Rating Special Units

[AJ Corp. The FAIR]

Barchan,

if you have a network connecting iron to all of your cities, you won't be able to build warriors/ JW's. Just create some not-connected cities (no roads to import iron). You should be able to create these units then.

And about the remarks of zillion armies of JW's: as a recent poster before also concluded: i don't see much use in them in other than ancient era. I stick to what I've stated before: if they enter my territory, I will kill them (horsemen, chivalry, swordsmen, ...). ALL of them. They might be able to get away with some pillaging, but that's all.

No decisive use for the JW in medieval era!

AJ

[Skanky Burns]

With enough units, even a 1 attack unit can destroy a fortified mech. inf on a mountain-top fortress...

And if you are continuously at war, then you won't be paying for maintenance of all those dead JWs

However I haven't tried the Aztecs since 1.17f, and I think making them upgradable is extremely silly. They are one of the few ancient units that I would want to keep building, even if I did have iron.

I must do a test of the Aztecs again.

[Dodgy Geezer]

I think the diversity of opinons on the UU reflects the breadth of the game, and peoples play styles, even if some do think the combat is 'broken'. Also bear in mind that some UU are suited to different map types. After all, its less use having a multi move unit if you play on tiny islands.

I played Civ3 for three months before trying a militaristic civ, so I will address the balance from a peaceful approach.

Bab Bowmen are crap as a UU, since they have no upgrade path worth mentioning and 2 2 vs 1 2 of a spearman is bugger all use, except to sit on mountains waiting for barbarians.

Those French Mustketeers are are also bugger all use as you have better offensive units available.

Persian Immortals are damn good in my book, but their shelf life is limited by Knights.

Aztec Jag Warriors are fantastic. The Aztecs were the first Mil. civ I played, and I dominated the world by the time Knights arrived on the scenes (standard pangaea at Monarch). The key to the JW is to keep them in the mountains. Once they get to elite (which they do quickly being militaristic and being able to retreat) they are buggers to remove.

War Chariots. Bugger all use. They are NOT = horsemen as someone posted. They can't go through jungle or mountains.

Greek Holites are great to play with, 'king annoying to play against. Ditto the Roman Legions.

F15 - never let the Yanks get that far, and never been stupid enough to play them.

Man-o-war. Never been stupid enough to play the pommies either (even though I am one) and even if I did from what I have read the MOW is made obsolete almost as soon as you get them somewhere. Naval power is next to useless in CIV3, even in Archie maps, and is immensely irritating to boot.

Zulu impies have never worked for me, and the Zulus are always the first AI to go in any map I play on. If I want to be Military I will pick the Aztecs.

Mounted Warriors and Samuri are real early to mid game irritations. I haven't played either civ, but coming up against them is really painful.

Cossacks. Never played the Russians, but never found the Cossacks a major threat either.

Panzers. Like them. I am normally hanging out for tanks to provide the edge to finish off my last opponents. That 3 move is just the icing on the cake.

Indian elephants are just a joke. As an aggressive militaristic player if you don't have the appropriate resources come Knight time you are doing something wrong. Up there with the Egyptians, French, English and Americans in the Stupid UU stakes.

That's it I think.

Oh, no, I missed one. The Arabians, with the UU of OBL. This unit is able to attack any city with an airport, and negates the commercial influence of the Stock Exchange in the target city, as well as Mobilizing the target civ. Then again, maybe I just imagined that one.

[DrFell]

War chariots are cheaper than horsemen and only require one tech to get. Huge advantage on deity, not being able to move through jungle or mountains is a really minor disadvantage. 20 shields means you can afford 1/3 more units in the same amount of time. Believe me, they really are good.

[Pius Popprasch]

Originally posted by Solver
Sorry, no time now to write a longer essay, but I disagree with many points. I've also fought a modern age war as America, and saw F-15 planes useful there. Some more objections, too...

Why should a Fighter(!) with better Bombard(!) be useful? Just build a Bomber instead(same price).

The War Chariot is better than rated by most of the people in this thread. I give it a B+. It's cheap and the early GA is a plus for me.

[Pius Popprasch]

Originally posted by DrFell
War chariots are cheaper than horsemen and only require one tech to get. ... 20 shields means you can afford 1/3 more units in the same amount of time. Believe me, they really are good.

Actually 50% more.

[Tingkai]

Originally posted by Pius Popprasch

Why should a Fighter(!) with better Bombard(!) be useful? Just build a Bomber instead(same price).

The War Chariot is better than rated by most of the people in this thread. I give it a B+. It's cheap and the early GA is a plus for me.

I agree. Give the War Chariot a B+. The big advantage is that you can get to GA early, build up a decent attack force and then knock out a AI CIV that is just getting off the ground, or better yet, one that has lots of cities, but no horses.

