Civilization V Analyst: Units

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*This page last updated: 28 April, 2012 19:55 PST.

General Notes

• Only one unit of each category (Military, Naval or Civilian) is allowed per hex.
• Air units are an exception to the one unit per hex rule. Aircraft and missiles can stack in a city (no limit) or on a Carrier (up to 3). Missiles can also stack on a Missile Cruiser (up to 3) or on a Nuclear Submarine (up to 2).
• Most land units have a movement range of at least 2 hexes per turn.
• Most units have a sight range of 2 hexes.
• Ranged units (including ships) can only used ranged attacks, and cannot melee attack (though they will defend if attacked).
• The bombardment range for ranged units is at least 2 hexes (some have longer ranges).
• Land units can now embark on water with the Embarkation promotion, attained with Optics.
• Military land units exert a 1-hex zone of control, which reduces adjacent enemy movement to 1 hex per turn. "If you move a unit from one tile adjacent to an enemy to another tile adjacent to that same enemy it uses up your turn, no matter how many movement points you have." - Jon Shafer
• Siege units have a +10% bonus attacking cities, but most must "set up" to fire first, and so can't move and fire in the same turn.
• Units can now be completely destroyed (or sunk) by a ranged attack (in previous games, bombardment could not reduce a unit below a certain percentage of health).
• Melee combat can now end in a "draw" if both units survive; it's no longer required that one of them dies.
• Cities can fight on their own, and have a Combat Strength. A unit can be garrisoned to increase the city's combat strength.
• A city can temporarily have both a unit garrisoned and also a regular unit stationed on the city tile at the same time; however, one of the units must leave the city before the player will be allowed to end the turn.
• Strategic resources such as Iron are now limited, and each unit that requires them will reduce the available pool.
• In addition to any resources they require, units also require maintenance in gold.
• There is now a hard cap on the number of units your empire can support. It is calculated as (Base Supply + Number of Cities + Number of Citizens). For Normal difficulty, Base Supply appears to be 5. So this number is fairly generous; Greg Laabs said the only time he has run up against this cap is when trying to build a large early army with only a single city.
• Some civilizations have a second Unique Unit instead of a Unique Building.
• Decommissioning units now refunds some gold, if done inside your borders.
• The Space Ship parts are actually units, because they need to be transported from the construction site to the launch site (and can therefore be intercepted by hostile forces).
• All units have 10 hit points. Most units have their effective Combat Strength decreased by half the percentage of damage taken.
• To heal damage, units must be inactive. Units heal 1 HP per turn outside empire borders, 2 HP per turn in friendly territory, and 3 HP per turn in a City. Naval units cannot heal outside friendly territory.
• +15% combat bonus for each friendly unit adjacent to the enemy ("Flanking"). Unit facing is irrelevant.
• +25% defensive bonus for rough terrain (hills, forest or jungle).
• -33% defensive penalty for open terrain (not hill, forest or jungle).
• -20% combat penalty for attacking across a river.
• +25-50% defensive bonus for unit Fortification. The fortifying unit gains +25% on the first turn, and +50% thereafter.
• +25% combat bonus for proximity to a Great General.
• +15% combat bonus for at least one adjacent friendly unit (with Discipline social policy).

Units Seen In-Game

Details about specific units have been split into era-specific sections; there you can find images and notes on each unit. Only units that have been identified through in-game evidence are listed in these sections. Other units enumerated in reviews or official lists that have not been verified as in-game are listed farther down the page.

(*UU - "Unique Unit"; a civilization-specific unit)

Special Units

Information on units that either can't be built by the player, or are handled in an unusual manner.

Great People

Great People are civilian units, and so can stack in the same hex with a military unit. If a hostile unit moves into the same hex as a Great Person, the Great Person is destroyed. 

Most Great People are generated by accumulating Great Person points. For all types except the Great General, GP points are generated by Wonders and by city Specialists. GP points are specific to a particular type, and these accumulate per city, and can be tracked as seen at right. The points for Great Generals are generated by victorious combat. The meter for tracking Great General points can be seen in the Military overview screen.

As in Civ IV, Great People can be sacrificed to trigger a Golden Age. Only one Great Person is required to do this; the number does not increase (as it did in Civ IV), but the length of each successive Golden Age triggered this way is reduced (though not below 3 turns).

