Worst Unique Unit

I think people are just voting now just to vote for units that obviously aren't the worst. When compared to everything else, how are numidian calvary and vultures the worst? That is silly.

By the way f you are just going by strength, Jaguars aren't the only UU worse than the unit that they replace which has been said. Num. Cavalry, and dog soldiers both have lower base strength.

 

Two votes for Quechas? Give me a hit off that, because that stuff must be good.

 

I think Quechas are vastly overrated Monarch+

 

Yes I didn't consider the dog soldier. Both axemen and swordsmen are very important so they could certainly be a really bad unit, I haven't thought much about them to be honest. The Numidian Cavalry however, being a replacement for horse archers, can easilly be skipped without depriving you of essential early warfare -tools.

 

OK, 2 votes for Quetchas 1 for WarChariots.
Put the Praets in iwanna change my vote to them. They should be at least 50 strenth with the ability to nuke.

More seriously have folks that vote for GallicW/Jags ever fielded a stack of GIII/WIII GallicW/Jags. I think it could change their mind especially for Boudicas GallicW.

PS: Only 2 votes for keshiks i wonder why there are all these threads complaining people hate them.

 

But given how useful Numidian Cavalry are I think a Carthaginian player who ignored them would be neglecting 1 of thier strengths.

 

I don't think anyone's going to take that bait.

 

I agree with you. What I mean is, even if you think their lower base strength is not made up for by their abilities, they are not as essential for your military needs as axemen and/or swordsmen are so it's not going to be a problem like the Jaguar only having 5 base strength can be.

About the Gallic Warrior: I think these guys are solid, and not because of the GuerillaIII possiblity as much as the fact that they can be built with both copper and iron which means you'll get them practically every game, and of course most importantly, retain the 6 base strength of a regular swordsman with their abilities.

 

To discuss Jags again, I think they make excellent UUs. They are made for a very early rush and the Woodsman promotion is one that lasts throughout the game. MONTY's RPC game led to a very early Jag assault (no resoruces) before the dangerour Ragnar could get on his feet. Even with iron in the capital BFC I am not sure a swordsman rush would have been as efficient because of the time required to hook up the resource.

 

Then why don't use axes? That's even faster! And the 10% city attack you lose is not going to compare to the time it takes to research iron working!
Sure if you lack the resources it's good that you can build the Jaguar without it but most games you're going to be able to hook up copper well before you've researched IW.
I have not tried woodsmanIII other than as an obsolete warrior that I use as a healer but I'm skeptical about its strength compared to CR2 or Combat2, Shock. Is it really worth it? I can see guerillaIII as being very useful if you have to assault a hill city.

 

Assuming you have copper which can be a rare metal.

Woodsman are great for breaking apart AI territiry. They move fast and are almost impossible to dislodge before maces.

 

Many things are viable on low difficulties. Archers keep you safe from enemy rushes (for that matter so do many units...), you don't need bowman for that. How often does the AI rush anyway? and if you honestly think bowman are gonna stop a decent rush in multiplayer... Limited situational uses on low difficulty levels is what the bowman was designed for. In other words, it was designed to fail as a UU.

I hope you're joking. If you're not, can I have some of what you're smoking/drinking?

 

I'm not so sure about that.

Archer defending against Axeman: STR 3 + (50% City Defense + 25% Fortification Bonus) = 5.25 STR (+ First Strike) for 25

Bowman defending against Axeman: STR 3 + (50% City Defense + 50% vs Melee + 25% Fortification Bonus) = 6.75 STR (+ First Strike) for 25

Axeman defending against Axeman: STR 5 + (25% Fortification Bonus) = 6.25 STR (no first strike) for 35

I've ignored promotions, but keep in mind that CG counters CR exactly, and defensive Axemen can't get CG at all, so they would actually fare worse than these calculations show.

When defending against incoming Axemen, the Bowman comes out way ahead of the Archer, and still comes out ahead of the defensive Axeman, even before taking into consideration the extra hammer cost and resource requirements of Axemen.

In the field, Bowmen lose their City Defense bonus and a lot of their value (but still can get a +25% from hills). However, they are still a solid, solid unit.

When playing with Raging Barbarians, I find that Archers are almost mandatory (barbs can overwhelm you before hooking up copper or horses), and Bowmen are just that much better.

