Worst UU

[rfcfanatic]

Landsknecht as a standalone attack unit is horrible. But in Trebuchet-heavy strategies it could turn out to be quite useful, because it replaces the role of Maceman as a melee counter and is cheaper. After Trebuchets have done their job, Landsknechts shouldn't have problems with crippled Longbows.

You do need Crossbows or Longbows in your stack to protect the Landsknechts from enemy Crossbows. But you would also need them when you were using Macemen.

 

[Fippy]

Important bit here being: For Engineering rushes you don't have CS and so no maces, unless you spend time on getting that too which can be way too long.
There's nothing wrong with having a 6str unit with 100% vs. melee and mounted if you cannot get your hands on str8 yet, if you are fast some AIs might not even have Machinery aka x-bows yet, and so they have no counter against them. And even if they just recently got there, x-bows should still be rare. Not saying it's the greatest UU ever, but you must admit it's at least an interesting one if you go for Engi bulbing.

 

[Robert FIN]

Landsknecht rush is an interesting idea RFC! How about Vultures? I think that they're awesome guys!!

 

[Iranon]

Several units are weak but strange candidates indeed for a "worst".

I'd ask two questions, in order:
1) Are any UUs worse overall than what they replace?
2) Are any UUs usually irrelevant (too late or too specialised), without compensating power when useful?
Only if both are answered with "no" do we need to consider those which are merely underwhelming.

For me, it ends with 1) and Dog Soldiers. I don't expect everyone to agree.
More interestingly: Ballista Elephants definitely warrant inclusion in 2), so "merely weak" UUs aren't a real candidate for the worst.

 

[Ataxerxes]

Landsknecht rush is an interesting idea RFC! How about Vultures? I think that they're awesome guys!!

Vultures are excellent. Probably not top 5 but I'd put them in top 10.

I'm probably not good enough to say this, but I agree with Iranon. Dogs might be better if they weren't attached to SB's super archers. Panzer isn't worse than a tank, just irrelevant. I rank both below Ballista Elephant (I think it was useful one time for me).

 

[TheMeInTeam]

Dogs I can't agree with. Not only are the better vs enemy melee and barbs, but on those really tough starts they can be the difference between something and nothing at all in the axe category.

You lose the ability to easily axe rush, but situations where one is MANDATORY *and* you have copper are IMO more rare than situations where the dog is potentially a life saver. It has a presence in every game and a small chance to be a hindrance (also true of the jag, but less so), however it also has a chance to make victory possible at all. I don't rate it highly by any means, but I still rate it above units that are close enough to 0% chance of being a factor taht you might as well assume from "go" that having them as a UU will do nothing for you.

 

[KaytieKat]

Hi

For me the suckiest UU is balista elle. It.s not that its probably the least reliable UU in the game. Nor is it weaker than unit it replaces. I dont even consider taht an issue if the unit is desgined well. Both dogs and Jags are a bit weaker than regular axes and swords in some aspects. However I think that was the intent. Theyre designed to be used a bit differently than their counterparts and if you play them with that in mind they can be pretty spiffy and even fun.

Balistas on the other hand, that skips evrything to target mounted units may sound good but 99% of the time I WANT my c1/shock elles hitting the enemy swords axes or maces. Skipping them to hit enemy chariots or horsearchers is just flipping annoying. And most of the time unless the enemy also has elles which is kinda of rare ,at least in my games, thats the only mounted units around for most of the elles time to shine. And while they can be annoying chariots and even horse archers are the LEAST dangerous units around at least as far as taking cities and the least toughest both str wise and fact they dont get def bonuses. So I WANT my toughest units hitting the enemies toughest units first. And thats why I feel like ballistas are the worst UU. Becasue even when they function as they are designed to its pretty darn sucky.

Kaytie

 

[babar]

@KaytieKat
Ballistas don't target mounted in cities. They are very good in Always War games, particularly against Knights, which the AI likes to build a lot of. I don't think Horse Archers are non-threatening either - they are relatively high strength, fast moving, get withdrawal, and flank siege, and they are very popular with the AI too. A mix of ballistas, crossbows, HAs and catapults can take down large AI stacks in the field more cost-effectively than other UU.

@Iranon
How often do you axe rush? Will you at least admit that Dogs are good if one doesn't axe rush? I think they are really top tier early game safety units.

 

[noto2]

Dogs I can't agree with. Not only are the better vs enemy melee and barbs, but on those really tough starts they can be the difference between something and nothing at all in the axe category.

You lose the ability to easily axe rush, but situations where one is MANDATORY *and* you have copper are IMO more rare than situations where the dog is potentially a life saver. It has a presence in every game and a small chance to be a hindrance (also true of the jag, but less so), however it also has a chance to make victory possible at all. I don't rate it highly by any means, but I still rate it above units that are close enough to 0% chance of being a factor taht you might as well assume from "go" that having them as a UU will do nothing for you.

^^ Exactly. Unfortunately in this game most of the UU's and UB's don't really impact the game in any significant way. This is too bad since it reduces the flavour, fun, and replayability. The landshnekt is a good example. I can sit here and run math and think of scenarios where it could be more useful than having maces and pikes, but in reality I'm not going to change my game strategy around that unit. If I end up fighting a medieval war I may end up using landshnekts, but I won't go out of my way to use them. Contrast that to a unit like the janissary. I might significantly alter my game play to make the most of that unit because it can be quite powerful but only if you rush it.

