Top 3 Best & Worst unique units

[Meat Machine]

Which unique units do you believe are the best and worst? Why?
Here's my assessment:

BEST
-Conquistador. Very powerful and mobile raiding unit in early Castle Age with few/no upgrades, and evolves into a fairly tanky combat unit later on.
-Huskarl. Fast-moving (for infantry), ignores damage from and slaughters ranged units, and can be pumped out extremely fast. A class of its own.
-Konnik. Powerful, versatile, and cannot be hard-countered by any single unit. Lots of upgrades in long matches, and easier to amass due to Kreposts.

WORST
-Elephant Archer. Extremely vulnerable to trash units and conversion; middling damage output, expensive, and slow. A cavalry archer, with none of the benefits of a cavalry archer.
-Imperial Skirmisher. A completely redundant alternative to Rattan Archers, the proper Vietnamese unique unit which does everything they do, better, and with none of the weaknesses.
-Boyar. Its defining strength (high melee armor) does little to mitigate the massive bonus damage from its main melee counters - Harberdiers and Heavy Camel Riders. Only particularly good against what is arguably the weakest unit class in the game: heavy infantry.

[Vonklyce]

Best:
-Mameluke, they can counter pretty much anything in equal numbers.
-Mangudai, viable in almost every situation and almost unstoppable in high numbers.
-Cataphract, they're fast, strong, counters melee and has bonus defenses against their natural counters.

Worst:
-Ballista Elephant, not very useful unless in a large group of 20+.
-Flaming Camel, basically just a big waste of resource and castle queue.
-Organ Gun, they seem to be a watered-down version of Conquistador and Janissary with a higher cost.

[ContrarianOrange]

Hera and TheViper made videos on this. I'm interested in how non-elite players view this topic.

[woodsmanac]

Imp skirms are amaze balls. And they are a team bonus.

[Orange Tabby]

you can counter konniks with teutonic knights tho

[ilam]

Can't believe Imp skirms is in the worst list lol. The best counter unit against archer in trash fight.

[Morvana]

For me there is only one unique unit which is useless: Ballista Elephant

They have ALL the defaults possible: -2 armor, no heresy,10 damages with full upgrades... (yes, you can have a secondary shot, but it's realy weak)

Sure, they can be good if you can mass them, but for the same cost you can have almost 2 army of better units...

There is only ONE situation were they can shine: against boat. They are realy strong against ships because they have a huge bonus damage against them and can tank the returning fire without any problem (huge pierce armor and NOT a boat = Galleons having some problems to kill them)
It's a shame their range is so bad... So this strengh can only be used on map with mixen terrains were their range wont be to big of a problem, if the enemy make boats...

[mickeyjim2]

I'd disagree with the Boyar in terms of the full Slav tech tree. Yes they still aren't great against halbs or camels but Slav halbs with their unique splash damage tech are easily the best halbs in the game when massed up, and massing halbs is pretty cheap and quick compared to most other units. So Slav halbs easily handle camels and other civ's halbs. The Boyar is an insane shock trooper that is incredibly hard to put down if your opponent isn't ready for it. Cavaliers, Keshiks, Konniks etc. all struggle against them and even Paladins have a harder time than usual.

By a similar token of considering a unique unit in the context of its civ's tech tree, the Jaguar Warrior is one that also doesn't get enough credit. People say they're too situational because they're only good against infantry, but they forget that the most common counter to Eagle Warriors is Champions. It can be quite difficult to take on an Aztec army of Eagles and Jaguar Warriors since they cover each others weaknesses.

[Matthew]

Why is Boyar on here?

Admittedly they are a tad lackluster as they are essentially a discount paladin which needs to be produced from a castle, but paladins aren't anywhere near the bottom of the list. Of course they are weak to halbs... if they weren't, you basically wouldn't be able to counter them.

Paladin upgrade cost = 1300F 750G

Elite Boyar upgrade cost = 1000F 600G

The comparison is even better if skipping cavalier (300F 300G), but that is situational as it is far easier to get stables mid game than a castle.

