Thoughts on Unique Units

[Pook]

In my opinion, the two UUs with the least utility are the F-15 and the Panzer, for the simple reason that they show up so late in the game. They can't save a losing game, and they don't add much character to the game. My proposal-
Eliminate the F-15. Make the ironclad the American UU. From what I've read, ironclads weren't around very long (under 40 years) and they were largely an American phenomenon.
Eliminate the panzer. Make a 7 years war era unit for the German UU- perhaps a musketman with a movement of 2.

 

[Ivan the Kulak]

I'm not in favor of more than one UU per civ - if you did this with any realism, you'd have some civs much stronger in the ancient era and some much stronger in the modern era. It would unbalance the game. I don't want to see any fictional unique Roman Caesar tanks or Mayan Jaguar jet fighters either. Some more flavor units in Civ4 would be appreciated though.

 

[cockroach]

Make the ironclad the American UU. From what I've read, ironclads weren't around very long (under 40 years) and they were largely an American phenomenon

No way, havn't you heard of HMS Warrior? Even the moniter type vessel was far from unique to America even one of the Australian colonies had one

 

[Pook]

Thank you for the link, I was not familiar with Cerberus. I had thought that in the transition from sail to steam, the British had largely skipped over the ironclad and went straight to the armored cruiser http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Armored_cruiser , which was then replaced by the battleship.
My point in this whole discussion was that in game terms, the F-15 is almost useless because it shows up so late. Since I've seen so many complaints about "Do ever ever build ironclads? Why is it even in the game?", I thought this would be a satisfactory solution. It would give the Americans a UU they could actually use, while eliminating the complaints about ironclads being in the tech tree.

Same story with the Panzer- it shows up too late. If you replaced it with some of the superb musketmen that Frederick the Great force-marched all over Central Europe, you could have a usable German UU.