Does anyone use it much at all? It requires so many lvls to get that only aggressive or charasmatic leaders can expect get more than a handful of units up that high. On occasion I've used it to with a sacrificial unit via a great general to raze a capital off the coast after destroying all the defenders with missiles, choppers, and nukes.

My one and only game where I made extensive use of it was playing as the Celts (guess which one) and captured an enemy cap with enough settled GGs that with WP I could churn out commando infantry backed by fighters (this was the old patch) before the AI had SAM infantry. Just curious to see if anyone else has found any uses for this that warrant the effort to get such highly promoted units.

If you've had a really war heavy game and are in the modern-ish era (with 3-4 GGs settled as advisors, West Point, Barracks, West Point, Vassalage and Theocracy) in your main production city commando troops riding rail roads can strike into the heart of enemy territory in a single turn, especially devastating with modern armor.

I have never used the promotion.
The only unit that gets it is the spy.
It requires to many Combat promotion wich could go to more specialized promos like city raider for early and pinch later on. Plus A commando should be backed up with a spy to revolt a city and even then your chances might not be in favor.

If you've had a really war heavy game and are in the modern-ish era (with 3-4 GGs settled as advisors, West Point, Barracks, West Point, Vassalage and Theocracy)

Cool, i have never ever builded 2 West Points. :lol:

Charismatic trait really helps, so does the aggressive trait. (Boudica!)

But i have never promoted to commando, becouse my games ends usually in the middle age.

I have never used the promotion.
The only unit that gets it is the spy.
It requires to many Combat promotion wich could go to more specialized promos like city raider for early and pinch later on. Plus A commando should be backed up with a spy to revolt a city and even then your chances might not be in favor.

It's actually ridiculously easy to get if you're Cyrus

never used bar boudica(13xp)

at 21xp, which a normal cha leader would get... bah, can imagine better uses then that; cute the invented this promo I suppose... pity it's unrealistic. But then it's good it's unrealistic, because programming the ai to cope with mass commando units would be nigh on impossible.

I'm telling you. Try Cyrus. He's Imp and Char.

Cool, i have never ever builded 2 West Points. :lol:

Charismatic trait really helps, so does the aggressive trait. (Boudica!)

But i have never promoted to commando, becouse my games ends usually in the middle age.

Lol, I read over it, and somehow thought I forgot to put in West Point, and added it in again =/

You need 5 promos :(. It's so hard to get 5 promos on stock units...even for super warmonger traits like AGG/IMP/Cha. Best bet would be some combination of the two but it would still be almost impossible to compose most of your military with this kind of unit :(.

Charismatic is the must trait for getting commando for units.

Try Cyrus in pangea map with aggressive AI:s

I have gotten commando's with Hannibal once, but that was so late in the game I had practically won. Commando isn't very useful but it's still a cool promotion.

You can get commando units reasonably easily as Cyrus on a huge map if you do a lot of warmongering. The pay-off is that they're a bit situational to say the least and it means settling all your GG into one super military city rather than spreading them around for more less-promoted troops. The flipside is that they're really "expendable" as you've got a city capable of building them out of the gate, so you don't need to worry about sending them on suicide missions.

Nothing beats racing C4Commando MA deep into enemy territory to take/raze a core city your bombers have been blitzing on the first turn of war. Since they took barrage away from armoured units, I've become a much bigger fan of the combat line on them too.

I take it whenever its available. On tanks/ma it means your army on land can move as fast as the airpower. Its not only absurd how quickly you can bypass enemy defenses but the ability to strike at the most significant targets while ignoring the more irrelevant ones can seriously expand the flexibility of your offense.

The reason commando comes so late is because its so powerful. Its one of those promotions that lends a lot of credence to the use of warlords. If you have 4-6 warlord units that have 150+ xp supported by airunits you can take major cities every turn.

Its certainly more of a marathon game promotion for civs that expect to get a lot of workhorse performance out of their UU and be at war early and often. Certainly civs like the Celts, Rome, England (especially churchill), Germany, Mongolia etc all should have the opportunity to get numerous units at this level.

