What is Your Favorite Unique Unit?

[Aarvaead]

Tell me your fav unique unit, and why your unit choice is the best. And if there were a UU that you would like to be able to give to a different civ, mention that too. Personally, I believe that the Fast Worker is the penultimate of UUs for a million reasons, so I shall just name the highlights.

1. No need to upgrade
2. No need to wait for scientific advancements
3. Saves multiple turns by moving into hills, forest, jungle, etc.
4. if you select no barbarians, he is more effective as a scout than a scout
5. when building roads to resources like fur (in ice), he can move and build in the same turn
6. his time saving movement can mean the difference between building a wonder or losing it (chop trees)

 

[PMabey]

Tell me your fav unique unit, and why your unit choice is the best. And if there were a UU that you would like to be able to give to a different civ, mention that too. Personally, I believe that the Fast Worker is the penultimate of UUs for a million reasons, so I shall just name the highlights.

1. No need to upgrade
2. No need to wait for scientific advancements
3. Saves multiple turns by moving into hills, forest, jungle, etc.
4. if you select no barbarians, he is more effective as a scout than a scout
5. when building roads to resources like fur (in ice), he can move and build in the same turn
6. his time saving movement can mean the difference between building a wonder or losing it (chop trees)

The penultimate of UUs that doesn't make sense. FYI penultimate means "last but one" and is an adjective not a noun.

My favourite uu - praetorian.. does it need an explanation?

 

[majk-iii]

Units like the berserker or the impi that carries their free prom's when upgraded... the prom of the latter however, doesn't become very useful until MI.

My new favorite; the Berserker, while strong in itself (and given great synergy by it's UB) makes for Marine (and if planned well; CR) rifles, grenadiers, infantry and so on, without having to invest (loosing) an actual prom when building. ...Then again, on a lot of maps, they're nearly useless.

Another great UU is the Hwacha.
On the plus side;
It's a Cheaper, earlier Cho-ku-nu (+50% vs melee, collateral) that doesn't require iron.
On the minus side;
Save the anti-melee function it's a regular cat, hence afraid of horses, only strenght five... and it doesn't get it's leaders protective bonus.

...still i like it, and it looks cool.

 

[Proteus]

For me it´s either fast worker, german tank or cossack.

Fast worker because of the reasons Aarvaead mentioned.
Cossack and german tank, as they are fast as well as strong during the time you can build them (getting advantages against their counterparts in that era) and are perfect if you want to start a late war (and I prefer late wars, therefore they´re perfectly suited for my style of play)

 

[quizibuk]

im still a fan of the immortal
go early go hard, love them with the charismatic / imperialistic

 

[FullyCompletely]

Praetorian, for my style.

A few other mentionables: the panzer is awesome but comes a bit too late. Samurais and redcoats are both dominant in their time. After that, i'd take the Impi or the Keshik, for their awesome mobility.

Crappiest: Jaguar Warrior. A weaker swordsman who defends in the jungle? Gives you more of a disadvantage than an advantage.

 

[AfterShafter]

My favourite uu - praetorian.. does it need an explanation?

Considering it's my least favorite UU, I'd say it requires some explanation My explanation for it being my least favorite... It's poorly designed. It has the hydralisk effect going for it from early Starcraft - unit that does everything. It's easy to get, very powerful, and effective in just about any role you need it to do. To boot, its counters are costly and not even a fraction as versatile as the Praet, meaning that if you go hard praets, the opponent is forced to build something that is way less useful for him than your praets are for you to even break even. As such, I consider the unit poorly designed, and I don't like it much at all.

My favorite UU... I'll take Hwachas. Very effective, great synergy with the protective longbowmen of their Civ, and a great way to keep the catapult class unit very effective even with Trebuchets out there. Oh, and they look cool.

 

[jimbob27]

I have 3. Immotals, quechua's and war chariots. All 3 are awsome for early wars, to the point you can declare war on about 5 civs at once, and still come out on top.

(ps, I don't count preatorians because they're game-breakingly overpowered in my opinion, and need to be fixed)

 

[turquoiseninja]

For me its a tie between Praets and Fast Workers. Preats are just amazing, especially if you're Julius, and Fast Workers don't need any techs to build them, and never become obsolete.

 

[Thyrwyn]

• Redcoats (the new ones) - They are timed nicely for builder games.
• Conquistadors (for Terra maps, especially) - post-early game mounted unit that gets defensive bonuses.
• Berserkers and Samurai - Macemen Mark II, hard to argue with.
• Quechua - make early expansion easier because they can defend your cities and settlers until barb axes show up.

