Unit Healing
Last Update: 13/8/2007 (link to Carl Corey's thread)

NEW
Carl Corey has posted (http://forums.civfanatics.com/showthread.php?p=5811533) some results about the stacking of woodsman III promoted units with medic units. A summary of changes made for the BtS expansion will be given (hopefully) in the not-too-distant future.

The purpose for this article is to comprehensively cover the unit healing feature in Civilization 4 and its various expansions (only Warlords to date). In particular it was written to address frequent questions on the use of medics and how territory affects healing. Many of the important findings are listed in the conclusion.

If you accessed this article through the War Academy, it may be worth checking the associated thread (http://forums.civfanatics.com/showthread.php?t=157954) for updates.

Please feel welcome to make suggestions for the article. I especially appreciate more tips for the conclusion.

First, we will need a few key terms throughout:
A friendly civ is a civ with whom you are at peace.
Neutral describes territory which is unclaimed. "No man's land" and "international waters" if you like.
An allied civ is either:
1) a team mate (as defined at game start),
2) a civ with whom you have a permanent alliance, or
3) a master or vassal (Warlords expansion only)

Now, onto unit healing....

If a unit is damaged and eligible for healing, then it will be healed.

Q: When is a unit eligible for healing?
A: Only when it does not perform certain actions which are listed below.

Eligibility for Healing
A unit that performs ANY of the following actions will NOT be eligible for healing:

Movement*
Attack
Pillage
Bombard
Load or unload (including from ship to ship)
Airlift
Bombing/Air Strike (air units)
Reconnaissance (air units)
Re-basing (air units)
Upgrade

* Units sitting in a moving ship are not considered to be moving.


EXCEPTION: The March promotion
A unit with the March promotion is ALWAYS eligible for healing. Any of the above actions which ordinarily disqualify a unit from being allowed to heal instead have no effect. For example, a March-promoted Cavalry can move 1 tile, attack, and then still be eligible for healing.

The following actions will not affect a unit's eligibility for healing:
Fortify
Sleep
Sentry
Defending against an attacker
Sitting in the cargo of a ship while it moves
Accepting a promotion
Intercept Mission (air units)




In most documentation on unit healing, a unit will be said to heal some "percentage" in a turn. eg. the manual will tell you Medic I heals units on the same tile by 10%. The percent healed is the same as the number of HP healed. eg. A medic will add 10HP to units it heals.

A unit's heal rate is determined by adding its Base Heal Rate to, if applicable, any medic healing, hospital healing and healing from Combat promotions. Details below:

Base Heal Rate
Eligible units will heal:
5HP per turn in enemy territory.
10HP per turn in neutral/friendly territory.
15HP per turn in home/allied territory, OR, in any city which is in resistance.
20HP per turn in any city which is not in resistance.

For your convenience, here's a flow chart for finding the base heal rate in case the above was confusing:

http://forums.civfanatics.com/uploads/80491/Base_heal_rate_PNG_.PNG

Medics
A unit with the Medic I promotion will heal all eligible units on the same tile by 10HP.
A medic can move and then heal units on the tile it ends its turn on.
A unit with Medic I heals itself if eligible.
A unit with Medic II will heal all eligible units in any adjacent tiles by 10HP. Minor note: a unit with Medic II but not Medic I will NOT heal units on the same tile.
IMPORTANT NOTE: Units with Medic II cannot heal units across a land/sea boundary. Ships in port are considered to be on the land side of the land/sea boundary.

No more than one Medic unit can operate on a unit eligible for healing each turn.
A unit with Medic I and II does not heal units on the same tile any quicker than if it had only Medic I.

Any ships (including transport ships) with Medic I will heal eligible units in their cargo or on the same tile.
A medic unit can heal land, air and naval units.
Medics can heal the units of an allied civ.

Minor note: The Red Cross wonder only gives the Medic I promotion to units which are ordinarily allowed to accept that promotion.

Warlords: In the Warlords expansion, the presence of a great general allows the Medic III Promotion for Medic II promoted units. The Medic III Promotion gives an additional 15HP of healing to units on the same tile and adjacent tiles, totalling 25HP.

Hospitals
A hospital will heal all eligible units on the same tile (city) an additional 10HP.
A hospital can heal land, air and naval units.
A hospital can heal all eligible friendly/allied units.
A hospital does not work in a city during resistance.

Combat IV and Combat V
A unit which has the Combat IV promotion and is eligible for healing will heal itself an additional 10HP only if it is in neutral or friendly territory (this is usually just described as neutral territory).
A unit which has the Combat V promotion and is eligible for healing will heal itself an additional 10HP only if it is in enemy territory.

You'd be forgiven for thinking each of these promotions would give additional healing if in home territory, or in the case of Combat V, neutral territory as well. But in fact this is not true. As an example, consider a unit which has the Combat IV promotion. It will actually heal faster in neutral territory (20HP/turn) than it does in your own territory (15HP/turn). Of course, a home city would match it at 20HP/turn.

