What's your least used unit in game?

[Ekolite]

But Chariots are amazing! I love using them as the khazad, building the mines of galdur to get early iron and ending up with a unit with 4 speed, 7/5 strength and a decent bit of withdrawal that can be built in ONE turn at my capital. Then you get up to the ride of the nine kings and war chariots and the game's in the bag.

 

[Demus]

never thought of khazad chariots, but you should really try a hippus mounted force. 2/3 of the horsemen go flanking, the remainging 1/3 strenght, shock and the likes. With raider, you can station them in your own borders on a well-defended point, rush in, attack an enemy civ's city, and get back to the defended point in the same turn. Almost as effective as some druid tactics, but available at T2!

 

[xienwolf]

My least used unit is the Settler.


I need to play more

 

[fuzzy_bunnies]

Hrmmm Maaaaybe. I think its just that chariots are relatively high on the tech tree and in the meantime I've research sorcery and priests and champions (to get iron) so simply don't need them. My older melee units are highly promoted so I upgrade them for a much better attack force.

A couple times I've dominated chariots and war chariots and for some reason I just find that their attack percentages are always so low. I guess I should think about getting a stack of withdrawing chariots and some attack chariots and use the withdrawing to wound and clean up with the attack... but at the same time I could have a couple mages that will weaken the entire stack as well as do other stuff like summons, haste, etc when I need it.

 

[Fafnir13]

Until recently, I would have said chariots. My most recent Bannor game changed that, what with the large continent I've got to travel across.
The unit I don't like building (but still do occasionally) is the catapult. I'll look for any other solution first, be they highly promoted super units, mages with the right spells, priest, or excessive fodder units. Why don't I like them? They are slow and never seem to get the option to go faster. Even once they get where they need to be, they have to wait a turn before they can be useful since it takes move to bombard. The collateral damage can be good, but it takes a good number of catapults to cause the same effect as one maelstrom/ring of fire/tsunami and the catapult is consumed in the casting often enough to require a steady stream of replacements. Even when they do survive, that's several turns of healing, slowing down any military advance further. If I could get them a few more promotions, I could mitigate that a bit. However, with their inability to kill anything, their xp gain seems really slow. Then there's the enemies assassins picking them off. Ugh...
Like I said, I still build them. Sometimes its the only option against early archers in opposing, fortified cities. I just really don't like using them.

 

[heisenberg]

=P @xien not till 034 FF comes out!~ jkjk
mmm... least used units? I glanced at the unit list for a while and here's what I got:

Heroes: Abashi, Eurabatres, Drifa, Mary Mobius, Meshabber, Mythril golem (yes I've -never- ever used them before lol)

Units(seldom used): Beastmaster, Berserker, Immortals, Flagbearers, Paramander, Royal Guards, Battering Rams, Flesh Golems, Marksmen

I guess I often end/abandon my games pretty early--I guess I too often stick to the metal line and hardly touch theology and the like. Heroes-wise its funny that I've never built a dragon... maybe I'd do it for fun one of these days...

 

[Micky Onimusha]

Until recently, I would have said chariots. My most recent Bannor game changed that, what with the large continent I've got to travel across.
The unit I don't like building (but still do occasionally) is the catapult. I'll look for any other solution first, be they highly promoted super units, mages with the right spells, priest, or excessive fodder units. Why don't I like them? They are slow and never seem to get the option to go faster. Even once they get where they need to be, they have to wait a turn before they can be useful since it takes move to bombard. The collateral damage can be good, but it takes a good number of catapults to cause the same effect as one maelstrom/ring of fire/tsunami and the catapult is consumed in the casting often enough to require a steady stream of replacements. Even when they do survive, that's several turns of healing, slowing down any military advance further. If I could get them a few more promotions, I could mitigate that a bit. However, with their inability to kill anything, their xp gain seems really slow. Then there's the enemies assassins picking them off. Ugh...
Like I said, I still build them. Sometimes its the only option against early archers in opposing, fortified cities. I just really don't like using them.

Ooh, I forgot them but I'm in agreement with you. I barely go with Catapults just because Magic provides similar benefits but on faster legs (particularly the aforementioned Priests, as well as Fire ball Mages). I wish Catapults could get some kind of Civ3 style capabilities, where they can fire bombardments from range, rather than having to be next-door to the city, but that's off on a tangent.