Another point to make is that this is not an individual units promotion. ITs value is in volume. Its about having fast moving armies not just one strong fast unit.

mboettcher:

I'm not following you regarding the Celtic, Roman, and Mongolian UU's. Commando requires you to tech military science before you can use it (or so I thought) which means all the early UU's can't possibly use it as their UUs.

If you mean having a few of the UU take general leadership, odds one surviving 20 odd combats, assuming you husband them to only attack at 98% on average, means that you will still lose 1 in 3 (btw 97% drops this down to 1 in 2; anything less is effectual suicide in the long run). For non-charismatics (like Rome, Germany, Mongolia, etc.) this just doesn't seem doable; particularly if you are doing it with pre-vassalage UUs. Imperialist MIGHT able to run it on its own, but the promos required are huge. How many GGs must you settle for initial XP, how many GG are you having lead for more promos, and how may battles must you fight before you unlock commando?

I can't possibly imagine getting enough commando units to take key cities without using hoards of missiles/choppers/nukes (in which case you need one of them supermobile freaks) without going imp/agr/cha (or even more likely a combo). Avoiding it being a suicide mission (barring mass paratroop reinforcement which is highly situational) requires that you have many combat 4 units sitting outside the city you just swatted, one airlifted defender, and and enough units inside (without CG, pinch, etc.) inside to withstand the attack after siege batters them. GG led troops just seem so utterly not worth the GG points.

well, I never use vassalage, so - 2 from theo, 3 from racks, 4 from wp, 2 settled ggs - 13xp; with boudica you start with c1. So it's perfectly doable.

with cyrus it already seems dubious, as you need, even with theo and vassalage, 21xp, so 5 settled ggs - 6 without vassalage(which is still perfectly doable, only that I find dubious settling 5 ggs in the same city - I prefer 3 cities taking out 3 promo units instead of 1 with 5 promo units).

otherwise, the moment you get them, and most important, the moment they get railroads... the game starts being retarded; especially when you have bomber support(and we all know it's easy to get them in, as the ai loves suiciding his fighters in the 1st 3 turns of a war). Mind you, even as human and with a good strategy grip, I doubt there's much you can do to stop an enemy with tons of commando troops - 20 movement/turn for any tank/ma means they can basically strike any city in bomber range; and bombers can be deployed in forts, to bypass the limit of city loading(and by that time, your workers chew bubble gum anyway).

p.s. - the only good thing is that, if you can muster all that, probably you'd win the game regardless of commando.

Commando elephants?

@ Mirthadir

True its difficult to get a unit to this point and yes pbviously you're going to support your armies with bombers/choppers/missles and whatnot because there is no such thing as an effective blitzkrieg w/o their aide. I wasn;t suggesting one uses commando units w/o air support. I was simply suggesting that in the event that the commando promo is available one should take it as in the light of effective support it can double or better the city conquest rate if exploited properly. And yes, like any speed conquer strat, its going to cost one some risks in terms of unit loss in order to expoit it.

As far as the pre-mil sci civs one usually has a plethora of high xp units left over after early conquests. Its easy to contrive an army of High xp commandos for later left over from early wars or generated from the GG produced. I wasn;t inferring that one should have praetorian 200xp commandos with lvl 6 combat and city raider 3.

@ Mirthadir

True its difficult to get a unit to this point and yes pbviously you're going to support your armies with bombers/choppers/missles and whatnot because there is no such thing as an effective blitzkrieg w/o their aide. I wasn;t suggesting one uses commando units w/o air support. I was simply suggesting that in the event that the commando promo is available one should take it as in the light of effective support it can double or better the city conquest rate if exploited properly. And yes, like any speed conquer strat, its going to cost one some risks in terms of unit loss in order to expoit it.

As far as the pre-mil sci civs one usually has a plethora of high xp units left over after early conquests. Its easy to contrive an army of High xp commandos for later left over from early wars or generated from the GG produced. I wasn;t inferring that one should have praetorian 200xp commandos with lvl 6 combat and city raider 3.

My point is that in order to take a city you need to either:
1. Actually kill everything with nukes/choppers/missiles.
2. Use bombers and leave all units with minimal heath. Then you need normally 4, though sometimes FAR more to administer the final blow.