Promotion-Heal
Choosing a promotion IMMEDIATELY heals 50% of the HP needed to reach 100HP. If the number of HP needed is odd, the number healed is rounded down. Eg. a unit with 21HP will heal to 21 + (100 - 21) * 0.5 = 60.5 "=" 60HP
A unit need not be eligible for healing to receive the Promotion-Heal.
Accepting promotions has no effect on a unit's eligibilty for healing, and the immediate Promotion-Heal is independent of the healing that happens at the beginning of your turn.



Extra Info

Healing takes place at the beginning of your turn.

If a unit of yours is damaged during another team's turn, your unit will be healed immediately at the start of your turn, so long as it was eligible to do so. For example, fortified units defending a city will heal every turn. This makes it difficult for an attacker to take down a city unless he does it quickly and with sufficient force.

Upgrading a unit does not heal any HP.

AI units and barbarians heal the same way a player's units do. For barbarians, all civs are enemies (for territory considerations).


Healing Formula

There are 4 parameters that affect a unit's healing rate; Base Heal Rate, Medic, Hospital and Combat promotions (IV or V).

Let X be the number of HP a unit has which is eligible for healing.
Let P be the number of HP the eligible unit will heal. Then,

P = min(100 - X, B + M + H + C)

where

B = 5 if in enemy territory
B = 10 if in neutral/friendly territory
B = 15 if in home/allied territory, OR, in a city in resistance
B = 20 if in a city which is not in resistance

M = 10 if a medic is available to operate on the unit (In Warlords, if the medic is Medic III then M = 25)
M = 0 otherwise

H = 10 if the unit is in a city with a hospital
H = 0 otherwise

C = 10 if the unit has Combat IV and is in neutral (or friendly civ's) territory
C = 10 if the unit has Combat V and is in enemy territory
C = 0 otherwise

A unit with X hit points which is eligible for healing will heal to X + P hit points at the beginning of the next turn.

Let N be the number of turns required to heal a unit. Then,

N = ceiling[(100 - X) / (B + M + H + C)]

Note the formula always holds because B + M + H + C is never 0, and 0 < X =< 100.

N is the same as the number of turns the game will display for a unit to heal completely. Minor note: Units that are not eligible for healing will still display the same N so actually they will take N+1 turns to heal.

For those interested, the Promotion-Heal has the following (obvious) formula.
Let X be the HP of ANY unit which has a new promotion available. Selecting a promotion will IMMEDIATELY heal P hit points where

P = floor[(100 - X) * 0.5]

A unit will therefore have X + floor[(100 - X) * 0.5] hit points immediately after choosing a promotion.



Conclusion

A unit in enemy territory will take 20 turns to heal if it has less than 5HP. This is the maximum number of turns a unit could take to heal.
A unit in enemey territory will heal 3 times faster if he has a medic available. He will heal in 7 turns at the most, at a rate of 15HP per turn (as opposed to 5HP per turn without a medic).
A unit without Combat IV will heal fastest in a home or friendly city, with a hospital and a medic of your own or ally's (40HP per turn and maximum 3 turns to completely heal).
A unit with Combat IV will heal faster in a friendly civ's city than a city of your own! Also, it will heal faster in neutral territory than in your own! I found this surprising.
For interest's sake, the fastest any unit can heal is 50HP per turn*. The unit must have Combat IV and be in a friendly civ's city that has a hospital and a medic of yours or your ally's. With this set up you will have a maximum heal time of 2 turns! 20HP from being in city, 10HP from medic, 10HP from hospital and 10HP from Combat IV. Total: 50HP
*With Warlords, a medic III unit would allow a max heal rate of 65HP/turn!
March is generally a useless promotion for your medic units. It is often confused but you should give March to units which you will want to BE healed. For example, send along a Medic I Explorer with your Mech Infantry or March-promoted units and you will have a force which heals quickly when on the move even in enemy territory.
If you have damaged units in a friendly civ's territory, put them in one of the civ's cities. These cities are just as good as your own cities at healing your units!
Armored units and helicopters cannot be given Medic promotions. Armored units, helicopters and naval units cannot be given the March promotion. However, these promotions can be retained through unit upgrades eg. by upgrading march promoted cavalry to gunships.
Often it is wise to hold off on promoting a unit so that after a battle the immediate (and significant) Promotion-Heal can be used.

Another article has been written on Unit Healing by ModernKnight, found here (http://forums.civfanatics.com/showthread.php?p=3973757).
While most of the material is covered in the present article, he has some useful tips to add.


Healing can take up to 20 turns for a near-dead unit in enemy territory without a medic, but this would only take 6-7 turns (1/15%) with a medic. The quickest a unit near death can be healed is 4 turns (friendly city with medic; 1/30% rounded up), although 3 turns max is more realistic. (And certain if you're lucky enough to have a hospital.)

These numbers dictate that if you have a medic in enemy territory (15%), you should not move to be healed at a 30%+ city unless you can get there in ONE turn. Why?