They have a slightly higher base gold cost, but if able to skip both cavalier and paladin upgrades, you'd need to train 90 Boyar to just break even on the gold cost. And that is 1500F saved in the process. Combined with Slavs farm bonus, the best in the game, and you simply have more raw resources available.

Use the extra resources on (cheaper) siege and AoE halbs to counter units Boyar are weak to.

[theworld]

Originally posted by mickeyjim2:

The Boyar is an insane shock trooper that is incredibly hard to put down if your opponent isn't ready for it.

Pray tell how an opponent would not be ready for a unit that can only be made in Castles?

The Boyar is an insane shock trooper that is incredibly hard to put down if your opponent isn't ready for it. Cavaliers, Keshiks, Konniks etc. all struggle against them and even Paladins have a harder time than usual.

Funny how you only list favorable cavalry matchups. Face Leitis or Mamelukes and die without a burial place. Even vs Kamayuks bonus armor is not good enough, will trade very poorly on gold.

[Meat Machine]

Originally posted by mickeyjim2:

It can be quite difficult to take on an Aztec army of Eagles and Jaguar Warriors since they cover each others weaknesses.

Heavy cavalry. Even light cavalry would trade decently against the two in a 1v1 to starve out gold. The Aztecs have the relic gold bonus to help with that, but this thread is indented to look at unique units on their own; not as a civilization strategy overview or match-up comparisons.

Jaguar Warriors are great against Goths, Vikings, and Japanese, but even the other two American civilizations have their own hard counter to Jaguar Warriors without cavalry in the form of Plumed Archers and Slingers (and their own health and armor boosted Eagle Warriors to the attack boosted Aztec ones).

I like Jaguar Warriors, but they're not especially powerful in post-Imperial Age, and don't often get to enjoy favorable engagements with their infantry bonus damage because it isn't often that most opponents will want throw infantry against Aztecs to begin with.

Originally posted by Matthew:

Why is Boyar on here?

The Boyar is very powerful and not very expensive to upgrade, but I listed them here because their hardened armor barely helps at all against the units that counter all cavalry already. Unlike the Cataphracts, which get a hidden bonus of nullifying 10 damage from anti-cavalry bonuses from pikes and camels, Boyars take the full bonus damage. That is 32 bonus damage from Halberdiers, and 18 bonus damage from Heavy Camels, which slice through the Boyar's maximum 9 armor very effectively.

Boyars trade very favorably against units that would normally be neutral trades (heavy cav vs. heavy cav), but as you mentioned before, with Druzhina Harberdiers of their own, neutral trades like that are kind of redundant.

Boyars are good mobile tanks and are powerful, but I don't quite see how they do much more than adequately supplement the Slav's excellent infantry and discounted, upgradable siege. They aren't weak, or even bad - just not particularly noteworthy compared to the more specialized unique units.

[theworld]

Originally posted by Vonklyce:

Best:
-Mameluke, they can counter pretty much anything in equal numbers.

Will die miserably vs anything with high piercing damage that is not Cav: ChuKoNu, Genoese Crossbowman, Heavy Scorpions from Khmer, Celts, Chinese, Longbowmen, Imperial Skirmishers, etc.

Ironically, Camels are good vs them as they deal no bonus damage to them. Berbers, Byzantines and especially Indians with Imperial Camels will ROFLSTOMP them.

-Cataphract, they're fast, strong, counters melee and has bonus defenses against their natural counters.

Dies miserably vs any archer civ, even vs Skirmishers in large numbers dies quite quickly. Also dies vs heavy Cavalry and cannot raid.

Worse still, this civ has a terrible economy and both the Elite upgrade and Logistica cost a fortune, making it the most expensive unit to upgrade in the entire game and without Elite Cataphract, just a normal 2-2 Cataphract is only slightly gold efficient vs fully upgraded Aztec Eagle Warrior and will die easily 1v1 vs Elite Teutonic Knight...