Great General

Movement: 2; Strength: 0; Ranged Strength: 0
Notes: As before, Great Generals are produced when a civilization has repeated victories in combat. He can no longer join units as a Warlord (as in Civ IV), but his presence gives +25% combat bonus to friendly units within 2 tiles. He can sacrifice himself to create a Citadel (a super-Fort), or to trigger a Golden Age. The Citadel can only be built in your own territory (unlike a regular Fort, which can be built in unclaimed territory.

Great Engineer

Movement: 2; Strength: 0; Ranged Strength: 0
Notes: Can sacrifice himself to construct a Manufactory improvement, to hurry production of a unit, building or wonder, or trigger a Golden Age.

Great Artist

Movement: 2; Strength: 0; Ranged Strength: 0
Notes: Can sacrifice itself to construct a Landmark improvement, trigger a Golden Age, or "culture bomb" a tile within 1 space of your territory, putting that tile and all adjacent tiles into your territory. The Culture Bomb target tile cannot be in foreign territory, though it can be in unclaimed territory.

Great Merchant

Movement: 2; Strength: 0; Ranged Strength: 0
Notes: Can construct a Customs House improvement, conduct a Trade Mission (to a city-state), or trigger a Golden Age. The Trade Mission can be activated in the territory of any city-state (with which you are at peace), and by consuming the Great Merchant, will produce gold and increased influence with that city-state. Trade Missions can no longer be conducted with other civilizations.

Great Scientist

Movement: 2; Strength: 0; Ranged Strength: 0
Notes: Can construct the Academy improvement, or discover a Technology, or trigger a Golden Age. All these consume the unit. The technology can be chosen from a list of any technologies that you could normally research at that point.

Khan

Movement: 5; Strength: 0; Ranged Strength: 0
Notes: The Khan is a unique Mongolian version of the Great General. In addition to his increased speed, the Khan heals adjacent friendly units an additional +2HP per turn. The Khan uses the same icon as and is otherwise identical to a normal Great General.

Sea-Embarked Land Units

Movement: 2, 4, 6; Strength: 0; Ranged Strength: 0
Technology: Optics, Astronomy, Steam
Note: Land units can now embark on water, and take on the appearance and characteristics of a civilian transport. This means that dedicated transport units are gone from the game; land units themselves transform into a transport at the coast. Embarked transports are defenseless, and will be destroyed if a hostile naval unit enters the same tile. Embarked units CANNOT stack with military naval units. (the Songhai special ability gives transports the ability to defend themselves). The unit icon changes from a circle to a five-sided polygon, and while on the water it behaves as a civilian unit (so it can stack with a military escort vessel). The Embarkation promotion is given to all units with the discovery of Optics, but Embarked units have a move of 2 are limited to Coast tiles. Astronomy allows travel on Ocean tiles at increased speed to 4, and changes graphics to a galleon version. Steam further increases transport speed to 6, and changes the graphic to the modern transport form. Pictured below are the Optics, Astronomy and Steam representations of the Embarked form.

Some civilizations (notably Polynesia and Denmark) have custom graphics for their embarked form.

Unit Actions

Units have Actions (or Orders) that they can carry out. Some are universal to all units, and some are unit-specific. Many are dependent upon the current state of the unit.

Descriptions in parenthesis are my own explanations. Descriptions in quotes are taken verbatim from the game UI.

Move (M)

(Move the unit to the target hex.)

Skip Turn (spacebar)

(Do nothing. The unit will awake and ask for orders the next turn.)

Wake

Wake up the sleeping unit.

Sleep (F)

"Order the Unit to remain inactive until the player provides it new orders." (Available for units that cannot Fortify.)

Alert (A)

"Order the unit to remain in the current tile and sleep until it sees an enemy, The unit receives a defensive bonus (+25%)."

Fortify (F)

"The Unit remains inactive until the player provides it new orders. The unit receives a defensive bonus (+25%)."

Attack (Ctrl-A)

(Attempt to move into the target hex and attack the enemy unit there.)

Ranged Attack (S)

(Use a ranged attack on the target hex.)

Pillage

(Pillage the improvement in the current hex.)

Garrison

"Garrison a unit in this city, improving its Combat Strength. This option will only appear if a unit is occupying the same tile as a city."

Embark Mode (B)

"Order the Unit to move from the land to the water." (It appears that any unit on the coast can do this. When a land unit Embarks, the unit icon changes to a five-sided home-plate shaped polygon.)

