Worst Unique Unit

[troytheface]

Like many of these polls relativity/personal preference almost negates
the question. (in so far as "best"/"worst")
The op's "I did not include Preatorians or Redcoats because they are obviously not the worst" or some such statement precludes the player that likes challenging themselves and having fun with immersion.
I do not use Rome or Britian because the idea of a UU with simply more power is-to me- trite as oppossed to a unit that i may have to use some thought and finesse' to utilize it. (and, yes, i know, it ain't rocket science no matter which one you choose) -
I automate workers to see if i can win at a high level using "freed" workers.
I aim for Scientific Method so they will build forest peserves not build Lumbermills if you hit Replaceable parts first.
I like the graphic of the Jaguar much more than the "fast worker". Ect.

By the way, on a different note- i never played a mod before and i loaded Quueg's "CTS" module. Question- do you think a rifleman that starts with Moral and Drill 1 is overpowered?

 

[DigitalBoy]

I like Gallic Warriors. I often use swordsmen and being able to build them with either copper or iron helps increase the odds that I'm able to make use of them. And sometimes I like to march troops through an opponent's territory. I don't have to capture a specific perimeter city (at least not right away); if I can raze his improvements or maneuver around to a less heavily guarded city and destroy it instead, I'm willing to settle for that. A lot of the time, that involves moving units onto hills to scout out terrain, or moving through hills en route to a target for the sake of terrain defense. Either way, the Guerilla promotion comes in handy.

I really don't care for the Jaguar at all, but for people who prefer axes to swords in the first place, I suppose it gives you an alternative until you can hook up metal. For this reason, I imagine it's a great safeguard against barbarian warriors/archers.

As for the worst UU, I'm going to have to go with the Navy SEAL. Ballista elephant comes close, but it seems like a decent enough stack killer if you have ivory. The Navy SEAL just comes way too late.

 

[Cleverbeans]

I voted for Musketeer, it's basically a unit I never use because when I get gunpowder I'm building cavalry instead.

 

[Iranon]

Dog Soldiers, by far. Normally, units that don't get free promotions (which stick around once you upgrade them) get a tangible benefit that surpasses a free promotion.

Since Dog Soldiers are better only against melee troops, it would only be fair to assume that the hypothetical free promotion would go towards Shock. A Combat 1, Shock Axeman is strictly better than a Combat 1 Dog Soldier, by a ridiculous amount. So the bonus is considerably less than a full promotion against its best matchup.

When attacking cities, we don't even need to mess about with hypothetical promotions. Even against melee units, an Axeman with City Raider 3 is stronger than a Dog Soldier with the same promotions... the difference in Base Strength is just too large.

Shock Dog Soldiers are slightly better against melee in the field, and so are better as Stack Protectors and, in theory, decent city defenders against Swordsmen.
These benefits are in my opinion not enough to offset being an inferior offensive unit than the one they replace.

 

[Thedrin]

Iranon:
Since Dog Soldiers are better only against melee troops, it would only be fair to assume that the hypothetical free promotion would go towards Shock. A Combat 1, Shock Axeman is strictly better than a Combat 1 Dog Soldier, by a ridiculous amount. So the bonus is considerably less than a full promotion against its best matchup.

That's untrue.

Combat I, shock axeman attacking a combat I dog soldier: 5.5 vs 4.4x1.25 = 5.5 vs. 5.5

Combat I dog soldier attacking a combat I, shock axeman: 4.4 vs. 5.5/1.25 = 4.4 vs. 4.4

In both cases the combat I dog soldier is as equal to the combat I, shock axeman. The combat I has no effect on the outcome and more (or less) combat promotions won't alter that result.

 

[Gliese 581]

My reasoning is thus: The Jaguar is the only unit I wish were a basic swordsman in 95% of all games I happen to play the Aztecs. No other UU is worse than what they replace, so the Jaguar gets the vote. It doesn't matter if it enables you to win a game 5% of the time if it makes it harder the other 95%.

