I don't take advantage of promotion options...

[Ming]

I thought drill wasn't acurately included in the odds that are provided.

[Theben]

You talked about drill being a force multiplier; well, it happens that those work better the more force you have (this is why also why Samurai are so crazy with CR, and why Chu-ko-nu are generally worse than one would think). Drill loses a lot of its effectiveness if the driller has less str in combat than the enemy unit as the possible drill hits hit more seldom and take smaller hp chunks. You cannot possibly want pure drillers over pure CGers in a straight-up fight against CR Maces.

IF you are fighting a force that has a much higher overall strength than your defender chances are you'll lose anyway, drill or otherwise. So while true, this is irrelevant to the discussion.

A quick WorldBuilder proof states that a Longbow defending (no hill, no fort bonus, no culture) has better chances against a CR2 Mace with CG3 (75%) than CG2 Drill 4 (63%), that is, 3 promos vs 6. Just having CG1 also gives better chances than having Drill1-3. Granted, not the optimal Drill situation but illustrates quite well its relative uselessness in a normal defending situation with no mass siege involved.

Excuse me, but that's far from a "normal" defending situation. No fortification? No culture without mass siege? Are you kidding me?

Let's try a "normal" situation involving a CR II maceman vs a 2 promotion longbow with +25% fortification, +25% unit city bonus, and +50% walls/culture or no walls/culture, on flat land. The maceman has a 12.4 offense. The defender has either a 9 defense (no walls) or 12 (walls). Add in CD II and you have +45% DEF, which becomes 11.7 defense (no walls) or 14.7 (walls)... which becomes either a 52% or 46% chance of victory for the maceman- not including 1st strikes OR any likely damage from siege if there isn't any wall/cultural defense. Without CD it changes to a 58% (9) or 51% (12) chance of victory... with 1-2 more 1st strike chances. Of course Drill III and especially IV is when drill really shines.

And let's not forget Drill, unlike CD, can be used for offense. There may be a time when you will want to have your longbow/rifleman attack out from the city and then you'll wish you had picked Drill instead of City Defense.

[slnz]

I cba'd to wait for fort bonus, hence I gave both CG2 as you might notice. You can regard the situation as there being a fort bonus and take away the CG2 for both parties. Hence I find your percentages in contradiction with my test. How did you end up with those numbers? Did you actually test or did you just calculate, for example, 12.4/(11.7+12.4)? (Side note: CRII Mace has 11.6 strength when attacking a city, maybe you're thinking about Berserkers?)
This is obviously not the case as the scales are hugely tilted in the favor of the more strong one (better chance to hit, more damage when hit lands).

Of course, I didn't even include the main problem with Drill: Almost all mounted units, which the AI usually massively favors, are totally immune to first strikes, which is a huge problem both in defensive and offensive use. I also consider the steep promotion quality rise a big minus (DrillIV gives 3x what DrillII gives), as the majority of troops never reaches level 5 in normal circumstances.

I have sometimes heard about First Strikes not calculated properly in the odds screen; as they are counted somehow (they change the odds) I'd like to see the basis for this statement. Can someone point me to some thread/article that discusses this in more depth, preferably with quantifiable proof?

[TriMiro]

There were some discussions about Drill being counted. Mathematically it isn't hard to count and some people said that the BtS code did count first strikes into the odds (accurately). Maybe it wasn't counted in previous version,k but I am sure it is counted in BtS.

Another advantage of Drill. If you fight against a siege weapon (i.e Catapult), you may be able to destroy it before it gets to do any damage and hence there is no collateral damage altogether. Actually Drill indirectly reduces collateral damage for all units in your stack.

Drill alone cannot save you. But it is very powerful when combined with other useful promotions.

[Theben]

I cba'd to wait for fort bonus, hence I gave both CG2 as you might notice. You can regard the situation as there being a fort bonus and take away the CG2 for both parties. Hence I find your percentages in contradiction with my test. How did you end up with those numbers? Did you actually test or did you just calculate, for example, 12.4/(11.7+12.4)? (Side note: CRII Mace has 11.6 strength when attacking a city, maybe you're thinking about Berserkers?)

