4th poll : the best unique units ?

[CyberS]

Hi again,

so here is the fourth and LAST poll

What are the 3 best unique units ?
You can include the indian workers and the unique ships of course.

Please add some words to explain your choice

NOTE : consider it for a standard solo game : 7 players on fractal, normal size and speed, difficulty prince, beginng in 4000 BC.

Thanks for your help
Sebastian

PS : the vote will close wednesday the 5th.

[Kuciwalker]

My bet: Blake is going to say the Fast Worker, for excellent reasons based on the fact that he's min-maxed the whole game already

[Will9]

The one time I played as India, I got pwned faster than I ever have been so I've never been found of the fast worker.

The Preatorian is best due the 8

I can't really place any units beyond that. I'd give units such as the Cataphratct and Redcoat a tie for second.

[Blaupanzer]

Fast worker,
Praetorian,
Redcoat.

Used to be Cossack rather than Redcoat, but that got nerfed. Note, some of the modern units offer good advantages, but come too late to really matter among the many others available.

[Solver]

1. Fast Worker. The only unit to be effective and very useful in all eras, it creates turn advantage for you. And turn advantage is what the game is all about.

2. Praetorian. Depend on Iron and just own everything in their period.

3. Immortal. A tad less effective in BtS than in Warlords, but a properly executed Immortal rush can still eliminate an enemy and double your land early on.

[Blake]

War Chariot - I think this is the single best UU in the game, no contest. It's a lot better than Immortals, because it can kill almost ANY unit for cost. War Chariot spam beats things like Swords and Horse Archers and even spears in the open. It's really head and shoulders above any other UU.

Due to the way the Immortals' attack bonus subtracts from the defenders defensive bonus, the Immortal always actually gets less than +50%. In fact, against an Archer with more than +150% defense (ie CD1 Archer fortified in hill city with 20% defense) the War Chariot is STRONGER than an Immortal, even modest defensive bonuses drop the Immortals' effective bonus to only ~30%, quite close to the WC's universal +20% str.


Praetorian - Okay, a popular choice, but it is very solid.

The final slot is very hard.
Phalanx, because it's largely uncounterable. [Alexander Only]
Gallic Warrior - because it's a copper sword and can be quite annoying with Guerrilla, comes with good leaders too.
Ballista Elephant - it's evil, especially Formation promoted. But it's hard to get sometimes.

I'll just say Ballista Elephant for my 3rd, because it IS evil and the only limiting factor is that it's hard to get.

NOTE: Fast Worker doesn't get my vote. They used to be really good, before the chopping nerf (early Vanilla patch) and the Gandhi nerf (Warlords). Now they are just so-so. Also serfdom has been "buffed" relative to slavery in BTS, so Spiritual leaders have more justification to drop into serfdom to handle worker shortages.

[Solver]

War Chariot - I think this is the single best UU in the game, no contest. It's a lot better than Immortals, because it can kill almost ANY unit for cost. War Chariot spam beats things like Swords and Horse Archers and even spears in the open. It's really head and shoulders above any other UU.

Due to the way the Immortals' attack bonus subtracts from the defenders defensive bonus, the Immortal always actually gets less than +50%. In fact, against an Archer with more than +150% defense (ie CD1 Archer fortified in hill city with 20% defense) the War Chariot is STRONGER than an Immortal, even modest defensive bonuses drop the Immortals' effective bonus to only ~30%, quite close to the WC's universal +20% str.

My argument is that a War Chariot rush is stronger later on, but an Immortal rush is stronger ultra-early, as soon as you can pull it off.

You don't want to be facing CD1 Archers at that point. You'll likely still be facing unpromoted Archers in cities with 0% or 20% culture. And it also feels to me like the Persian leaders have traits that works better for these rushes than the Egyptian leaders.

[Blake]

Egypt starts closer to Chariots (Persia needs to research The Wheel in addition to Animal Husbandry), and Hatty is Creative which means the horse city will be more productive. Hatty's chariot rush hits earlier and harder (barring exceptional luck like capital horses). Louis can chariot rush just as quickly as Hatty (because he's also creative/ag/wheel), but he doesn't have war chariots. The second fasted Chariot Rusher after Egypt/France is Mongols (hunting/wheel) and Persia comes third (hunting/ag which gives AH discount).

