Value of early game UUs on Monarch+

[BigWilly1974]

So, I think it's fair to say that it's important to be aggressive on Monarch and higher difficulty to stay competitive.

In a recent random game, I ended up with the Incans and while I groaned at first (love Financial, but haven't thought much of Aggressive), I got a first hand lesson in how dominant some of the really good UUs can be.

Which brings me to the point of this post. I personally feel the early game is by far the most important. I think of it like compounding interest (or maybe someone in another thread made that comment and it resonated...

But the point is this…the few Civs that have UU's in the early game that allow you to really wreak some havoc and make some big gains should conceivably be some of the more dominating Civs when played to their strengths. When random gave me the Incans, I decided to play to their strengths early by going on the all-out offensive. In no time flat, I had doubled my cities from 3-6 by wiping out Napoleon…and after a relatively brief rest, I took half of Ghandi's empire. I was using pop & chop in 2 cities to churn out a Quecha virtually every turn, but that's just getting the most out of the game's mechanics.

If I played one of the more numerous Civs without a strong early UU, there's no way I'd have been able to do that until at the very least I could get Axemen/Swordsmen and start pop and chopping them…which is significantly later, meaning you have fewer turns in the end game to grow them and reap the full rewards.

So…

A) do many of you pay particular attention to the UU's when choosing a Civ?
B) do you believe that some of the UU's have the potential to be a little imbalancing? (e.g. the potential "value" of the Quecha in securing early landmass has to be considered far superior to what the Navy Seal can help you do in the late game?)

[xxFlukexx]

A) Yes, definetly. I like Napolean, but hate to play as him because of that gd worthless UU musketeer he has.

B) Yes, definetly. I wouldn't put the Quechua anywhere on top of that list though. I've found on my Emperor games that I quechua rush, I cannot make up for the atrocious high maintenance cost after capturing just the nearest enemies capital, it's like 4 or 5 maintenance per turn, gigantic hit to science that is nearly impossible to recover from. I'd put the Praetorian, Cossack, and maybe the Conquistador on top of the unbalanced units list.

You can always argue that while an early UU gets you more land in the beginning, a late UU like the Panzer can win you the late game and if you win the late game, you win the game, while if you do good in the early game that doesn't mean you'll win the entire game.

[BigWilly1974]

Your point is a fair one regarding winning the late game. My only counter is that in the late game, it's hard to take enough land to win a domination game unless you had a really healthy landmass built up from early/mid game.

And even if you make a really good run at it, it's probable you'll lose a space race first (my experience tends to be there's usually an AI building a ship that is on the other side of an AI making it difficult for you to cull them).

That's why I really feel as though the time where military expansion can have the biggest overall impact on the game is in the early ages.

In my experience, the games where I'm hemmed in with respect to land/empire size by the mid-game, I have a heck of a time winning. The games where I take a big chunk of early land, I'm able to recover enough in Finance (using a Financial Civ) and Tech to dominate in the end game.

[Crossfire]

I really like Kublai Kahn's horse archers (whatever they are called) for this. The attack isn't as early but that just gives you a chance to get a few cities running first. I took Bismark and Mansa Musa out last night by spamming those out.

[ghen]

Actually I like playing the Incans on Huge maps as there's alot more barbarian archers. I can totally go for a religion or two early, while letting the quechua handle incoming attacks and getting promoted like crazy.

Out of all the early UU's I'd have to say the Praetorians and Skirmishers are the best for an offensive. The 133% on both units strengths is just too large to ignore.

By the late game a UU is almost negligable. If you're even techs it just takes a bit more strategy to grab cities with or without a UU.. if you're behind in techs a UU just isn't going to help protect enough to save your cities from attack. Maybe if SEAL's were 30 str they'd be worth waiting for. If you've read the combat calculations thread you'd know that first strikes are almost worthless if you fight something higher in strength.. So basically the only advantage SEAL's have is the march promotion. Yeah, thats going to win the game for you :P


All that said and done, I'm at war in every age.. so if a UU comes up I'll use it to the best of its abilities. Cossacks and Panzers anyone?

[Blake]

Fast Workers FTW! I prefer Asoka tho becaues he manages large empires better.

The Praetorian is probably my favorite UU, or the Keshik.

