Which is the most useless unit?

[DynamicSpirit]

camel archers, on the other hand, have even less of a discernible bonus; they have a 25% chance of fleeing combat, whoopee. beyond that, they only have going for them that they dont require horses. that would be nice if it were a replacement for horse archers (or even chariots), but for knights horses are generally already a valuable commodity: otherwise, you're liable to be dead.

To be fair, my impression has always been that UU's are designed to put a small advantage over the unit they replace, although a couple of them are overpowered. The 25% withdrawal chance means that if you have several camel archers stacked and facing a force of similar strength, the odds are tipped in your favour for an attack spread over a couple of turns and so can eg. make the difference in whether you take a city. The not needing horses (I think it's actually horse AND iron you lose the need for) can mean you don't waste valuable units guarding your resources. And of course, if you're unlucky enough not to have horses... (On one occasion I expanded as far as I could. No horses. So I moved in on my neighbours the French and decimated them. Stillno horses anywhere in sight. It does happen...)

 

[ShaLouZa]

In a game I've played as Spain, no horses at all except on that far far away landmass where was Genghis, which was of course not willing to trade them since we were of different religions. So, no conquistadors in that game for me.

Also, 25% more odds to survive a fight is hardly useless. Live to fight another day and stuff.

 

[rewster1]

Not to mention, if you consider the camel archer useless, then the knight is also, by extension. Unless you just feel that the camel archer is a useless improvement on the knight. Which it isn't. It just isn't overpowered like praetorians, or cossacks.
Clearly the settler is the most useless unit!:thumbdown



That is, if you are playing an OCC game.

 

[Thalassicus]

BTW there are two explorer points on the voting list for some reason, and if you add them up they beat the ironclad. Least it seems the majority out there has brains.

You can vote for multiple choices, though...so there's no way to tell.


Camel Archers:

10-2 Knights
Ignore first strikes
25% chance to withdraw
Requires neither Horses nor Iron

They're hardly useless

 

[Smokey McDope]

Man, someone said carriers???? Holy hell. Well they are useless if you have a land route to every other civ you want to invade. However if you have to invade another island or continent I find having carriers invaluable. Even the first fighters have range enough you can strike valuable strategic resource improvements like say, oil wells and uranium mines. Carrier based jet fighters can cut a civ off from all resources in a few turns, they rarely fail their air bomb missions. That late in the game my navy consists of several CVG's. Usually 2-4 battleships decked out with bombard promos, 4-6 destroyers with all combat and one with medic and combats, 1-2 carriers with flanking-navigation-sentry or medic (the 1 navigation lets them move as fast as battleships) fully loaded with the best fighters available. One of these task forces can snatch away all my enemies resources in the opening turns of the war. Though I've never seen a naval stack large enough I considered softening them up with air strikes. That's what the barrage battleships are for heh.

Anyway to somewhat stay on topic. I would say the least useful unit is the jaguar. It is only useful if you have no iron, otherwise if you -do- have iron you would rather have a normal swordman which is better.

 

[Mathemagician13]

Musketeers could have +50% vs melee units, in homage to D'Artagnan sword skills.

Or + 100% strentgh if you have wine, in homage to Porthos and Beaujolais.

Couldn't they also have a chance to convert captured cities (to your state religion) too?

 

[ShaLouZa]

Why ? They were not zealots. They've been used against religious seditions (protestant towns revolting against the autority of the king and the catholic power he represented), but every army has in that time. And these towns have generally been allowed to practice their religions as long as they didn't forget who was in charge. France has been through some religious troubles in these times, but the kings were catholics and protestants (depending which one was on the throne), the nobles were of the two religions, so it never resulted in an organised, powerful and ruthless inquisition like in others countries. Some murders of kings and massacres, the usual stuff in these times...

 

[benjai]

Alas...I forgot to add Musketeers to the poll. I've never really built any of them since grenadiers come so quickly after. And you can also upgrade all your macemen to tasty tasty city rading grenadiers. So whats the bloody point muskets? Knight feed?

 

[Octomon]

Crossbows? That's crazy talk.