Anyway the point of WC's, is that they're "good enough" against archers, but also have the longevity of being able to destroy pretty much anything cost-effectively. The Immortal IS a one-trick pony because once the AI brings spears and swords into play, the Immortal really sucks. But the WC has enough strength to deal with those units and many more.
There's almost nothing that mass WC wont kill better than something which isn't mass WC, at least until Elephants come into play and even then the only superior option is using your own elephants (handy since you'll have stables), or just soften the elephants up with pults and grind them down with WC spam (it's not like you can make the defending elephant fight your spear).

Technically it's quite possible to use normal chariots to grind down all sorts of stacks, but the difference is that WC's win quite a bit more often* and promote and once the WC gets up to Combat III it has winning odds against all sorts of things, so the WC actually results in a snowballing victory rather than a war of attrition.

* Due to odds thresholds, the War Chariot often fights at just above "50%" which gives ~60% odds, while the Chariot (and immortal) fights at just below "50%" which gives ~30% odds, the War Chariot thus wins about twice as often.
A lot of the time all you need to care about is "Above 50%" or "Below 50%", and a Combat 1 War Chariot, vs an Archer in a cultureless city, is "Above 50%", the same as an Immortal.
There is only ONE case where the Immortal fights "Above 50%" and the WC fights "Below 50%", this is the fortified archer in city with a single +20% defensive bonus (either border expansion or CD1), other than that single case, the odds wont be terribly different, both units will be above 50%, or both will be below 50%. The immortal may have a very slight edge when attacking Creative civs (because most cities will have +20%) but otherwise the Immortal does not rush significantly better.
(And that's ignoring the fact that Hatty gets chariots out faster)

[Thedrin]

1) Praetorian - makes the game too easy. The iron requirement isn't anywhere near as limiting as the samurai's iron requirement since you still have access to contemporary units.
2) War chariot
3) Phalanx

[Sir Og]

One vote for Quecha. This is the ultimate rushing unit. You have a unit that can take out archers with ease and you have from the start and you don't need any tech or resources.

[Jvstin]

Originally posted by Solver
1. Fast Worker. The only unit to be effective and very useful in all eras, it creates turn advantage for you. And turn advantage is what the game is all about.

2. Praetorian. Depend on Iron and just own everything in their period.

3. Immortal. A tad less effective in BtS than in Warlords, but a properly executed Immortal rush can still eliminate an enemy and double your land early on.

I can't argue with these choices.

I don't play with Asoka or Gandhi much and so I haven't really exploited the fast worker.

Praetorians, however, since I do play A and J fairly often, are my bread and butter.

As far as the Immortals, I recently did try an Immortal rush against two nearby civs and executed it to perfection. Pre-copper, America and France had no chance against my immortal force and it gave me a lot of breathing room when Mao and Genghis started pushing toward me.

[Dominae]

You only have to play MP for a little while to see first-hand why War Chariots > Immortals.

In SP, Immortals are superb for harassment but you have to put significant resources into an Immortal rush to take cities. War Chariots are equally good for harassment, but you only to build a few if you decide to opportunistically take down city or two. The fact that War Chariots have a longer shelf-life makes them the clear winner.

[ben04]

Originally posted by Blake
Egypt starts closer to Chariots (Persia needs to research The Wheel in addition to Animal Husbandry),

"The Wheel" is not an expensive tech so the Persians wont spend that much more time researching. Also they can research AH right away because of their starting techs. So they will see at the same point where the horses are. To make use of them you will normally need to build at least a worker and a settler. This needs more time than researching "The Wheel" so technology is not the bottleneck.

However as they start with "Hunting" they will get a scout. This allows you to gamble on goody huts but it also allows you to discover where the AIs are earlier and thus your Immortals know where to go right away and don't have to waste time searching for them.

and Hatty is Creative which means the horse city will be more productive.

Horses normally are pretty productive tiles and monuments don't cost more than an Immortal so if this city will ever crank out Immortals than it must be capable of finishing a monument in decent time without a border pop.

I'm not saying that the Persians are better at this than Hatty, I'm just saying the Persians also quickly have a second city productive. Creative is nice but for this sort of strategy I'd prefer financial or organized to handle the maintenance costs and thus allow you to rush further and keep more cities.

[couerdelion]

War Chariot works for me to although I'm still tempted to go fast worker simply because the extra movement gives them turn advantage in the early game.

1) Fast Worker
2) War Chariot
3) Praetorian

[mkorin]

Cossack - Their shelf live is create and at that point everyone is using some sort of horse.

Jannissary - The ultimate defense unit. +25% against almost everything

Etheopiians Musketman - If you don't have iron, this guy is great.

Mike