I actually quite like the 3 Hill Giants from the Pact as alternatives, just because they can get Mobility 1 and Bombard, but obviously requiring a one-off Wonder makes them imperfect (and probably impossible to get at higher difficult levels, I'm still on Monarch).

 

[brucedecatz]

Royal guards are great. They save the newly conquered cities the need to build culture, since they are able to cast hope. Besides, I now play with Aristocracy as my choice civics after God King: not much worse than city states at saving money, plus the war weariness is not as crippling.

 

[heisenberg]

hmm... I'll go give aristocracy another try next time round i guess =P
Its not really about the money saving part though, just that I didn't really like losing food on my farm-tiles since I usually only build farms when I'm on some rough terrain or when I wanted to run some specialists. I suppose it could be pretty strong civic with financial trait since you would get that extra commerce off it.

 

[Keeper_GFA]

Heroes-wise its funny that I've never built a dragon... maybe I'd do it for fun one of these days...

The Dragons are nice and tough, but sadly they don't get the Hero promotion. So even if built, it can be difficult to get them into the fray.

 

[cabbagemeister]

Hmmmm i'm a pretty big fan of certain priest units myself--
Ritualists: Ring of Flames--who needs siege/fireballs when you have them?
Cultists: Tsunami--spells doom for any coastal rival cities.
Water-walking potential so early allows for very easy mapping of other continents, much easier than teching up to optics, though with the recent naval unit buffs OO priests become relatively much weaker.
Priests of leaves: Bloom anyone? str 4 free fodder compared to lousy skeletons?

I agree, for Spiritual Civs especially Priests are just wonderful. If you compare them directly to other T3 units, they don't look so great. Yes, their magic is not as good as Mages (although some Priests are almost as good, especially Ritualists). Yes they're not as strong as Champions or Rangers (although when they have the Potency promotion and get to level 5 pretty quickly, it's close). So why go Priests? 1) Priesthood can be gotten REALLY early compared to animal handling/iron working/sorcery, and 2) While Champs need some bombard and Mages need muscle, Priests are self-contained. So you can put everything you need for a midgame conquering spree onto the field of battle while other civs are still making the looong slog towards Sorcery or Iron Working.

For the least used unit, I'd have to agree with the catapult. I haven't built one since the moment in my very first FfH game when I pressed the "summon fireball" button. They're slow, they take too long to bombard, and they die too easily. The only change I can think of to make them usable for me would be to make them absolutely dirt cheap, like 15 hammers or something. Then I might think about cranking out 30 or so of them instead of trying to slowly level my adepts.

 

[Avahz Darkwood]

Archers and Hunters. A buffed up axeman with the highest metal possible is a cheep base unit with enough power to defend if in a pinch.

 

[KillerClowns]

Archery line. I usually rely on well-buffed melee units to defend me, up until I get gunpowder.

 

[Love]

Lol remember flurry?

 

[Mailbox]

Archmages and the recon units beyond hunters, I just never really seem to find a use for them since brute force is so effective or another unit can do the same job but quicker and cheaper. Channelling 2 units are powerful enough to most of my dirty work and save me a ton of tech and time going up to Strength of Will. 20 Spectres work better than 4 (or 8) wraiths.

 

[cyther]

Marksman are the least used unit, I have never used one and have been playing of about a year.

 

[sputnik323]

Archmages and the recon units beyond hunters, I just never really seem to find a use for them since brute force is so effective or another unit can do the same job but quicker and cheaper. Channelling 2 units are powerful enough to most of my dirty work and save me a ton of tech and time going up to Strength of Will. 20 Spectres work better than 4 (or 8) wraiths.

Yet whenever anyone suggests a boost to archmages, many people complain that they are too powerful as is...

 

[OzzyKP]

I don't think Archmages need a boost. I use them plenty.

 

[Amerigo Arturo]

I don't have much to add. I almost never use hunters or rangers, they are weak. Almost never use longbows because the tech is expensive, and I think I had a Marksman once, I never research that, never have many leveled archers to promote and if I did, it still isn't that great a unit. I rarely use horsemen, or horse archers, but will use chariots at times. 4 and 6 strength horses are just not that useful. Better to make axemen or champs.

 

[OzzyKP]

Hunting is a rather expensive tech too. For that early in the game especially.