Uniques Units: Some Seem Useless

[Sreyas73]

Hi everyone,

I was wondering what you guys may think about the following subject...
Aren't some civilization's unique units (eg, Samurai for Japan) just completely useless because they belong to a bygone era and become obselete rather quickly in the game? In other words, isn't having advanced special units like panzers (Germany) a big step up from having ancient melee units like Japan's samurai?

What do you guys think?
I am a missing something here?

(Maybe what I am implying here is that some civs seem to have more of an advantage with regard to their unique units)

Srey

 

[troytheface]

yeah a panzer is stronger and has armor and is more modern then a samaraii

your right

some unique units are way better

 

[madscientist]

The Panzer is considered one of the weakest UUs because once you get there are Germany you should be dominating the world with them. The AI inefficiently spams out armored units also.

The Samuri are pretty valuable as those first strike chances are not insignificant. They are competitive up to the rifle era and stand up well to muskets considering Toku starts with Combat I Samuri.

The worse UUs that get the most press are

Ballista War Elephant (infrequncy of the resource and lackluster improvement over the usual unit)
Jaguar (losing strength to 5 hurts, but I do love them!)
Gallics (free Gureilla I to a Swords is pretty lame)
Bowmen (decent anti-barbs but that's it. An angry AI will easily shred them just like a regular archer if they want)

 

[BigTime]

If we follow your reasoning the panzer is better than the quecha. On epic or marathon the samurai has a fairly large window, and it is a very strong UU anyway. Panzers kinda sucks. The best UUs are the early ones. (quecha, Praets, Immortals, etc.)

 

[Sicky]

You're right, some UU's are less useful than others, just compare Holy Roman Landsknecht with the Roman Praetorian .

But I disagree with you on panzers, because they come too late to make a big impact. By the time tanks roll in, the game is usually decided. I very much prefer early UU's like Praetorians and Immortals, because if used properly, they can win you the in the BC's (Not that I can use them very well, except for the occasional Immortal rush )

EDIT: Interesting... I start writing my post, thinking I'm going to be the first one to reply, but when I post it, three others have already posted before me ^^

 

[madscientist]

If we follow your reasoning the panzer is better than the quecha. On epic or marathon the samurai has a fairly large window, and it is a very strong UU anyway. Panzers kinda sucks. The best UUs are the early ones. (quecha, Praets, Immortals, etc.)

I dunno about the early ones being the best. Churchill's redcoats still are one of the most dominant in the game. Navy Seals (especially Washington and Lincoln) are still one of the best UUs in the game if you need to do intercontinental invasions.

One very big advantage of later UUs is that you tend to have the civics and settled GGs to really empower them. The Panzer is not a bad UU in itself, it's just that you never get a chance to use it's abilities due to lack of opponent tanks (at least up to Immortal for me!).

 

[Sreyas73]

If we follow your reasoning the panzer is better than the quecha. On epic or marathon the samurai has a fairly large window, and it is a very strong UU anyway. Panzers kinda sucks. The best UUs are the early ones. (quecha, Praets, Immortals, etc.)

Hey guys.

I wasn't talking about the panzer specifically... just using an example. I am new to the game and am trying to understand the advantages/disadvantages different civs have over each other. (for instance, i played the Indian Empire in my first game; it has fast workers which were pretty useful throughout the entire game (up until the time victory in 2050))

 

[Gocho]

Fast workers are fantastic!

But yes some unique units and some unique buildings are not as good as others, just as some leader traits are not as strong. Nothing wrong with this as it allows you to play to the strengths of your current leader and play an entirely different game then the last one you did.

 

[BigTime]

I dunno about the early ones being the best. Churchill's redcoats still are one of the most dominant in the game. Navy Seals (especially Washington and Lincoln) are still one of the best UUs in the game if you need to do intercontinental invasions.

One very big advantage of later UUs is that you tend to have the civics and settled GGs to really empower them. The Panzer is not a bad UU in itself, it's just that you never get a chance to use it's abilities due to lack of opponent tanks (at least up to Immortal for me!).

Ok, MOST of the best UUs are the early ones. Sure, redcoats are dominant, but 7-9 immortals to wipe out one civ compared to 20-30 redcoats + SIEGE to take out a later one. Immortals win. Praets can single-handedly win conquest on a Pangaea map. Redcoats can't. Sure, it's all opinion, but I still think the earlier UUs are the most dominant ones usually.

 

[Jamuka]

The strength of a UU seems very dependent on difficulty level. I love early UUs on emperor and monarch because you can use them wipe out so many opponents so quickly. They are difficult to take advantage of on immortal or diety though, the AI usually has too many units for me to rush with war chariots or something. I can imagine redcoats feeling underwhelming on monarch, the 25% doesn't make much difference because the AI is getting whipped anyway. But on immortal, there's really nothing i'd really have. Try an immortal game where you're only plan is to build a few mediocre cities and draft 50 redcoats/janissaries/oromo: it works.