It takes 6 turns staying where you are. (Or just barely 7 if near dead.)
It takes 3 turns at a 30%+ city (with medic or hospital).
The difference is 3 turns.
If it takes two turns to get to the city, it would take 2 to get back. Total: 4 turns.
Or even if you can make it there and back in 3 (changing position), there has been no net gain - you're healed (and back or whatever) in 6 turns. Why not just stay there and get your fortify bonus?

Minor note: a unit with Medic II but not Medic I will NOT heal units on the same tile.

You can't get Medic II without Medic I, right? Except with the editor, or perhaps a mod.

You can't get Medic II without Medic I, right? Except with the editor, or perhaps a mod.

That's correct. Using the world builder you can give a unit Medic II without Medic I and it won't heal units on the same tile. It might be important for someone to know. ;)

Good article.:goodjob:


I didn't see any mentioning of the healing bonuses from the last two combat promotions. They're not that important, but you seem to want to be complete, so...

A very minor detail: are units that were just promoted elligible for healing that turn? I wouldn't think so, but none of my units were ever in that situation.

I don't know the answers for your questions, but they should be easy to find with the worldbuilder, I think.

Good article.:goodjob:


I didn't see any mentioning of the healing bonuses from the last two combat promotions. They're not that important, but you seem to want to be complete, so...

A very minor detail: are units that were just promoted elligible for healing that turn? I wouldn't think so, but none of my units were ever in that situation.

I don't know the answers for your questions, but they should be easy to find with the worldbuilder, I think.

Thanks for the comments. All of them will be taken on board. I'll do some tests.

As for the combat promotions I completely forgot about those - I rarely use them.

EDIT Changes have been made to the article in response to your comments

-March is generally a useless promotion for your medic units. It is often confused but you should give March to units which you will want to BE healed. For example, send along a Medic I Explorer with your Mech Infantry or March I Tanks and you will have a force which heals quickly when on the move even in enemy territory.


Thanks for the very useful article.

For the above statement, does it mean that the medic will always work base on the square which it ends it's turn on. And it does not matter if it has moved at all. Also, would an injured unit which has move benefit from the medic?

Let's use an example to elaborate this.

A injure medic and two other injured unit axeman on the same tile in enemy territory. One axeman has not moved and thus is eligible for healing. The other has moved to the same tile.

So, which and how much does each of them heal?

Injured axeman who has not moved : 5 + 10 = 15HP?
Injured axeman who has moved : 0HP or 10HP?
Inijured Medic who has also moved : 0HP or 10HP?

Thanks

Qitai,

It does not matter whether your medic moves or not unless you need to heal the medic itself. You can move a medic and then heal a unit. Note the movement of a unit only affects its eligibility to BE healed, not whether it can heal something else.

The medic heals the units it ends its turn on. Correct (assuming the unit is eligible for healing).

An injured unit which has moved would not benefit from the medic because it would not be eligible (keyword in the article) to be healed.

For your example,
Injured axeman who has not moved : 5 + 10 = 15HP (correct, 5 from territory and 10 from medic healing)
Injured axeman who has moved : 0HP (it moved so it is not eligible for any healing)
Inijured Medic who has also moved : 0HP (again because it is not eligible for healing due to moving)

the only thing i know about healing is that it sucks... it takes forever no matter which unit i'm healing or where it is.

Excellent article. Thanks for your efforts. :)

Qitai,

It does not matter whether your medic moves or not unless you need to heal the medic itself. You can move a medic and then heal a unit. Note the movement of a unit only affects its eligibility to BE healed, not whether it can heal something else.

The medic heals the units it ends its turn on. Correct (assuming the unit is eligible for healing).

An injured unit which has moved would not benefit from the medic because it would not be eligible (keyword in the article) to be healed.

For your example,
Injured axeman who has not moved : 5 + 10 = 15HP (correct, 5 from territory and 10 from medic healing)
Injured axeman who has moved : 0HP (it moved so it is not eligible for any healing)
Inijured Medic who has also moved : 0HP (again because it is not eligible for healing due to moving)

Thanks. These are very usefu information.

Thanks for the comments. All of them will be taken on board. I'll do some tests.

As for the combat promotions I completely forgot about those - I rarely use them.

EDIT Changes have been made to the article in response to your comments

Ah, good to see that you found the answers to your questions. Strange that a combat IV unit will heal faster in neutral territory then in your own territory. I would have expected that the game considers your own territory at least as good as neutral territory. It's not that important but still rather strange.

I just noticed that I asked the wrong question.

I asked:
"are units that were just promoted elligible for healing that turn? I wouldn't think so, but none of my units were ever in that situation."
while I wanted to ask:
are units that were just upgraded elligible for healing that turn? I wouldn't think so, but none of my units were ever in that situation.

Do you know the answer?

Thanks in advance.

Roland,

I haven't checked but I'm guessing they won't be eligible if they've just been upgraded - since the upgrade changes a unit's "dot" to red it probably is equivalent to making a move. I'll check tomorrow.

