Which is the most useless unit?

[MetHimPikeHoses]

Scout, a.k.a Puma feed. It always gets eaten by animals or beaten by barbarians. Always.

Use the line of sight to keep away from barbs, and stop your scouts on hills and forest. They can defend against animal attacks.

Scouts are great for early exploration/hut-popping. C'mon, now!

 

[b-dubb]

Explorers built in your Red Cross city will get Medic I for free. Prior to Red Cross, I don't bother (much) with explorer medics.

Much easier (for me =p)

 

[XxvindicatioxX]

im gunna have to go with ironclad and submarine, simply becuase ironclads are usless in any standerd game, i find that before i even have the chance to build many of them i already have destroyers. and then theirs submarines .. i have no use for these at all, so they can explore enemy territory ... big deal so can planes on recon missions, i prefer carriar and destroyer stacks over subs yes i know it takes more time to produce but its far more usefull recon and bomb while being able to defend.

explorer .. my all around favorite unit in the game i produce these from my redcross in the late game i try to build it in a heavy forest area 1 turn medics.

 

[Equisilus]

Explorers (I think I only ever created one, just to do it one time) and Ironclads for me. Not much to add that hasn't already been said about them.

 

[Mathemagician13]

I went with Jaguar, because, well, y'know, Jaguar.

Explorers are very useful as medics because they're the only medic unit that can keep up with a stack of mounted units / tanks without wasting a mounted unit's promotions (and again, they'll never defend the stack, so that's beneficial too).

 

[rewster1]

Why is it that explorers never defend the stack? Is that listed in the manual somewhere, or just a game mechanic that you have to learn by doing?

 

[Artanis]

Why is it that explorers never defend the stack? Is that listed in the manual somewhere, or just a game mechanic that you have to learn by doing?

The best defender is automatically chosen when a stack is attacked. Since Explorers have only 4 Strength, they pretty much never fit the description of "best defender"

 

[Sparta]

I love that Explorers were split in half by accident, and yet still have second and third place solidly locked down (thus far at least).

As to medics, if you're over the free support limit (and I always am), I don't see the benefit in ever paying for an inferior unit to be a medic. I don't think I ever built a single explorer in Civ3, and doubt I will in this one either. Ironclads are pretty useless and quickly outdated, but at least they could theoretically play a niche role if need be. Explorers basically serve no purpose whatsoever, IMHO. Besides, just how many medics do some of you people need?!?

 

[rewster1]

I love that Explorers were split in half by accident, and yet still have second and third place solidly locked down (thus far at least).

As to medics, if you're over the free support limit (and I always am), I don't see the benefit in ever paying for an inferior unit to be a medic. I don't think I ever built a single explorer in Civ3, and doubt I will in this one either. Ironclads are pretty useless and quickly outdated, but at least they could theoretically play a niche role if need be. Explorers basically serve no purpose whatsoever, IMHO. Besides, just how many medics do some of you people need?!?

If I'm playing starcraft? One per firebat, I guess. Or thereabouts. In this game, I haven't really determined yet how many medics is optimal. Certainly one per stack makes sense, at least to me.

The best defender is automatically chosen when a stack is attacked. Since Explorers have only 4 Strength, they pretty much never fit the description of "best defender"

Ohh, so it isn't a mechanic, just a consequence. Good, because I've got this hare-brained idea to use in my next game, which is to have explorers to defend my keshiks. "What??" You say? Well, normally axemen do this job, which is fine while pillaging, but in between cities, the axemen are a drag... I want my horde to sweep across the map... is that so much to ask?

 

[Lord Chambers]

Wow, Ironclads have a strength of 12. Frigates have a strength of something way below 12. I can't believe players are saying they are useless. You go to war, and send a single ironclad to destroy the entire enemy navy and pilage all it's sea improvements.

And skirmisher? An improved archer? How is that even POSSIBLY useless? Who doesn't defend their cities with archers?

Though in theory it seems like it'd have some use, crossbowmen are never much use in war. When attacking a city the only time it'll go up against a defender that it can beat is when the last defender is a sole maceman. Quite a niche. You might get lucky and find an enemy maceman out in the open, but you can't count on that so they aren't worth building; except for defense, and I can't think of a time that I was invaded in the medieval age and didn't have a tech lead (the emphasis on commerce is why I might be militarily weak enough to be invaded). Crossbowmen get my vote.

 

[Artanis]

You go to war, and send a single ironclad to destroy the entire enemy navy and pilage all it's sea improvements.

Only works on Pangaea, since Ironclads can't go in ocean.

 

[Lord Chambers]

Only works on Pangaea, since Ironclads can't go in ocean.

You can go around whatever island you're on, yes.

 

[Kenji]

Xbowman far away from worst unit.
xbow vs maceman = 6 vs 4 (4.4 if aggresive) + 1 first strike
however...i cant see my love to Musket...

 

[ZippyRiver]

...March (not sure if it allows healing OTHERS on the move too...)

Nope, I checked that out. March does not apply to other units, only the unit with march. So march on your medi-ex is fairly useless. March on any unit is useless imo, mainly because I use medi-exs.