My least favorite is probably the chinese Cho-Ko-Nu, I can't really figure out how to use them, like why I shouldn't just use throw-a-way catapults... oh yah they'd absolutely murder melee stacks.. but mainly I think of the Crossbow as a defensive unit, unless the enemy uses melee garrisons the Cho-Ko-Nu's wont be better on offense than just using Catapults.

SEALS are IMO one of the better UU's, March is a VERY good promotion, especially when bashing civs slightly weaker units or poor promotions. A unit with March just keeps going and going and going, you literally never need to stop and heal, just have a nice stack of Artillery and blast the defenses down and sacrifice a couple of artillery and let the marines loose, keep the replacement artillery coming in.

You do need to know how to use March though. The important thing is that a unit with March gets healed additionally by medics, even if both the Marching and medic unit is on the move, a single SEAL will heal 10% a turn, a SEAL with a medic will heal 20% a turn, there's no need for the SEAL to have medic (but it can). The medic doesn't need to have March.

I sometimes use Medic Explorers because they can move easily move around the battle field and will be last to die. Medic siege is good too if all it is ever going to do is bombard. Sometimes I'll have medic chariots from the early game, they work well too. And redcross medics of any description work great.

Anyway get those seals healing 20% a turn and they'll be full health for pratically every engagement. Collatoral damage means nothing to them, they just heal it right back up.

[ghen]

Well slightly weaker opponents fall prey to the added first strikes as well which allows the SEAL to not get damaged as much in every fight promoting your strategy of conquering on the move.. But realistically you could just be using tanks with more strength and blitz for 20 more shields. Against those same weaker units the tanks will come out of fights with extra strength (compaired to the SEAL start of 24) as well, and might even be good enough to kill another unit on the same turn. Not to mention the movement bonus which is undeniable.

SEAL's may be fun, but they won't change the outcome of the game like an early 100% against archers or extra strength ala war chariot/skirmisher/praet.. and heck, even a phalanx

[Blake]

I would contend that given catapults are so easy to get, early UU's don't change the outcome of a game much either.

[OzzyKP]

I had a good game with Persia. The immortal is a pretty nice unit.

[Blake]

The fact that Immortals do benefit from defensive bonuses is rarely mentioned. That in itself makes them a very nice UU, they can easily defend against axemen and such if fortified in forest or cities.

You can quickly research AH and if horses pop you don't even need to bother with archers or axemen for defense. An Immortal fortified in a city (with one border expansion) defends with a value of 5.8 (an archer would defend at 5.85 in the same city). Since they cost the same you only really need Archery for use with the later archery units.

The spanish Conquistador is the only other mounted unit that recieves defensive bonuses.

[Aginor]

Early game UU: high risk, high payoff. Advantages are that they have a comparatively lengthy shelf life before getting utterly outteched (only exception is the Quechua, which only requires Bronze Working and some copper to thrash) and the fact that everyone starts on a relatively lengthy playing field, so you know it provides an advantage. Downside is that if you draw the short straw and get the solo island start in a continents game, the UU is pretty much useless by the time you can start ferrying some offense over to the continent you attempt to establish a beachhead on.

Mid game UU: low risk, low payoff. Fairly short shelf life, guaranteed usage. I think Cho-Ko-Nus are not getting the respect they are due here - they utterly massacre melee units and deal collateral damage to stacks for the city assault application, and thus are considerably more versatile than fragile catapults. Sure, you are guaranteed to lose one or two crippling a city's defenders - but you were going to lose one or two units anyway taking a ten unit stack. Might as well have it be a couple of inexperienced units up front...that way you get to abuse the promotion system. In particular, I find it handy to have Riflemen, Grenadiers and later Infantry with three city-busting promotions to clear the way for my Cavalry hordes once Nationalism and Military Tradition hit and I start laying down the law, and softening the defenders with sacrificial lambs provides me a way to consistently accomplish that. Particularly given how difficult it is to crack a medieval city in the first place.

(Worth noting that my basic strategy with the Chinese on Monarch reflects the OPs comments - carve out 1-2 neighbors early for living space, convert the space advantage to a tech advantage by turtling with Financial starting between 300 and 600 AD, and convert the tech advantage to the indefensible Cavalry assault on victims who should not yet have Chemistry, resulting in a clean or nearly clean continent by 1800, then winning a space victory due to crushing tech advantage grown from the spoils of the late-game war. Should someone attack me in the middle ages, spammed Cho-No-Ku in addition to the early game holdovers and the odd units manufactured in the meantime are my basic response strategy.)