In the open field they're far better than Macemen or axemen. I guess it's a problem with the Civ AI that locations other than cities are barely fought over in force. In multiplayer people fight over resources and useful locations like hills and river crossings. Plus crossbowmen are excellent even in a city as you can attack out of a stack of pure melee units (silly, but it happens often in multiplayer).

 

[Mista]

Crossbowmen. or Chariots. Never used chariots, but crossbowmen come about the same time as Longbows, and longbows seem more useful.

 

[Stalker0]

Jaguar all the way.

This is by the far the weakest UU, because its the only UU in the game that is weaker than the unit it replaces.

 

[Jotakami]

I think the issue with crossbowmen is that the role they play isn't immediately obvious. When defending a city, longbowmen are generally better because they cost less and work well against any kind of attacker. When attacking a city, crossbowmen make no sense because (1) cities are never garrisoned with melee units and (2) crossbows can't get city raider promotions. This lead s to the conclusion that the crossbow niche is fighting outside of cities, which I believe was alluded to in an earlier post. It might be prudent to keep a crossbow in your city garrison, as an offensive defense. You may be able to pick off a unit in the enemy stack, on your turn, while remaining in the safe confines of the city. Or, alternatively, keeping a crossbow in your invasion stack will be good defense against any melee units that try to slow you down.

This niche seems to be pretty narrow though, so it might be more useful to just stick with another maceman or longbowman.

 

[rewster1]

AI cities are quite often garrisoned with a spearman, or pikeman. Of course, macemen would be even better here. If you get machinery through a slingshot type strategy, you probably won't have macemen or longbowmen for a little while, so they are the best alternative for city defense and field attack and defense, and if you have elephants and cats to take cities they are great in combo with xbows. But this too is a niche (only a short time until you do get lbows and/or macemen) so it's hard to judge their value.

 

[MetHimPikeHoses]

I said crossbowmen are useless earlier in the thread. After reading subsequent posts, I gather that they are more useful in MP, though I only play SP. Nonetheless, I contend that they suck. Give me a longbow and a mace, garcon.

 

[crocodiledundee]

I vote for crossbowmen. They cost as much as longbowmen but without the city defense skill or macemen without the offensive skill.

Crossbowmen seem to exist purely to destroy macemen

And now I found out it's been said. Oh well...another tally in the 'frankcor is a really cool guy' column I guess.

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[Bezhukov]

Xbows own samurai. In general, its about combined arms, bring some along in your attacking stack to defend against axe/mace counters.

 

[atreas]

Very tough question. I tried for days to find for myself the answer, but was definitely unable to distinguish between the two units I have never built so far - explorers and ironclads, of course.

But I was rather surprised from the poll result. I wonder how can a unit that has BOTH more strength and an extra ability (+25% hills defence) be according to 9 of the people useless (I mean, the Phalanx). And if they think they don't need a "spearman class" unit, I suggest reading the thread about dealing with War Elephants. I can assure them that, although for spearmen it's almost even money and a matter of promotions, with Phalanxes the War Elephants turn immediately backwards and run away as fast they can (usually not fast enough).

My personal favorite: a Phalanx with Combat 1 (from Greek Agg Trait) and vs. Melee promotion fortified for some turns on a hill (usually the hill with the iron). You can try to beat it, but you must try REALLY very hard, with whatever ancient unit you want.

 

[white rabbit]

my vote is for that most useless of war ships, the caravel...

it finally comes after an age of using galleys, but then...

you cant carry fighting units, or even settlers on it

its hopeless in combat - not much better than galleys, and much worse than galleons

its only around for a few turns before you develop galleons anyway!

rubbish!

 

[Nials]

I voted explorer because they simply clinge in too late to be really useful. The only time I build them is when I don't plan ahead and have some medic promotions handy on some fast units. In those situations, explorers with medic promotions covered by other units can come in handy.

Otherwise, I just don't build them.

 

[gunkulator]

my vote is for that most useless of war ships, the caravel...

it finally comes after an age of using galleys, but then...

you cant carry fighting units, or even settlers on it

its hopeless in combat - not much better than galleys, and much worse than galleons

its only around for a few turns before you develop galleons anyway!

I usually have caravels for quite some time before getting galleons. In any case, they are the only unit that can explore everywhere. No open borders needed and no coastal restrictions. Caravels are great for spreading religion.