EDIT The article was updated and 'Upgrade' added to the list of ineligibility conditions

A unit is eligible for healing if it has not moved at all in its turn. That is it forfeits its move so that it can be 'healed'.
A unit that is eligible for healing will be healed at the beginning of the next turn, after all other AIs/players/barbarians have moved. For completeness, only a damaged unit can be 'healed'.

A unit with the March promotion is always eligible for healing, with no exceptions.
A unit which loads/unloads in its turn is not eligible for healing. This includes loading from ship to ship.
A unit which spends its entire turn in the cargo of a ship (no unloading/loading) is eligible for healing.
A unit which is airlifted in its turn is not eligible for healing.
A unit which is attacked is eligible for healing, so long as it does not move from its position in its turn.
A unit which attacks, pillages or bombards during its turn is not eligible for healing.
Air units are eligible for healing if they do not re-base or carry out any missions for their turn, with the exception of the Intercept mission - A unit on an Intercept mission is eligible for healing.


This is a bit unclear. Is a unit with March able to attack, load/unload, be airlifted, etc. and heal? If so, then what you wrote is right - "always eligible" - but I'd prefer it not to be in the list of things qualifying what is "moving".

Also, "if it has not moved at all in its turn" is not really consistent with the ability to be moved in a transport.

One more very minor nitpick: you don't need to bold "eligible" initially because you are not using it in a non-standard way.

That is, I'd rewrite this as:


A unit will only heal if it is damaged, and if it is eligible for healing. Units with the March promotion are always eligible for healing, regardless of what they do during their turn.

Units without March are only eligible for healing if they don't do anything during their turn, except standing still (fortifying is allowed, as is Intercept for air units), or spending the entire turn in a transport (regardless of whether the transport moves). Being attacked does not affect a unit's eligibility to heal. Actions which will make a unit without March ineligible to heal include:

attacking
bombing
bombarding
pillaging
being airlifted
loading onto a transport, or between transports
unloading from a transport
rebasing
reconnaissance


A unit that is eligible for healing will be healed at the beginning of the next turn, after all other AIs/players/barbarians have moved.

It is a bit unclear. Sorry about that.

What you thought was a list of what counts as moving I thought of as a list of "eligibility or not" conditions. That's not important though.

I bolded eligible the first time I used it because it was essentially a definition. If readers wondered what exactly being eligible meant while reading somewhere else in the article, they could refer to that first definition.

I'll re-word it a bit to try and make it clearer. I'll use part of your suggested re-wording.

Your suggested re-wording isn't exactly what I want to write because I want units with March to be the exception, rather than units without march to be the exception, because there will be more units on the battlefield without March.

EDIT The article has been updated with your comments in mind. Thanks Wreck

I already figured all this by myself except that i thought healing was 20 HP in your territory, city or not. For this information alone, this was worth the read.

Very good article!

I could've sworn that a few times, Barbarians seemed to heal while moving. It was moving towards my city but on every turn it became stronger. I also remember a Barbarian Axeman that took my city that had more HP the next turn when I tried to take it back. Anyone else notice this?

I could've sworn that a few times, Barbarians seemed to heal while moving. It was moving towards my city but on every turn it became stronger. I also remember a Barbarian Axeman that took my city that had more HP the next turn when I tried to take it back. Anyone else notice this?

Probably the axemen in your examples got promoted. When units are promoted, they get half of the lost hitpoints back. This is also mentioned in the article.

Excellent useful article! Although I you need your units to still be alive to heal them, so I guess I need to work on that :D

Probably the axemen in your examples got promoted. When units are promoted, they get half of the lost hitpoints back. This is also mentioned in the article.

Nope, I actually observed this one time. There was a barbarian archer that I almost managed to kill(but not quite). It went down to .5 strength. Next turn, it jumped up to 1.7 strength next turn due to the promotion. Then next turn it healed again. EACH turn, it did something(either pillaging or moving). I mainly noticed this because I was planning on doing one of two things:
1) the turn(or two) of inactivity for it to heal, so I could produce a better defender;
2) it keeping on coming, but damaged at least.

Now when it got to my doorstep fully healed faster than I expected I said "WTF!":eek: , and reloaded the autosave and watched it advance.

So unless I was really out of it, that was NOT due to the promotion.:crazyeye:

That is nice work by the OP.

Nope, I actually observed this one time. There was a barbarian archer that I almost managed to kill(but not quite). It went down to .5 strength. Next turn, it jumped up to 1.7 strength next turn due to the promotion. Then next turn it healed again. EACH turn, it did something(either pillaging or moving). I mainly noticed this because I was planning on doing one of two things:
1) the turn(or two) of inactivity for it to heal, so I could produce a better defender;
2) it keeping on coming, but damaged at least.

Now when it got to my doorstep fully healed faster than I expected I said "WTF!":eek: , and reloaded the autosave and watched it advance.

So unless I was really out of it, that was NOT due to the promotion.:crazyeye:

It may be that barbarians don't become ineligible for healing when they pillage. This would make sense - to make barbarians more annoying to the player. They do lose eligibility if they move though I'm pretty certain as I have checked that myself. The only other thing I can think of too is that they may get different healing rates in enemy territory.