 

[TheMeInTeam]

I dunno about the early ones being the best. Churchill's redcoats still are one of the most dominant in the game. Navy Seals (especially Washington and Lincoln) are still one of the best UUs in the game if you need to do intercontinental invasions.

One very big advantage of later UUs is that you tend to have the civics and settled GGs to really empower them. The Panzer is not a bad UU in itself, it's just that you never get a chance to use it's abilities due to lack of opponent tanks (at least up to Immortal for me!).

This was debated in IU vicky to some extent, but the value-over-base on redcoats isn't stupendous. You only get help vs muskets and rifles (infantry are too strong w/o some kind of heavy arty help). Rifles are too strong w/o at least spies...but probably airships also.

For a mid-game unit that needs help to fight at parity successfully this hardly seems like something deserving of "one of the most dominant in the game".

 

[obsolete]

When I'm Churchil I don't bother to make infantry to fight infantry. It's still superior to use your rifle to take on infantry. Look at the hammer difference. Churchill's rifle comes ahead.

 

[Baldyr]

Aren't some civilization's unique units (eg, Samurai for Japan) just completely useless because they belong to a bygone era and become obselete rather quickly in the game?

Civ is a game and you get a score every time you end a game. If you win you get a higher score, and the earlier you win the greater the score. Also, I believe conquest victories give the highest scores.

This also means that the earlier you can get any advantage toward winning by conquest the better. Thus an early UU is better than a later one.

I bet you're thinking that every game lasts to 2050AD, and maybe that you would wait until you have modern units before going for a military strategy. In fact, its common to win before the modern age and also ending the session at that note. So, many games never even reach the modern age.

Think of it like this: When your UU becomes available its pretty much time to expand. If its a an offensive unit you should defeat an enemy, and if its a defensive unit you can found several new cities without the threat of losing them. Not taking advantage of your UU because you're not in the modern age really makes no sense.

Take the Praetorian (Rome) - its designed for the Civ to win a domination victory in the classical era. The Redcoat (England) is designed to defend a vast overseas empire. The Keshik (Mongolia) is designed to wipe out civilization and win an early conquest victory!

You mentioned the Samurai by the way... One of my favorite UU:s. Can you figure out when its a good time to expand your Japanese empire?

 

[Baldyr]

When I'm Churchil I don't bother to make infantry to fight infantry. It's still superior to use your rifle to take on infantry. Look at the hammer difference. Churchill's rifle comes ahead.

Yeah, really? Thats... pretty kick-ass!

 

[TheMeInTeam]

When I'm Churchil I don't bother to make infantry to fight infantry. It's still superior to use your rifle to take on infantry. Look at the hammer difference. Churchill's rifle comes ahead.

Since you're still better than me (along with every other deity player) I won't fight you. I'll review this myself and see if maybe my opinion on this UU will change.

 

[Orzio]

One key thing about UU is that often you have to play the hand given. What I mean by this is lets say you got a UU that replace muskets lots of people complain about these since they got a small window of opportunity but maybe you want to get gunpowder earlier if you got a musket UU instead of your normal beeline to liberalism.

Same with rome normally iron working isnt to high on the list unless you got tons of jungle but if you play rome you might wana get it allot earlier than normal.

Key is remember to change your gameplay abit after your UU to get the biggest use possible of them. Plan war for that era etc use them all you can.

Unless you India and got fast workers that is never obsolete and have some use for the entire game

 

[pi-r8]

Think of it like this: When your UU becomes available its pretty much time to expand. If its a an offensive unit you should defeat an enemy, and if its a defensive unit you can found several new cities without the threat of losing them. Not taking advantage of your UU because you're not in the modern age really makes no sense.

I don't agree with this. You can expand any time you have a military advantage. Having your UU is one possible advantage, but it's not enough by itself. There's a lot of other factors to consider. I mean, if you can get a military advantage early with your UU then great, but a lot of times it's just not practical, even with Rome or Egypt where the UUs are a big improvement over the base unit.

Praetorians vs. archers is a nice advantage, but cannons vs. longbows or nukes vs. anything is a much bigger advantage, so you have to size up the flow of the game and decide which will help you more.

 

[obsolete]

yeah a panzer is stronger and has armor and is more modern then a samaraii

your right

That was a very valid point Troy. Once again you made my day.

I'll review this myself and see if maybe my opinion on this UU will change.

2-pop gets you one infantry, or two super-reds, so which would you pick? Furthermore, by the time your other opponents next in line get infantry, your current charismatic Reds already have enough promos to win out in the field.

 

[Baldyr]

I don't agree with this.

Yeah, I obviously meant what you say. So thank you for clearing up my point for me.

 

[georgjorge]

Anyone else love the Cossacks (in Vanilla)? I just discovered them, and managed to overrun a more advanced and powerful civilization rather easily thanks to those (he didn't have Rifles at the beginning at the war, only Cavallery which he understandably didn't even bother to build more of, and when he got to Rifles the Cossacks already had anti-Gunpowder promotions to top them). And it feels so good to trade your enemy Military Tradition for some other tech before attacking because you just know he won't be able to do anything with it...