[player1]

Originally posted by Tingkai
I agree. Give the War Chariot a B+. The big advantage is that you can get to GA early, build up a decent attack force and then knock out a AI CIV that is just getting off the ground, or better yet, one that has lots of cities, but no horses.

Just one thing to be aware of.

If using culturaly linked starting locations:

Egyptians first negnboars are Roman & Greek

Hoplites: Ouch!
Romans (if having Iron): Ouch!

Tip: Destroy Romas as quickly as possibile, avoid Greeks.


P.S.
It's still B+

[Thrawn05]

Re: Rating Special Units

Originally posted by Rotten999
Why aren't marines specific to the USA?

I did that in my editor. I made F-15 researchable to all civs with the Smart Weapon Tech. I move infantry to Amph Warfar and made Marines the special unit. It works nice. (I didn't replace infantry with Marines though for the US, they can build both, but only the US can build Marines).

[godinex]

A++ To Samurai. Best defenders of the middle age, great golden age.

[Thrawn05]

Originally posted by godinex
A++ To Samurai. Best defenders of the middle age, great golden age.

You too? I always felt a GA in med. ages is a good life saver. Since if I don't, I'm usualy straped for cash, even with wall street on my side.

[Arrian]

Maybe not A++, but Samurai are certainly a solid unit, and one I avoid fighting against in the Middle Ages. But your point about timing (brought up earlier w/respect to the otherwise useless French musketeer) is really important.

I happen to agree that a golden age in medieval times is just right, given the sheer amount of stuff you have to build in that era. However, the later the G.A., the more powerful it is. If you can manage to hold off on your G.A. (while still building the wonders you want and whatnot) until Industrial times, WOW. I did that once, on Marla's map. I was the Chinese, a civ I haven't played before or since (don't like the traits). I played them for their location, not their traits, and I played them builder-style. Their start location is awesome, so I did really well, and because of their mil/ind traits, I did not trigger a golden age during medieval times (built Sun Tzu, but didn't have an industrious wonder). Then, in the industrial age, I attacked and destroyed India, and triggered a golden age using a few riders I didn't upgrade, specifically for that purpose. All I can say is OMFG! It was nuts.

I dislike ancient golden ages because they will be wasted in despotism. Trying to wait until Industrial times is hard with many of the civs, due to the Wonders that can trigger a G.A. Perhaps the best civ for waiting it out is the Egyptians (although I've never done it, I've always ended up using a war chariot in the middle ages). Industrious/Religious. The religious part obviously gets taken care of by wonders, but what industrious wonder do you really need pre-Hoover? Imagine entering a golden age after completing Hoover. That would be amazing.

Ok, enough rambling. Bowman: C-, Immortal: A-, Impi: B, Mounted Warrior: A, F15: F, Jag Warrior: B+, Man-o-war: F, Musketeer: C-, Panzer: A, Cossack: C, Legionary: B, Hoplite: B, War Chariot: B, Samurai: A- Rider: A, War Elephant: C+

-Arrian

[Unregistered]

Well, I'd have to say that Panzers are the best UU. That extra move makes all the difference. & in my last game they triggered a really nice industrial golden age.

Most of the other UU's are nice enough, but they just don't seem as nice as the Panzer. Of course, you do have to survive until you get them which can be somewhat of a trick on the harder levels of play. And if your game playing strategy is to knock everybody out early, then the Panzer probly wouldn't work for you.

The most useless UU's to me appear to be the Man-O-War & the F-15.

What I'd really like to see implemented would be a UU for each civ for each age. For some civs it might be hard to come up with four, such as America, but for others, like England or China it should be pretty easy to do. If wishes were fishes & all that...

Anyway,

[WTE_OzWolf]

Originally posted by Rotten999

Does anyone like the Man-O-War?

Well, I'm going to wade in and say that I found this useful once. I played the English on a small landmass archipelaego map. Naval warfare became a big thing.

For once, I was actually engaging the AI in large naval battles. I got so tied up in wars against everybody else that I was doing bare minimum research to keep my citizens happy...the Man-O-War actually gave me the supremacy to wipe out those pesky French frigate fleets.

I will admit, even with minimum researching, they became obsolete too quickly, but the damage had been done.

As for the Yanks, I won a game and never used the F-15. I've been fiddling around with them a bit, and I think the best alternate UU I've seen is a "Ballistic Missile Submarine" with carrying capacity + 1. Fun having twice the amount of missiles on hand.

Another one for novelty's sake is a "Nuclear Aircraft Carrier" which has move + 1 and capacity + 1. Got that idea from a guy on the stories board.

[1]

F-15's can do percision strikes, just like the stealth units. Regular fighters can't. F-15's can do everything the F-117 can, plus protect the skies, and it costs less. Yeah the actual numercial bonus isn't great, but the fact that it can do things normal fighters can't, makes up for this.