Could you post a save at all and save me some effort of constructing a scenario for a test?

EDIT Until I see any evidence to the contrary, for now I can only confirm that barbarians do NOT get special treatment.

never mind.

Great Post! :goodjob: You answered the one question I always wondered: Can a Medic heal the square it ends on when it moves. Thanks!

A medic unit can heal land, air and naval units.

For the sake clarification & accuracy: Unless this has changed since the 1.52 patch, the coast stops the ability to heal between units.

My specific scenario is a Transport with Medic II could not heal units on the adjacent land square. This question was posed within the Strategy & Tips section and confirmed by DaveMcW that this was not possible.

I'm pretty sure it was 1.52 when the question was posed.

Great Post! :goodjob: You answered the one question I always wondered: Can a Medic heal the square it ends on when it moves. Thanks!



For the sake clarification & accuracy: Unless this has changed since the 1.52 patch, the coast stops the ability to heal between units.

My specific scenario is a Transport with Medic II could not heal units on the adjacent land square. This question was posed within the Strategy & Tips section and confirmed by DaveMcW that this was not possible.

I'm pretty sure it was 1.52 when the question was posed.

Thanks Innawerkz.

Honestly I didn't test the Medic II promotion a lot, supposing it would work just like Medic I in all situations except that it worked on different tiles. I'll check that though. Thanks for bringing my attention to it in any case!:)

I'll mention it in the article for the moment.

I constructed these two tests/examples. If you like, skip the examples and go to the conclusions

Example 1:

I placed two barbarian knights (knights are good because they have strength 10 making it easy to tell HP) surrounded by mountains and inside my territory. Both were at 2.0/10 health. There was a farm underneath them, and they both had enough xp for a single promotion.
After setting this up, this is what happened on the following turns.

1st turn: Both knights had 6.2/10 HP and one of them pillaged the improvement.
Explanation: Both healed 5HP (because they didn't move on the turn I placed them using world builder) then 50% of the remaining HP due to promotion
2nd turn: One of them had 6.2/10 still and the other had 6.7/10.
Explanation: One was ineligible for healing due to pillaging on the previous turn. The other healed 5HP in enemy territory.

Example 2:

Set up a barb axeman with 1.0/5 health and let him loose in my territory with lots of improvements. He went through pillaging left right and centre, and he still had 1.0/5 health. The axeman never pillaged and moved on the same turn - this has nothing to do with healing but I have seen people claim this can happen. It must be a bug if it ever does happen.


Conclusions:
I think these tests are enough to confirm that barbs do not get special exceptions to their healing rules for pillaging or moving. They heal at 5HP per turn in enemy (your) territory.

PopTarts and KillerCardinal, if you have gamesaves of barbs disobeying these rules can you please post them, as I have been unable to reproduce what you have said. My tests only ever confirm barbs get the same treatment as AIs or humans. For PopTarts, I assume the explanation for your situation was that the barb got a promotion like Roland suggested.


As Innawerkz pointed out, a unit with Medic II cannot heal units across the land/sea boundary. If a Medic II ship is in port, it can heal lands units beside it, but not if it is just sitting on the coast somewhere.
Ships with Medic II can heal units in ships that are adjacent. Units in the cargo of a ship with Medic II can heal adjacent ships and units in adjacent ships.
To make this a lot simpler, I have added this comment to the Medics section in the article.
IMPORTANT NOTE: Units with Medic II cannot heal units across a land/sea boundary. Ships in port are considered to be on the land side of the land/sea boundary.

It went down to .5 strength. Next turn, it jumped up to 1.7 strength next turn due to the promotion. Then next turn it healed again.

Desiregarding everything else, an axeman having 1.7 strength after a promotion is in itself impossible. You go up 50% after a promotion, so you must have at least 2.5 strength. Since the barbarian already had 0.5 strength, it should go up to 2.7 strength after the promotion.

I'm pretty sure you just didn't check properly.

Example 1:

I placed two barbarian knights (knights are good because they have strength 10 making it easy to tell HP) surrounded by mountains and inside my territory. Both were at 2.0/10 health. There was a farm underneath them, and they both had enough xp for a single promotion.
After setting this up, this is what happened on the following turns.

1st turn: Both knights had 6.2/10 HP and one of them pillaged the improvement.

How do you explain the fact that they got more than 50% healing with the promotion? They should have gone up to 6.0 HP, not 6.2.

How do you explain the fact that they got more than 50% healing with the promotion? They should have gone up to 6.0 HP, not 6.2.

They didn't heal more than 50%. I didn't mention they also received the 5HP healing (due to not moving on the turn I placed them using world builder). They therefore healed to 25HP first, then healed half the remaining HP (37.5) to 62.5 = 62HP.

I edited post #26 by mentioning this.

