Promotions

[UnOrthOdOx]

Now we're non-aggressive, it's time to start thinking about promotions.

I am of the opinion the first 2 upgrades for each and every unit should be combat I and II. With the possible exception of archer units.

I know, I know. You'll argue "it's only 10%", (insert upgrade here) gives 20%, etc.


Check the combat calculator yourself. If any of you are MZOites, you may have noticed me mention this over there. Take 2 axemen attacking an archer in a city: Combat I gives better odds than a City Raider I unit. I cannot explain it for the maths don't line up given what knowledge I have.

The same holds true for Combat II vs City Raider II. I have not checked a combo of Combat I + city Raider I, however. I've checked the calculator with catapults vs longbows as well, and kinda quit doing anything other than combat promos after that...

My only guess is that Combat is the only promo that actually increases YOUR strength on offense. All others work to remove from the enemy. I believe this increase in your strenght also increases your hit points and/or damage dealt per round, but the decreases do not do the same to the enemy. This is the only logical explaination for the changes in the calculator.

[polarnomad]

Yesterday I was playing on Prince as Frederick. Alexander declared war and sent a few stacks to attack my city nearest to his borders. What do you know... almost all his units were promoted exclusively Combat I and II.

What ensued was most stressful! We kept exchanging control of the city until it lay in ruins... Those poor citizens must have gone through hell.

[Kloreep]

I definitely agree that Combat I will be a frequent promotion in order to access others. Combat II is a good idea as well, but we should keep in mind that we may also want to have a few specialty units, as there will likely be demand for those.

We'll also want a few medic units, and bombardment units are a whole different upgrade ballgame.

Anyone have much experience with flanking promotions? It seems to me that 10% per level is too low a retreat chance to go with, except perhaps for units that start with an inherent retreat value, but I have not been able to play much CIV recently (or really at all)

[UnOrthOdOx]

Spears should get combat II and formation
I am of the opinion cover and shock should be obtained also after combat II
Flanking, I'm with you: only if there's inherent bonuses already
Artillery units, I'm of the opinion combat is the better promo on those as well.
We will need medics, though.

[polarnomad]

I've been giving cavalry units the shock promotion to help against spearmen and pikemen, but have not been able to determine just how effective it actually is yet. In theory: Pikemen versus Knight with shock would amount to 6x2 versus 10x1.5, or 12 versus 15, which means that pikeman is quite as scary anymore.

I haven't been particularly impressed with flanking promotions.

Extra collateral damage for bombardment units is a necessity in my opinion. I mostly use catapults as throw away units, and extra collateral damage goes a long way towards weakening enemy forces with less of them. Also, if attacking cities then the extra bombardment promotion is vital so as to reduce city defenses quickly before reinforcements can be brought in. I rarely use combat promotions for bombardment units, feels like a waste of a promotion.

[troglodyte]

Agreed with Uno and Kloreep: I'm with the Combat I & II promotions for infantry as well; Spearmen and Pikemen get the Formation promotion; Cover & Shock as later promotions. Unless we want to have a sort of mixed batch stack with different promotions (but I've not found this to make much difference in SP play).

I've not found Flanking to be really useful: The 10% withdrawal chance is neither here nor there - we should rather give them other promotions that can improve real combat chances or that increase the ability of the assault to continue, like mobile Medic etc.

Where Seige weapons are concerned, Catapults and Cannon I mean, we should consider the heavy collateral damage promotions. I think our units will be used exclusively for first assault (if hired) and even if they withdraw from combat, will be required to attack again. Does anyone think that that our units will be given time to rest to recuperate after attacks?

For Machine Guns - although classed as Seige units for some reason- I generally use the Garrison and First Strike/Combat. But that's just where our defence is concerned really.

Just for info: I notice over at Realm Beyond that (those who seem to me to be) the top players - Sirian, Sullla, Kylearan etc. - seem to go mostly with the Combat promotions (all the way to Combat V) for infantry and tanks. I managed to promote an infantry unit to "Five Star" the other day and it kicks butt (Sorry, infantry are cool!!!).