It will also die 1x1 vs Heavy Camel if not Elite!

But the most amusing thing is, it even dies to those units you've put as the Worst! Yes, it dies to Organ Guns, Ballista Elephants and Flaming Camels.

[mickeyjim2]

Originally posted by TheWorld:

Originally posted by mickeyjim2:

The Boyar is an insane shock trooper that is incredibly hard to put down if your opponent isn't ready for it.

Pray tell how an opponent would not be ready for a unit that can only be made in Castles?

The Boyar is an insane shock trooper that is incredibly hard to put down if your opponent isn't ready for it. Cavaliers, Keshiks, Konniks etc. all struggle against them and even Paladins have a harder time than usual.

Funny how you only list favorable cavalry matchups. Face Leitis or Mamelukes and die without a burial place. Even vs Kamayuks bonus armor is not good enough, will trade very poorly on gold.

No need to be so dissonant in your response. Obviously the Leitis will win - the Leitis is essentially the anti-Boyar, anti-Teutonic Knight Unit. I was comparing the Boyar to other common melee cavalry. Boyars are way better than cavaliers and can beat generic fully upgraded Paladins. Maybe they lose to Lithuanian Paladins with relics or the new Teuton +2 armour Paladins - haven't tried it in the scenario editor yet. They overpower Konniks, Cataphracts and Keshiks.

The Mameluke is good against every single cavalry unit in the game since they're a mobile, high damage ranged melee unit with an attack bonus vs cavalry.

Vs Kamayuks I would use Slav champions with their splash damage or go for the Slavs discounted heavy scorpions.

To use Boyars as a shock trooper you shouldn't open with them. When I play Slavs I go for siege and infantry and my opponent responds by building an army to counter that, usually archers or hand cannoneers and bombard cannons. When I get an opening in the fighting I can send in an army of Boyars that my opponent isn't ready for and go straight to sniping his TCs. This has been an effective tactic for me for several games now.

[theworld]

Originally posted by mickeyjim2:

The Mameluke is good against every single cavalry unit in the game since they're a mobile, high damage ranged melee unit with an attack bonus vs cavalry.

The Mameluke does no bonus damage vs Camels and will die vs them since the latter are faster and do bonus damage vs Mamelukes, see my previous comment.

It does even worse vs Berbers specifically, since they not only have cheaper Camels, but can also add Genitours, which are Cavalry but do bonus damage to Mamelukes as well, since the latter are also in the Archer armor class, and are a trash unit, while Mamelukes cost an insane amount of gold.

[mickeyjim2]

Originally posted by TheWorld:

Originally posted by mickeyjim2:

The Mameluke is good against every single cavalry unit in the game since they're a mobile, high damage ranged melee unit with an attack bonus vs cavalry.

The Mameluke does no bonus damage vs Camels and will die vs them since the latter are faster, see my previous comment.

It does even worse vs Berbers specifically, since they not only have cheaper Camels, but can also add Genitours, which are Cavalry but do bonus damage to Mamelukes as well, since the latter are also in the Archer armor class, and are a trash unit, while Mamelukes cost an insane amount of gold.

Why are Mamelukes classified as cavalry archers to begin with? Also Saracens have their own regular heavy camels with an HP boost if you need to fight enemy camels. They also have pikes which can work though they're missing the Halb upgrade.

[theworld]

Originally posted by mickeyjim2:

Why are Mamelukes classified as cavalry archers to begin with?

Brother, you're asking me, whom do I ask? I'm not the game designer of this game. I'm only discussing the interactions which are currently present, otherwise I'd be the first person to suggest that Byzantine Elite Cataphract upgrade and Logistica costs should be halved the very next patch.

Mamelukes aren't in the cavalry archer armor class, just regular archer armor class.

If they were, that'd be even worse, since they would take even more bonus damage and most notably they would drop like flies vs Camel Archers who are Camels (thus take no bonus from Mamelukes) and deal +4 (+6 Elite) bonus damage vs cavalry archer armor class units specifically.