Desiregarding everything else, an axeman having 1.7 strength after a promotion is in itself impossible. You go up 50% after a promotion, so you must have at least 2.5 strength. Since the barbarian already had 0.5 strength, it should go up to 2.7 strength after the promotion.

I'm pretty sure you just didn't check properly.

It was an archer not an axeman in the example.

L = 5 if in enemy territory
L = 10 if in neutral or friendly territory (but not a city)
L = 15 if in home/allied territory (but not a city) or in a city during resistance
L = 20 if in a home/allied/friendly city not in resistance
I was somehow under the impression that it was 10% 20% 30% from enemy to home territory...thanks for the information!

Here's two things for under Observations:

- Tanks can't be promoted with March or Medic.
- Medics will triple your healing in enemy territory.

... just upgrade your medic cavalries!

PopTarts and KillerCardinal, if you have gamesaves of barbs disobeying these rules can you please post them, as I have been unable to reproduce what you have said. My tests only ever confirm barbs get the same treatment as AIs or humans. For PopTarts, I assume the explanation for your situation was that the barb got a promotion like Roland suggested.


Unfortunately, that was quite awhile ago so I don't have a save. I am also more than willing to admit that I may have been seeing things, or have misrembered (or that there was a bug in the previous patch before 1.52) as it was more than a month ago that I saw this. If I see it again, I will make a save and post it, but as you have already tested it, I am betting that you are right;) .

It was an archer not an axeman in the example.

Indeed, sorry about that!

Great article, normally i wouldn't think of taking such a deep look at something that at first glance doesn't seem so important.

Great article, normally i wouldn't think of taking such a deep look at something that at first glance doesn't seem so important.

I know exactly what you mean jeejeep but I started experimenting with some of these things because I wanted to know for sure exactly how it worked. After I had some findings I figured I may as well make them available to others because it wasn't a very well understood aspect of civ4. I'd heard a lot of things like 5% enemy, 10% neutral, 15% home territory etc.

Also, I wanted this article to answer the odd questions that arise occasionally. Especially beginner questions about whether medic bonuses are cumulative and how the March promotion affects units. In these regards the in-game and with-game documentation was ambiguous and rather lacking.

By the way, the tests I used were quick and simple. Had they been otherwise I may not have had the patience to make the article.

....

arthurv, you're right. Unit upgrade paths allow some units to have promotions they shouldn't be allowed to have.

Thank you so much, PieceOfMind! Now, I have peace of mind. Healing advancing units has been one big problem for me, but using this well organized material that you have graceously compiled, will allow my armies to blitz much more effectively.

Brill article on a subject that would be all too easily overlooked

A very handy guide. Thank you for taking the time to make it.

Good informative article. One question though. About the Red Cross national wonder. Does it give the medic I promotion to units that cannot normally receive this promotion (choppers tanks)?

Good informative article. One question though. About the Red Cross national wonder. Does it give the medic I promotion to units that cannot normally receive this promotion (choppers tanks)?

I'm not sure. I don't have access to the game at the moment but you could check very easily using the world builder. Or just load one of your saved games where you had a city with Red Cross and try it out.

nice piece of work PoM
very useful

Good Job,

I have one question, I understand that a unit need to be "eligible to Heal" to receive healing from Medics, What happen in this situation:

Imagine two units: Infantry (with March promotion) and Explorer (with Medic I promotion), the infantry was injured while defend and he move in his turn, and the Medic move too to the same tile, I know that the infantry will heal from march promotion but: is it eligible to receive additional healing from medic (march + medic healing)?

What do you think about that?

Yes (a medic only needs to be present in the tile to give its bonus, a medic 2 only needs to be present in the tile or an adjacent tile to give its bonus, the unit must be 'eligible' to receive the bonus)

Good informative article. One question though. About the Red Cross national wonder. Does it give the medic I promotion to units that cannot normally receive this promotion (choppers tanks)?

No. The Red Cross gives Medic I to eligible units. As far as I can tell, there is no way for tanks to get Medic or March. Choppers can have Medic and March if they are upgraded from cavalry that already have those promotions.

As a side note, choppers with March are truly nasty...it really pays off to prioritize the March promotion for Cavalry as their power wanes.

Thanks a lot for the cool article. It'll no doubt help cut down casualties in my future wars, saving me a good few turns. Thanks a lot for putting the time and effort required into this article.

Excellent article. I have only one thing to add.

Unit Healing
\\-Armored units and helicopters cannot be given Medic promotions. Armored units, helicopters and naval units cannot be given the March promotion.

Mounted units can get medic1 and medic2, and retain these when promoted to helicopter. I like to have "MASH choppers" with medic2 hovering over the battlefield, although realistically explorers might be just as good. Hard to get an explorer up to medic2 though.

awesome post. Really well done and the conclusions section is appreciated.

Mounted units can get medic1 and medic2, and retain these when promoted to helicopter. I like to have "MASH choppers" with medic2 hovering over the battlefield, although realistically explorers might be just as good. Hard to get an explorer up to medic2 though.