In the former case you need exactly ONE commando unit. Not an army of them. The devil comes from reinforcing the city with actual defensive forces. You get to airlift in one unit, good. But if it is truly mobile warfare you need far more. Depending on sea access you might be able to dump in choppers (fine unless they have SAM infantry or worse mobile SAMs) and possibly paratroops. In the modern armor age this generally is not sufficient garrison to keep the city when the enemy SoD hits.

In the latter case, you are going to need at least 3 commandos and more like 6. If they aren't tanks or cav they will be sitting ducks outside the city at the end of the turn. Again you have the problem that combat IV anything is not good garrison material for the counter attack.

Regarding old units with high XP, sorry but that doesn't work particularly well. Unless said unit is lead by a GG, all that XP vanishes down to 10 with promotion (in theory you could get your prat up to lvl 5 and save the promotion until you get military science, but this requires you to sacrifice the utility of that promotion for many, many turns). Further most ancient UUs don't take the combat promotion line, seriously how many prats do you have that go combat III as opposed to CR III or Combat II/shock or Combat II/cover? Ancient units that do go combat tend to be mounted and for the purposes of taking cities, they top out at cavalry.

Again for non-chas units that need 5 promos require you to win SO many battles, even for hoards of ancient units the odds of them surviving even just 95% odds every time are nil.

Do you have a save you might be able to show me?

Mind you, even as human and with a good strategy grip, I doubt there's much you can do to stop an enemy with tons of commando troops - 20 movement/turn for any tank/ma means they can basically strike any city in bomber range;

While I haven't actually play-tested this myself (I do not often make it to railroads before starting a new game, and when I do I forget) but others have constantly chastised me on this point: railroads make is so any unit can ONLY move 10 tiles during their turn, regardless of base movement points.

I was playing as monty (so warmonger) and settled all my gg's so by the industrial era i had enough to get commando. Isn't worth giving to the bulk or your army, but good for a few suicide units to pillage and bring down your enemy's economy.

railroads make is so any unit can ONLY move 10 tiles during their turn, regardless of base movement points.

don't have the game near, so don't know; but anyway, you're limited by bomber 12 range, so it doesn't really matter. However, in a 10 tiles range there's probably every relevant city of the other civ. so it doesn't matter too much.

There's one more thing to help you with the necessary XP, and that's the Pentagon. Of course, there's no guarantee that you'll build it, but I've noticed that a lot of AIs go down the Electricity route before Assembly Line. Plus, if you really focus your research you can avoid stuff like Communism, Democracy, the whole Scientific Method line, Military Science, and go directly for Assembly Line. So it's feasible.

That means for Cyrus you'd need only 4 settled GGs (3XP barracks + 4XP West Point + 2XP vassalage + 2XP theology + 2XP Pentagon + 8XP from 4 GGs). 4 GGs after taking over a continent is not a tall order for an Imperialistic leader. In my last game I got 3 without being Imperialistic. (aside: You can increase your chances of getting the GGs by building the Great Wall and waiting a few turns to fight inside your territory first after declaring war.)

Now, we've mostly seen mentioned getting Commando on Tanks/MAs. If you're willing to settle for Commando Cavalry you don't need to wait for the Pentagon, you have the stables which give you the 2XP needed to replace Pentagon, so 4 GGs will still do for Cyrus.

What about unrestricted leaders? Say, Cyrus of the Mongols: the ger replaces stables and gives you another 2XP. There goes another GG, and you're down to 3 for Commando Cavalry.

That said, I've never used Commando in BTS. I have other uses for GGs, like a MASH unit (Medic 3 + Morale), or Military Academies to build my fleet for intercontinental warfare, etc. I'll probably play some games with Boudica and Cyrus to see how useful it is to concentrate your strategy on getting Commando.

Fall from Heaven 2 has made a great thing to make this promotion appear more often in the games. The Raiders trait gives this promotion to most unit types, so beware of your road construction if you have a Raider enemy!

It's a great promotion for pillaging.

I think that settling all your GGs in a single city is less cost-effective than get several cities to churn out level-4 units and/or use them for military academies.

That said, I frequently get commando units, first mounted ones trough combat (I tend to promote a reasonable amount of knights the combat line and later cav, the other ones get flanking) and when I capture an enemy city with a few settled GGs I use WestPoint to churn out commando tanks, they are really usefull late game.

