What do you think are units which are not seen, as in not trained or should not be trained. Only in 1v1, arabia, Pure… pro… game… skynet level of micro.
I think War Elephants can only exist in team games. So, they are pretty much a F-grade unit in 1v1. Have nice stats, but just too costly without access to trade.
Flaming camels.
…
Turtle ships 
I know you said Arabia, but even if you hadn’t specified the map Turtle ships are still F-tier. For tanking they’re worse than fire-ships, and for spash damage they’re worse than demos. Koreans lack demos, but they’re still better of using fireships + galleys.
I did see pros use them on golden swamp once, because apparently they’re good against non-ship units and monks.
Turtle shios are the water elephants. When massed, they’re pretty much unstoppable
I have some experience stopping them…
The main trick is demos. Also fires. I think WE would be less unstoppable if exploding camels were generally available and strong enough to be viable against groups of 2 knights. Also Turtle ships are largely made of gold, whilst WE cost less gold than a knight.
If the opponent has massed 20 Turtle ships the chances are I’ve had a free fish boom, teched up to imp, and researched fast fire / heavy demo.
Jaguar warriors dont see much use. I think itd be fun to rework them as matching the speed of Eagles but having their HP reduced. It gives a mobile compliment to the Eagle raids.
Sadly, they might just turn into Shotels.
They do see use. It’s just that they’re very situational, because you only make them if your opponent is going mass infantry and you have multiple Castles (which doesn’t happen too often). But if those two requirements are fulfilled they are a very good unit.
And it’s absolutely fine for a unique unit to be a situational unit.
regarding War Elephant: I think the design just doesn’t fit AoE2. An extremely expensive, very high stat unit is probably impossible to balance. It will either be useless or oppressively good - and I prefer it being useless then (and it actually has some niche situations in teamgame super lategame - that’s 1/100 though).
To answer the question, I wouldn’t mention a UU but just generic units that lack too much upgrades. Stuff like Teutons cav archers, or Malay cavalier.
I’ve seen once in a while turtle ships used as a power spike in early castle. Since the African Kingdoms you no longer need a castle to unlock them, so as soon as you hit castle age you can produce a ship that destroys feudal ships easily.
Let me list them out yet again for all of you, so that the gross injustice meted out to these innocent and beautiful creatures is at least remembered, if only by a chosen few, for anything that is dead must have someone to mourn over them.
1. Steppe Lancers, AKA Stable Icons decorator
2. Cavalry Archers, AKA All-show-but-no-shot?
3. Hand Cannoneers, AKA “Ever been to university?”
4. War Elephants, AKA Fatty Dumbo Ballerinas
5. Cataphracts, AKA “I need XYZ”
6. Genoese Crossbowmen, AKA Shortbowmen?
7. Boyars, AKA “Moy-Mustache-drink-it’s-own-водка”
8. Genitours AKA All-run-but-no-hit?
9. Elephant Archers, AKA Dumbo Archers
10. Brand new Indian “Imperial” Camels AKA The Nerf-Hornet-Nest
11. Orjan Guns AKA ONE-PROJECTILE-TO-RULE-THEM-ALL
12. Missionaries, AKA “Relic?”
13. Mamelukes, AKA Foot Archer Cavalry???
14. Longbowmen, AKA Crossbowmen-from-a-Castle
15. Shotel Warriors, AKA Gold-Waster-Warrior
16. Gbetos, AKA Gold-Waster-Woman
17. Samurais, AKA The Last Samurai?
18. Siege Towers, AKA
19. Longswordsmen, AKA
20. Ballista Elephants, AKA Fusion…HAAAH!
21. Chatras Battle Elephants, AKA “You mean the Tusks hanging from my stable?”
22. Burmese Battle Elephants, AKA “Tankiest-Elephant”
23. Turtle Ships, AKA Turtler’s Ships
24. Teutonic Knights, AKA Vampire Bloodbags
25. Saracen “Camel civ” Camel Riders AKA Ship-in-a-desert?
26. Elite Conquistadors (only Elite) AKA Conquistadors???
27. Flaming Camels “April Fools anyone?”
28. Indian Battle Elephants "EXISTENCE DENIED. Please try again”
To you I can only say:
What is dead may never die. But only rises again, faster and stronger.
