Favorite units

[Viseus]

I'm sure this thread has been sufficently exhausted in the past, but I'm new here so bear with me.

What is your favorite Civ III unit, and why?

I'd have to say my absolute fave unit is the samurai. Why? It's got superb attack, superb defense, great movement, modest resource requirements, and best of all - samurai are way cool!

I finished a game just now where I basically built nothing but samurai once I aquired chivalry and iron. Pretty soon, the entire continent (tiny pangea map) was crawling with pillaging elite samurai. By the time the game ended, I had four armies with four elite samurai in each.

I really thought a Deity game was way out of my league, but after winning an Emperor game with such ease, maybe not! Even though I have to give a lot of the credit to those marvelous samurai.

[Cookie Monster]

Just talking strictly regular units here and not the UU.

Ancient times: Swordsman

Medieval Times: Musketman

Industrial Times: Toss up between armor and infantry

Modern Times: Toss up between modern armor and jet fighter

[ixnay]

Cavalry...I always seem to get the most use out of them...

[Cookie Monster]

Originally posted by ixnay37
Cavalry...I always seem to get the most use out of them...

I also like cavalry but chose musketman. The reason is, for me at least, that cavalry are vulnerable to other cavalry, or any unit with an attack value > 4. A good stack of cavalry needs at least 2-3 musketmen to fend off the inevitable counter cavalry attacked frequently launched by the AI.

[Arrian]

I like fast attack units. The faster the better.

Cavalry and Modern Armor are probably my favorite "stock" units. Though I do have a soft spot for the Battleship broadside.

As for UU's...

Riders are awesome, but I rarely play as China. Samurai are indeed great, and stand up to counterattack wonderfully. Plus they just look cool. It's hard to top the Panzer, for both utility and looks.

Though slow, the Immortal is a fantastic unit. I am generally biased against ancient era UU's because of the early golden age, though. Legionaries are the footslogger version of Samurai - solid on both offense and defense.

-Arrian

[Harovan]

Units with a movement of 2 or more. Horsemen, Knights, Cavalries, Tanks, MechInfs, Modern Armor. Appropriate UU's, like Jags or Impis.

[Dis]

settler: they allow me to win the game

[Tuberski]

Cavalry, I wiil try to wait on wars until I have them.

[Oncle Boris]

I just love knights, they look great, and their horses make big, deep, loud sounds with lots of bass, as opposed to the "light" and "coward" cavalry sound. Knight rules! Most of the time I don't upgrade them just to keep them all game long!

[Beren]

I would really love chariots, but too bad: they suck.

[Inverse Icarus]

i'm a big fan of jaguar warriors and riders

extra movement points are better than +1 attack/defence in my opinion

[kailhun]

Originally posted by Viseus
I'm sure this thread has been sufficently exhausted in the past, but I'm new here so bear with me.

What is your favorite Civ III unit, and why?

I'd have to say my absolute fave unit is the samurai.

I think samurai are too powerful. I never checked but it seems that they get too many bonuses.
It falls in line with the 'Aren't Samurai/Ninja great?'-attitude which I basically don't like. They're just people. One swift knee in the happy sacks and they go down like anyone else.

Oh, uh, favourite unit. Hm, I don't really have one. The one I use most is Cavalry. Swordsmen for the first wars, strengthened with knights after a while. Then when I get cavalry the real wars start. By the time tanks are developed the wars are really over. It's just mopping up and wiping out.
Although in the current game I will probably never reach that stage. AI agressive tech trading lead to my agressive build legionairs and kill, kill, kill attitude. Now only two civs are left. Neither of which is up to much tech developing and agressive trading isn't useful when there are only two of you .
I never concentrated on tech development or city development, just attack, attack, attack. My cavalry is poised to strike and tanks are a long way off.

Robert

[notyoueither]

Favorite Unit?

Three guesses. Any unit that doesn't begin with an L doesn't count.

[nato]

I used to go only for combined arms. My very first Apolyton post was a strategy section one describing my tactics ... all about keeping everything in a stack ... it was looooong.

I did this for a while, then I tried Cavalry. Amazing difference! I conquered so much faster than with combined arms.

So I have to vote for fast attacking units; and my favorite pick is still the Cavalry. They are so powerful ... yes it hurts losing them on defense, but they conquer so fast it makes up for it.

Now favorite based on coolness ... I think I would go for the Legions too (though a lot of UUs are cool)...

[Viseus]

Originally posted by kailhun
I think samurai are too powerful. I never checked but it seems that they get too many bonuses.

I may actually agree with you there. They allmost seem too strong. I think I'll try a game against the japanese next time, just to experience how that end of the katana feels. ( I'm scared )

It falls in line with the 'Aren't Samurai/Ninja great?'-attitude which I basically don't like. They're just people. One swift knee in the happy sacks and they go down like anyone else.

They have armor there!

Like Arrian, I too like fast units. In the early game I have to bring slow defenders along with my 2-move attackers, and that allmost defeats the purpose of fast units completely. Knights are capable of operating on their own though, and that makes warfare much faster and easier. You don't have to constantly adjust your defender/attacker production balance according to battlefield losses, because it's all just one type of unit.