I just drew Wang Kon as random leader for the first time today. Started out very close to Hannibal and had copper but no iron. Decided to rush him so I beelined for construction and attacked with a stack of axemen and hwachas. Actually they performed decently, esp. out in the field vs his 90% melee SoD, allowing me to counter it with a similar number of melee units and 5 hwachas, but only losing 2 hwachas for the entire clash while killing 10 axemen/swordsmen bc of the UUs bonus.
So, I think they can be quite useful if you're going to do an early rush and even if that doesn't happen, they're at least never worse than an ordinary catapult.

 

[Iranon]

Hmph. I assumed that all bonuses apply only to the base value. If they insist on calculating bonuses in a way that makes anyone with an appreciation of mathematics cry, I at least expected them to be consistent.

Testing this with the help of the Worldbuilder, I got results that confused me because the defender's strength is calculated in a more complicated way than the on-screen info states (note to self: Don't assume anything in this game actually works as the notation implies).

On a terrain that doesn't give a defense bonus, I get a 63.3% chance for the attacking Dog Soldier (4.4 vs. 4.34) and a 63.5% chance for the attacking Axeman (5.5 vs. 5.4), so apparently we're both wrong.

Regardless, your claim that an axeman with shock is equal to a Dog Soldier without seems close enough to the truth to not matter. This still means it's strictly inferior: Equal against melee units, worse against anything else. Since I require my Axemen to beat up Archers quite often, the difference counts for a lot.

 

[Thedrin]

On a terrain that doesn't give a defense bonus, I get a 63.3% chance for the attacking Dog Soldier (4.4 vs. 4.34) and a 63.5% chance for the attacking Axeman (5.5 vs. 5.4), so apparently we're both wrong.

Hmmm. Those values are what I got when I checked it out but I have no idea why those values came out that way, unless the way combat works has changed since Warlords. Unless I've forgotten something fundamental - combat promotions increase base strength, net modifiers applied to defenders base strength (with a couple of exceptions, none of which occur here) - that may be a bug.

Regardless, your claim that an axeman with shock is equal to a Dog Soldier without seems close enough to the truth to not matter. This still means it's strictly inferior: Equal against melee units, worse against anything else. Since I require my Axemen to beat up Archers quite often, the difference counts for a lot.

Since you have two alternative city raiding units (swordsmen and horse archers) I don't see it as a major problem. If you refuse to adapt your strategy to suit the unique abilities of the civ you are playing as, then I can understand why you dislike it (and probably many others).

 

[qwertz]

On a terrain that doesn't give a defense bonus, I get a 63.3% chance for the attacking Dog Soldier (4.4 vs. 4.34) and a 63.5% chance for the attacking Axeman (5.5 vs. 5.4), so apparently we're both wrong.

Somenthing's wrong here, if you fight on totally nutral terain witout fortifications the combat odds shouldn't depend on who is atacking. Are you sure you didn't do the tests vs. barbarin units?

 

[Thedrin]

I got the exact same odds without using barbarian units, and no terrain bonuses. But the odds did work out as expected when neither unit had the combat I promotion so I assume the error is generated when combat promotions are applied.

The calculation for the attacking axeman can be explained if the dog soldier's combat I applies to it [the dog soldier] but doesn't increase the base strength. I can't explain the odds when the axeman is defending.

 

[Iranon]

I was confused at first too... it's explained, reasonably enough, in the 'Combat Explained' article in the War Academy. The modifiers don't mean what they seem to mean.

Actually, I love tweaking my strategy to make the most of my unique characteristics. My original criticism still stands.

Despite coming online faster, the Dog Soldier is a disadvantage for an early Axe Rush. Enemy cities will be defended mostly by Archers against which it fares badly (if the opponent has Axes and Archers, Archers are the superior defensive unit).
It has a use as counter to regular Axes in the field. At first I thought it also had the advantage of simply not being an Axeman, but the Chariot bonus against them applies so they are even more vulnerable to them. It would also be a surprisingly good city defender against swordsmen for another civ, but the many bonuses Native Americans get to Archers keep them from being the top choice in that regard.

In short, it is a mixed blessing at best. Native America gets a decent stack protector that is also of some use to chase away pillaging axemen (for city defense, Archers are generally superior) at the cost of a delayed offensive potential.

It's a niche unit, and doesn't get free promotions that stay after upgrading, and Native America as a whole can't even take full advantage of it.

 

[DigitalBoy]

That's untrue.