Thoughts on the other UUs in general:

Quechua - Great against the computer. Not so great against the living - if you spot the Incans you know what to expect, and you spam out Chariots if you must, but Axemen if you can, rather than the Archers that you know will get owned.

Praetorians - Nasty city-busters. Effectively unfairly early Macemen (lacking the melee boost), about as strong as the UUs come but slow to come on board.

Jaguars - Meh. Expensive, bad Axemen with no resource requirement. I have a feeling that in their original incarnation they were quite scary and got hit with the nerf stick a bit too hard (7/1 no resource requirement, perhaps?). Could be good if they cut the cost or added a decent second ability (25% Jungle defense definitely does not count).

Skirmishers - I'm not a huge fan of rushing things with expendable units as a rule (Quechua being an exception since they're practically free), but a combination of a virtually unbreakable city defense unit with early firepower is solid, and that versatility is nice when up against the living.

Fast Workers - In theory, these should be the strongest unit since they are applicable to every game, come online immediately without resources, and turbocharge an early chop game. In practice I find them most valuable if you're attempting an aggressive wonder building strategy (chopping Stonehenge and trying to pull a CS Slingshot or Farseer while you're about it), which I feel is a bit weak at the higher levels of difficulty. Choprushing an army is strengthened more in the long run by having a more appropriate tech than Mysticism for the Workers as well as the Financial trait than by the turn advantage of the same turn move-and-chop, as you can get tech going much more effectively with early cottages at a river city with Financial...further, a UU chop-n-pop ultimately dominates a fast Worker chop-n-pop. I see any Worker-centric early game as a chop game (to compensate for the loss of production from the capital and second city not growing while building the Worker and Settler), and I feel that if you plan to launch an assault it is much more important to get an army going and hit the other guy hard early if you have Copper, as the choprushed Axemen have sharply diminishing returns with every turn that passes. I further feel that a defensive chop strategy at higher levels is a probable loss in the end...the amount of land allotted to you combined with the late-game tech collusion require that you do something proactive early to defang your nearest neighbors. By dominating your own continent, you remove players otherwise current on techs in the endgame (diminishing the dogpile effect) and simultaneously permit yourself to build more aggressively and not have to worry as much about unwanted wars draining productivity. Which is a rather longwinded way of explaining why I think the Indians are the masters of the low levels but a bit soft as you ramp up in difficulty, based on significant experience with them.

Keshiks - I find them an expensive way to take cities, as at 6 power you lose some to the defenders. On the plus side, no copper needed and you can switch the enemy you are bashing on MUCH more rapidly, which is nice if you plan to kick your nearest two rivals around as I generally do.

Immortals - Like the Skirmishers, a nice combination of aggression and defense. Again, you have the same problem as the Incans against the living - your efficiency comes out of stacking your army full of your UU, and one or two Spearmen in a stack can totally ruin your day. Fortunately, the AI is dumb and defends this poorly.

War Chariots - less of a fan here than I am with the Immortals...immunity to First Strikes is softer than the attack power bonus and defensive capabilities of the Immortals, and I don't feel that this is adequately made up for by the boost in overall power. I rarely find myself swatting marauding units outside of cities in the early game when on offense, or fighting much besides Archers in a city for that matter...YMMV if you tend to turtle in the early going.

Phalanx - Bleah. Aggressive civ with a stronger early defender? Wish this were an Axeman upgrade (and that Alex had Mining)...he'd rule the chop-n-pop roost.

Cossacks - Insane. If you get the proper tech online in time to launch a monster Cavalry blitz backed up by drafted garrisons, the 20% boost combined with the ability to assassinate all the Knights the AI spams out is just insanely good. Since, as other posters have noted, this is the one point in the game where offense just dominates defense, you can crush cities swiftly and effectively with this mounted unit,. Bring up promoted citybusting ground troops and Cannon (if you have them) for dirty jobs and big stacks, while hitting softer targets with exclusively Cavalry/Cossacks.

Various Knight UUs - Personally, I think the Knight has too short of a shelf life to really be useful. By the time a Knight assault force comes online, in a near tech parity situation the other side has Gunpowder and possibly Chemistry, and attacking Musketmen and Grenadier hordes with Knights is a losing proposition. Various abilities DO make it easier to conduct economic warfare, granted. However, if I pick a fight, I fully intend to be able to take the cities, and generally leave the improvements alone. Economic warfare is generally for a Medieval war I didn't particularly want IMO.