As I didn't have the game in front of me at the time I had to calculate and rely on memory. Yes I erroneously added a 10% city attack only available to Beserkers. Doesn't change the gist of my argument (in reality a weaker ATT strength further favors Drill defense).

The calculation is based off how Firaxis used to determine combat results in previous games- again, b/c I didn't have a computer available at the time. Please disregard my calculations. I did test later (below).

Of course, I didn't even include the main problem with Drill: Almost all mounted units, which the AI usually massively favors, are totally immune to first strikes, which is a huge problem both in defensive and offensive use.

This is the job of spearmen/pikemen/riflemen. You shouldn't rely solely on 1 type of defender and I think most people here know that. I also didn't include crossbows here and generally I would use them vs melee city raiders like maces, which would again favor Drill in most cases.

EDIT: I should also mention that Drill, like Combat, opens up lines of promotion such as shock and formation. City garrison does not.

I also consider the steep promotion quality rise a big minus (DrillIV gives 3x what DrillII gives), as the majority of troops never reaches level 5 in normal circumstances.

I confess to playing a lot of Protective civs and perhaps that has biased my thinking. Still I would prefer Drill for its benefits over CG as CG-promoted units are not offensively capable, which can be an occasional issue if you want to attack out of a city to remove marauders and stragglers. Even a Drill II unit has collateral resistance and one guaranteed 1st strike attempt.

I have sometimes heard about First Strikes not calculated properly in the odds screen; as they are counted somehow (they change the odds) I'd like to see the basis for this statement. Can someone point me to some thread/article that discusses this in more depth, preferably with quantifiable proof?

I think the formula calculates off an average of the # of 1st strikes expected. Anyway I ran a short test, with 8 CR II macemen vs 4 CG III + shock longbows behind city walls and 4 Drill IV longbows behind city walls. The different longbows types in different cities each vs 4 maces.

The odds calculated vs the CGer were 1.9% victory for the macemen. The odds for the drill targets were 28.8%.

Results vs Drill IV targets: 2 undamaged, 1 left at 4.8 strength, 1 at 3.6.

vs CG+shock: 1 undamaged, 1 at 5.1, 1 at 4.2, 1 at 1.5.

Now I realize this is a small sample but I still think there would be a trend towards more damage on the Drill targets if the odds were reflected accurately. Also Drill IV is hard to reach for non-protective civs and perhaps giving both sets of bows shock (to simulate fortifying) and dropping to Drill III would be more even. If anyone wants to do a more thorough test feel free to post it.

[Theben]

Perhaps I didn't make my initial point clear enough: When I promote Drill units I start with the assumption that other factors such as walls, culture, fortifying, starting unit bonuses, and/or terrain will increase the defender's strength to roughly equal or better than that of the attacker. This will allow drill to damage/destroy attacking units with 1st strikes, enabling them to remain at high strength. In the rare case that this scenario doesn't arise it's inevitably due to siege weapons destroying my wall/culture bonus and the city is on flat land (in which case I still have +50% from unit defense and fortify). In such cases I can also be assured of the enemy causing moderate to severe collateral damage which will require drill defenders to counter.

Finally after the enemy has been repulsed I can send out Drill 'defenders' on offensive cleanup duty.

[rah]

My problem with city garrison is that i rarely let an AI attack my cities. Unless I've misjudged and am completely outclasses, I'm attacking out at the SOD next to my city. I prefer to not let the opponent use their seige weapons. Especially when a few seige attacking out to weaken and then mounted units to eliminate every seige engine in the attacking force.
I want my promotions to be usable when attacking.

