Weakest [Unique] Units and Buildings?

[PieceOfMind]

2 first strikes and march is barely different? No way. Imagine if that came on a unit that had utility before the last 10-20% of the game, it'd be one of the best UUs ever.

Sorry to keep doing this to you TMIT but that is 1-2 first strikes - not 2 first strikes. Can be described more like 1.5 if you must.



To the OP, IMO no adjustments should be made to UBs or UUs without consideration of the leaders who use them, and the starting techs for the civs.

I've always figured there will always be more powerful UBs and UUs in isolation, just as there are more powerful traits in isolation, but that usually when one of them is weaker, the other will be stronger, thus overall balancing out the leader.

Obviously when you fiddle with Unrestricted Leaders all balance can be thrown out the window, but I think that was only put there for fun, not because the UBs and UUs were "balanced" in any way.

 

[UWHabs]

during last nights game i beat back a invasion of conquistadors by iszzy with my calvary.

That's like saying that the Oromo is weak because I can beat them with riflemen. Try beating the conquistador with a contemporary unit. Especially given that they get defensive bonuses, if a conquistador is on a forest, you need a ridiculously powerful unit that comes at the same time to beat it.

 

[jollycynic]

well, this isnt so much a modification to an existing building, but if youre up for the idea of a new building altogether howsabout this;
Public Surveillance: +2EP, 10% espionage defense, 2 unhappiness.

 

[Joshua368]

Hey guys a few games ago I shattered Julius's praets with cannons and grenadiers.

Pretty weak UU, needs some buffing

 

[Tephros]

- Castles now obsolete with Corporation instead of Economics

Yeah that's a good idea.

- Recycling Center takes 250 to produce instead of 300 (sounds like a good building on paper, but it'll generally wipe away no more than 2 or 3 unhealthiness)

Lets see. Airports, drydocks, factories, forges, laboratories, and industrial parks can add up to +7 from buildings.

The recycling center would be one of the last buildings I'd build, but it's more cost effective than a hospital (50% greater cost, more than double the benefit) if you have most of the above buildings.

- Phalanx start with Formation (+25% vs. Mounted units), and receives an additional +75% against Chariots specifically (replaces previous effects).

Phalanx's are alright as it is I'd say. The suggestions you have would put them near the top.

- Changed Shale Plant building to [Kabuki Theater or Water Garden/Koi Pond - unsure of stats as of yet].

I agree that the shale plant sucks...

- Baray now adds 2 food instead of 1.

Yeah I think that would be better.

- I want to change the unique unit (Ivory is too rare), but don't know what to change it to. Suggestions?

Make it not require ivory.

Arabia:
- Camel Archer now has 20% withdraw rate (instead of 15%) and has a +20% attack and defense bonus in Desert tiles.

The attack and defense bonus should be 10% though, otherwise agreed.

Russia:
- Cossacks start with the Sentry promotion (in addition to previous effects).

Cossacks are fine. Why should they have sentry?

Spain:
- Conquistadors start with Mobility (in addition to previous effects).

Conquistadors are top-tier as it is.

The biggest thing I'd do to balance UUs is I think praetorians should be reduced to 7 base strength. Then you might actually want to build other units sometimes, lol.

Also, any civ should simply have the option of building the regular version of a unique unit if they so choose, i.e. the native americans should be able to build dog soldiers, but should also be able to build axes if they have copper.

 

[mechaerik]

Why would you possibly want to build the normal version of your UU? Would you ever do it, cause i sure wouldnt. UUs and UBs are what make a civ unique.

 

[UWHabs]

Well, I can certainly see why Native Americans or Aztecs would want the base axeman/swordsman if they had the resources, to get the higher base strength.

But otherwise, I don't see a point. Sure, Praets cost more than Swordsmen, but if Romans want to balance it with a cheaper unit, then they just bring axemen along. But yeah, I think Praets with 7 base strength and keeping the 10% city attack would be a good balance. Although with only 7 base, you could even keep them the same cost.

 

[champ82]

I have to totally disagree with the dog soilder being worthless - I think it's one of the best. Axemen / swords mean nothing against them, and you don't need metal so you can pump them out quick. What would be better at stopping prats? The NA building and unit basically garentee that no one can mess with you until the post longbowmen era. There is something to be said for the NA's versitility. There is no better civ to ensure early survival on ANY map type than NA - this certainly has value. If rushing's your thing, take some heavily promoted archers and dog soilders over to a rival, sit on their metal, and go to town. I'm not even much of an early rusher, but with NA it was just so tempting I had to - and I got away with it.

The Phalanx is not that good, but the Greek's building is pretty good so it's all right if you ask me. If your neihbor is Persia or Egypt you'll be extra glad you have them.