Red Cross + Barracks produce Medic II troops directly. This is probably the easiest way to get the troops you want. The other option is to use West Point + Barracks + Pentagon, Vassalage, or Theocracy.

Apologies for the late update.

I added a comment about the Red Cross wonder only giving medic to units allowed to take it.
I also revised the comment about armoured units and helicopters in the last section by adding that these units can end up with medic or march only through unit upgrades from units which are allowed those promotions.

I have not yet played with the new patch (after v.152) so if any changes have been made to the healing system or any of the eligibility rules someone will need to point them out.

EXCEPTION: The March promotion
The March promotion makes a unit ALWAYS eligible for healing regardless of any actions made by the unit in its turn. For example, a horse archer with March can move 1 tile, pillage an improvement and then still be eligible for healing.

Can it even attack and still be eligible for healing????

I know this has said and discussed a lot of times in this thread (and ive read all 3 pages carefully), but this is SO good to be true that i need a direct answer! :)

Imagine a unit with blitz and march attacking a city twice and still getting healed!!! And with a medic I present on the stack too! WOW! :crazyeye:

I know it's a late reply but you are right Mestrelion - you do get to heal even after attacking so long as you have the march promotion.

By the way, I have played the game using the new patch (1.61) and I haven't noticed any changes to anything relevant to this article. Warlords is anyone's guess though.

Excellent article. I think Warlords is the same except for the new great general promotion Medic 3, which gives 15% healing in own tile and all adjacent tiles. I suspect that this replaces the 10% healing of Medic 1 and Medic 2 promotions (which the gg needs to get Medic 3) although it might be in addition in which case the overall effect would be +25% from the Medic promotions.

Excellent article. I think Warlords is the same except for the new great general promotion Medic 3, which gives 15% healing in own tile and all adjacent tiles. I suspect that this replaces the 10% healing of Medic 1 and Medic 2 promotions (which the gg needs to get Medic 3) although it might be in addition in which case the overall effect would be +25% from the Medic promotions.

Edit: The description of Medic 3 says explicitly that it gives an extra +15% so I now think its effect is cumulative with Medic 1 and Medic 2.

Excellent article. I think Warlords is the same except for the new great general promotion Medic 3, which gives 15% healing in own tile and all adjacent tiles. I suspect that this replaces the 10% healing of Medic 1 and Medic 2 promotions (which the gg needs to get Medic 3) although it might be in addition in which case the overall effect would be +25% from the Medic promotions.

Edit: The description of Medic 3 says explicitly that it gives an extra +15% so I now think its effect is cumulative with Medic 1 and Medic 2.

I think that's extra in addition to a unit's natural healing.

Warlords is anyone's guess though.
In Warlords a unit with a general attached to it can get the Medic III promotion (it requires Medic I and II) which adds +15% healing to both the medic square and adiacent squares for a whopping total of +25% healing on the medic square and adiacent squares (in other words it is of course cumulative with the Medic I and II promotions of the same unit). Units accompanied by such a unit in enemy territory heal 6(!) times faster than the regular rate so you can call it a supermedic (0-9.9HP - 4 turns, 10-39.9HP - 3 turns, 40-69.9 - 2 turns, 70-99.9HP - 1 turn). And of course it heals even faster in friendly/neutral territory/cities :) (friendly city - 45%, friendly city + hospital - 55%.. etc).

If that's true it's good news, since I always use my one Warlord to put Medic3 on a mounty. The others of course go to Instructors.

Update: Lord Parkin says you're right, the 15% from Medic3 is in addition to the 10% from Medic2, for a total of +25%.

Thanks for the Warlords details UncleJJ, a4phantom and Alexandru! :goodjob: (I don't have Warlords yet)

The Medic III promotion is now included in the article.

Also today I re-worded many parts of the article where I thought it was still a bit unclear.

I can't wait to try an army of Mech Infantry with a Medic3 warlord . . .

Good article, it answered my questions.

Ok I'm going to be updating this article for BtS soon. Would people please alert me to any new features on unit healing?

The new Woodsman III promotion gives all units in the same tile 15% extra healing per turn.

According to a simple test, the healing offered by a woodsman III unit and the healing offered by a medic I add together even if the promotions are on separate units. This makes a healing rate of 25% very attainable.

Thanks Roland..

I've also noticed that forts heal units like cities now ie. at 20HP per turn.

If you're interested, try this out..

Heal a unit with
-a woodsman III medic, a medic I and II unit,
- on a fort,
- in ally territory,
- with combat IV,
I suspect this is the new fastest rate of healing a unit.

Remember ally means team-mate or permanent ally.

Oh, yes. I had read about the fort healing rate, but had forgotten to report that one.

About your test scenario: why not pick a medic III unit and why several medics on the same tile?

The interesting part about the woodsmen III promotion is that it doesn't have to be on the same unit as the medic promotion. The medic promotion normally requires 2 promotions and the woodsmen III promotion takes 3 promotions. Both levels of units are quite attainable and thus a 25% (or 25hp) extra healing for your attack stack (for a total of 30hps/turn in enemy territory) is quite easy to get. That's quite a change from warlords or vanilla civ4.

