Unique Unit Grades (including PTW UU's)

[GusSmed]

Re: Re: Re: Re: Unique Unit Grades (including PTW UU's)

Originally posted by Robber Baron
Send out some galley-loads, Gus. It's truly eye-opening. I hadn't expected such lopsided results, but then I sent out a mini-armada and razed the coastal layer of a far more powerful civ like I was peeling an orange.

I just tried that, and yes, they're actually pretty good in ships. I played a Continents map, and I wiped my starting continent with Horsemen. Since I had no targets available until Navigation (which I pushed directly for), I figured the Berserkers had missed their window.

Not so. I sent over several Caravel loads of Berserkers, and they had very little trouble taking coastal cities defended by Pikemen or Musketeers. However, that's not the important thing, since a Knight force could have done as well.

No, the nice thing was that as long as they stayed with the ships, they effectively had move 4 through enemy territory, with no terrain penalties. This is faster than Cavalry inside enemy culture boundries.

You could do the same thing with a conventional force, but the extra turn to unload would eat the time advantage and the defensive advantage of staying on the water.

The defensive advantage, by the way, is primarily a weakness of the AI, not an inherent strength of the unit. Sure, Galleys and Caravels are terrible warships, but for a defender the poor odds are worth it because of the expensive, helpless Berserkers onboard. Against a human you'd want to include 1-2 extra, empty transports just to soak up suicide attacks.

I'm going to revise my rating of them up to B. They're not A units because they still suffer significant attrition against anything stronger than Spearmen, and they're not much use on some maps like Pangeas, but on the right maps the tactical speed is a strong advantage.

- Gus

[Konquest02]

Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Unique Unit Grades (including PTW UU's)

Originally posted by GusSmed

Not so. I sent over several Caravel loads of Berserkers, and they had very little trouble taking coastal cities defended by Pikemen or Musketeers. However, that's not the important thing, since a Knight force could have done as well.

I think the biggest advantage of Berserkers is thir ability to suppress any counterattack, an ability the knight doesn't have.

--Kon--

[Zurai]

My opinions (note that the PTW UUs are theoretical for me, as I'm waiting for a price drop before I buy):

Ansar Warrior: Fast, slightly cheaper than knights. B+/A-

Jaguar Warrior: Way too early. Fast and cheap, but with an absolutely murderous upkeep cost and attrition rate. C+/B-

Rider: Fast, not as cheap as the Ansar Warrior. B+

Impi: Nothing truly outstanding. They make decent companions to horsemen, but I much prefer offensive UUs. B

War Chariot: I have to actively put off researching horseback riding in order to use these. The window for them is incredibly narrow, and not being able to traverse mountains and jungle is a major weakness at the very beginning of the game. F

Panzer: Comes too late to make much of an impact. 3 movement is great, but by the time you have tanks, the game's pretty much been decided. C

Samurai: Fast, great defense, lower resource requirements. A-

Keshik: Lower defense and an over-specialized ability. I intend to extend their movement bonus to hills as well. B- unit out of the box, B+ with modifications

Sipahi: Huge attack at the cost of some extra shields. Does a good job at extending the window for cavalry attacks. A-

Cossack: The extra defense point is rarely useful. C

Berserk: Massive attack and immunity to land-based counterattacks. Most AIs have tiny navies, although human opponents will most likely be prepared. A against AIs, B- against human.

Bowman: Nice well-rounded unit that's useful for pretty much the whole Ancient era. Nothing outstanding about them, though. B

Gallic Swordsman: An extra movement point for a considerable extra cost. Not worth it in my book. C

Hoplite: Huge deterrant value. I don't like defensive UUs, but I know I always avoid attacking the Greek AI players until I have knights/cavalry simply because of the hoplites. Buys a peaceful Ancient/early Medieval era. B

Numidian Mercenary: See hoplite. These are also decently useful on attack, but slightly more expensive. B

Immortal: Huge attack, able to overcome even hoplites. The best ancient era attack unit, but is still obsolete with knights. A-

Legion: Excellent unit all around. Good enough attack to defeat spearmen and high enough defense to be a deterrant to enemy horsemen and swordsmen. A-

Conquistador: Glorified explorer. I see no real reason to build this unit. D

Man of War: Window of opportunity is too short to be useful, very hard to get a GA with. D

Musketeer: A defensive unit with extra attack (but less than any other Medieval-era attack unit, for more shields). D

War Elephant: Only useful on a large map with very few AIs, leading to resource shortages. I've given elephants an extra HP to help them be useful even when you do get iron and horses. D out of the box, C with the extra HP

F-15: Way, way too late to be useful. F

Hwacha. Great bombardment value, but you can't get a GA off one unless you make changes to the rules and it's got a moderately narrow window of opportunity. D out of the box, C+/B- with lethal bombardment

[GusSmed]

Originally posted by Zurai
My opinions (note that the PTW UUs are theoretical for me, as I'm waiting for a price drop before I buy)

Frankly, I don't think you'll get a complete picture of how some of these units play until you have PTW. You're right about Conquistadors, for example, but I didn't know that for certain until I played as Spain and verified that the ability to raid really deep into enemy territory (6 squares!) wasn't worth the extra cost and lower Attack / Defense.