I think the Cosak could use a little buffing up too.

I think the Baray could MAYBE use +2 food - but keep in mind that Sillyman is already expansive - his cities do get noticiablly bigger - which helps everything. If you run Heredity Rule you will have some BIG cities early, which helps with production, commerce, everything.

The Hamam or whatever is not a weak building at all. It helps with hapiness and with Mehmed, who is expanisve, it just makes it that much stronger.

Camel Archer - I see it's main strength as not needing iron or horses- again there is something huge to be said about versitility. No need to buff it up IMO.

Japan's UB is weak, but their UU is one of, if not the, best, so I always keep that in mind when I think about whether the UU or the UB is weak - do they balance each other out?

Khmer's UU, if you get it, means no one can mess with you with knights. Not exactly small potatos if you do manage to have ivory.

Did you know Conquistidor's DO get terrain / fortify bonuses? I didn't. That makes them MUCH more powerful, and certainly powerful enough (especially if you consider the siege that Spain's UB can bring.)

Chichen Itza is not one of the best wonders but it has it's place. When I bordered Spain I was glad to have it. A universal 25% defense bonus is nothing to scoff at, I think.

The hipodrome - awful.

1.) Makes dye worhtless. Even if you don't have dye, you can usually trade a surplus resource for it

2.) Makes horses even more important for Byazantium, making them less vesitile.

3.) It's only advantage is if you have horse and don't have die or if you mess with the culture slider (I never do.) Why would I mess with the culture slider with a spirtual leader? If I was having cripling culture border problems, I would run free speech. If I was having cripling hapiness problems, I would run herditary rule. Take away from science, espinoage, or money - no thanks.

4.) You CAN NOT run an artist off of it. I was playing a game as Justinian and wanted civ jewlers, the unhapiness penalty for caste system would have been cripling - too bad for me. IMO it is WORSE than the non-unique building, which I don't think could be said for any other UB.

Now Byzantium's UU is fantastic - so I don't think they should have a good UB - but seriously - this is worse than a straight up theater. It's like having a UB factory that adds science INSTEAD of production and doesn't let you run extra engineers.

Yeah, Castles could do with a little more longevity (delaying economics and free market just seems so ass-backwards to me.)

 

[JujuLautre]

Did you notice the hippodrome has an inherent +1 happiness bonus ? That's a great building

 

[azzaman333]

Did you notice the hippodrome has an inherent +1 happiness bonus ? That's a great building

Not if you need Artists.

 

[azzaman333]

2 first strikes and march is barely different? No way. Imagine if that came on a unit that had utility before the last 10-20% of the game, it'd be one of the best UUs ever.

Rating the dog soldier poorly is iffy, it's the #1 anti barb unit guarantee and will protect vs rushes too. It's also an extremely powerful choke unit.

Baray is already good. I put the ballista elephant out of the game entirely or give it some first strikes or something so that it's actually more useful than a normal elephant in more than 2% of games or so. The bowman is pretty weak too.

Edit: I'd love to see an ocean worthy ironclad UU.

Ballista Elephant could be made a strong UU simply by removing the Ivory requirement. May not be particularly realistic, but it would give the Khmer a UU they could use. Might have to remove the Autotargeting of Mounted units though.

Bowmen could get Drill 1 or Combat 1 free, and they'd be much better, and much more versatile.

 

[champ82]

Did you notice the hippodrome has an inherent +1 happiness bonus ? That's a great building

I forgot about that, but had noticed it before. I can see why someone would lke it, but in my game I honestly would have prefered a regular theater under the circumstances, and I can't think of any other situation where that would be the case. For example, if one were to say citadel is weak, or dun is weak, or mosolium or labratory are weak, they still would not be worse than the original. In my game, I honestly would have prefered just a theater.

Actually, I can think of reasons why other UBs would not be desirable - or rather they have a little bit of a downside. The Ikhanda is more expensive - I'm more than willing to pay the extra hammers but theoretically one could just want a cheaper barraks. The research institute could mess with poping the right kind of great person - it increases the % chance of a great scientist, and maybe one would want an engineer, artist, merchant, spy, whatever. You could say the same thing about artists for France, but I personally love the salon.

I've never played as the Russians. The Ikhanda is amazing IMO. But honestly, for this one game I played, I really would have prefered a stock theater over the hippodrome.

 

[azzaman333]

Well, the Ikhanda is cheaper than a regular barracks because Shaka is AGG.

 

[champ82]

Well, the Ikhanda is cheaper than a regular barracks because Shaka is AGG.