After reading this thread I've found a newer healthy respect for the commando promotion, for the most part my war style tends to keep me from being able to use it all that much when it becomes availible (after gg's vasalocracy, etc). I am liking the thought of commando modern armor . . . . . show up off the coast . . . one tile from the cultural border . . . declare war, pummell the coast . . . take with marines then unload commando ma's from transports . . . . . oh that's just wrong . . . ouch.

Commando elephants?

:crazyeye:

Sir, sir, reports have come in of elephants that have hijacked our trains ..
Get a hold of yourself corporal ( slap )
.... Sweet mother of @#&^

:crazyeye:

I have never upgraded to this promo. As mentioned, there are a lot better paths to follow.

I have never upgraded to this promo. As mentioned, there are a lot better paths to follow.

Aaaaargh, I hate agreeing with Obsolete. But in this case I do. I usually spread my GG's around so i can get 2 promos from multiple cities regardless of my civics. Late game when it is time for the Infantry push, I have a tendancy to research Medicine first and build hospitals while researching Assembly Line.
HE city gets red cross as well. Or if HE ended up with WP the I burn a GG for an academy in Red Cross. This is the city I build assault troops in. The ones that actually take some damage. Infantry aren't fast moving but if they don't have to stop and heal then they just walk from city to city. Artillery are mass produced so that injure siege units can heal in newly capture cities until the next city is taken. then they can use the roads that are suddenlt nuetral to catch up.
Unfortunately Armor units can not get the march promo and nmechs have it built in. So you sort of lose a promotion when you upgrade them

I have never upgraded to this promo. As mentioned, there are a lot better paths to follow.

Not even as a suicide razer to pull your butt out of the fire? I've burnt a GG to get a commando cav before so I could drop some nukes and raze the enemy cap. That seems to be the only real use for commando that I've had aside from dicking around with Guerilla/Commando/Combat IV infantry.

If I had an invasion force that ran out of 2 move units (cav and armor) I'd consider upgrading a 1 move unit to commando for razing as I went along. It also is basically the only promotion that can mimic morale (a GG promotion), giving you extra moves in war zones. Of course a single unit which can move quicker, which focuses mostly on combat given it is combat 4, doesn't make much difference. But it could make a bit. Every unit promotion ultimately only makes a slight difference.

Variety is quite useful when it comes to armies, so a mix of commandos could be good, in addition to combat 5s, and units with pinch etc.

Its biggest drawback is how hard it is to get, rather than it's actual uses I think. Although in a recent game with Stalin I was getting combat 4 gunpowder off the lines(combat 1 comes free so i only needed 10 xp), so I would have had quite a bit of potential commandos, assuming I actually researched military science.

Not even as a suicide razer to pull your butt out of the fire? I've burnt a GG to get a commando cav before so I could drop some nukes and raze the enemy cap. That seems to be the only real use for commando that I've had aside from dicking around with Guerilla/Commando/Combat IV infantry.

That's what I use paratroopers for....

I'm trying to recall, can you paratroop out of civs with OB, off ships, or something I don't recall? I don't do this much, but I seem to recall the nuke/commando being for the bastards who launch their spaceships from non-costal caps or culture mongers who likewise are inland. Get OB with the civ next door and you can storm the inland cap without a beachhead. I know I used it to save my ass a few times.

Unfortunately Armor units can not get the march promo and nmechs have it built in. So you sort of lose a promotion when you upgrade them
Red Cross gives you Medic 1, not March. Mech comes with March. So you don't lose anything.

Tanks can't have Medic 1 either. :(

Red Cross gives you Medic 1, not March. Mech comes with March. So you don't lose anything.

Tanks can't have Medic 1 either. :(

Not worried about tanks having medic1 since they can't get march. I know Red Cross gives medic1 and not march. however medic1 is a prerequisite for march. Otherwise I need level5 units for nonaggressive leaders, because the other path to march is Combat 3. Or Combat1/Drill1-.medic->march. doable with pro or agg leaders with just two promos. but i would rather save the extra promotion wasted on medic1.
Mechs come with March but they are way way down the tech tree. By that point i am attacking with bombers and large stacks of tanks. leap frogging from city to city while some of the tanks heal. In the slow movement era of infantry and cannons/arty. Healing on the move is awesome.