Worst Unique Unit

^they can not.

 

Cost is an important factor though, also because elephants come much later your more likely to be facing longbows than archers

Swordsman come way way before longbows, elephants the gap is much smaller and swordsman vs archers in a city sure both elephants and swords will do very well

Vs a garison 3 longbowman they will both get similar odd's (around 25%) but city raider 3 swords are a lot cheaper than combat 3 elephants and if your agressive trait will have a combat 1 promo aswell, which pushes those odd's up

Praets with CR are far better than elephants at city assault

Were the elephant scores well, is in it's open terrain str were praet aside its high str will win out vs all but spears, but it's a niche unit and ultimately one that see less use due to high cost, for the price of 6 elephants you can have 9 swords

 

Keshiks. They're special ability - ignore movement terrain costs. Amazing isn't it?

 

Keshiks are one of the games better UU's the extra speed is a tremendous ability, the First Strike is very useful too.

 

It is quite useful as it keeps your force mobile, but it's the FS that reslly helps out tilting combat odd's that bit more in there favour, the UB has strong synergy with the unit aswell, thats 7 XP off the bat, couple of wins and thats 3 promos a lot for the early game when most units have just 1

 

peter450:

Again, I have to take issue with your assumptions. Your point about Elephants at Construction coming way after Swordsmen at Iron presupposes that you're going to attack strong points with Swordsmen and Axes rather than with a stack using Catapults. With few exceptions, the window of opportunity for that is rather small, and the Praetorian's higher hammer cost works against it in that scenario where attacking sooner is of the utmost importance.

If you're going to wait for Catapults anyway, then there is only a marginal advantage - you will need to queue Ellies after Cons, whereas you can build Swordsmen before, though it's not like you can't build other buildings instead of Swordsmen (like Stables, for instance).

Against Longbows, Combat 3 Ellies and CR3 Swordsmen will have similar odds - I'll take your word for it because I'm too lazy to check the math.

The point here is that you don't HAVE CR3 Swordsmen. What you usually have, especially if you build them early is CR1 Swordsmen, and you're going to be running that against Combat2 Elephants, which favors the Elephant far more.

Aggressive Swordsmen fare better, but even then the Elephant has field advantages - a Combat 2 Elephant is BOTH city attack unit and stack defense, whereas a CR Swordsman is a more specialized unit - it's really only good for attacking cities.

I would much rather have the Elephants. I use it to devastating effect whenever I have the chance, and it's not because I like it for the graphics or anything. I've tested it out in similar scenarios by saving and reloading the scenario - doing the war various ways.

6 Combat2 Elephants are available to any Civ with Ivory, and are comparable to an Agg's Swordsmen when attacking cities, while also being comparable to Pikemen for anti-mounted and general stack defense.

It's the Swordsman that's the niche unit here - it's only good for attacking cities. A stack of Swordsmen and Catapults is just asking for a HA/Axeman smackdown. Axemen make that stack more resistant, but it's still very vulnerable to HA attack (and especially Knight attack).

An Ellie is useful stack defense and city attack. An Elephant/Axeman/Cata stack is very strong against attacks and is powerful against cities at the same time, for less units.

You do not have to take my word for it. WB Ivory in any one of your games and try out the Ellies with Stables - they're very excellent units.

 

I don't disagree with you, the point i'm making is that elephants are the same when attacking cities, they are better on open terrain and i have not disputed that, but bascially what you getting is a unit thats 50% more expensive, requires more tecks and does the same city attack job

I know full well that for field fighting and countering enemy units elephants are better, but elephants should be as they cost a lot more, there not a good basis for a UU as ivory is a rare resource, if they needed iron, then elephants would see loads of use due to the very good points you raise

no ones is saying elepehants are not good, just that they need a rare resource which limits there use

 

peter450:

Elephants are the same as Praetorians when attacking a city, and the cost of Praetorians is 5 hammers more than that of a Swordsman. Comparing the usual CR1 Swordsman and the Combat2 Elephant, the Elephant has the odds advantage - even in the only thing that Swordsman is good for.

It costs 50% more because you won't need to build Spearmen to accompany your stack. Elephants are better than Spearmen at stack defense, while also being better than Swordsmen at taking cities.

The cost is more than justified - it's an excellent unit.

I think the main problem here is that you don't nearly have as much experience with Elephants as with Swordsmen simply because you don't know how awesome they are and thus don't bother to acquire Ivory, even when you could.

Ivory is not nearly as rare as people are making it out to be. I can point to a number of online shadow games where players could make a play for them easily. You won't get them for every game, but getting Ivory before construction is no less likely than getting Wines or Dye, and no more troublesome than securing Iron if you don't happen to have it in your territory, but have contact with someone who does.

Ivory's relative scarcity compared to bronze or iron means that Elephants (and BEs) won't find a use in every game, but it's only one factor that goes into applicability. I daresay, in many games, you may not be able to use Quechua either, as the enemy capitals may be too far to rush, and that's definitely doubly true for Dogs.

How often are the Carrack's special qualities relevant?

What's the difference, really, between not having the unit available, and not being able to use the unit in any relevant fashion?

What about the Keshik? Can you use it in every game you play as Kublai?

Availability of the enabling resource is only one factor that limits usability, and in the case of BEs, most people are overstating the rarity, and also underplaying the BE's power - as it is a very powerful unit.

 

That's a funny question. Now that I think about it, if I draw that civ and don't find horses after researching AH, I will almost always abandon the game. I can't think of any other civ that I could say the same thing about. (Maybe iron and Rome.) I'll pretty much deal with the loss of any other UU due to lack of the resource, but the Mongol's don't have whole heck of a lot to offer other than that cool unit.

If I can't build Hannibal's UU, I'll live given all of the other great things about him. If I can't build war chariots, I'll live given the other good things about Egypt. No Keshiks? That pretty much takes all the fun out of the Khans.

 

I don't know. I think Agg/Cre is pretty strong for melee wars. Certainly not as fun as rampaging keshiks, but still effective.