Worst UU - France's Musketeers

[ICNP]

Khmer UU: Elephants should have a bonus vs Melee or something
American UU: Minutemen that replaces either Muskets or Rifles (Seriously 'Merica should just not be included)
German UU: Germany absorbs the HRE and gets an improved Landsketcht (or whatever the silly thing is called)
French UU: Fitting

 

[Woodreaux]

By the way, I don't think bombers can attack naval units as they are now, can they?

They are allowed to attack, but they do so at a penalty (-50% I believe).

 

[mechaerik]

German UU: Germany absorbs the HRE and gets an improved Landsketcht (or whatever the silly thing is called)

Stormtroopers are better.

Give them an attack bonus against Machine Guns.

 

[Renner]

Stormtroopers are better.

Give them an attack bonus against Machine Guns.

If they replaced infantry that would be pretty awesome, I think I might finally get around to playing as Germany if they had those. (with flame throwers of course!)

 

[mechaerik]

Yeah, that's what I chose as Germany's second UU. Sturmtruppen, receives a large attack bonus against machine guns. Its pretty sweet.

 

[Molybdeus]

This has bugged me out for some time and I just had to get it off my chest. Better alternatives? How about the M1 Abrams for Modern Armor?

Modern Armor comes even later in the tech tree than Marines. Navy Seals are actually pretty good for cross-continent warmongering wins.

I actually like the Bowman, but I view unique units differently than most people. They won't win the game for you, but they can help you dig out of very bad situations. They can stack protect chariots vs spearmen, beat barbarian spearmen and axemen in the field, and beat Praetorians on defense. The problem is that Hammurabi's techs don't encourage efficient use of them, and people try dumb things like rushing with them. Obviously, you'd rather have a War Chariot. But Bowmen are very versatile defensively.

Panzers are the worst UU. At least Musketeers are good pillagers without a strong counter.

 

[kochman]

Bowman can win this, that... occasionaly, due to the randomness, they can beat a tank...
Doesn't make them a good unit.

 

[Monsterzuma]

Bowmen are great units when used by the AI and probably have their uses in multiplayer (not speaking from experience).

Skirmishers dominate them, but I'd sooner call the skirmishers overpowered than I'd call the bowmen underpowered.

 

[Molybdeus]

Bowman can win this, that... occasionaly, due to the randomness, they can beat a tank...
Doesn't make them a good unit.

I didn't say they were good. (In fact I specifically stated that I would rather have a War Chariot.) You will only use them heavily in roughly one game out of eight. But in that one game out of eight where you don't get metal by the classical era they will really save your bacon.

 

[KeloGBites]

IMO the worst is probably the Mayan Holkan, it's just so..useless

 

[mechaerik]

The Holkan's alright. If you have no copper, it can be mildly useful. It's first strike immune, and can recieve CR promos, so it can be used for rushing, especially if the enemy also lacks copper.

 

[Calouste]

Germany and Khmer make a case for being worse:

BE: No upgrade in city battles over original. No defensive help over original. Terrible in SP unless you're attacking in your own borders, where siege initiative already gives you a substantial advantage...so they only help if you're going with a longbows type defense setup. Even then, they can get caper-tossed by spears (now that's a funny picture) and do not flank siege directly. On top of ALL OF THAT, ivory is rare !

You don't use longbows in combination with Ballistas, you use Crossbows. There's no effective stack defense against a combination of Ballistas and Crossbows. Ballistas take out the mounted and Crossbows fight on parity or better against everything else. If you keep somewhat of a parity with the Khmer, you can turn any invading stack between Construction and Gunpowder into mush. And even then Ballistas still have a slight advantage over Cuirassiers with the same promotions.

 

[KeloGBites]

Eh it seems Ancient->Classical UUs tend to be the best. After that they seem to wane into being less and less useful.

 

[Badtz Maru]

England should have a special longbow unit. That's the main reason why I don't like each civilization having only one unique unit, I think they should have at least two, in different eras.

 

[Slvynn]

If you playing against AI BE is good. Its just matter of tactics and SoD composition. They have their good use and puprose. and their presence can be critical. (proved in few games)They attack poreferable targets. And AI is too stupid to move his stacks right even on his territory. If you covert them you can ged MAD xp for those, b/c in some way you can compare them to FFH assasins, which attack with hi odds. If you get them early and kill couple of chariots they can become really powerfull together with other units. They are not all puprose unit, but its very fast leveling unit , which also anti-mounted.

Though, they are worthless in MP.

 

[mechaerik]

England should have a special longbow unit. That's the main reason why I don't like each civilization having only one unique unit, I think they should have at least two, in different eras.

Better would be a naval uu. England was the king(queen?) of the seas for many, many years.



Although naval uus are a little lackluster.

 

[PPQ_Purple]

Englands dominance over the seas is thanks to their briliant admirals and later massive fleet. Nothing about better ships.

This was tragicly proven in WW1 at Jitland when their battlecruisers started exploding from enemy hits. Hence a modern naval UU is out of the question.


On the other hand, during the age of sail, their greatest admirals were in fact Privaters.
I think that for a second UU, a Privater with Blitz would be appropriate.

 

[mechaerik]

Privateer UUs are a terrible idea.

 

[PPQ_Purple]

Why do you say that?

 

[mechaerik]

The point of privateers are so you can mess with your rivals without revealing who you are. It'll be kind of obvious if there's a special ship unique to 1 civ running around your territory attacking your fleet.