UUs that feel too "normal"

The extra movement is very useful. What other defensive unit can keep up with cuirs or cavalry (if pre-built). Throw in spies to drop defenses, and you can do some swift conquering.

Unless I am facing large quantities of cavalry and/or rifles, I would often hold off rifling if I am planning for war.
 
Praetorians feel average.
Really?
I don't see how you could think that, since they are 33% stronger than the unit they replace. Give me a handful of Praetorians, on Earth, and I conquer, before they even need catapults to assist, Spain/France/Germany/Russia/Greece/and either Egypt or Persia, sometimes both...
They stay relevant even when Macemen are around, because by then they are amped up with massive promotions.

Praetorians get my vote for BEST UU of the game.
 
Compare Bowmen to a protective leader's archers.

1) Bowmen can be used to stack protect for your pillaging chariots against spearmen.
2) Bowmen can take out barb axemen and spearmen pillaging your improvements.
3) Maintaining defense with a UU is a better investment than a trait. IE, Mansa Musa is not easy to rush, but is still a competitive techer unlike the protective leaders.

They aren't good, but they are certainly useful if you don't start with copper.

The real problem is that Hammurabi's traits are a terrible fit for his uniques. The health bonus is less useful if you have conquered a large empire, and Bowmen are not needed if you are rushing. If he were Industrious or Philosophical Bowmen would be much more attractive.
 
Nope, BE still suck even then.



If mounted is by itself, the BE is a normal elephant. It is hard to put it above bottom 3 UU, if not #1 worst.

One possible use for it in multiplayer- if they're using a chariot as a medic3 GG, you can "assassinate" the GG with the BE. I agree with everything else you said, though.
 
Compare Bowmen to a protective leader's archers.

1) Bowmen can be used to stack protect for your pillaging chariots against spearmen.
2) Bowmen can take out barb axemen and spearmen pillaging your improvements.
3) Maintaining defense with a UU is a better investment than a trait. IE, Mansa Musa is not easy to rush, but is still a competitive techer unlike the protective leaders.

They aren't good, but they are certainly useful if you don't start with copper.

The real problem is that Hammurabi's traits are a terrible fit for his uniques. The health bonus is less useful if you have conquered a large empire, and Bowmen are not needed if you are rushing. If he were Industrious or Philosophical Bowmen would be much more attractive.

Bowmen still lose to axes in the field, barely beat spears (won't on d terrain), and are badly destroyed by swords, chariots, and horse archers.

A pillaging chariot/bowman stack can and likely will get hit by axe (bowman defends) then either spear or another axe (chariot loses in both cases defensively). The fact that such a stack is cheaper than 2x axe is nice, but you also have to pay maintenance for it and get it over there...and after all that if they're mali or protective they might just spank you with their own archers :lol:.

It's a terrible UU overall, but even with a fairly large empire, the health isn't bad. It comes with a tech you'll probably be wanting, and you can push caps by growing or will at LEAST find it nice when the factories come online...
 
Why are landskenecth weak?
The goal of pikeman is overall to protect the stack right? On defence, they protect against mounted and melée, the two great threats; bows are not good attackers; and nothing protect versus siege attacking.
On attack they are good against melee and mounted and average against siege and bows.
Just crossbows are their doom defending, because when cross attack they are no better then horse bows.
 
fed1943, when defending the land knight (I think that was translated name) die just as fine to siege, thus you have to build longbows to defend vs trebuchets. Shock maces still own them on the field unless shock promoted themselves. When attacking they will not face anything that will have a real bonus versus.
 
A few misconceptions here...

Dog Soldiers shouldn't give Praetorians much trouble. Hint: Forget about City Raider against low-strength high-bonus units (this includes both PRO archers and Dog Soldiers), use the Combat line instead. Dog Soldiers can actually be easier to dislodge from fortified cities than regular Axemen.
Dogs are better in the field but any Axeman that attacks us is one that doesn't benefit from defensive modifiers, and therefore a good thing.

In the field, a given number of Praetorians wins against an equal hammer force of Crossbows - Axemen are the more efficient 'counter'. In cities, Crossbows can be better than Axemen at fending off Praetorians but the difference is rarely spectacular.

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Regular Swordsmen may be unexciting but they are still decent archer killers, the best defenders against catapults and useful to prevent a mostly axe/catapult army from getting abused by chariots/horse archers (on defensive terrain, they can do better than spears and I'd prefer to keep spears to a minimum because they aren't very useful for offensive work).

