chances for getting leaders

[Explorer579]

I don't like the leader unit

It is frurstraing to make leaders! I can play 3 games before seeing one (and yes I have lot of elite units with many winning battles). I do not play militaristic usually. So it is odd that only militaristic societies get leaders. Ghandy was a leader and Christ was a leader, yet they did not engage in warfare.

I do not like leaders. They make armys, which are ususally useless. ( I would rather attack with 3 swordsmen then attack with 3 swordsmen stacked in an army unit).

Or leaders finish a wonder. Yeah, immgine sacrificing a pharoh to finish the pyramids. How realistic!

I am going to see if I can use the editor to turn leaders off!

[Traelin]

Re: I don't like the leader unit

Originally posted by Explorer579
I do not like leaders. They make armys, which are ususally useless. ( I would rather attack with 3 swordsmen then attack with 3 swordsmen stacked in an army unit).

I have to disagree on your assessment of GLs. I find them crucial in the following situations:

1. Building Wonders on Emperor and Deity.
2. Building MI modern armies, which are amazing on defense.
3. Building MA modern armies, which are awesome to crack tough MI defenders.
4. Building ancient armies as deterrents to AI expansion.

I'd say number 1 is most important. There's almost no way to keep up with the AI wonder building on higher levels without GLs.

[vmxa1]

Re: I don't like the leader unit

Originally posted by Explorer579
I do not like leaders. They make armys, which are ususally useless. ( I would rather attack with 3 swordsmen then attack with 3 swordsmen stacked in an army unit).

Or leaders finish a wonder. Yeah, immgine sacrificing a pharoh to finish the pyramids. How realistic!

I am going to see if I can use the editor to turn leaders off!

Very bad luck, I guess as I have never had a game that did not get a leader or 2, even when non military civ.
Armies are not useless, that is just a fact. You may not care for them and that is fine. To say that are useless does not stand up to scrutiny. Consider the case you mentioned. The swords attack individually. They could lose each and everyone, without killing the unit they atacked. If they are vets they have 4 HP each. That mean only four rolls are required to beat them. If in an army they have 12 HP. I presume you are not attacking a unit that they can not hope to beat, so they now need 12 rolls to win, before the army get its 4 or 5 rolls. Say it is an elite pike. The pike could win in either case, but I do not like its chance against the army.
As to the hurry build, it is just a contrivance for the game, not mean to be raionalized, just used.
Armies are very handy for cracking cities with infantry. If you now the Pentagon, you will have 4 members in that army. Likely used elies, so 20 HP's. Makes taking down that dug in unit, much safer. (Yes I know about combined arms, but that is out side of he scope of this issue).

[vmxa1]

I left out one other good use for an army. They are great for sitting on captured cities while you get the resisters pacified. I love my old obsolete calv armies for this job, especially if they have 4 units.

[star mouse]

You can cheat with GL's

You can get GL's more often than you should while preserving your elite units by strategic save and reload. If you're desperate for a leader, here's how to get one.

1. Have a stack with veterans and elites that have not yet produced a GL.
2. Save before fighting, with random number saved.
3. Fight with a veteran.
4. If the veteran dies, okay, you probably just stopped an elite unit being wasted.
5. If the veteran wins but doesn't promote, that's okay.
6. If the veteran wins and promots to elite, reload the game and fight the battle with an elite. Chances are good you'll get a leader.

[The Pioneer]

That's too much of a hassle. I'll reload my games sometimes if somethinf went wrong but this is just too boring. But it's true and if somebody is so desperste then it may be worth the time!

So long...

[bongo]

Interesting, have you tested this?

The time required to reload a game is simply too much for me to bother with cheat anyway.

[star mouse]

Originally posted by bongo
Interesting, have you tested this?

Only once -

I saved the game before a battle (more to save the game than anything) and beat up on the enemy with a veteran Cavalry. My cavalry won, and promoted to Elite. I decided to load the game again just to see what would happen if I used an Elite unit instead. So I reloaded and beat up on the enemy again with an Elite cavalry from the same stack. The elite cavalry won and popped a Leader.

I haven't tested this much, but it's clear that leaders are generated in much the same way as battlefield promotions. If for example, both are calculated by comparing the result of a random number to 0, then it will work much the same. There may be times when it won't work (such as Heroic Epic and militaristic civs), but the chances are you will probably be able to get a leader in this manner at least 50% of the time.

[Catt]

One way to understand the concept is to understand how a typical Randon Number Generator (RNG) works. If we assume a 0 - 1023 RNG string (i.e., for each "random" event the string is consulted which generates a number between 0 and 1023), and also assume that you're not playing a militaristic civ, then the odds of veteran to elite promotion are 1 in 8; the odds of leader generation are 1 in 16 (1 in 12 with the Heroic Epic!). The RNG string is consulted at the conclusion of the battle to determine whether or not a promotion or a leader is warranted. For the promotion (1 in 8) perhaps any RNG result of 896 or higher (1/8 of 1024) results in a promotion. For the leader, any RNG result of 960 or higher would create a leader. Since you know, via your re-loading, that the RNG was at least as high as 896 (since the veteran was promoted), you're actually only playing a 50% chance of the leader -- is the RNG result higher than 960 on a scale of 896 to 1023?

Slightly off-topic and definitely overly moralistic: Don't cheat yourself by reloading the game is more engaging when you play the cards you're dealt.

Catt

[bongo]

So the changes for a veteran to elite promotion is 1 to 8. What is it when you are a militaristic civ? Are the odds the same for other promotions, like regular to vet?

[Catt]

Here are the promotion odds directly from Mike B. of Firaxis:

Odds of promotion are based on whether the civ has the Militaristic trait or not and whether the victory was against barbarians or not. Basically, chances of promotion are halved for victories over Barbarians and doubled for Militaristic civs.

non-militaristic civ vs. non-barbarians:
conscript to regular: 1 in 2
regular to veteran: 1 in 4
veteran to elite: 1 in 8

non-militaristic civ vs. barbarians:
conscript to regular: 1 in 4
regular to veteran: 1 in 8
veteran to elite: 1 in 16

militaristic civ vs. non-barbarians:
conscript to regular: 1 in 1
regular to veteran: 1 in 2
veteran to elite: 1 in 4

militaristic civ vs. barbarians:
conscript to regular: 1 in 2
regular to veteran: 1 in 4
veteran to elite: 1 in 8

If a victorious unit fails to get promoted, it will always be promoted upon surviving any other battle in the same turn . This gives an obvious advantage to defenders as well as an incentive to use the same offensive units for additional battles whenever possible.

One tweak on the "two victories in same turn = promotion" -- "victory" in this sense means actually destroying a unit. If an attacker retreats before dying, that is not considered a "victory" for promotion purposes.

Catt

[bongo]

Excellent!

Thank you very much

[Explorer579]

Originally posted by Catt
If a victorious unit fails to get promoted, it will always be promoted upon surviving any other battle in the same turn . This gives an obvious advantage to defenders as well as an incentive to use the same offensive units for additional battles whenever possible.

Catt

Does this apply to leaders? That is, if an elite unit fails to be promoted to a leader, it will always be promoted upon surviving any other battle in the same turn. ?

[Jaybe]

Originally posted by Explorer579
Does this apply to leaders? That is, if an elite unit fails to be promoted to a leader, it will always be promoted upon surviving any other battle in the same turn. ?

No. Great Leader determination is totally separate from promotions. An asterisked (*) Elite is not a "promotion" from Elite.