If you can get a Red Cross city with enough experience bonuses to units to get 10 xp (or 8 xp for charismatic leaders), then you can let the city build medic I, woodsmen III units directly.

It is important to note that some (of my) favourite healing units like the explorer and the chariot/gunship can't get the woodsmen III promotion.

Is it easy to setup a scenario in the world builder with units at say 10 hps or give them some promotions?
I just put some strong units in the world builder and let myself be attacked by some placed barbarian warriors. That got me the wounded units and the right promotions for the test in the previous post. But maybe there is an easier way. Maybe you could use barbarian catapults and such because they can't kill your units anymore, so they'll just severely hurt them. I should have thought about that earlier.

I probably made a mistake in my test where I combined a separate medic I and woodsman III unit as it seems from other tests done by carl corey (http://forums.civfanatics.com/showthread.php?p=5811533#post5811533) that the healing bonuses don't stack unless the promotions are on the same unit. His tests are well documented, so I guess he's right and I made a mistake.

Still interesting to try to create Woodsman III units in your Red Cross city.

I see you beat me to the link. :D Anyway, PieceOfMind, if you want to take or reformulate anything from there to put in the War Academy article, feel free to do so.

I see you beat me to the link. :D Anyway, PieceOfMind, if you want to take or reformulate anything from there to put in the War Academy article, feel free to do so.

Thanks Carl...

For the moment I'll add a link to your thread, as I don't have enough time to write it myself, though I will sometime soon...:crazyeye:

I was a little concerned you were doing tests healing units which had great generals attached (however you need it for the medicIII of course).

From your conclusions it looks like they've made it fairly complicated. I'm gonna do another quick test now and come back with the results shortly.

I didn't actually need the Great General promotions other than for the Medic III, but I wanted to add some other GG promotions to make it easier to set up the experiment. :) I've done some tests without them, and they're all ok.

Yeah well I did most of my tests just using worldbuilder and lots of knights (strength 10 makes reading HP easy). Very easy to just add the promotions then.

Earlier I tried the combo I spoke of above, which was theoretically going to give 70HP/turn. It gave 60 instead, which is still pretty impressive I spose.

Put a medicIII,woodsmanIII unit on a forest fort in friendly territory. Then heal a combat 4 unit on the tile.

I thought it would be 25 (medic) + 15 (woodsman) + 10 (combat 4) + 20 (for a fort) = 70. I suspect I was wrong that friendly forts give the +20 HP/turn, unlike owned forts. Instead they are like regular friendly territory, giving 10HP per turn.

I still need to check a bit more carefully how forts in your own territory work. I was pretty sure they give 20HP per turn just like cities.

In any case, 40HP healing in enemy forests is awesome. In fact, you're getting 45HP/turn instead because you need to add the base rate of 5HP/turn in enemy territory.

I think the fastest healing combination is still:
Ally city / Hospital / MedicIII / Combat4 (for healing unit) = 65HP/turn.

Correct me if I'm wrong, but doesn't the extra healing from Woodsman III work everywhere, not just in forests?

Yeah, it does. My tests were all done on a grassland tile, no forest.

By the way, I'm not sure when I can do the rest of the tests, since I had to move from the previous apartment and I haven't set up my computer yet, so no Civ for now. :) I promise to complete them when possible.

Oh, yes. I had read about the fort healing rate, but had forgotten to report that one.

Fort healing rate?

It would have been nice to actually get a list of the rule changes with BtS. Maybe they could have included it in a little paper rulebook, perhaps? :rolleyes:
I liked the Warlords one, at least.


Will the Fort increase in the healing rate beat an allied city with a Hospital?

Also, will the Fort increase healing if you happen to occupy one inside of enemy cultural borders? I'd test this, but this computer doesn't have Civ IV on it at the moment. :(

Fort healing rate?

It would have been nice to actually get a list of the rule changes with BtS. Maybe they could have included it in a little paper rulebook, perhaps? :rolleyes:
I liked the Warlords one, at least.


Will the Fort increase in the healing rate beat an allied city with a Hospital?

Also, will the Fort increase healing if you happen to occupy one inside of enemy cultural borders? I'd test this, but this computer doesn't have Civ IV on it at the moment. :(

Forts work like cities, so you get the healing rate as inside a city (20 hps/turn) plus any bonuses granted by unit promotions. I believe that forts inside enemy territory don't do anything for you. At least, that is what I've read. I haven't tested it myself.

Forts work like cities, so you get the healing rate as inside a city (20 hps/turn) plus any bonuses granted by unit promotions. I believe that forts inside enemy territory don't do anything for you. At least, that is what I've read. I haven't tested it myself.

I think forts inside friendly territory also don't do anything special. You just treat them as friendly territory. But again... I haven't really tested these things thoroughly yet either.:( I have little time at the moment but if anyone is eager to find out I can use their findings and give them due credit.

Hey, add "blockading" to the list of activities a unit can perform and still be eligible for healing.