Combat I, shock axeman attacking a combat I dog soldier: 5.5 vs 4.4x1.25 = 5.5 vs. 5.5

Combat I dog soldier attacking a combat I, shock axeman: 4.4 vs. 5.5/1.25 = 4.4 vs. 4.4

In both cases the combat I dog soldier is as equal to the combat I, shock axeman. The combat I has no effect on the outcome and more (or less) combat promotions won't alter that result.

Your math here is just a little bit skewed because you included the combat promotion before multiplying/dividing. The combat promotion either adds to or cancels out some of the multiplier/divider; it isn't added beforehand.

The dog soldier's actual strength when defending is 4 x (1 + (1 - .5 - .25 + .1)) = 5.4
The axeman's strength when defending is 5 / (1 + (.5 + .25 + .1 - 1)) = 4.347

In the final set of parentheses, the .5 is the axeman's melee bonus, the .25 is the axeman's shock prmotion, the .1 is the combat promotion of the defender, and the 1 is the dog soldier's melee bonus.

As is the case with nearly all low strength units with a high attack bonus, the dog soldier gets more out of its massive melee bonus when on the offensive.

 

[Thedrin]

Did that change? I could have sworn that combat promotions were applied to base strength first.

 

[Florian]

Gallic Swordsmen receive a bonus which gives no advantage when attacking cities.

I'm no big fan of the Gallic Swordsman, but if you can get them two promotions (and that's easier because both Celtic leaders are Charismatic), you get Guerilla III, which comes with a bonus for attacking hills and a whopping 50% chance to withdraw. The first of those is nice whenever you are attacking a city on a hill (and the AI makes hill cities every chance it gets), and the second is nice in every situation.

 

[CivCorpse]

Very sorry, my mistake. I assumed that Camel Archers replaced Horse Archers, having never played Arabia. My point still stands though- yes, Horses and Iron are common enough that if you don't have them by KNIGHTS you should just resign. Again, my mistake, sorry.

Actually, I have been on continents that don't have horses and/or iron. lots of copper, but as the only one with a knight equivilent. I wiped my continent clean. There were horses bu no iron. No iron means no pikes or crossbows to slow me down.
I would be curious to know how you manage to always have both resources by knights if they do not exist on your continent? since galleons are way down the line. Really, tell me so I don't have to resign. Please please please with sugar on top. Is there a medievel corporation where you can use a Great Prophet to to found "Trojan Rabbit Inc"? You use the beavers from furs to get knights? You don't actually get horses, just a guy to walk behind your knights with 2 coconuts. Maybe you have the new expansion pack for CIV4...Beyond the Bugs.

 

[DigitalBoy]

Another thing about the Camel Archer is that if you've been playing a peaceful game up until the middle ages, with no aggressive expansion or military conquest (a possibility I suppose if you're playing a Spi/Pro leader), that will decrease your odds of having both resources by the time you get to Guilds. As for what to do when you get to the renaissance era, just build muskets and rifles.

 

[Belisar]

Which unique unit do you feel is the worst?

(Cataphract, Cho-Ko-Nu, Immortal, Landsknecht, Oromo Warrior, Praetorian and Redcoat are not included on the poll for obvious reasons.)

You have a strange logic by including for example war chariots, Numids and quechuas in the poll but forgoing cataphracts and Oromos.

 

[Gliese 581]

Heh, I think having quechuas and fast workers in the list is a practical joke.

 

[Molybdeus]

You have a strange logic by including for example war chariots, Numids and quechuas in the poll but forgoing cataphracts and Oromos.

There are only 25 spots available for each poll. That means that some great UU's can be included for voting, but not all of them. I entirely agree that War Chariots are better than Oromo Warriors, but I honestly spent no time debating them when I made the poll. Neither of them are really in contention for the worst unit, so I was a little haphazard in choosing between fabulous units like Quechua and awesome units like the Cataphract.

 

[AmazonQueen]

The way I look at it are there some situations where this unit could pull me out of a hole (yes for Jaguars) or I could base a strategy around (yes for Berserkers or Panzers). Even for a late game militarist Navy Seals aren't likely to affect their stategy much, if at all, therefore they are the most useless unit.