And why wouldn't you want an almost non-combat unit as your medic. It's not something you want destroyed. And wasting a single promotion on units you do attack with just for medic is not a good imo.
You attack with your medic-infantry and it gets killed. Now your out your medic, and your infantry. Which might have survived if it was given something it could use during combat.

I voted for other. No need to build settlers after the first one or two. Let the AI build em for ya.

 

[Sidhe]

Are you insane? Crossbowmen usless? pah sp crowd talking obviously. Try sending a stack of macemen with crossbowmen backing them up in an attack, yeah city defence fine but out in the field longbowmen aren't a patch on the 50% vs melee units crossbows give you.

Also try playing a teamer and rushing for crossbows and you'll know what I'm talking about, utterly devasttaing agains pre classical era units. No such thing as a useless unit in this game. Explorers are vital in multiplayer, just about the most vital early unit in the game.

Edit whs VVV : Iron clads are a significant advantage for 10-20 turns tops after that they are redundant just like in the real world. Ironclads vs wooden ships never technically lost a battle. But with the advent of iron warships they became pointless. I.e The English "Warrior" etc. And that was a sailed vessel with an iron hull.

 

[Dueck]

Ironclads are definitely the least useful unit, in most games. I suppose an ironclad or two is not a bad idea to sit on top of your fishing boats for the 20 turns in which they are not obsolete. However, I really really doubt you could deal much damage to a frigate fleet with an ironclad fleet. Ironclads can't even go in the ocean in your cultural boundaries (galleys can), AND they have 2 movement. I feel they successfully downsized ironclads to their real historical role. In Civ I ironclads were the shizz.

On the other hand, explorers can be extremely useful for quickly reaping the benefits of the New World in a terra game, which is one of the coolest modes of play, IMO. I do not see them as being much of an asset as a field medic, except that they can keep up with your tanks/cavalry/knights... in which case I usually just bite the bullet and give a tank/cavalry/knight that promotion and be done with it. No need to pay that extra 2 gold or so to support a non-combative unit in enemy territory, whose role can be filled by a combat unit.

edit: spelling...

 

[azzaman333]

Ironclads and Muskets are pretty useless to me, since they normally have a short window of opportunity and arent much better than the alternatives.

 

[apdavis828]

def. ironclad... no oceans!

 

[Sparta]

Nope, I checked that out. March does not apply to other units, only the unit with march. So march on your medi-ex is fairly useless. March on any unit is useless imo, mainly because I use medi-exs.

And why wouldn't you want an almost non-combat unit as your medic. It's not something you want destroyed. And wasting a single promotion on units you do attack with just for medic is not a good imo.
You attack with your medic-infantry and it gets killed. Now your out your medic, and your infantry. Which might have survived if it was given something it could use during combat.

I voted for other. No need to build settlers after the first one or two. Let the AI build em for ya.

March is pretty far from useless, IMHO - I really like it actually (disclaimer: I play epic, and may be getting too partial to March). You should try getting it on your first two good mounted units early on sometime if it works out. If you're declared upon, they can cover short-range defensive skirmishes across a large front combined (garrisoned ~2 cities apart), and will heal themselves while traversing between encounters. Once the initial invasions taper off, they'll be healed again by the time they catch up to your offensive stack(s). Very helpful when outnumbered on higher levels, IMO. (Also, I'm not 100% on this, but I believe March-upgraded units may even restore health in turns in which they attack as well, which is very handy when invading backwards civs with a smaller force of momentarily-unmatchable units (e.g. on your first few non-city-raider riflemen), and nice just to maintain lighter, distant stacks in general.)

Think of it this way: Typical promotions increase your overally army's strength by making that particular unit more powerful (obviously). March and Medic promotions increase your overall army's effectiveness by allowing a greater portion of it to be combat-effective at any given point in the war. The former is more powerful when you've already got the advantage; the latter is more useful when you are trying to make due with less-than-ideal troop numbers.

As to explorer medics, between my general disdain for explorers in past games and my tendency to already have a few medics by then anyway, I have yet to ever use one (I'll try to check it out sometime, but I rarely run +XP civics, so barring an aggressive civ on random it is really late(r) game before that's an option). I usually make medics out of units that are just eclipsing their prime era anyway, so I'm not using them as attackers anymore, but yet they're not as useless as explorers would be should my stack suffer a catastrophic counterattack. I just hate paying upkeep for units that cannot really serve any combat value, outside of the inevitable outdated units on garrison duty to make my ingrate citizens shut up.

And seriously, settlers three-four+ should be snagging you some nice food and luxury resources around that time (after 2 or 3 hopefully secured bronze). I'd have a hard time passing some of those opportunities up, especially on larger maps with more opponents (that would gain on you while you take out one neighbor). To each his own though. Good luck!

 

[DynamicSpirit]

And skirmisher? An improved archer? How is that even POSSIBLY useless? Who doesn't defend their cities with archers?

Me for a start

(I probably make do with warriors about 2/3 of the time, and only bother researching archery if I'm having real trouble with barbs and can't get axemen/swordsmen in time)