 

[Fippy]

Funny, i thought that's exactly what Landsknechts can do..rush "early" (again, no CS needed like for maces) along with Trebs. You think a Musket makes that more realistic, hmm weird.
I really don't understand why i seem to be alone with having had some fun games with that, i tried some of these on deity and AIs didn't know what to do against "Schnecks"

 

[Iranon]

@ TMIT:
Fair enough. I consider the Dog Soldier an overall liability, at least in context of the default leader it's attached to... even though I normally like things that give one a fighting chance in a sticky situation.
Many incomparables here. Do you personally consider the Dog Soldier to be an asset... do or you think the Dog Soldier is an asset and claiming otherwise is indefensible?

I only mentioned it for completeness' sake, my main point was that before considering "merely weak" UUs as the worst we need to make sure there are no detrimental and no irrelevant ones.

@ babar:
Rarely, on the settings I play I need an unfair advantage or a damn good reason to rush.
No, I still usually wish I had vanilla axes.
Not sure whether we're assuming "default leader", if yes we certainly don't need another safety net after blowing an UB and a trait on better Archers.

 

[Olson]

FWIW, I look forward to the possibility that some Civ iteration will allow one to pick from a menu of options avail. for a UU.

CivIV comes close to that with Promotions but I'm referring to civ-specific UU abilities.

However, maybe the easiest way to do this would be to give each civ 2 or 3 versions of the same UU one may build depending on what one wants to pay for or need. One may have +1 strength for 7 more hammers/unit or +1mp in exchange for -1strength, etc.

 

[babar]

@ Iranon
I agree, Dogs plus Protective Totem Pole archers is more early defense than you need. But for me it's the Totem Poles that are redundant, since you have to research otherwise useless techs to make use of them.

 

[Fippy]

Agree with Babar, Totem Poles can be used later for x-bow rushes i.e. (which can be lots of fun with Bully). Dogs are for early barb defense, which is valuable on high levels. He doesn't start with hunting, so early Archery would be hugely annoying for me in most cases.

 

[plasmacannon]

Dog Soldiers shine in Always War and Raging Barb games too.
As soon as BW is researched send out 2 to each AI. One for it's horse (to prevent the chariot counter attack) and the other to his copper (to prevent his axemen). Now the AI is stuck til IW is researched to get a unit other than warriors and archers.
They tend to not expand as quickly and not improve tiles to just build archers, drastically slowing their growth. Meanwhile, you settle, build workers and occasionally send and extra Dog over to keep things difficult for them to stack attack you. All of this wastes a lot of their early production on units it can't launch major city attacks with later. Not bad.
The Holkan can do this too, but is less effective vs massed warrior/Quecha counter attacks. The Jag can do this also, but has to research IW first, which takes longer.
Native America is the clear winner at this strategy.
You can even back up your Dogs with Combat 1 + Cover or Combat 1 + Formation Archers (only need Combat 1 + Shock vs Jags or Holkans) and eventually Spears and HAs.
This is devastating when you know where Rome's Iron is and are sitting on it with your stack.
Faster game speeds hurt this tactic as units obsolete quickly. Winners on Epic and Marathon.

 

[Fippy]

I'd like to add, what i usually would love to change when playing Bully...fishing.
Esp. with being Phi, he could bulb towards Machinery fast without that.
Then i would consider him among the top leaders, as this would be an awesome connection between everything he offers (and dogs can still play their role, as you can tech what you want early if you are safe from barbs, for example writing for libraries..).

 

[TheMeInTeam]

Many incomparables here. Do you personally consider the Dog Soldier to be an asset... do or you think the Dog Soldier is an asset and claiming otherwise is indefensible?

My assertion is that occasionally the dog soldier will be a life-saving asset, and less often it will be a liability. Most of the time it won't be a major factor at all (similar to axes). I claim that UU's that consistently do nothing/have no presence in a game are worse.

I just don't know what you are expecting from axes in a typical game, without AGG.

 

[Izuul]

I like Dog Soldiers. You tech BW and you are guaranteed good barb defense. You don't need to worry about missing out on resources or having to tech the wheel, plant a city, and hook it up. What's the drawback? They are worse for axe rushes? lol

A lot of my choices for top, worst UU like the navy seal, panzer, and ballista elephant have already been discussed heavily in this thread, but i didn't see much mention of the berserker. I actually saw one guy saying they were one of his favorites! Berserkers are regular maces with amphibious so that you can attack walled (maybe castled) cities across rivers and out of boats without siege support and get slaughtered for your foolishness. If anything they may be worse than a regular maceman because they could possibly entice players that don't know better to use them in this manner.

Also, are the naval units banned from this discussion? The East Indiaman is pretty terrible.

 

[TheMeInTeam]

A lot of my choices for top, worst UU like the navy seal, panzer, and ballista elephant have already been discussed heavily in this thread, but i didn't see much mention of the berserker. I actually saw one guy saying they were one of his favorites! Berserkers are regular maces with amphibious so that you can attack walled (maybe castled) cities across rivers and out of boats without siege support and get slaughtered for your foolishness. If anything they may be worse than a regular maceman because they could possibly entice players that don't know better to use them in this manner.

Berserkers are a valid upgrade unit, and very very dangerous in MP. They have no place at all in a "worst UU" discussion, but for standard games they don't belong in the top 10, either.

Also, are the naval units banned from this discussion? The East Indiaman is pretty terrible.

In the context of "only vs the AI" maybe. Now envision this scenario:

Archipelago, Fractal with multiple continents, Islands, or any other non-pangaea type map. You and your opponent both get astro reasonably early.

He declares war on you and blockades. Counter it.

He declares war on you with 6 of them and forks your coastal cities. Counter it.

Nope, not even close to the panzer in terms of being bad, especially because these suckers don't get expelled from culture on DoW and can enter borders when closed. You need chemistry to deal with these, and it's a long way to that from astro bulb times. Good luck.

 

[Izuul]

That's a valid point for MP but I still think they are terrible for SP.