mudblood
Warlord
How do people feel about Unique Units? They haven't shown up in any of the information that we've seen about Civ IV, but I'm going to guess that they're almost definitely in, as a way of differentiating between the different civilizations. I personally don't dislike the idea, but I do have issues with the way they were implimented in Civ III.
1) The way they were connected with Golden Ages really sucked. Especially if you had one of those civs whose UU came really early in the game. Inevitably, if you were the Aztecs, you were desperately researching Bronze Working so that you would have Spearmen to hide your Jaguar Warriors behind. If you were unlucky enough to go to war, you would get your Golden Age with just three cities, not building settlers when you should be because you don't want to lose the shields, but most of them going to corruption anyway, because you're in a dictatorship. I would go out and attack civs with early UUs for this very reason. This, really, is my biggest beef. You should want to go out and use these units.
2) Because of the way the civs in the game were skewed toward the Ancient World or America, 15 of the 31 UUs came in the first era, and most of the rest right afterward with Chivalry. So, you're facing Celtic Swordsmen to the north, Mounted Warriors to the east, Bowmen to the south, but once you were past all the UUs that came with Chivalry, there's only five or six left. I know there won't be eras in Civ IV, but I hope the UUs are more evenly spaced through the tech tree.
3) I know my last beef isn't necessarily about UUs, but it plays into it. Because of the way the game developed, the way that the largest civilization tended to get stronger just because it was the largest civ, if you had a late UU, it came too late to make a difference in most games. By then, one civ was usually far enough ahead of the others that its winning was a forgone conclusion.
I think Firaxis did a great job of rebalancing the UUs with Conquests: they got very unbalanced with Play the World. Now, if they address those issues: Golden Ages, distribution, and the irrelevance of the end game, I think I'd be quite happy with UUs.
1) The way they were connected with Golden Ages really sucked. Especially if you had one of those civs whose UU came really early in the game. Inevitably, if you were the Aztecs, you were desperately researching Bronze Working so that you would have Spearmen to hide your Jaguar Warriors behind. If you were unlucky enough to go to war, you would get your Golden Age with just three cities, not building settlers when you should be because you don't want to lose the shields, but most of them going to corruption anyway, because you're in a dictatorship. I would go out and attack civs with early UUs for this very reason. This, really, is my biggest beef. You should want to go out and use these units.
2) Because of the way the civs in the game were skewed toward the Ancient World or America, 15 of the 31 UUs came in the first era, and most of the rest right afterward with Chivalry. So, you're facing Celtic Swordsmen to the north, Mounted Warriors to the east, Bowmen to the south, but once you were past all the UUs that came with Chivalry, there's only five or six left. I know there won't be eras in Civ IV, but I hope the UUs are more evenly spaced through the tech tree.
3) I know my last beef isn't necessarily about UUs, but it plays into it. Because of the way the game developed, the way that the largest civilization tended to get stronger just because it was the largest civ, if you had a late UU, it came too late to make a difference in most games. By then, one civ was usually far enough ahead of the others that its winning was a forgone conclusion.
I think Firaxis did a great job of rebalancing the UUs with Conquests: they got very unbalanced with Play the World. Now, if they address those issues: Golden Ages, distribution, and the irrelevance of the end game, I think I'd be quite happy with UUs.
