I think I will angry a lot of low elo legends but I think the absolute worst UU is the Teutonic Knight. Second could be the Elephant Archer but this one isn’t that bad on its own, it’s just very expensive and difficult to mass. But once you get going the elephants the snowball effect hits very hard, if it ever happens. At least Elephant Archers have a high survivability for a ranged unit.
Teutonic Knights on the other hand, they are terribly slow, and due to that they get destroyed by ranged units, which doesn’t make up for the food cost. A few below your castle might save you, but that’s it, you won’t go anywhere with them, and massing TK is like asking for disaster to happen. And now that Teutons have that melee armor bonus, there’s one less reason to use TK.
Best would be Longbowmen, which are scary broken if massed up. Huskies and Konniks are both super important to their respective civilizations’ army composition, but both can be produced at buildings other than the Castle.
Tarkans have very little purpose because Huns are already a Paladin civ. Elephant Archers don’t fit well into the Indians’ tech tree when they already have better Hand Cannoneers; they should be changed into a future Tamils civ’s unique unit while the vanilla Indians get something that better compliments their Camels and gunpowder, i.e., a Flail Elephant.
Throwing Axemen have horrible frame delay, and they’re already pretty fail and have poor range, making them very difficult to use alongside Frankish Paladins. Hand Cannoneers seem like a better anti-Halb option for Franks.
Persian War Elephants cost an insane 200 food and are so easily converted against you due to no Heresy and still being horribly slow even after Mahouts. Khmer and Burmese Battle Elephants are far more worthwhile. As Persians, your best meat shield is FU Paladins.
they’re faster than champs(and thus even faster than HC), and if you’re fighting archers with TA, then yes they are frail, but everything else they are as strong as champs, HC need to be screened due to their fragility whereas TA dont need to… and finally, they’re a fraction the price of HC and can be massed before imperial/chemstry… not saying they’re amazing, but they certainly can do a job…
Best: Mangudai, followed by War Wagons, Rattan Archers, and Camel Archers to counter Mangudai.
Worst: Ballista Elephants, now that Elephant Archers have gotten buffs, Ballistas were left behind.
No surprise here in both categories: Mangudai get the most votes for best unit followed by the Magyar Huszar, Elephant Archers for worst one with the Teutonic Knight not that far behind.
The Flaming Camel, the special unit of Tatars, is the worst and the best of special units at the same time. Worst because it’s very expensive and completely useless and best for the fun of it, it’s funnier even than the Bulgarian Monk!
Teutonic knight is now fairly good vs non-archer/cannoneers civs. Speed increased to 0.8 so it required lots of archer micro. if the teutonic knight numbers become high, it will be quite difficult
Mangudai need a nerf against trebs, Jags probably need a slight speed boost to make them a more efficient counter and less bad against literally everything else.
ballista elephants have a gimmick usage for cutting on hideout and other maps with woodline walls, and they aren’t too bad massed. Elephant archers (elephants in general) are pop efficient units that can see use in rich eco situations. Jaguars are not pop efficient, cost efficient, or have a specific use case where they’re important. Jags are just terrible. You won’t use them even if you were absolutely loaded, you’d rather go into siege. When you’re short on gold they’re even worse. Without a doubt, the weakest infantry UU in the game, and Infantry UU’s are generally pretty bad.
12 is not a huge dmg (12-7=5 180/5=36 arrow shot to kill only 1 paladin…) compared with 18 conqs 17 hcs 21 brg Hcs and 22 Turks…
Getting in choke points with such fragile unit is worst thing u need to get.(skirmishers,Cannons,SiegeOnager shots etc…)
Overally Mangudais never good or decent against Paladins its out of their reach dude.
U can only beat paladins with mangus if only palas were used by AI or biggest noob in this game.