Samurai - 2 First Strikes is nice, but you still have to feed a LOT of them to a well defended medieval city. That segment of the game definitely favors the defender, though these guys do make it easier to conduct economic warfare, like the Knight UUs.

Musketmen - The extra move is nice and all, but they just don't have the firepower to get the job done on offense, which invalidates the extra move's strategic value.

Redcoats - Nice, balanced unit. Good on offense, good on defense, ruthlessly shut down Cavalry. Sadly, short shelf life keeps them from being great, merely good.

Very late game UUs - As noted, Panzers and SEALs are not likely to win you games you would otherwise lose. Great abilities, but the short shelf-life problem is exacerbated here.

Overall - UUs are nice, but generally not imbalancing. The potentially imbalancing ones are somewhat compensated for by the possibility of not having anyone to use them against. Praetorians are probably the best balance of utility vs. timeframe in which they can be used...but they do not dominate the field in which they compete in the same way that the high payoff, quick activation units can. Cossacks are by far the nastiest of the later units, as they play conveniently into a strategy prominently posted earlier by Vel and others.

On xxFlukexx's comments on the joys of a monster treasury drain caused by empire: There are two solutions to this problem, both partial:

1) Organized trait cuts the maintenance costs on the captured cities somewhat, which helps. Also enables fast Lighthouses, which help with attempts to actually utilize the coastal and inland sea squares early on.

2) Financial results in the ability to get 50% more coins in the very early game, which in turn encourages cottages on rivers. I find that the only chance with early empire-building is to grab rivers and/or gold-producing specials. Grassland squares on rivers with some of the Calendar-level resources don't even need a cottage to produce 3 gold.

Thus, in theory Washington would be the best at early aggression combined with tech production. The only problem is that the Americans start with hideous techs for an aggressive stance. Civs with one or the other trait (and preferably Mining or The Wheel) are likely to be your best bet if you want to mix it up early.

[Blake]

Samurai comment:
They require Iron, unlike macemen which require Iron OR Copper. They are one of only two UU's that are more restrictive than the original, the other being the Jaguar ofcourse.
That said, I do like them, weaken the target up with Catapults then let loose the Samurai, they have better survival chances and thus get City Raider 3 considerably easier than Macemen. Upgrade your Raider3 Samurai to Grenades or Rifles and continue the war .
But not getting Iron as Japan is a real kick in the balls. No macemen and no cannons. Bah.

[Aginor]

Agreed, 3x Raiding Grenadiers/Riflemen/Infantry are just beasts...I rarely get any other upgrades on the low-tech melee units for precisely this reason.

Granted, Samurai definitely have improved survival chances due to the two First Strikes...all I am getting at here is that Macemen have rather low survival chances by this point in the first place (Longbowmen with +60% culture +50% city defense +25% hill defense, then garrison bonuses, have a way of eating units for lunch even Cat-bombed), and that while First Strike can help a lot here, the insane defender bonuses in comparison to the attack/defend ratio at this point mean that it either takes a LOT of Catapult bombarding or a willingness to feed quite a few Samurai to the big unit stack to take the city. In other words...Samurai reduce an impossible task to a merely difficult one. Personally I'd rather stall for 30-50 turns and wait for better tools.

[Thoth]

I think Musketeers are being unfairly maligned. I've had great success with using Napoleon and beelining to Gunpowder. Musketeers attack almost as well as a Knight, have the same movement and don't have Pikemen as an Achilles heel. Add in the lack of resource requirements and the free Combat 1 promotion from Agressive and you have a very solid and flexible unit.

[Hauptman]

I too love the muskateer. its a 9.9 unit (free promo) and it gets tile defense. So its better than a knight in MANY ways. However muskets have THE SHORTEST life span of any unit in this game, as usually the very next tech is chemistry. But a gunpowder naploeon is an icredible thing, especially if there are ALOT of coastal cities. (free combat 1 + 2 promos from barracks/theology = amphibiose gunpowder units.)


Just wanted to add that when they apear, Noone has a counter. Noone here promotes anti gunpowder before gunpowder units become common, i know i dont. So all those +melee/+archer promotions are wasted on a unit wich has no counter unit. Pikemen eat knights. crossbows eat samurai. Muskateers pillaging your lands are down right nasty.