And a SP game-play question for the experts: I've noticed that when a city culture flips, some of the units flip with the city. If you gift the city after capture to whomever, what happens to the units occupying the city? Do some of them "go" with the gift? I've never given a city away like this, so I just want clarification from someone who's done this.

[Nikolai]

When(If?) we come to tanks, I suggest we use that promotion that gives first strike chances. I found out yesterday(yeah, I know I'm slow...) that tanks with that promotion had 99.9% and 100% chances for winning where other tanks with other promotions had 30-40%.

[rush]

I think we should keep some units unpromoted. So that we can promote them depending on customer requirements.

[polarnomad]

You do make a good point, rush.

[polarnomad]

Hey guys! Don't be so polite! Next time I spout some rubbish like this call me on it...

Originally posted by polarnomad
I've been giving cavalry units the shock promotion to help against spearmen and pikemen, but have not been able to determine just how effective it actually is yet. In theory: Pikemen versus Knight with shock would amount to 6x2 versus 10x1.5, or 12 versus 15, which means that pikeman is quite as scary anymore.

As I was happily upgrading some units yesterday, I noticed that Shock does 25% extra damage versus melee, not 50%. Brainfart I guess... Again!

[UnOrthOdOx]

It is important to note that all 'vs specific unit/situation' promotions subtract from the enemy rather than add to your strength. *when you are the attacker*

So, in the case above, you're knight is strength 11 (as you need combat 1 for shock), and a pike would be 10.5 (assuming no other defensive bonuses other than the 100% vs mounted) because the 100% bonus is reduced to 75% by the shock promotion.

Whereas a combat 2 knight would be 12 vs a pike 12, it would still have as big an advantage, if not moreso, because it seems combat promotions increase the damage the unit will do each round it wins whereas 'vs special unit/situation' promos do not.

*I believe that works in reverse when you are defending, and it's added to your strength*

[polarnomad]

While I suppose I understand what you are saying, this would have to be tested.

Of course the obvious disadvantage with Shock promotions is that by definition they only work against melee units, and in the case of the knight, with gunpowder units just around the corner, it could be a bit of a waste.

[troglodyte]

A ploy for the midgame

Another thing that we could try is to get our Riflemen to have the City Raider 1,2 & 3 promotions.

Now this is technically not available to Riflemen. But I have been testing at home and found this little way around that:

We build Macemen with City Raider promotions (Barracks, Vassalage, Theocracy etc) and then upgrade them with money to Riflemen. Voila, City Raider Riflemen really kick butt!

This gives us a unit that would be really worthwhile to our clients.

Obviously, we need a few units/riflemen with other promotions (Guerilla/Drill/Combat/Pinch etc) to protect the City Raider Riflemen who are not really good on defence.

The lesson, I guess is, our stacks need to have a combined arms approach.

[rush]

this is not related to unit promotions ...... but i just remember this, might as well put it down.

We can do some micro-management, by switching production of military units 1 turn from completion. This will save unit maintenance cost and at the same time allow us to complete unit production quickly.

Eg. if the Hordes ask us to build 3 axemen and we are dedicating city A to produce these units.

1) If we build axemen 1 for say 4 turns, axemen 2 for 4 turns and axemen 3 for 4 turns, then we need to pay maintenance cost of axemen 1 for 8 turns and axemen 2 for 4 turns.

2) The suggested approach is to build axemen 1 for 3 turns, switch production to axemen 2 for 3 turns, switch production to axemen 3 for 3 turns. After that, we will switch back to complete axemen 1, 2 and 3. The maintenance cost becomes axemen 1 for 2 turns and axemen 2 for one turn.

[UnOrthOdOx]

Hammers banked reduce at a given (but unknown to me atm) rate. So long as we didn't drop below that rate to where we were able to complete each in one turn, sounds good.