What Do You Think Is The Best Unit Ingame? (Or Units)

[Huffman3829]

Personally, I believe the Celtic Chariot is the best in terms of raw power, but aren't good in the frontlines. They should be used as heavy support for, say, Brythonic Champions. Other than that, the Spartiate Champion. Best infantry.

Everyone who views this post, please give me a unit or two. Even a list if you like.

[the-x]

I have done a lot of balancing for that question :-) actually there is no single one.

For example speer or bow alone have no chance, if you go for example full bow in a game, it always loses against good mixes, cause the pike absord damage. Which is a good thing compared to other strategy games.

[Player of 0AD]

The Britannic chariot cant be the best unit, because the Iberian champ cav is identical but it has additional fire damage. I'd say they are the best non-hero unit.  Cav champs seem to be better than inf champs.

[Lion.Kanzen]

Consular cavalry.

 

The most destructive unit in the game are the Rams.

[Freagarach]

The P-51 Mustang.

[ChronA]

11 minutes ago, Lion.Kanzen said:

The most destructive unit in the game are the Rams.

This is the correct answer. Rams, Siege Towers, and perhaps Elephants are the only units is the game that can really be described as decisive in combat from what I've seen. That's not to say they are without counters, but unless they are countered they will be effective at changing the outcome of a battle. Everything else is just indistinct canon fodder; whoever can produce more or marginally better canon fodder wins. There's no fundamental differences in tactics.

[Nullus]

Elephants are probably the most versatile units; they're fairly good against buildings, spearmen, pikes, swords, and seige.

[LetswaveaBook]

I think it goes to the ladies: Women are the best unit. Have you ever seen someone win without women?

I saw a lot of strong units being mentioned. About ranged champions, I think it is worth adding that they have better accuracy. Where a CS archer might hit about 30% of their shots at full range, champion archers land all of theirs. I want to add another unit to the list: The Chariot archer. A relatively small group of them can occupy a far larger force of CS infantry.

 

[Lion.Kanzen]

1 hour ago, Freagarach said:

The P-51 Mustang.

Wait to see the cheat units. That is going to be scandalous. When you see the spider-egg destroying everything.

[LetswaveaBook]

35 minutes ago, Lion.Kanzen said:

Wait to see the cheat units. That is going to be scandalous. When you see the spider-egg destroying everything.

Oh that wouldn't change much. The Germans call a chariot all ready a kar so that is pretty close to a car.

[Gurken Khan]

1 hour ago, LetswaveaBook said:

The Germans call a chariot all ready a kar

You might wanna check your sources for that. I've been German all my life and never heard of a 'Kar'. We got 'Karren', but that's something you put behind oxen. Chariot would be Streitwagen. (Just checking I found out there actually is a geological term 'Kar' meaning 'cirque'.)

 

Edit: Come to think of it, we have 'Karre', which is a colloquial term for a car...

Edited October 29, 2021 by Gurken Khan

[BreakfastBurrito_007]

8 hours ago, Freagarach said:

The P-51 Mustang

That is an interesting way to spell "carthaginian merc cav"

But seriously best units for general winning-

1. pikemen (when in combination with other ranged units)
2. merc swordcav
3. iber champ cavalry
4. consular bodyguard

the bottom three are considerably more overpowered, but they are less universal and or require an economic process to reach. 

[wowgetoffyourcellphone]

6 hours ago, BreakfastBurrito_007 said:

1. consular bodyguard

This may be because it is the only "Champion Cavalry Swordsman" in the base game. The parent template may need a small nerf.

 

6 hours ago, BreakfastBurrito_007 said:

• iber champ cavalry

A small reduction in Pierce attack to make it less effective against units, while maintaining its effectiveness against buildings?

 

6 hours ago, BreakfastBurrito_007 said:

• pikemen (when in combination with other ranged units)

I think as long as a unit type can't be used exclusively and requires some kind of backup, then its strength can be justified. 

 

6 hours ago, BreakfastBurrito_007 said:

• merc swordcav

Them cav swords again...