I think you way undervalue the value of 2 movement. For example, the strength of the Gallic Warrior is that, like Horsemen, it rarely has to defend, and it retreats from many losing battles. Its 3 attack is worth 1 1/2 Horsemen, it costs as much as 1 2/3rds Horsemen, but has an upkeep of only 1 Horseman.

I'd rather have Mounted Warriors, but the extra cost is worth it. Unfortunately, it's just barely worth it, making them an alternative to Horsmen rather than an improvement.

Conversely, the other Swordsman upgrades, Legions and Immortals, suffer fairly high casualties in actual combat, even against Spearmen. The Legion doesn't have a "good enough attack to defeat spearmen" - something like 40% of the time you lose the Legion when attacking Spearmen, at least in part because of Fortified (+25%) and terrain bonuses (+%50 for cities on hills).

Horsemen have lower casualty rates, even against Hoplites. You may need more to take a town, but they'll last longer.

Numidian Mercs are not "decently useful" on the attack. That 2 attack is so low that you dare not risk them unless nothing else can attack a 1 or 2 HP Archer - which should never be needed, if you had the sense to bring along enough Archers (early Ancients) or Horsemen to do the job.

I also prefer attack units to Impi, but Impi do have a very serious deterrent effect, much like that of Hoplites. In fact, while I'll always attack someone else in preference to Greece, the only civ I will seriously think about delaying until Chivalry to attack is Zululand. Those Impi can inflict harrowing casualties on Horsemen, which means that I must mount a slow, expensive, attrition riddled campaign with Swordsmen.

Fortunately when I do go to war with them, the AI sometimes does stupid stuff with his Impi like attack fortified Spearmen. They don't tend to die from that, but it's a poor use of the unit, and makes them weak enough to pick off next turn.

- Gus

[Zurai]

Originally posted by GusSmed

- Gus

I think it comes down to different playstyles. I'm definately not a diety-level player (I could probably beat Monarch if I put a lot of effort into it and got a great starting location, but I normally play Regent and still lose a noticeable percentage of the time), and I'm not a momentum player. I don't attack attack attack from the start, but I do build up large armies and have good infrastructure. I find that having hordes of horsemen really isn't worth the upkeep to me, but I can take the same cities with less money by using swordsmen, and it's not like swordsmen take longer for me to build than horsemen. Gallic Swordsmen, on the other hand, take nearly twice as long for an extra attack point, for all intents and purposes, compared to horsemen, or an extra defense compared to mounted warriors. I don't think that's worth it (and I do have a 3-2-2 unit in my personal mod; I know how useful they are). Numidian Mercs certainly aren't going to be your main offensive unit but they can go that last mile to kill the 1 or 2 HP defender when you need them to, as well as being tied for best defender until gunpowder.

I'd be interested to hear your thoughts on the non-PTW differences between our lists, however. Particularly things like the War Chariot; I've NEVER found a way to use war chariots before they become obsolete at horsemen. By the time I have horses connected to my cities, I already have quite a few techs from huts/trading.

I also don't place as much value on having a 2-move unit to attack in the ancient era (although the movement points are useful because I always play HUGE pangea maps, so that IS a point in their favor just for ease of use) because, even with increased chance to retreat, I still lose nearly 50% of my attacking forces, and more to counterattacks. I'd rather simply build less but more effective units and rebuild my losses while building infrastructure.

Again, I think it comes down to play style. Someone who was a pure builder and didn't ever go to war before Military Tradition, for example, would likely rate the Hoplites and Mercs as A+ units simply because you're more or less invincible until Cavalry if you plan ahead with them, while a pure momentum player would hate those same units with a passion because they don't fit in his style of play at all. He'd more likely use things like Jaguar Warriors and Mounted Warriors.

[Mazarin]

The value of the unique units depends on whether you're playing sp or mp, I think. In MP self-defenders like legions or samurais are much more useful, because the human will defend himself with attacking units. So Immortals/MWs are not as powerful as they are in SP. Playing against the AI is completely different -i would not care much about counter-attacks as the AI seems too stupid to do this properly and this is why your argument about the immortal is not really valuable against AI. An other benefit of the immortals is that they come really early -before horsemen in most cases. After 40 rounds you will usually be able to upgrade several warriors and to start your first attack after 50 rounds. This way you cripple several AIs before Pikemen occure -on small pangea maps I often get domination before anyone is able to produce knights.

