What's your favorite Unique Unit?

[Zenn-La]

Hands down the Praetorian. Ancient era domination!

[Julian Delphiki]

Praetorians are classical era units.

[Krill]

War Chariots (though I'm starting to think that all chariot based UU are unbalanced...)

[wodan11]

Most people underestimate war chariots.

[Julian Delphiki]

WC's are a nice way to dump your economy down the toilet.

[wodan11]

How so?

[Nikomakkos]

There are few UUs that are not good. But Praetorians seem to be the only ones that are plain ridiculous. They are however dangerous to the wielder. I always pump out so many of them that my economy goes down the drain. When I have regular Swordsmen, I usually wait till I also have Catapults and then go to war. And by the time you have Construction, usually your infrastructure is stronger.

Otherwise I tend to like most UUs of either the Medieval or the Industrial eras. They seem to last longer, for me. I almost always use Macemen, so Samurais and Berserkers are a favorite. And if the game goes on long enough and you don't have a tech lead, Panzers are, well, comfortable.

[Julian Delphiki]

Originally posted by wodan11
How so?

As it is relatively easy to overexpand with them through early war, just like with Praetorians & Immortals. I know it's better raze those puny cities, but it's just wrong!

[wodan11]

Originally posted by Julian Delphiki


As it is relatively easy to overexpand with them through early war, just like with Praetorians & Immortals.

Just a different type of war, that's all. Kill most of their military, steal or kill all of their workers, and pillage all their improvements.

The whole point of an early war is to secure territory for yourself. This doesn't include just immediately captured territory, but also knocking back enemy civs on their heels so their technological and infrastructure development is behind yours. That means there are X turns they'll be spending making more units and workers instead of settlers, and their lesser raw materials from working unimproved tiles will slow it even more. During that period you can get Currency and Code of Laws, and thus be ready to expand into the still-available terrain, even though by that time your WCs are all but obsolete. Lingering benefits.

I think most early wars focus upon just one enemy, and upon taking a couple of cities and workers. Wouldn't it be a much better proposition to be doing a lot more than that?

I think you, too, are underestimating WCs (in a different way).

[Julian Delphiki]

I'll have to remember that.. it's just that.. taking cities which should be rightfully mine anyway already is so much fun.

[Blaupanzer]

Must ... resist ... temptation! The praets are obviously overpowered providing maceman-type power one whole era early. This leads to the temptation to overexpand at the expense of one of your nearest neighbors. I actually prefer the Samurai as a unit, but do not care for the Japanese UB (which might never be built -- if you can get to plastics and build a certain dam, especially). Combination UU/UB is the Dutch on any map but Pangea. So, I'd say the East Indiaman is my favorite UU.

[Garth Vader]

I prefer the Samurai as a UU, but yeah they really need a UB that doesn't suck.

[ColdPhoenix]

I'd prefer the Samurai if it got it's first strikes from free drill promotions rather than a unit trait.

The free Combat 1 for the Quecha is almost like having the aggressive trait for some of your units so it's always worth upgrading those. And as mentioned earlier, the ethiopian unit is good for the free promos.

I do like that fast worker though!

[Blaupanzer]

I think the Samurai does get drill promotions, doesn't it? I've been trying out the HRE Landsknecht recently. If you lay an anti-archery promo on this guy he is an offensive and defensive terror in the late medieval period. True, the 100 percents don't carry over on promotion but his capabilities can reduce the need to worry about that.