[Elena]

In my opinion, the Skiritai Commandos of the Spartans are the 'best' units, for the following reasons:

• They do not cost ridiculous amounts of resources like elephants so that you are always able to afford quite a few of them. 
• They are significantly stronger in attack than other citizen-infantry and have more health than them. On top of that, they are able to work for your economic boom between battles, unlike the mercenary units. 
• They walk as fast as archers and  are more durable than pikemen.  
• If you have a large number (more than 40) of Skiritai Commandos, you can use them as siege weapons. They are quite resistant to arrows from fortresses or towers. 
• They do not need special buildings or expensive technology to unlock and train. You can mass produce them from barracks. 

 

In a unit vs unit battle, they will certainly lose to champion units and hero units.  However, considering the cost-effectiveness, they are excellent. 

[LetswaveaBook]

53 minutes ago, Elena said:

In my opinion, the Skiritai Commandos of the Spartans are the 'best' units, for the following reasons:

• They do not cost ridiculous amounts of resources like elephants so that you are always able to afford quite a few of them. 
• They are significantly stronger in attack than other citizen-infantry and have more health than them. On top of that, they are able to work for your economic boom between battles, unlike the mercenary units. 
• They walk as fast as archers and  are more durable than pikemen.  
• If you have a large number (more than 40) of Skiritai Commandos, you can use them as siege weapons. They are quite resistant to arrows from fortresses or towers. 
• They do not need special buildings or expensive technology to unlock and train. You can mass produce them from barracks. 

 

In a unit vs unit battle, they will certainly lose to champion units and hero units.  However, considering the cost-effectiveness, they are excellent. 

I prefer mercenary swordsman, costing only 60 resources instead of 125. They might not be able to gather resources, but construction and repair duty also needs to happen.

[Elena]

4 hours ago, LetswaveaBook said:

I prefer mercenary swordsman, costing only 60 resources instead of 125. They might not be able to gather resources, but construction and repair duty also needs to happen

Are mercenary swordsmen as strong as Skiritai Commandos?

I think metal is more significant than other resources, because it is harder to procure. Therefore when counting 'total resources', we should take a weighted total instead of summing them up directly, and the weight of each resource should be dependent on map. However, I do agree with you that mercenary units are significantly more cost effective than citizen units if you have enough metal.  

[Player of 0AD]

3 hours ago, Elena said:

Are mercenary swordsmen as strong as Skiritai Commandos?

 

Not if they are basic rank, no.

[a 0ad player]

best: spearmen

most op: iber fire cav

[Elena]

12 minutes ago, a 0ad player said:

most op: iber fire cav

I agree. They taught me a lesson. 

[BreakfastBurrito_007]

15 hours ago, wowgetoffyourcellphone said:

This may be because it is the only "Champion Cavalry Swordsman" in the base game. The parent template may need a small nerf

I think since it has better armor and better attack it is quite op. It has substantially more armor than any other cavalry unit. Only the seleucid +2 armor (hero) boosted champion cavalry can equal them, and that is without a roman cav hero. I think it would be best to reduce champion swordcav armor to below that of champion spearcavalry, and leave their attack damage the way it is in a25

15 hours ago, wowgetoffyourcellphone said:

A small reduction in Pierce attack to make it less effective against units, while maintaining its effectiveness against buildings?

I am not sure about this one yet, right now I am more in support of reducing pierce armor and/or travel speed by a level to make them more vulnerable. I think a better way to reduce damage would be eliminating fire damage to units.

15 hours ago, wowgetoffyourcellphone said:

I think as long as a unit type can't be used exclusively and requires some kind of backup, then its strength can be justified.

It is true, players with pikemen do not always win, but they do have a huge advantage over those with spears. Most frustrating is that 10-15 pikemen can make 50+  ranged units invulnerable for as long as there are pikes. I think we need to break the "melee units die first" forced fighting trend by adding attack-ground or attack area, I think pikes would still be quite powerful after this is added, but players would have more ways of working around them, and also battles would be more interesting overall, with no one class of unit necessarily dying first. I am trying to test the attack-ground thing this weekend, but to be honest I have no idea how to do that.