[GusSmed]

Originally posted by Zurai
I'm definately not a diety-level player (I could probably beat Monarch if I put a lot of effort into it and got a great starting location, but I normally play Regent and still lose a noticeable percentage of the time), and I'm not a momentum player.

That probably has a lot to do with our differences in opinion. I play Emperor all the time, because I find Monarch too easy. I could beat Diety regularly when pop-rushing was a viable strategy, but I found it tearfully frustrating.

Playing Emperor or above, you don't really have much choice but to push war, war, war in the early stages, just to extort enough tech to keep up. That really wasn't my playing style when I started, but the way the AIs freely trade tech with each other but not with you means that if you aren't firmly ahead in technology, you're left out of the trading, and force is the only way to catch up.

I don't attack attack attack from the start, but I do build up large armies and have good infrastructure. I find that having hordes of horsemen really isn't worth the upkeep to me, but I can take the same cities with less money by using swordsmen, and it's not like swordsmen take longer for me to build than horsemen.

You don't really need hordes of Horsemen. 5-6 is enough to start a war, usually around 1200 BC or so. With that, you can take a city defended by 2 Spearmen, which is what the AI puts in all of its cities but its capitol early in the game. After that, you heal up after each attack, and make sure you're building replacements for what should be relatively light losses.

Gallic Swordsmen, on the other hand, take nearly twice as long for an extra attack point, for all intents and purposes, compared to horsemen, or an extra defense compared to mounted warriors.

No, they don't. They take 60% longer, not 100% longer, and are 50% stronger than Horsemen. You can start a war with just 4 of them.

Numidian Mercs certainly aren't going to be your main offensive unit but they can go that last mile to kill the 1 or 2 HP defender when you need them to, as well as being tied for best defender until gunpowder.

Yeah, but do you really want to pay that extra 10 shields per Merc just for that last attack, which 90% of the time a normal attack unit (like Horsemen or Swordsmen) will take down? I'm comparing them to Hoplites, not Spearmen. They're definitely better than Spearmen, but that extra point of attack is so rarely used that the 50% increase in cost feels like a rip-off compared to the Hoplite.

Particularly things like the War Chariot; I've NEVER found a way to use war chariots before they become obsolete at horsemen. By the time I have horses connected to my cities, I already have quite a few techs from huts/trading.

War chariots don't become obsolete until you get your Golden Age. In the meantime, they build 50% faster than Horsemen, and you can assemble your initial attack force quite cheaply.

Whether you have Horseback Riding before you're ready to attack with War Chariots depends on the map and how the trading goes. Most games, if I'm playing something other than Egyptians, I end up building 7-8 Chariots and upgrading them to Horsemen with gold. Sometimes I do get Horseback Riding before building my first Chariot, but usually I have a fair sized force of Chariots waiting.

I don't actually attack with regular Chariots; I'm just saving myself some shields, and setting myself for an earlier Horseman attack.

I also don't place as much value on having a 2-move unit to attack in the ancient era because, even with increased chance to retreat, I still lose nearly 50% of my attacking forces, and more to counterattacks.

My attrition rate with a Horseman attack is more like 1 Horseman per city, and almost none to counterattacks. If I can't avoid putting them in a vulnerable position, I'll stack a Spearman or two with them.

50% losses is way too high, and typical of what I'd expect with a slow-mover attack. Are you attacking with Regulars? My attack force is always 100% Veterans.

- Gus

[vmxa1]

If anyone is having trouble at regent, they should take a very good look at crackers start thread on CFC and that will end their problems. Everyone that has posted a save where they had those problems was failing to get the best out of the tiles and cities. War or build was not the issue at that level. Automate workers and governors are the culprits.

[Brizey]

Knights are a stonger unit than pikeman. Here are the approximate stats of a knight attacking a fortified pikeman in a city on grasslands:

Attacker win: ~23%

Defender win: ~31%

Attacker retreat: ~46%

(Both veteran).

So just a few knights should be able to hammer pikeman. Put together a force of about 20 knights, divide into two stacks, then go pound a few cities before the get a bunch of musketmen.

Even with musketmen, the chance of losing only goes up a few percent. Mostly you just get more attacker retreats.

[jubilation]

Re: Unique Unit Grades (including PTW UU's)

Originally posted by GusSmed
Just for fun, I thought I'd run down my assessment of the Unique Units, particularly the new ones from Play The World.
[... grade C ...]
Roman Legion. Good defense, not as cheap as Hoplites, but capable of attack as well. Too slow for a good attack unit.

