I seldom use this promotion, mainly because my level 6 units almost always deviate from the Combat promotion path (to Medic, Amphibious, or Blitz, for example) if they followed it at all. Lately I've wondered if I've been missing out on something good. I can think of 2 possible uses for Commando:

- add the Commando promo to a single mounted unit in a stack of Gunships, and you have a unit that can tag along with the choppers and capture weakly defended cities deep behind enemy lines, cities that your slower moving Tank or Artillery based stacks would take forever to reach; or
- make a small stack of modern pillaging units with the Commando promotion, and zip around an enemy's lands after a surprise declaration of war, wiping out most or all strategic resource improvements in a single turn (AIs seem to leave only one defender on key resources).

Any other ideas?

- add the Commando promo to a single mounted unit in a stack of Gunships, and you have a unit that can tag along with the choppers and capture weakly defended cities deep behind enemy lines, cities that your slower moving Tank or Artillery based stacks would take forever to reach

i like a variation on that which kind of lets you do a coastal invasion by land. it only works when the map cooperates, but often it does.

you set up a your backline SoD near just the right city before you declare. make sure it contains a stack of choppers and couple cavs/MI with commando. on his border inside the territory of someone you have OB with, whatever.

choppers go in and kill all the units they can. bombers/fighters can bring down defenses first if they're available, that helps lots. then send in the commandos to actually capture the city, since the gunships can't do that. bingo, you have a city on that side to use as a base to heal / pester him from / airlift into / upgrade in, etc. if the map played nice, enough of his culture goes away that now the rest of that SoD can walk right in on now-neutral roads. so you have fresh defenders and real troops there. and they all use their promotions on what you want them to, they didn't have to take commando :)

meanwhile your main SoD has starting on the cities on the other side.

I've promoted units to commando before but I've never actually gotten a chance to use it. One thing I think it would be useful for is pillaging. It essentially turns a 1 move unit into a multiple move unit, so you can team a commando with a non-commando medic/defender and have some fun. The commando can also attack a stack 3 spaces away, and then be covered by a 2 move unit. I'd like to see commando moved up to level of blitz and march so it would see more use.

Never ever promoted a unit to commando, it's no use IMO. Better promotions are avaible, if no else, then i put it to +10% strenght promotion, or to a medic.

I like to attach my great generals and Commando is a great promotion when they upgrade to Infantry/ Mobile Infantry (or even before). Of course in late game war its awesome to be able to take a city, then run out, pillage the roads and duck back into the city without fear of artillery. Commando and CR3 are the biggest difference between my GG Mobile Infantry and the ones fresh off the line.

I can't imagine fighting a lategame war without it, especially since cultural borders are obscene in late game and everyone has fighters/ artillery to decimate you.

Cheers,

Dai

Commando is brutal in multiplayer. Most players don't have big defensive stacks in their back cities so a blitz/commando unit can cause some serious havoc.

Commando promted tanks or Modern Armour can cause a ridiculous amount of carnage to an oponent who is behind on tech, if u r charismatic and have a decent west point city with a couple of GGs you should b able to pump out the commando tanks from new, and then go to work on your opponents inner cities (especially if they have railroaded their land)

The AI always uses an expensive anti-commando defense, so it's not that useful against them.

But humans tend to leave their back lines undefended. Commando is great to exploit undefended targets or force them to defend everywhere.

I've never used commando because I've never had a way to build a new unit that starts at the required level. So I'd have only a few units at that level which would likely get killed if they went deep into enemy territory alone, and I've never had a task that a single unit could do alone that was important enough to lose a high experience unit doing it.

I've never used commando because I've never had a way to build a new unit that starts at the required level. So I'd have only a few units at that level which would likely get killed if they went deep into enemy territory alone, and I've never had a task that a single unit could do alone that was important enough to lose a high experience unit doing it.

yes, I agree a commando is hugely promoted -therefore valuable. it could get to a iron mine or oil but would have to wait a turn before pillaging. if it was a forward attack in an advanced civ with rail it would be dead before that happened

furthermore if this was deep in enemy terretory the AI could quickly rebuild

so it seems like a rather desperate gambit

i do get desperate enough to try anything on occasion but I don't usually have level 6 troops around by that point

I never use the promotion, but the title reminded me of Commando (1985) with Arnold Schwarzenegger...

It's easy to get Commando with Charismatic Leaders, Obviously Cyrus is the easiest.

Basically what you need is a Barracks, Stable, Westpoint, both Civics and 4 GGs in one city. You should be able to get it by Military Tradition.

Going with gunships and taking the cities they weaken sounds like a good idea - I hadn't thought of that before.

I have used them occasionally for scouting before I had planes - ranging ahead of my main stack to see what it was likely to encounter and then rejoining them at the end of the move. But spies do this job for me now.

I think a stack of them would be a lot of fun. One on its own wouldn't - but imagine Boudica building commando infantry out of the gate - not unreasonable for her. Or even commando cavalry. How quickly can you say scorched earth.

I've never used Commando. I can't imagine separating a unit from my main stacks and expecting that unit to survive.

It might be useful to charge in and pillage a key resource, but I would also expect the Commando unit to die the next turn.

I imagine that Commando could be quite deadly in Multiplayer, if my opponent has poorly-defended cities in their interior. Charge in with Commando, kill the defender, and raze the city. A nasty surprise like that will teach them to defend their inner cities!

My standard promotion path for mounted units is C3->March->C4->Blitz, with some Flank, Sentry, and Shock thrown in, and for foot units is an equal split between CR3->C1 and C3->March, with the occasional medic thrown in.