This makes no sense to me. It's the AXE stack that needs to pad their numbers with spears, not the Phalanx stack (since Phalanx has nothing to fear from Chariots).

The difference between Axes and Phalanxes is that Axes need to diversify in order to protect themselves, while Phalanxes do not. And a Phalanx + Chariot army would simply pwn any army built around Axes.

oooh... unless you were talking about the Warlords version of the Phalanx. That unit does suck.

 

The W3 and G3 promotions are decent; the mobility bonus alone is considerable. It's not something to pursue with all or even the majority of your forces though.

I'm no big fan of the Jaguar either, but at leats they keep a somewhat useful promotion and I consider potentially crippled Swordsmen far less of a drawback than potentially crippled Axemen.


***

Regarding the Dog Soldiers:

A mixed force of Dog Soldiers, Axemen and Swordsmen (yes, we're cheating) all with CR2 are attacking a city defended by Archers (CG2) and Axemen (C1,SH). If someone thinks the promotions used are inappropriate, I would welcome the feedback.
The fight that is least favoured against the attacker - by a considerable margin - is Axeman vs. Archer. Native Americans will only get ugly options.

For defensive use, Protective Archers (for Native America, I assumed CG3, Drill1 and discounted the additional xp) are better even against Swordsmen. While Dog Soldiers shine as stack protectors and randomly abusing unprotected melee, that doesn't compenste for being short of the strongest general purpose unit.

 

I think Bowman is a solid UU .. great for defense against melee units (most effective early attack units are melee) and if you beeline archer you can try a Bowman rush while the enemy largely defends with warrior (some players might skip archery to do an axerush or not build archers - you can make them pay).

The ballista elephant is the most useless UU - its use is really situational; in vast majority of games its just like regular war elephant; on top of that, ivory is a relatively rare resource .. I connect it in maybe 1/3 of all games I play by the time I get Construction.

 

Your math is flawed.

A Babylonian Bowman in a city with city defense and NO culture defence is a STR 6. Enough to stop a swordsman. Now put it on a hill-city and fortify it for 5 turns and try and take it off with an axeman. Than add your Culture Defence bonus.

In fact, do better: Send three Bowmen with Guerilla promotions onto the closest hilltop to your opponents cities and watch the experience go up as you promote it to Guerilla 2 and onward. They will sit there for most of the game and you can expand at your leisure as the Ai stays pinnedfor centuries.

2 Bowmen can kill an Axeman and have one live. Fair trade with no resources. A single Bowman can kill a Spearman. Regular archers can't do this.

 

I'm talking about BTS but ready my post carefully i can see how one can asume "mere axes" to mean axes without spears.

I am obviously comparing a stack of phalanxes/spears to one of axes/spears trying to estimate how handy the UU bonus is.
Assuming decent stack sizes of say 5+ total units including at least 1-2 spears the axes/spears stack is practically as strong defending vs combinations of chariots/axes as the phalanxes/spears one, unless the attack stack consists entirely of chariots.

Keep in mind defenders are likely to benefit from defensive terain as the chariot only get a bonus attacking and that phalanxes barely top attacking chariots while spears are X2 str vs chariots.
I.E. its wise to include at least one spear in a phalanx stack if you know there are chariots lurking.
Plus any decent player is very likely to know what he'll be facing and include more or less spears accordingly.

To think the same thing from a different perspective, would you ever attack such a stack of axes+spears with mostly chariots or mostly axes? If you knew of course that your opponent is watching you build your force and adjusts the axe/spear ratio accordingly.
Axes remain the counter of choice vs both an axe/spear stack and a plalanx/spear stack unless those stacks are owned by an inadept player. And we 're talking about how usefull palanxes are for the human not the AI.



I liked warlords phalanxes better. Not a record breaker by any means but you could use the hill bonus early on when stack defending to counter non melee units well , face HA much easier and maybe postpone pikes a bit without fearing knights.

You 're ignoring culture that will give a defending axe more str than a bowman and axes are very often promoted as CI/shock after a single battle while a brand new bowman may be well stack with CGI alone.
Bowmen ARE doing marginally better but the point is axes STILL do well (i.e. they top both attacking axes and ofcourse swords by quite a margin).

