UUs and play style

[Abaxial]

It seems to me that the earlier in period a UU is, the more likely it is to be redundant, unless it is so good it more or less mandates agressive play early on. If you are Babylon or Aztec or Norway, you are more or less locked in to early aggression. On the other hand, at the moment I am playing Japan for the first time, and being nice and peaceful - so I never got to build a single samurai before they became redundant.

 

[Sykes179]

If you're being peaceful then you're not going to have much need of military units (except for defence). Unique or not. That's obvious.

 

[Bliss]

IMO, regardless of UU and UA, you gotta play the map. If you are isolated or if the enemy has lots of mountains rought terrain, you can't play agressively

 

[Abaxial]

If you're being peaceful then you're not going to have much need of military units (except for defence). Unique or not. That's obvious.

Well, it is sometimes a good strategy to start off peaceful and then wage all-out war in the late game. Which is when the Brazilian battleship comes in handy.

 

[Sostratus]

The larger failing was not integrating UUs that don’t replace anything into upgrade lines. There is no reason they couldn’t make samurai / berserkers something swordsmen upgrade into, for example. At least then a unit like samurai would be easily accessible for peaceful players.
There are also a few unique units that actually were never given a new entry in the upgrade table to account for some of the GS units. For example, Mamluks and Varu upgrade to tanks, not cuirassiers.when they gave Mali the Mandekalu and guess what? It upgrades to cuirassier. Little things like this annoy me greatly, so much so I modded that out in my simple unit balance mod.

 

[Mahi]

Starting next to Gilgamesh is almost a certain re-roll for me. His warcarts are so ridicolous effective. I agree that not being able to upgrade certain UUs are the only realy reason why you wouldn't build them.

 

[MrRadar]

Starting next to Gilgamesh is almost a certain re-roll for me.

No, why? He’s the best neighbour you can have! You’re missing out on a lot of fun!

His warcarts are so ridicolous effective.

Yes, but you can neutralize them towards yourself and even make them helpful.

Gilga agrees to friendship immediately, even without a delegation. Offer him a DoF on meeting and you’ll be good to go - immune from war with him, and his warcarts will chase all the barbs off of your back or will engage with some other irksome neighbor.

And you can maintain him as a friend, trading partner and ally for the length of the game, or...
let him grow a bit, while beelining for some knights or something like that, and then pillage all his assets and make his lands your own in a great leap forward!

 

[Disgustipated]

Exactly, there's a reason he's called Gilgabro. Even better, he often maintains the alliance even throughout most of your warmongering. He's like a guaranteed friend. The only time he could be a problem is if you are boxed in, and he's your only neighbor and you can't expand a different direction.

 

[Bangau]

Starting next to Gilgamesh is almost a certain re-roll for me.

Did you know that on the turn you meet him, he will always accept a friendship?

 

[Victoria]

Playing as Victoria.
She is a Dom player but needs a good science start because she needs to go science top lane to frigates and then bottom lane to get to Redcoats but if you ignore the frigates and just go straight for the UU you get these very early and just wreak havoc big time. Time your off continent dockyards with them and you get free redcoats even earlier and the gold from your shipyards keeps you afloat.
So basically playing peaceful and avoiding golden ages until you can get redcoats is nice.... It feels like a true victorian age with WOTW coming online in a big way and that amada of sea dogs means you did not need to top lane frigates as you capture your navy.
can be quite fun but is quite a quick game after that.

 

[OmegaDestroyer]

Again, if you are playing peaceful, there's not really any point to building most UUs other than for the era bonuses.

 

[AsH2]

It seems to me that the earlier in period a UU is, the more likely it is to be redundant, unless it is so good it more or less mandates agressive play early on. If you are Babylon or Aztec or Norway, you are more or less locked in to early aggression. On the other hand, at the moment I am playing Japan for the first time, and being nice and peaceful - so I never got to build a single samurai before they became redundant.

If you're being peaceful then you're not going to have much need of military units (except for defence). Unique or not. That's obvious.

Well, it is sometimes a good strategy to start off peaceful and then wage all-out war in the late game. Which is when the Brazilian battleship comes in handy.

I'm still sandbox playing and by that aiming for an asymmetrical gameplay experience as possible, so being able to use the UU is important for me.
Speaking of Japan and Brazil, I am also at the moment playing Japan for the very first time, in (what I think) a quite interesting game. Well, it's a "coastal jungle start" on an emperor random standard map and my closest neighbour is Aztecs to the north and Brazil to the northeast beyond the great bay named Chinese Sea. There are iron deposits but no close one - Aztecs are closer to all of them - which leaves just a few early game options to either "go bold" to grab them or peacefully grow tall to expand later. I got a save from turn 4 that I've been replaying from...just to try different approach.

 

[Pure24]

I like that you're locked into early aggression for some civs, and not for others if you want to utilise their UU. I like that you cannot be agressive early for some civs depending on whether you start isolated or not, and thus lose out on using the UU even when you planned on being agressive.

I don't want every unique unit to be played in a similar way, or to stay relevant for the same duration, or to be able to be utilised in a similar manner regardless of your start.
These differences make all those things matter, and while it kinda stings when the game throws out your initial plans, I find that the best games in memory are more often the ones I have to deal with problems than those which go exactly as I planned.

Besides, you can tweak the settings to almost guarrantee a map you really want

 

[Mahi]

Did you know that on the turn you meet him, he will always accept a friendship?

I'm not interested in friendship, when he is one city away from my capital . If he's in your way of a fast expansion then you are kinda locked.

 

[MrRadar]

I'm not interested in friendship, when he is one city away from my capital . If he's in your way of a fast expansion then you are kinda locked.

Friendships expire. In the case you describe, one round of friendship and guaranteed peace for 30 turns from his side wouldn't hurt too much, while you're building up your forces and he is wasting his on somebody else.

 

[Loderingo]

Friendships expire. In the case you describe, one round of friendship and guaranteed peace for 30 turns from his side wouldn't hurt too much, while you're building up your forces and he is wasting his on somebody else.

Even if you are going Dom, it is still worth getting at least one early friend as it protects you from being attacked on one border. Also you can get your friend to join your war

 

[Bangau]

If he's in your way of a fast expansion then you are kinda locked.

It's most often hard to tell that early whether you're locked in if you go the friendly route. A friendly neighbor opens possibilities for a war on another or a peaceful game.