Useless units

[FNBrown]

I've found that I have absolutely no practical use for any of the following:

- Archers/Longbowmen: Poor on defense, and outmatched on offense against Spearmen or better. Slow moving.

- Swordsmen: Only if you've got iron and they don't - and if you don't have horses.

- Explorers: Fast moving is nice, but by the time they're available, I'd rather send out Knights into the unknown to tangle with barbarians and other Civs.

- Helicopters: Never used them.

- Catapults: Too slow; limited benefit in siege operations.

[Dis]

workers

[cutlerd]

Archers - Very useful if you do not have iron or horses. Or for emergency attackers in cities not yet connected to your iron network. They have trouble against spearmen but can effectively take them out, especially in the open.

Longbowmen - Not terribly useful but again good if you need an attacker in a city not yet connected to a road.

Swordsmen - best ancient unit in the game! Much better IMO than horsemen since they are better on attack, can defend nicely, and do not retreat after taking damage. I will take swordsmen up against a horsemen civ any day of the week.

Explorers - I find them occasionally useful in that they tend not to cause other civs to demand for their expulsion. If I am wanting to invade another continent and can't get a map sold to me for a reasonable price, I can build an explorer and put him on a ship and generally map out the whole area without a demand to send him home.

Helicopters - Useless mainly because they come in too late.

Catapults - fairly useless unless you have a good road network to your enemy and the enemy is near his own border.

Devin

[Dis]

any military unit other than horseman, knights, calvary

[FNBrown]

Originally posted by cutlerd

Swordsmen - best ancient unit in the game! Much better IMO than horsemen since they are better on attack, can defend nicely, and do not retreat after taking damage. I will take swordsmen up against a horsemen civ any day of the week.

Devin

I will cede your point on Archers and Explorers, but its been my experience that they're just too feeble for my uses. Perhaps I've mismanaged them.

I still like the horsemen better than the swordsmen. Personally, I like the greater mobility, and I like that they retreat. This usually keeps them alive, and if I can get them back to my territory, they can recover and fight again, rather than suffer a total loss.

Again, this is just a personal preference... I'm sure it's just my style of play that makes some of these units more useful than others.

[GePap]

Longbow OK

With an attack of 4 and needing no resources, the longbowman is a decent choice both for a cheap attcking army and for counterattacking units outside your cities. their main drawback is that they don't upgrade to anything.

I do find that the speed of mounted units definitely is a better tactical advantage than one point more offence.The only time I really use swordsmen is if they are the civs UU (legion, immortal)

If helicopters had a better range and could carry 2 they would be very useful. as is they are useless.

[Libertarian]

The Domestic Nag

[cutlerd]

I still like the horsemen better than the swordsmen. Personally, I like the greater mobility, and I like that they retreat. This usually keeps them alive, and if I can get them back to my territory, they can recover and fight again, rather than suffer a total loss.

Sure...and don't get me wrong....I think Horsemen have their uses as well. But the thread was useless units and I think swordsmen are great.

I like building a large ancient army of swordsmen to attack cities and a cadre of horsemen in reserve, mainly as a rapid reaction force to keep other civs on my borders who might take the opportunity of my involvement in warfare to attack me while I am busy with another civ.

So far the only truly useless units I have encountered are paratroopers and helicopters.

Devin