[slnz]

My aversion towards Drill does indeed stem from the fact that it gives horrible odds when compared to the odds given by CG/Gue. My observations in-game have seemed to support this but it could well be cognitive bias (expect something to happen, and you see it happen regardless of whether it actually happens). If the odds are largely miscalculated then perhaps I should reconsider my attitudes. Though I strongly doubt that they could mess up such an obvious and simple thing so badly.

By the way, the situation where multiple enemy units attack you through walls and culture without bombarding is very rare (except before cats, but we seem to be talking about Longbows mainly), and even if it happens, any unit is an ample defender with so many bonuses and there's no need for specialization. An exception are those random solo raiding mounted units the AI sends, which are usually immune to FS.

Rah's argument is actually the same that I used against Drill. If you are not gonna get blasted with mass siege, you're better off with combat promotions for attacking units and skip extraneous Driller archer/gunners altogether. City Garrison is used for, well, garrison units to fight small pillaging parties and wandering mounted units (the AI just loves to harass those inland cities with mounted units), and to protect newly conquered cities to prevent immediate counterattack (in this situation there's no fort/culture/wall bonus). This is when CG shines most.

Also I usually want the lowest possible number of units that aren't offensively optimized around to maximize offensive capability. Drillers love the company of other Drillers to get any use of the -% from collateral damage, preferably the max amount the enemy siege can damage.

I do see the argument for Drill units but even then I think it's better to have Combat&Pinch/Combat&Formation (gunpowder) units for main attackers rather than have a totally Drilling hybrid defender/attacker force. I still think it's a worse choice, but I can see that a different play style than mine benefits much more from it in relation to other promos (f.e. I'm not particularly fond of Pro Civs).

P.S. Drill is much cooler than f.e. Combat and I really wish it would be more viable so I could pick it more often!

[#07]

Don't forget flanking for mounted units, if you have a barracks and a stable they can get flanking 2 and cause damage to seige weapons in stacks. Also the withdraw chance makes it obvious to attack with your seige first, follow with your flanking mounted then clean up with your city raiders.

I make sure I have one or two cities with barracks and stable and exclusively pump out mounted units, building them without the maximum promotion is a waste.

[TriMiro]

2x CG is probably better than 2x Drill, however, the optimal option would be: 1x CG + 1x Drill.

Same with offensive units, Drill I + Pinch is better then Combat I + Pinch. (Fighting appropriate stacks of course)

[slnz]

If you go Drill, go it all the way as each Drill promotion is vastly superior than the one before. Also I really can't think of a situation where DrillI+Pinch is better than CombatI+Pinch for offense. Drill's merits lie in siege combat.

As with cities, specialization for certain purposes is the way to go with units. A master of everything is a master of nothing.

[Fleme]

If you go Drill, go it all the way as each Drill promotion is vastly superior than the one before. Also I really can't think of a situation where DrillI+Pinch is better than CombatI+Pinch for offense. Drill's merits lie in siege combat.

As with cities, specialization for certain purposes is the way to go with units. A master of everything is a master of nothing.

Semantically, a master of everything, is indeed a master of everything. A jack, however...

I too support going all the way with drill if you choose to go with it. Other than that, a Protective leader might want to go drill/pinch because it's readily available while combat/pinch might not be.

Furthermore, the drill line is superior if you're technologically ahead because they do take less damage in victorious battles than their combat counterparts because of the first strikes. This in turn means that the drillers require less healing than their combat counterparts and make excellent stack defenders.

I do like Drill and agree that if you go down that line, go all the way to D4 because that's where it becomes really useful. I wouldn't build a stack consisting only of drill but I always try to carry a bunch of drillers that I use as mop-up crews for promotions and later on they repay by soaking siege and winning battles unscathed.

[Blaupanzer]

Drill 4 crossbows are superior to any horse w/promos preknight in conducting assaults on bombarded melee defenders.

[rah]

While I love drill 4 crossbows (usually including the mounted promotion) your statement is cherry picking.

[rah]

While I love drill 4 crossbows (usually including the mounted promotion) your statement is cherry picking.