Fortify Until Healed (H)

"The unit remains inactive until it heals back to full strength. The unit receives a defensive bonus (+25%) and heals 1 HP per turn."

Upgrade (U)

(Upgrade a unit to a more advanced unit, spending gold. In one example, the cost was 110 gold to upgrade a Warrior to a Swordsman.)

Set Up For Ranged Attack (S)

"Required before this unit can Range Attack." (For Siege weapons.)

Start Golden Age

"This order will consume the Great Person and initiate a Gold Age for 8 turns. Golden Ages give extra Production and Gold for the period they are active."

Conduct Trade Mission

"If the unit is inside a City-State's territory, this order will have a Great Merchant conduct a trade mission, giving you a large amount of Gold and improving relations with the City-State. It consumes the Great Person."

Found City (B)

"This order causes the Settler to found a city in its current location. The Settler is consumed in the process."

Rebase

"Order the Air unit to rebase to a different city."

Intercept

This order will instruct the unit to attempt an interception with any incoming air attacks and neutralize them.

Disembark

Unload the unit from the boat back on to a land tile.

Nuke

Launches a nuclear weapon at the chosen tile. The target and all surrounding tiles in the radius of the weapon will receive massive damage.

Paradrop

Order the unit to paradrop to the specified location. This mission is subject to interception.

Air Sweep

Order the air unit to attack enemy units in the selected tile.

Discover Tech

This will have the Great Person help research a new technology. It consumes the Great Person.

Hurry Production

This order will hurry production on the city's current Wonder-building effort. It consumes the Great Person.

Build Spaceship

Contribute a part to the Alpha Centauri Spaceship. The unit will be consumed and must be in your Capital City to use this.

Culture Bomb

This order will consume the Great Artist and make the tile this unit is on, as well as all adjacent tiles, become part of your borders, even if they belong to another player.

Secondary Action Bar

This bar appears to contain lesser-used commands. It can be opened and closed with the button shown below.

(Open Secondary Action Bar)

"Reveals additional actions your Unit may perform."

Explore (Automated) (E)

"Order the unit to explore uncharted regions of the map. This unit will continue to move every turn until you cancel its automation.

Delete (delete key)

"Permanently delete the active unit and receive a small amount of gold in return."

Build Actions

Some units (such as Workers) have a separate Build Actions bar, which they can use to build Tile Improvements. For a list of buildable items, see the Tile Improvements section.

Build Citadel (C)

"This order will consume the Great General and construct a citadel improvement on the current tile."

Unit Promotions

Promotions and attributes have been moved to their own page.

AWOL from Civ IV

The following is a list of units from Civ IV that did not make a return in Civ V.

Galley, Galleon, Transport: Because of the new ability for land units to transform into naval transport units, non-military naval transports are no longer necessary. There are however equivalent age-specific embarked graphics that look the part.
Elephant: Though there is still the Ivory resource and several elephant-based Unique Units, there is no standard Elephant unit in Civ V.
Axemen: The new stack-less combat system no longer requires a city attack or anti-melee niche, so Spearmen appear to be the only Bronze-Age unit, and Swordsmen take over the regular ancient infantry slot.
Longbowmen: Longbows are now an English unique unit, and not a regular unit. Crossbowmen are now the only regular Medieval archery unit (though there also a few civilization-specific mounted archery units).
Ship of the Line: Also now an English unique unit. The only regular Renaissance military naval units are the Frigate and Caravel.
Marine: With the universal ability of every land unit to embark on water, a specialized Marine is not needed and has evidently been dropped. There is still an Amphibious promotion that removes the normal penalty for attacking from the sea or across a river.
Spy: Espionage does not appear to be in the game.
Airship: Gone, and I'm glad... this was a really dumb, unrealistic unit. Renaissance-era zeppelins... right.
Grenadiers: As with the anti-melee units, anti-Rifleman specialists aren't needed in the no-stacking system.
Machine Gun: Nope.
Privateer: Non.
Stealth Destroyer: Nein.
ICBM: The new "Nuclear Missile" is actually a short-range tactical nuke; there is not a long-range nuclear missile in the game, which is puzzling.
Missionaries, Great Prophets: Obsolete with the removal of Religions.
Corporate Executives: Obsolete with the removal of Corporations.

Page by Arioch. Last updated: 28 April, 2012 19:55 PST
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