 

[eriadoc]

Fast Workers are great.

I like the Impis a lot, because:
- they are melee, so they are great against quechuas
- they are spearmen, so they counter all early mounted units
- aggressive civ, so they start with Combat I, making anti-archery promotion easier to achieve. CR is good too.
- their extra movement makes it easier to wage early war. Getting to your opponent with a sizable stack of quechuas, axemen, etc. takes twice as long.

I like Cossacks a ton. For my game, I always aim for Cavalry before Rifling anyway, so having a strength 18 unit at that spot is great. If you head to cavalry straight after you've obtained Theocracy and Vassalage, you can get there ahead of the AI most times and pump out some powerful units.

 

[bitplayer]

Even though Ive only played the zulu twice so far I can easily say that I found the impi the most useful. Combine two or three of them with horse units and its a pillaging nightmare. In fact I finally made mad monti regret declaring war from the other side of a huge cont, which is a huge plus in my book, without just beating his units at my borders and waiting for him to get low on units and accept peace.

Pillaged his royal nutness back to the stone age.



Redcoat is a favorite of mine as well.

 

[PraetorianSteve]

Well, Praets are a given, but I also like the redcoats a lot. The Fast workers are also a great unit... what with their "wiry frames" and all.

However, my least favourite UU has got to be the Jaguar. you're better off with swordsmen.

 

[sigmakan]

Immortals and War Chariots are amazing with warlords now. I love them both. War Chariots are superior to Immortals but I like Cyrus much more than the egyptian leaders.

 

[PMabey]

Fast Workers are great.

I like the Impis a lot, because:
- they are melee, so they are great against quechuas
- they are spearmen, so they counter all early mounted units
- aggressive civ, so they start with Combat I, making anti-archery promotion easier to achieve. CR is good too.
- their extra movement makes it easier to wage early war. Getting to your opponent with a sizable stack of quechuas, axemen, etc. takes twice as long.

I like Cossacks a ton. For my game, I always aim for Cavalry before Rifling anyway, so having a strength 18 unit at that spot is great. If you head to cavalry straight after you've obtained Theocracy and Vassalage, you can get there ahead of the AI most times and pump out some powerful units.

i assume your playing warlords because you've mentioned impis. On warlords cossacks have only 15 strength.

 

[turquoiseninja]

Well, Praets are a given, but I also like the redcoats a lot. The Fast workers are also a great unit... what with their "wiry frames" and all.

However, my least favourite UU has got to be the Jaguar. you're better off with swordsmen.

You clearly underestimate jags. Sure, they have less strength than regular swordsman, but they're far easier to get. THEY DON'T TAKE IRON! That alone pretty huge, and they're also cheaper. This makes it much easier to mass jaguars than to mass swordsmen. They still get the bonus when attacking cities, and the bonus defense in jungles is not too shabby either. IMHO, Jaguars are certianly equal to swordsmen.

 

[TomOC]

My favorite? Hmmm... I guess whoever I am winning with at the time.

Resently, I used the Berserker on a pangea that had a bunch of rivers. I liked attacking with them across rivers. If my stack gets attacked, the AI gets a cross river penalty... when I attacked, I didn't get the penalty. I took 4 cities this way without loosing a single unit. Then I got 2 Berzerker Great Generals. They had riflemen, and I didn't care. I cleaned up. It was quite possibly my earliest win on a large map.

So right now, my favorite is the Berserker.

 

[cairnsy44]

Jags get a bad rap. Check out one of Sulla's single player games when he was Monty....the Jags saved his bacon. He had a crap start and no metals. Ended up with a Domination win because the jags did the business. It does kinda stink they are only a 5, but they can still do some serious damage and the reasons listed in the post above are solid.
That being said, I like the samurai, redcoats, praets and panzers

 

[pixiejmcc]

If my stack gets attacked, the AI gets a cross river penalty... when I attacked, I didn't get the penalty.

Nice point. indeed.

As an attacking unit maces really do have a long shelf life. Also u'd be able to promote those GG beserkers for free to rifles (and other gunpowder units, I think - BTW can ANYONE, direct me to a thread that tells me what units upgrade to what and for what price, I am desperate for this information). Presumably they'd have the city raider promos, making them some bad ass units.

 

[pixiejmcc]

Jags get a bad rap.

In certain cases they are wonderful, when you don't have the resource and ur being choked by warriors, archers and/or chariots. However in many games (where ur opponent has metal, or where u have metal, or even horse for that matter [though jags might still come in handy here]) they are completely useless and you would be dumb to build even one.