Timing of Promotions

[nbarclay]

One of the tips Civ 4 suggests is that it is not always a good thing to promote units immediately. I'd like to expand on that concept based on a flaw I've noticed in AI strategy. Some promotions, such as the City Raider line, are absolutely useless for defensive purposes. As a result, there is no benefit to giving a healthy unit such a promotion immediately instead of waiting. If nothing else, waiting to promote the unit makes it possible to take advantage of the healing effect that comes with promotions if the unit gets injured before it has a chance to take advantage of the planned promotion.

Also, deferring such promotions leaves more flexibility regarding how the unit will be used. What if the unit ends up having to fight in the open field before it can reach a city it can use a City Raider promotion against? What if changing conditions make it more valuable to use a unit defensively than to use it offensively? Sometimes it makes sense to change plans for how to use a unit, and to wait until you build additional units to go back to the original plan. But if you've already given a unit a promotion that essentially locks it into a particular role, you lose that flexibility.

[mrp]

I usually don't care Units like swordman are better suited for city raider whereas an axeman or a spearman is better suitted for open terrain. Is it better to build an archer on city defense or you could build a spearman and an axeman. which can take on anything they through at you. After all the AI likes to raze everything I for one think it is a waste of time. Also I tried the first strike and it made a 3% improvement. The city raider is useless except for attack cities on the greek world scenario. I dd not build any siege weapons

[Unimatrix11]

There are exceptions to it, but yes, nbarclay, that is pretty much how i have been promoting for the last 2 years: Dont until needed.

Exceptions:

- Defensive promos in threatened positions (hard to decide on besieging stacks sometimes)

- HE/WP prerequisite unit-level

- A medic here and there

- Early scouts

Also i noticed, that the healing bonus of promoting never gets the unit back to full 100%. So when a unit is wounded, and you already know, you gonna, say, attack a city with it, when its done healing, promote first and then have it heal a turn, as opposed to vice versa (enemy air-power and siege weapons must be considered tho).

[The Priest]

Yes I agree.

I always used to promote as soon as they were built, and I still find it hard to get out of this habit, but it defintiely makes sense not to. A gamble sometimes though - occasionally a unit dies unpromoted and I kick myself.

The two advantages are slightly different:

1. Keep the choice to later. In many cases though this is a minimal advantage though since you can be almost 100% certain what they will want (e.g. CR for some swords, combat 1 and gunpowered for some infantry).

2. The healing. Its particularly helpful for lessoning the impact of collateral damage. While you are reducing the city's defences they deliver collateral damanage to you, but most of that can be wiped out by only then giving your swords etc. the CR promotions.

[wodan11]

You also need to be careful with mass upgrading. A couple of times I wasn't paying attention and got screwed because a unit with >16xp got knocked back to 10.

[Tattila the Hun]

I've kept myself upgrading usually just because I'm doing some quest which will give me CR1 for everyone or such, and don't wish to waste it.

But this threads makes me think...

[Blaupanzer]

Originally posted by Unimatrix11
There are exceptions to it, but yes, nbarclay, that is pretty much how i have been promoting for the last 2 years: Dont until needed.

Exceptions:

- HE/WP prerequisite unit-level

Is this HE/WP prerequisite unit-level still in effect in BTS 3.17? I don't see anything in the Civilpedia on this, and I haven't had any trouble building either lately.

Of course, since I have moved to Prince-level, I have never played a game in which I didn't get at least 1 general by medieval times. I always use my first general to jump up one of my 10 pt units that benefitted from interaction with the barbs. I like the free upgrades and the advantage of a two movement super-reserve unit for those special moments when I receive surprise visits from the neighbors. Such a unit most likely meets both the HE and WP prerequisites.

[rah]

I can see holding off, but don't end up like the AI. When you watch that blue glowing unit defending destroyed without ever being promoted.