[wowgetoffyourcellphone]

8 minutes ago, BreakfastBurrito_007 said:

It is true, players with pikemen do not always win, but they do have a huge advantage over those with spears. Most frustrating is that 10-15 pikemen can make 50+  ranged units invulnerable for as long as there are pikes. I think we need to break the "melee units die first" forced fighting trend by adding attack-ground or attack area, I think pikes would still be quite powerful after this is added, but players would have more ways of working around them, and also battles would be more interesting overall, with no one class of unit necessarily dying first. I am trying to test the attack-ground thing this weekend, but to be honest I have no idea how to do that.

Agreed wholeheartedly. In addition to "Attack Ground" I would like an "Attack Group" option that keeps your units attacking the enemy units you've selected within a radius, so that if they move around they're still targeted. "Attack Ground" would leave your troops shooting at an empty space if the enemy soldiers moved out of the area.

The only other option is to boost the pierce resistance of all melee troops, which will have unintended knock-on effects.

Edited October 31, 2021 by wowgetoffyourcellphone

[BreakfastBurrito_007]

15 hours ago, wowgetoffyourcellphone said:

Agreed wholeheartedly. In addition to "Attack Ground" I would like an "Attack Group" option that keeps your units attacking the enemy units you've selected within a radius, so that if they move around they're still targeted. "Attack Ground" would leave your troops shooting at an empty space if the enemy soldiers moved out of the area.

 

My only concern with the "attack-group" option is that it could make it too east to ignore pikemen in that group, I want to allow the other player to do some kind of micro to try to avoid it. For example, if you used attack group your enemy would continue to have his pikemen be ignored even after they are mixed back into the army, which would be quite frustrating. I think it is ok if attack-ground can result in the ranged units shooting at nothing, because in a big battle, when this feature would be most useful, the player is already watching, making sure they are not losing too many units/ responding to enemy battle tactics.

@wowgetoffyourcellphone do you know how I could test that bit of code that already exists for attack-ground? I have no idea how. If @real_tabasco_sauce and I were able to each get it to work, we could test it in different larger scale scenarios to see if it is useful, behaves as expected, or helps unit balance. While AoE4 has almost no battle behavior optimization to be done by the player, 0ad could improve in that area.

[real_tabasco_sauce]

CS:

Best: Pikers

Worst: archies

Champ:

best: Iber fire machines

worst: athens city guard

(I think athenians needs a bit of a rework in general tbh)

 

[wowgetoffyourcellphone]

1 hour ago, BreakfastBurrito_007 said:

My only concern with the "attack-group" option is that it could make it too east to ignore pikemen in that group, I want to allow the other player to do some kind of micro to try to avoid it. For example, if you used attack group your enemy would continue to have his pikemen be ignored even after they are mixed back into the army, which would be quite frustrating

It could be a timed thing, so micro isn't completely eliminated. Perhaps 20 seconds. After that time, they go back to targeting nearest enemy.

Edited October 31, 2021 by wowgetoffyourcellphone

[alre]

17 hours ago, BreakfastBurrito_007 said:

My only concern with the "attack-group" option is that it could make it too east to ignore pikemen in that group, I want to allow the other player to do some kind of micro to try to avoid it. For example, if you used attack group your enemy would continue to have his pikemen be ignored even after they are mixed back into the army, which would be quite frustrating. I think it is ok if attack-ground can result in the ranged units shooting at nothing, because in a big battle, when this feature would be most useful, the player is already watching, making sure they are not losing too many units/ responding to enemy battle tactics.

@wowgetoffyourcellphone do you know how I could test that bit of code that already exists for attack-ground? I have no idea how. If @real_tabasco_sauce and I were able to each get it to work, we could test it in different larger scale scenarios to see if it is useful, behaves as expected, or helps unit balance. While AoE4 has almost no battle behavior optimization to be done by the player, 0ad could improve in that area.

logically, to avoid people shooting missiles at you, you would go hide, or just attack them. It doesn't sound to me like a fun game one where people has to attack ground instead of targeting enemy units, and they can just move to avoid your fire because your men are too dumb to keep targeting them. It sounds lame and mechanical.