Upgrades to impossible promotions

[zeace]

When you upgrade a unit, he keeps his old promotions, even if the unit he upgrades too couldn't get the promotion itself.

( I won't call it an exploit yet, just a "feature". But maybe if we focus enough strategy on this "feature" we'll find that it's broken and I'll have to change my mind. )


My favourite example of this "feature" is upgrading units with lots of city-raider promotions to Granadiers who can't otherwise get city-raider. They become great at ripping apart Rifleman guarded cities.

I was wondering if anyone has a strategy that uses this "feature"? As in does anyone intentionally pick their promotions such that they can later take advantage of this in an upgrade.

Also, what are other good promos/units can use this "feature"?

[Jaybe]

Absolutely! Melee units with city raider promo that survive to infantry-hood (I don't like the idea of using tanks to attack cities, though I will do it).

Cavalry with medic promo upgrading to mobile-hospital gunships.

[johnmcd]

Absolutely do that, I like getting scouts with medic promotions so that they don't become useless and totally do the melee units to city raider 3 and retire them till later so I can upgrade them. I'm not sure it's an exploit though, the AI gets the same advantage and upgrades a lot too remember.

[Badtz Maru]

I've seen AI gunpowder units with City Raider before, so I don't consider it an exploit. I use this strategy a lot, in one game as Tokugawa I had a bunch of Samurai with City Raider 2 and 3 after one war, and I pulled all of them back and didn't risk any of them until I could promote them to Grenadiers, which were unstoppable.

[Arrian]

Oh hell yeah, City Raider III infantry are a favorite of mine!

Now that marines upgrade to mech inf... amphib mech inf. Not that I play the game out that far very often.

-Arrian

[AshenPlanet]

.

My favorite upgrade is march cavalry to gunships.
Gunships with march and blitz are scary...

.

[zeace]

I only worry it might be an exploit, because as humans we have the ability to think "I should stop risking this unit because that City-raider 3 will go great with a big gun"

The AI on the other hand will probably send him out to try and pillage my improvments... It's just too easy sometimes

[rah]

But on the other hand, if it's still alive, it will get upgraded, since it's cheaper for the ai and they usually have the money. So if they upgrade 20 units at once, it's likey they there will be a few "impossible" upgrades in the group, so don't think of it as a human exploit only.

[johnmcd]

Quite right, they upgrade stacks at a time.

Also, amongst equals, your most experienced unit always defends so you suffer some of the AI's stupidity in survial. A raider three alongside a virgin troop will step into the breach. heroic, but yet, ffs.

[trev]

It is possible at stages of the game to build macemen, give them city raider and immediately upgrade them to grenadiers from my recollection, so it is possible to build units with that intention.

[Palpster]

Originally posted by johnmcd
Quite right, they upgrade stacks at a time.

Also, amongst equals, your most experienced unit always defends so you suffer some of the AI's stupidity in survial. A raider three alongside a virgin troop will step into the breach. heroic, but yet, ffs.

Hate it when that happens, especially to troops you've trained to be raiders, they should be defended and left to raid, not protect some dumb ass noob rifleman who couldn't take a city if they opened the gates for him

[yimboli]

Originally posted by Palpster


Hate it when that happens, especially to troops you've trained to be raiders, they should be defended and left to raid, not protect some dumb ass noob rifleman who couldn't take a city if they opened the gates for him

I thought that the unit with the most hp under the attack circumstances would defend. I.e. a stack with an axeman (combat I and II) and a vanilla spearman would behave differently if swordsman attacked vice a horse archer. If a swordsman attacked, the axeman would have 5 + 5*20%(combat) + 5*50%(vs. melee) = 8.5 strength as opposed to the spearman's vanilla 4 strength, thus the axeman would defend... which happens to be the most experienced. However, if a horse archer attacked, the spearman would have 4 + 4*100%(vs. mounted) = 8 strength as opposed to the axeman with 5 + 5*20%(combat) = 6 strength, thus the spearman would defend... who happens to be the least experienced, but still the most qualified to defend.

For this reason, I carry longbowmen with combat/woodsman/guerilla upgrades in my groups of city raider swordsmen. Carry a bunch extra and they make great temporary city defenders until garrison-upgraded troops can arrive in newly-conquered cities.

Once you get macemen carry combat-upgraded macemen so your city raiders aren't caught with their pants down. That's cuz logbowmen with combat 2 are only 6*1.2 = 7.2 while the macemen base strength is 8, so city raider macemen would still be the preferred defender over the longbowmen. That sucks but if you know it's going to be a problem you can account for it beforehand!



I'll admit, I've lost 3x city raiders before too and I felt like a damn idiot. That was the game I never got west point because I lost my high level units to silly attacks. Hasn't happened since.

Cheers!

[yimboli]

Oh forgot to mention, one game I think I had city raider machine gunners. That was real helpful for all those times my machine gunners weren't allowed to attack _anything_.

Medic machine gunners are kinda nice though =)

[Quillan]

The unit with the best chance of winning against the attacker is the one that defends. It has nothing directly to do with experience. If you had two full-strength macemen defending, one with City Raider 3 and one with City Garrison 2, it would the garrison guy defending. However, if he got badly hurt, the next attack might well go against the raider instead.

[Palpster]

yimboli,

thanks for taking the time and all, but...ehm....we were specifically talking about "amongst equals "...