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Ballista Elephants are junk, any Elephant UU would have to be ridiculously broken to outshine Hwachas because those complement regular elephants so well. Siege that eats melee for breakfest, high-powered cleanup unit that outclasses archers and eats mounted for breakfest? Yes please.
 
I LOVE Janis! 25% bonus against EVERYTHING before gunpowder? Get gunpowder+steel=win.
 
I LOVE Janis! 25% bonus against EVERYTHING before gunpowder? Get gunpowder+steel=win.
25% bonus versus units that are on the doorstep of being obsolete? I mean, the next step is all gunpowder units... for the rest of the game.
Steel alone can do that, what serious benefit is it to have a slightly strong musketman?
Janissaries are rather weak in my experience.
 
Instead of Janis you could have Oromos...

At least as good against melee
Better against archery (here the first strike immunity matters)
Better against gunpowder units
Better against siege
Persistent promotions

I'll gladly give up a useful bonus against mounted units in comparison, especially since Pikes are a reasonably hard counter anyway.
 
25% bonus versus units that are on the doorstep of being obsolete? I mean, the next step is all gunpowder units... for the rest of the game.
Steel alone can do that, what serious benefit is it to have a slightly strong musketman?
Janissaries are rather weak in my experience.

Musketmen are to be USED when you get Gunpowder (and it's handy for Chem) first. In that respect Janis do what Muskets do (I find Muskets very useful on Immortal, I'm suspicious of people who say they're useless....) but much much better.

'Instead of Janis you could have Oromos'-

Yeah, at the cost of an awesome UB and two very very good leaders. I much prefer Meh and Sul to Zara in traits. Maybe that's just my playing style (I find it works, though...), but Turkey beats Ethiopia IMO.
 
Instead of Janis you could have Oromos...

At least as good against melee
Better against archery (here the first strike immunity matters)
Better against gunpowder units
Better against siege
Persistent promotions

I'll gladly give up a useful bonus against mounted units in comparison, especially since Pikes are a reasonably hard counter anyway.
Definitely the Oromos are better, and... when you upgrade them, their promotions (drill 1 & 2) remain relevant throughout the rest of the game...
+25% against pre-gunpowder weapons means very little when the unit has been upgraded to infantry... for example.
 
Definitely the Oromos are better, and... when you upgrade them, their promotions (drill 1 & 2) remain relevant throughout the rest of the game...
+25% against pre-gunpowder weapons means very little when the unit has been upgraded to infantry... for example.

I play Ethiopia a lot, and Oromos aren't anything outstanding but I like like the fact that they are cheap in hammers and can be upgraded to better units down the road, keeping their promotions.
 
Is he talking about good UUs or bland ones? If hes talking about bland ones, I guess prets are somewhat plain. Then again, all vanilla UUs are plain
 
The Carrack can range from useless to [almost] broken, depending on the map script.

If you tend to play land based maps you may never even see this unit and if there are no other continents to settle/conquer than there is basically no benefit to it, making it pretty normal.
 
Is he talking about good UUs or bland ones? If hes talking about bland ones, I guess prets are somewhat plain. Then again, all vanilla UUs are plain

An 18 str cavalry that comes where BTS cuirassers are was plain :dubious:?
 
Is he talking about good UUs or bland ones? If hes talking about bland ones, I guess prets are somewhat plain. Then again, all vanilla UUs are plain
A 8 str swordsman that can practically win the game for you before the BCs become the ADs is plain? :dubious:
 
What I think is boring about the Praetorian is that they don't have any special bonuses aside from the strength bonus. Yes, two points of strength more than makes up for the loss of +10% vs. city, especially in the Iron Age when two points means a lot, but many of the UUs have nifty special abilities that other units don't have, like starting with promotions that you can't normally get, or strong bonuses vs. particular unit types, or not being dependent on resources. The Praetorian is one of the few units that doesn't have any kind of bonuses, it's one advantage is that it's got more raw strength than other units in it's era.
 
What I think is boring about the Praetorian is that they don't have any special bonuses aside from the strength bonus.
Boring... maybe.
Effective... well, its a 33% increase on the unit they replace, and makes that unit relevant for about 2-3 times as long.
So, boring though they may be (I mean, they are an offensive unit, they are good at offense... no, they won't do your coding for you), they are not, by any stretch of the imagination... as the OP put it... "normal".
 
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