@Innawerkz:

No city is mentioned anywhere. My point is excactly that. How often do you expect to desperately defend in your cities in a single player game.
Most battles should take place either at AIs cities or countering AI in the open stacks. Otherwise you re very open to pillaging and the BTS AI can use cats to good effect unlike before.
In all the events you describe you are while defending. Why would you be at war that early if you were without a strategic resource.

I do apreeciate Guerilla promotions however, its just that they feel much more meaningful on a lbow/xbow.

All in all, the problem for me is the too defensive practical approach of using bowmen. One can simply avoid wars that early.
Plus archers in forests or cities do fine vs barbarians very early anyhow.

 

Bowmen are a weird UU. They're stronger than an archer, sure, but when you compare them to skirmishers, they seem to be inferior defensively because any bonuses, including the massive +50% city defense, favor the skirmisher's higher strength. (Also, the skirmisher is better against all unit types and gets an extra first strike chance.) But the +50% vs. melee gives the bowman more favorable odds than the skirmisher when attacking melee units. But archers are subpar attackers anyway. I guess the bowman is supposed to be improvised cannon fodder then.

 

I see alot of arguments along the line "this UU is crap because it's basically no different from the regular unit it replaces."
The argument here as I see it is the crappiest UU has to be one that is actually WORSE than having no UU at all, e.g. Jaguar, and Dog Soldiers are clear candidates since imo you often wish these were the regular type. I think both the aztecs and the native americans would be stronger without any UU at all, on average.

 

I am surprised anyone would think the jaguar is a weak UU. Used properly it is one of the strongest UUs and sets your army up for future expansion when you upgrade the highly promoted jaguars to more modern troops (macemen, riflemen, grenadiers etc.). I think the point most people miss is that Monte is Aggressive and so the jaguars get a free combat 1 and free woodsman 1 and with 3 exp from the (cheap) barracks another woodsman 2 promotion. Many critics forget they are also cheaper than swordsmen (same cost as axeman) and still get the 10% CR freebie. After 1 victory they can be woodsman 3. So I lose a few woodsman 2 jaguars by attacking at not that good odds (CR 1 is a better promotion than woodsman2 against cities) but end up with a nice collection of woodsman 3 ones for the survivors, and some captured cities and a GG

Have the critics looked closely at woodsman 3 promotion? Woodsman 3 gives: 2 first strikes, heals 15% (cumulative with medic promotions), +50% jungle / woods attack.

It is fantastic, probably the best promotion you can get in the early game. Of course woodsman 1 and 2 are unimpressive, but woodsman 3 makes up for that! Taken together they are a great combination and with Monte they only take 5 exp to accumulate ... easier to get than with any other leader.

Then there is the tempo advantage of not requiring to hook up iron to build them. Even if you have iron close by (useful later for macemen, knights etc) you don't need to build a settler, found a city or send a worker and build a road and all the other nuisances normally required to build up a substantial stack of swordsmen. At least not immediately, you just start building jaguars . Sometimes I can build jaguars before copper is linked up for axemen! That can make conquest or fending off barbarian incursions really easy. I like a few barbarians around to get some of my jaguars up to woodsman 3 before going to war. Then it is case of conquering your neighbours. I agree that jaguars are not the best city attackers but who cares? They are cheap and expendable, the ones that survive are superb woodsman 3.

What do you do with so many woodsman 3 jaguars I hear you ask There are lots of uses. Obviously one at least will become a medic 1, requiring a mere 10 exp to get there and he is the primary stack healer, freeing up my first GG to be settled in my HE unit production centre that can then produces woodsman 3 jaguars straight out of the barracks. Others will get either shock or cover promotions when they reach 10 exp depending on the opposition. Others will start the long road down the CR promotion route (although unlikely to get to the 26 exp needed for CR3 before being upgraded). Something I haven't tried yet but which could be interesting would be to the drill route (once upgrade to riflemen or grenadiers). A drill 4, woodsman 3 gunpowder unit (requires 37 exp) would get a collosal 5 FS and 3 50% chances of FS, a formidable unit that Monte can build easier than other most other civs due to the free woodsman 1 promotion.

I've written far too much on this, merry xmas everyone