I realize that. And I think the Ikhanda is amazing. Still not as cheap as stock barracks with an AGG leader. Just playing devil's advocate.

 

[Tephros]

Why would you possibly want to build the normal version of your UU? Would you ever do it, cause i sure wouldnt. UUs and UBs are what make a civ unique.

Would I build rifles instead of redcoats? No. But some UU are niche units that have some advantages and disadvantages over the unit they replace. For example the jaguar is inferior to the swordsman when it comes to attacking cities, but is cheap, resourceless, and comes with woodsman I. What are jags good for? Becoming healers. Saving your ass if you don't have metal. Sacrificing them because they're cheaper. But as an aggressive leader, attacking cities is your raison d'etre. Having swordsmen available given iron would make it so that jaguar is not a drawback.

Another specialist unit is the dog soldier. Dog soldiers are going to be better than the axe whenever fighting melee. However, they're no better than a spearman versus archers. So if your foe has a mixture of axes and archers defending a city, you're going to want to attack with regular axemen because the archers are going to destroy your dogs. If you can build both axes and dogs, you bring along shock dogs for stack defense, and a few CR dogs for when you encounter a city that only has melee units remaining.

Here's another example:

Yes I know it's a Maya Vulture, WB is magical, but the point remains:

Vultures are slightly inferior to regular axes versus other axes, but better than axes versus any other unit. The gap actually widens if you add combat 3. Thus it would make sense to have shock axes to help defend a stack of CR Vultures.

 

[Turquoiside]

Wrong thread

 

[azzaman333]

For example the jaguar is inferior to the swordsman when it comes to attacking cities, but is cheap, resourceless, and comes with woodsman I. What are jags good for? Becoming healers. Saving your ass if you don't have metal. Sacrificing them because they're cheaper. But as an aggressive leader, attacking cities is your raison d'etre. Having swordsmen available given iron would make it so that jaguar is not a drawback.

The Jag is never a drawback IMO.

 

[PieceOfMind]

Vultures are slightly inferior to regular axes versus other axes, but better than axes versus any other unit. The gap actually widens if you add combat 3. Thus it would make sense to have shock axes to help defend a stack of CR Vultures.

Results like these are often situation dependent. Comparisons between units with different base strengths should be done with care, because conclusions from one battle may seem inconsistent with another test battle.

Let's take your example where you compared a C2 Shock1 vulture and axeman attacking another unpromoted axeman on flat ground.

Now let's put the defending axeman on a hill and fortify it for 5 turns, and give it C1.
The odds now slightly favour the vulture over the axeman.

Basically I'm trying to say that doing tests on flat ground isn't always enough to make an absolute claim about which unit is always better.

Spoiler :

 

[Tephros]

Results like these are often situation dependent. Comparisons between units with different base strengths should be done with care, because conclusions from one battle may seem inconsistent with another test battle.

Let's take your example where you compared a C2 Shock1 vulture and axeman attacking another unpromoted axeman on flat ground.

Now let's put the defending axeman on a hill and fortify it for 5 turns, and give it C1.
The odds now slightly favour the vulture over the axeman.

Basically I'm trying to say that doing tests on flat ground isn't always enough to make an absolute claim about which unit is always better.

Spoiler :

Interesting. So they must be even closer to equal when the unit is fortified on flat land. The vulture isn't as good of an example as the jaguar or dog soldier, though... Do you think civs should be able to build the regular unit alongside their UU? Why or why not?

 

[PieceOfMind]

Interesting. So they must be even closer to equal when the unit is fortified on flat land. The vulture isn't as good of an example as the jaguar or dog soldier, though... Do you think civs should be able to build the regular unit alongside their UU? Why or why not?

Personally I see no reason why civs need to build be able to build the normal version of their unique unit. Whatever balance issues it may not address, it at least forces different civs to look a bit different during the age of their UU.

But then I don't normally argue for changes unless things are broken or when AI needs improvement.

Really when comparing units the only time things are obvious is when everything but one variable is held constant, or if there are more than one variable, then all the variables must obviously move odds the same way.

For example, a Praetorian is always better than a sword because it is better in strength and weaker in nothing else. Similarly, a skirmisher is better than an archer because it has higher strength and 1 extra first strike chance - both improve its combat performance.

However comparisons between axemen and vultures are not so simple because base strength is better on the vulture, but the situational bonus vs. melee is worse on the vulture.

Other examples where one variable improves while another goes down is the cataphract vs. knight (str better but loses immunity to first strikes), the jaguar vs. swordsman (though the comparison is much easier).

Also, the same applies when considering two different promotion lines. Drill IV is sometimes better than Combat IV, and vice versa. They are situation dependent.