Which is the strongest unit head-to-head?
Which is the strongest overall?
Head to head, Samurai should beat the others because they have Japanese 25% faster attacking infantry and a comparable bonus to Jaguars. Jags should beat TKs as well, but it may be a lot closer.
Jags are really really strong against only infantry, and are basically useless unless your opponent has strong infantry. Aztecs have great eagles and Champs (Longswords?) with garland wars, so Jags are in comparison much more niche.
Samurai have the niche bonus against UUs, but are created pretty quick and the 25% attack speed is no joke. Since theyāre better than most other civs champs already, and are a little faster, Samurai are worth going for in more situations than their bonus implies. Samurai out of the box require fewer expensive upgrades than champions and are better than longswords, so really you can use them at any point when youād want to use gold infantry. Also theyāre very stylish, and you get bonus clout for using them.
ETK are super duper strongā¦ if your enemy just patrols into them with only has melee units and are not Aztecs, Japanese, or Lithuanians. Like, the stats are ridiculous. They beat Elephants 1v1, they are created pretty fast, and they fire arrows and heal faster when theyāre garissoned (like all Teuton Infantry). In the situations where you can use them, they can be game ending like Paladins. Unlike Paladins, the number of things that can completely render ETK useless is much higher, including but not limited too: anything with range and anything faster than them. Essentially every unit in the game can just walk away from Teutonic Knights. Also, pretty much every horse in the game can run away from Teutonic Knights (the cavalry not the UU) because they lack husbandry. This means that Teutons really struggle in general against things that move fast or have rangeā¦ But when they work - they work. Buildings and farms canāt run away from ETK. Also, you get tons of style points for using them, and you instantly gain the respect of everybody around you.
TL;DR: Elite Teutonic Knights look great as they slow walk to their own or their enemiesā demise
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Are Jags really useless though? The seem like longswordsmen without the tedious upgrade path. Arenāt elite jags essentially equal to champions?
Donāt forget about berserkers, Iāve found they are actually more badass then samurai and more ways to upgrade them, with both vikings unique techs focused on upgrading them. And they are tanky, I think they are the best all around general purpose unit, not too weak against anything (except maybe hand cannoneers), they might be just as fast movement wise?
I can confirm that samurai > jags in fights vs each other, I had a game where that proved to clearly be the case.
The key with the ETKs are, you need another unit to ābaitā units into getting closeby. So, they are ideal to pair with siege weapons. The siege weapons act as bait and then you slaughter anything that gets near the siege with your knights. They are clearly designed that way, with the unique tech Ironclad. I have lots of fun playing with TKs and siege, those are some of the most epic gamesā¦
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Because jaguars take like 20 seconds to produce from a castle and is more expensive, itās more worth to use Aztecsā other options. Eagles are just so good that unless you specifically need anti-infantry or champ line units, you should probably just use eagle warriors. Yes, Jaguars probably are comparable to champions and require less tedious upgrades (and castle restricted), but you gotta compare them to eagles. Eagles are faster, have higher pierce armor, have bonuses vs monks and siege and are created from barracks. Why would you ever use jags? Well, to counter the units that counter eagles.
Jags arenāt useless, theyāre very useful in niche situations. Itās just that because of the other things Aztec have available, Jags are only worth it in that situation.
Zerks are really good. Chieftans is great and the health regen is very potent if youāre playing conservatively with your units.
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Iāve been thinking about this. Thatās why I made the thread.
Fully upgradedā¦
ETK have 21 attack, 13 melee armor, and 100 hit points.
ES have 16 attack, 4 melee armor, and 80 hit points. They have +12 attack again unique units and a +33% higher rate of attack.
EJW have 20 attack, 5 melee armor, and 75 hit points. They have +11 attack against infantry.
ETK vs ES
ETK does 17 damage to ES with each attack and so needs 5 hits to kill. ES does 15 damage with each attack and so needs 7 hits to kill. However with 33% higher attack rate, ES will make 7 attacks in 10.15 seconds while ETK makes 5 attacks in 10.15 seconds as well. Whoever happens to strike first will win so this one is literally 50-50. Taking cost into account, it isnāt even close and ES wins easily.
ETK vs EJW
ETK does 16 damage to EJW with each attack and so needs 5 hits to kill. EJW deals 18 damage to ETK with each attack and so needs 6 hits to kill. ETK wins this one but in terms of cost efficiency it loses out to the much cheaper EJW.
ES vs EJW
ES does 23 damage to EJW with each attack and so needs 4 hits to kill. EJW does 27 damage to ES with each attack and so needs 4 hits to kill. Given ESās higher rate of attack, it wins comfortably because it gets 4 hits in before the EJW can get even 3 in so it survives with 26 HP.
Berserkers are clearly weaker head-to-head than any of these three because they have only 18 attack FU and no extreme armour like ETK or bonuses against unit type. I also find their health regeneration somewhat overrated because infantry often dies in battle plus monks can heal all units and most armies in the Imperial Age would have them anyways.
Overall itās difficult to rank them as they have different uses. ETKās look insanely strong and they are if they get close but they will OFTEN die before they get close to enemy ranged units. You can carry them in rams but you can also carry EJW or ES in rams. EJW are somewhat lacking against non-infantry. Paladins let alone Caraphracts will own them hard. I like ES the best because their high attack rate is always useful and they are significantly tougher than generic civ champions against mounted and just about all unit types thanks to attacking faster.
And against cavalry units
I suggest including the pierce armor as well
Well I was only talking about armor in the context of head to head combat. But yes in a general comparison itās worth mentioning. ETK has +1 pierce armor compared to the other two units and more HP but itās also much slower so it will get hit a lot more before it closes in.
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The best part about jaguars is seeing the reaction from your opponent when you use them to counter their champions they made when you were raiding them with eagles. 
Thanks for the detailed comparison. Everything you said does sound true, however the berserker is a more useful unit because it is generally better against everything, which is what you are likely to encounter on the actual battlefield. Hardly anyone actually uses infantry, except to counter eagles, and even then they tend to prefer heavy cav. Even when your ES/ETK/EJW are fighting other infantry, they are likely to be encountering other units as well. The berserker combination of higher hit points, speed, armor, and most importantly, plus five attack vs cav via chieftains, make it more useful overall. After all the most common units you will encounter are crossbows and knights, for dealing with these berserkers are best.
That said, samurai have proven surprisingly useful, even against longbows, because if they ever get close (which can happen sometimes) they melt them like butter extremely fast and its awesome.
Plenty of civs in the game use infantry primarily Goths and Slavs. The chieftain bonus doesnāt help Berserks against those and they do worse than all three UUās in this thread. Even against knights I have doubts that they outperform Samurai who attack much faster. Their total damage output is comparable. Ditto for Eagles.
To be honest in terms of utility, Huskarls are probably the best infantry UU even though they arenāt that strong in melee. Their low cost, super fast creation, and immunity to arrow fire make the Goth flood pretty unstoppable in team games where the Goth player can build up their economic base.
But weāre kind of going off tangent hereā¦
ETK need a buff to speed. They are very infrequently used.
āEJW does 27 damage to ES with each attack and so needs 4 hits to kill.ā No, 27*3 = 81 > 80 Hp that ESams have. EJWs need only 3 hits to kill an ESam. The +1 Attack that EJWs got in some patch was actually a noticeable improvement.
If you ask me why I think EJWs are weak, itās because of their initial 17 sec train time. Itās hard to mass them with such a high train time, the longest of all Infantry UUs. ETKs train in 12 secs; ESams train in 8 secs.