- Gus

With respect, I think you're missing out on the beauty and glory of legions. They are more useful than their stats suggest. Try this, and see if it changes your mind!

Declare war on your soon-to-be-province. Send a couple legions in immediately, but avoid cities. Take advantage of your defensive strength (the testudo tactic used by real legions back when!) to avoid retribution as you gleefully ravage the countryside, cutting transit and resource roads, putting peasants to the sword, and using your offensive punch to take a poke at field units who get in the way. At defense 3 you don't need to be fast.

Against a significant opponent, these two legions will probably be eventually destroyed, but in the meantime you'll have a) focused the enemy on chasing down your raiders instead of invading you, and b) hopefully done some serious damage to his infrastructure.

All this gives you time to marshal the rest of your invading force. Note that you don't have to waste production on spearmen to hold taken cities; legions are built-in defenders.

(One problem... it can be extremely painful to invade Greece with legions, especially if they happen to have a hilly empire.)

Anyhow, I've gotten good results with careful use of legions. Please give them a second look!

-- J

[Theseus]

Agreed... my reigning choice as a UU.

SPQR!!

[GusSmed]

Re: Re: Unique Unit Grades (including PTW UU's)

Originally posted by jubilation
Declare war on your soon-to-be-province. Send a couple legions in immediately, but avoid cities. Take advantage of your defensive strength (the testudo tactic used by real legions back when!) to avoid retribution as you gleefully ravage the countryside, cutting transit and resource roads, putting peasants to the sword, and using your offensive punch to take a poke at field units who get in the way. At defense 3 you don't need to be fast.

I don't really see the point of this sort of thing. Sure, I could do that, but during the Ancients era I typically take a city every 2 turns. By the time the Legions had reached something interesting at a plodding 1 square per turn, I could have pushed the border back 2 cities.

Meanwhile, those legions are messing with a road infrastructure that I could have captured instead of destroyed.

I don't see serious opposition where such distraction tactics might be meaningful until Knights typically, and Cavalry more often.

- Gus

[Arrian]

I'm with Gus on this one. Fast movers are the way to go. Legionaries are strong units, but there are several I'd rather have.

Everyone plays the game a bit differently, on different difficulty levels and different map settings, and that effects our "grades" for the various UUs.

My top 5 (which include 4 factors: 1) Relative power, 2) Length of usefulness, 3) timing - for GA purposes, 4) upgrade path):

1) Chinese Rider. The extra movement point allows you to gut AI empires with amazing speed.
2) Iroquois Mounted Warrior. The extra attack point allows you to make mincemeat of spearmen and even continue your attack vs. pikemen if need be.
3) Egyptian War Chariots. They're just so cheap! I especially like these guys on Emperor (highest level I play) because time is so short - you need to assemble your stikeforce very quickly. No gold needed for a chariot -> horseman upgrade, can be used for other things.
4) Japanese Samurai. Not incredible, but they sure are hardy. Tough as hell to kill, making them great cover for invasions, even once you have Cavalry (elite Sams + Cav is just beautiful).
5) Persian Immortal. Double the attack power of the standard ancient age defender. If unleashed vs. spearmen, they will do a good impression of a hot knife slicing through butter. Still useful for a while after that, but they are slow and have a mediocre upgrade path even with PTW.

I have just recently purchased PTW, so I will be able to comment properly on the new units soon. Initial thoughs:

- Wow, the Siphai look awesome, despite the extra cost
- Gallic Swordsmen are powerful, but very pricey
- The Ansar Warrior is a cheap Rider vulnerable to counterattack.
- The Spanish got jobbed.
- The Mongol unit is medoicre unless the map generator provides the perfect terrain to maximize their special ability.
- The Berserk is a fun toy for SP, but could be a true terror in MP.
- The Korean unit is... unique. I'll give it that.
- The Carthaginians got jobbed. 30 shields for a Hoplite with +1 offense?

-Arrian

[Harovan]

Originally posted by Arrian
- The Spanish got jobbed.

Not quite. Their Conquistadors are awesome pillagers, with two moves and all terrain as roads. They're basically swordsmen with 6 moves. The best defender at their time is the musketman with just one defense point more than they have for attack. They're not great UUs, that's true, but to start a war and pillage all resources within 5 tiles from your borders in the first turn is certainly not bad.

The first PTW game I played, I have chosen a random civ and start in the industrial age. I turned out to be Spain, had horses nearby and was from the start able to build Conquistadors. While the other civs slowly researched Nationalism, I pumped out Conquistadors. The toughest defenders I met were Spearmen. I conquered the world (small map) in just a few turns.

[Zero-Tau]

Sir Ralph: While what you say may be true, much of it can be done by any expansionist civ, by using explorers. Explorers can also pillage, you know. And with Exp apparently being the most popular trait for MP...