, but the technological diversion required to get them is ridiculous considering their marginal value over the Chariot. Monarchy itself is debatable but now you have to throw Feudalism and Chivalry on top of that, which have no other advantages beyond the Knight unit, making the technological investment perhaps the least valuable in the game. If Knights were thrown in with Monarchy people would have a different opinion of the unit (and the Monarchy advance itself).

 

[Fanatic Noob]

Nukes are good, also carriers to carry them all over world. But remember to have full transport of settlers after taking cities to clean terrain to prevent global warming.

Also diplomats if you like to take cities peacefully.

 

[fagianooo]

Definitively Knights

 

[Fanatic Noob]

Knights are nice if you want to finish game early by conquer, but for me that is not nice to finish with AI so quickly.