The most boring unique unit

Which is the most boring UU in the game?

  • Quinquereme

    Votes: 19 17.8%
  • Ballista

    Votes: 11 10.3%
  • Landsknecht

    Votes: 44 41.1%
  • Samurai

    Votes: 2 1.9%
  • Musketeer

    Votes: 10 9.3%
  • Cossack

    Votes: 3 2.8%
  • Other

    Votes: 18 16.8%

  • Total voters
    107
I said other because I'd say the worst UU is the Maori warrior. It causes fear in the enemy? What does that even do? They come too early in the game to make any difference so to me they're just like a normal warrior.

This thread ain't about strength, it's about blandness. The Maori bonus is very nice in combination with the 10% bonus near maoi, giving you a "Spirit of Adwa" style homeland defense bonus (-10% enemies +10% your units= 20% disparity) and this is only exacerbated later on when unit strengths are higher, thus they lose more. As for blandest, I vote other. Bowman. You will NEVER get to use this unit in time to do anything but some light barb hunting. Bland.
 
Okay okay so the Quinquereme's most "interesting" feature is it's name (how EXACTLY do you pronounce that without sounding like a stuttering gerbil) but it is in fact quite strong. At the time you can build these, purchasing a handful in your city with a heroic epic can make you the terror of the seas with appropriate upgrades (city raider on these makes them cheap powerful substitutes for swordsmen for ramming into a coastal city with more than one access point).

Kwinkwereem? Kinkereem? Kwinkereem?
 
I said other because I'd say the worst UU is the Maori warrior. It causes fear in the enemy? What does that even do? They come too early in the game to make any difference so to me they're just like a normal warrior.

The Maori Warrior's pretty cool, actually (in my opinion). The promotion carries over when you upgrade, so all game long you have infantry units with a sort of reverse-great-general effect.

Was going to say, where is the Hoplite in that poll?

Like I said in the OP, I give the Hoplite a pass because it opens up some strategic/tech-related possibilities for Greece (they don't need to have Iron or research Iron Working to field an army of almost-Swordsman-strength units). But I do agree that it's a pity they took something as historically interesting and distinct as the hoplite and just slapped some extra strength on it.

The Cossack is actually a good unit. The 33% bonus could be used in every battle if you plan it right, and it is a lot less boring than the samurai. The samurai has two extra promotions. One is a promotion that you could get normally, and the other is not very good. You generally can get enough great generals without an extra bonus, and it doesn't make a lot of a difference if only the samurai are getting a great general generation bonus.

Ha, I guess I'm the only one who doesn't like the Cossack. Agreed about the Samurai, of course.
 
Landsknecht.

They should be similar to the old French Foreign Legion. Slightly stronger, and bonus in foreign lands. They were mercenaries essentially.

Essentially all UU which just have a higher strength are boring. Except Stampy, because its a effing elephant!

The UU of the new Civs since the Spain-DLC feel more unique than the vanilla ones.
 
The Slingers and Zero ought to be in this ranking. Slingers are basically really weak archers that have a chance to withdraw, and zeros are fighters with a strength increase or something like that. I don't think there's anything wrong or boring about a strength increase, but it's pretty much useless on a unit that no one uses to begin with.
 
Kwinkwereem? Kinkereem? Kwinkereem?

In french we say something like "Kinkereem" but I don' know about the english term

-About the slinger: the carry the withdraw promotion, so they might be weak at the beginning, but become interesting when upgraded.
-I agree about the Landshnekt, they should have a foreign territory bonus, or maybe a bonus against other UU's (dueto the fact they where elite mercenary)
.. Or maybe replace them by an other unit, the Doppelsöldner, a longsword equivalent (with a bonus against .. pikemen)
 
God, such a difficult choice. But I'll go with Zero. I've played around 50 games, 80% of which lasted till the very end, and I never-ever saw AI using damn fighters as he should have, rendering both fighters and UU Zero completely useless. Though ballista and landsknecht definitely deserve to be called boring.
 
God, such a difficult choice. But I'll go with Zero. I've played around 50 games, 80% of which lasted till the very end, and I never-ever saw AI using damn fighters as he should have, rendering both fighters and UU Zero completely useless. Though ballista and landsknecht definitely deserve to be called boring.

This in mind, fireaxis has two options of making the Zero more relevant:

1) Give it an additional bonus that is better.
2) Work on improving the AI's warfare intelligence with fighters, so they actually use them properly and they'll be a threat to you.
 
I'd have to say the Quinquereme, but that's probably just the way I play. I very rarely have a serious navy until the Galleas (Excepting water-heavy starts, of course), so anything that replaces a trireme is somewhat redundant.
 
The problem with UU's that only improve the units strength is once they are upgraded into the next era they are just another regular unit with no bonuses. For example, if the Jaguar's unique unit was just power strength than a regular warrior then I would never consider playing as the Aztecs because you have no advantage in that regard as soon as the Warrior gets outdated.
 
The Egyptian UU who's name I cant even remember despite playing about 400 hours as Egypt.

I dislike any UU that has a slight bonus but can then be overtaken by one more tech about 15 turns later (epic)
 
Quinquereme without a doubt for me.

Perhaps it's just my playstyle, but unless I'm on a water map, I nearly never build even triremes as they can't actually explore too well without ocean tile movement, they aren't to strong, can't help on land and as AI doesnt really like sea invasions on land maps anyways, can't really help defend.

if the Quinquereme was more like an early privateer or a deep sea unit, it might be interesting but triremes are just so bland
 
Definitely the Landsknecht. Combined with Germany's UA it might be nice, but it's simply not very exciting when you get down to it or compare it to other UUs. On the plus side, I love the way their unit bubble icon looks. It's probably the best looking one out there.

I also agree with the blandness that comes with units that are simply a :c5strength: bonus that doesn't carry over to their next upgrade. I suppose it's just more incentive to use them when you get them, which you should be doing anyway.
 
Rome disappoints me. I love their UA, but it's simply insane that they don't get a UB considering how architecturally brilliant they were! Not what this post is about though. The ballista gets my vote. Too costly for a unit I may never use (and, in fact, only used once). As bad-ass as the legion is in their era, considering I actually got attacked right when I was building roads with them, it's a pure shame that they can't carry over their road-building skill. Do they put on fancier armor and suddenly forget how to dig? Well, I suppose those who could afford such armor in Medieval times couldn't bother with a shovel.
 
The Egyptian UU who's name I cant even remember despite playing about 400 hours as Egypt.

I dislike any UU that has a slight bonus but can then be overtaken by one more tech about 15 turns later (epic)

Frankly I think Egypt shouldn't have a UU at all (or if they do it should be something mostly defensive such as Babylon's).

Obviously if you're playing as Egypt you're not going for conquest regardless, so even if they had a halfway-decent UU for offensive purposes, the average player wouldn't end up utilizing it much.

Burial tombs are awesome though.
 
painindeneck.
Hate getting it from cs, costs you more than regular pikes to upgrade.
Not too bad when playing as Germany but by a country mile the worst UU and the boring to boot.
JD
 
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