Samurai are very much like knights. They operate in the same era, have the same attack and fast movement, and need iron. But samurai are just better. They don't need horses in the strategic resources, and they defend better. So while the knight rules the medieval battlefield, the samurai rules the knight.

Again; they should probably be diminished just a bit. When I fought a whole game allmost uniquely with samurai, I only lost 2 or 3 out of the 30+ I had in active service. Whenever one is losing against a fortified pikeman, he just pulls back and heals after one of his buddies successfully takes the city. And in a few turns, he'll be back in business. This constant survival makes them all elite pretty fast. And then I start getting armies. Hell, I didn't even need catapults. It's all just too good a deal, so maybe a reduced movement would be best in terms of game balance.

I see a lot of people go for cavalry, but they really do work better with some defensive support, don't they? At least bringing along a single defender capable of holding a city for a while once it's captured. I haven't really tried the cavalry much personally, since most of my games have ended with military victory by the time they appear, but their comparatively weak defense does look like an achilles heel to me.

[rpodos]

Immortals.

Attack = 4. Get them with Iron Working.

Highest relative strength, for the longest time, in the entire game.

Nothing else needs be said.

R

[WarpStorm]

ICBM

[GarethDaragon]

two words... panzers.

i'll admit i'm a civ newbie, and i just began my first regent level game last night (normally play warlord)... but the movement three panzers rock. nothing like being able to siege a city with multiple attacks per unit per turn.

actually i had enough of a tech lead that even though i COULD promote my panzers to modern armour, i chose not to since they were still sooooo dominate.

fun, fun, fun...

as for my regent game, i'm trying out the babs, since everyone seems to love them. bowmen seem cool for an early rush. we'll see

[godinex]

Samurai, explorers - helos.
Samurai great defense great attack. Explorer pillage oportunism, helos fast unexpected infantry attack and obviusly mi all time favorite artillery.

[Nym]

I usually use fast units for attacking (horsemen, cavalry, tank and armor), but I essentially play defensive/builder game (spearman, pikeman, musketeer, rifleman, infantry, mechanized infantry). I also use bombing units before attacking (catapult, canon, artillery especially, bomber). I rarely use naval unit (otherwise for discovering at the beginning). Even without Leo Workshop I try to maintain all my units up to date and I rarelly have ancient era units during industrial era.

But to choose one unit among the others I would say cavalry, probably because it's a very powerful unit when it appears and still remains powerful a long time.

[PatLasch]

I'd have to vote for the hoplite. They make winning occ games a possibility, since they can be built right away and they are solid against nearly anything until knights.

[petey]

I have to vote for the Mounted Warrior.

Gets you the movement and offense in the ancient age, and your army is upgradable all the way to calvalry.

Plus, as Iroquois, you almost always start next to the Americans who build a lot of cities and are weak in the ancient age, so you can conquer a lot of territory quickly to make up for the AI advantages on higher levels

[DrSpike]

War chariots. Cheap and available after 1 advance, both of which are critical for early game warmongering on the higher levels.

Second place knights (or knight based units). These represent a huge increase in offensive power when you get them, one that even on 1.17f lasts a while.

[Cyclotron]

Chariots look cool, but I always manage to get horse riding before I get horses, so I have never even see them on my build list...

My favorite is the Legion, because it combines the great attack of a swordsman with the defense of a pikeman (which is still a way advanced unit compared to the legion). Legions require no support units, whereas cav and knights need defenders to go with them.

Hoplites are also very nice, but because you don't "use" them so much as just fortify them, they are very good but not quite "cool".

[Kizami]

THE BATTLESHIP of course!!! It just looks cool! I still have yet to see a battleship vs. battleship however...

[Laertes]

The Privateer

On its own, a poxy unit, but a fleet (or fleets) of these wandering around the globe sinking everyone's caravels and galleons makes for a very pleasant diversion whilst my empire grows to a massive size.

[Seeker]

I liked Legions. Cheap, but good enough attack to overwhelm small numbers of Hoplites.

Obviously the somewhat BS Persian unit...

And the War Chariot can really rule if the enemy is without horses or cut off (For a while at least, and not against Greeks). And cheap too! You can make a whole lot of chariots pretty quickly.

[RedShark]

Artillery and lots of it. With loads of Artillery you can deal with anything. Just use a regular unit to pick off the remains. Also good for dealing with incoming ships offshore (including battleships).

Played a game when I was being constantly attacked, I barely lost any units over the whole game as all opposing forces had no stength left after the artillery had dealt with them.

However, need railroads for them to move around effectively.

Normal units has to be cavalry.....

[twistedx]

Originally posted by Kizami
THE BATTLESHIP of course!!! It just looks cool! I still have yet to see a battleship vs. battleship however...

I like the battleship also, but I don't find it all too useful since it's claim-to-fame is its bombardment. It'll be MUCH more useful when the next patch comes out that allows killing by bombardment.

-- twistedx

[Il Duce]

An improved calvary
Very Useful