NOW BALANCE PLS.
The buffs that were given to some in this list, were clearly far too small to revive these near-extinct creatures, near-extinct to this day in competitive.
I cant understand that you ignore flaming camels, AKA the april fools units that is still in the game.
If you’re going to quote me, fully quote me or not at all. Reporting your post for falsehoods.
If you follow his quote you’ll clearly see i say gc in that same sentence, yet he cuts it off here.
Also. Many of those units don’t see play for reasons beyond the strength of the unit, but more due to the meta or there cost being prohibitive.
Anyone who has seen elephants massed knows how strong they are, its more of a problem of their insane cost
Longbows and cataphracts are very good units that just come out too late to matter.
The Longswordsmen sees plenty of use in certain matchups, and saw more use in kotd3 then a lot of units I can think of.
New imp camels is purely subjective and is his own opinion that it won’t see use. If this is allowed in his claims, why isn’t he complaining about leitis, which will only see use in imperial age against melee oriented civs?
Indian elephants dont even exist, and that isnt grounds for you to whine to balance a unit that doesnt exist.
Balance changes won’t make many of these units see use as most these aren’t seen due to the meta, not due to their strength. Its simply too fast for unique units. How often did you honestly see leitis in tournaments recently? And yet it’s not on his list of unseen units
Honestly these units were trading cost effectively even before the buff, people just don’t like suicide units.
Fine, I already explained it, but have to do it again since you decided to only quote a part of my sentence that arranges you.
You clearly have no clue of game design. You blindly take each unit in the game and expect all of them to be viable without even asking yourself the question of what makes a game fun.
One of the main reasons we’re still playing this game 20 years after, is not because this game has missionaries, samurais or camels. The main reason people play it, is because, after being “this game I played as a kid”, people realized that it had in fact the main qualities to be a competitive game, that is:
This game should be praised for having its most meta units being exactly that. Xbows, knights and mangonels, despite all stupid things you can say about them, these 3 units are already enough to have a triangle that is not only well balanced but also has interesting and subtle interactions. I’m simplifying to show the point, since there are in fact other units in castle age (monks, eagles, skirms, pikes), but with any of these 3 units, you have potential to make great play, and they feel satisfying to use, which is why you don’t see many people complaining.
The game does NOT need longswordsmen, war elephants or what other gameplay abomination you can think of. These units promote either randomness (you went for camels, the enemy went for archers, bad luck you lose !) or boring gameplay (elephants require no micro at all, you just spam them and pray).
If anything, units that are not-so-good gameplay wise being rarer means there is a novelty effect when you do use them or see them getting some play, which makes up for their flaws. For instance the hype was real when Viper produced a single war ele in HC3, or when he won with them in LilTrouble’s rigged showmatch.
How does one pro trolling with a unit (he admitted his only purpose with the war eles was to troll…) “makue up for their flaws”?
Because instead of potentially boring the audience, the novelty of seeing a rarely seen unit makes people hyped.
GC, Turtle Ships, Gbetos, Shotels, Jans, and Jags all buffed.
Leitis, Battle Elephants, and Kipchaks all nerfed.
The turtle ship and jaguar buff don’t look to me like they’ll have much impact, but I’ll be happy to be wrong.
Either way there’s slow but steady progress 
it makes them a good quick response unit. for the jags anyway. turtle ships? helps them get into the fight. speed boost will help.
I think they are pretty nice.
Jag buff means that you can actually build it reactivly. For a counter unit, that makes a huge difference.
Turtleships you never mass (and therefor never upgrade), you might get one in early castle age on hybrid maps - and now they are actually fast enough to hunt down infantry.
Is this the twilight zone? Or is it because its such an incredibly terrible unit that people have even forgotten to mention it…?
I present the ever so humble karambit
As much as we may like them how often are GC, condos and gbetos actually seen? Especially considering the fantastic pick rate of the italians by skynet players… Not saying these are necessarily f tier, but statistically speaking these fit the criteria?