I must say that the combat line is awesome. These days I always try and get as many units as far into combat as possible. The specialized promotions are detours that often make your unit worse! And you only need a few of them every game, and mostly for defense.
The way combat works, on the attack you almost never get the benefit of these specialized promotions since the best defender defends anyways. So when it comes time for your Shock unit to attack it's probably a sure-win battle anyways.

Before you got siege, City Raider can be ok. But only when you got few units, and I try to get Combat on the ones that I know will survive.

So to summarize.
Specialize on defense. Generalize on attack. (Drill or Combat)
And Combat is better on stronger units. City Raider can be really good vs strong units, like Protective Longbowmen on hills.
But for longevity, Combat-line rules all specialized promotions.
Combat never goes out of fashion as old Combat types cease to exist.

Noteworthy
And for a bonus, Great Generals attached allows for Combat VI which is +25% for a total of +75% vs all units!
Also, Combat IV gives +10% healing in Neutral terrain, and Combat V +10% in Enemy terrain.
Combat III leads to Blitz, and Combat IV to Commando.
Aggressive leaders have a special opportunity to take advantage of a specialized army, since they only need one Level to get to Shock and Cover.
Spearmen and Pikemen have a strong reason to min-max their anti-mounted ability and take Formation after combat II. But this leaves a gap in their weakness to anti-melee units. Taking Combat covers all their weaknesses. Taking Shock and/or Cover can leviate some if the enemy uses many of those units, but that can be hit-miss.

This is not really true.

Early in the game most of your combat eligable units fall into three categories:
melee
mounted
archery

melee units can take CR and as long as they are hitting a city, this is a stronger all purpose promo for the most common combat you see

Mounted units run into the fun that they have a specific hard counter unit in spearmen which means that a shock HA is more likely to survive and do more damage to the top defender than a CII. In addition FI and especially F2 can greatly increase survival rates and dramaticly increase damage per :hammers: rates.

Archery units are by and large defensive units, even there I find more use for drill than combat.

Combat is decidedly inferior for taking cities than CR melee or C1/Shock mounted.

After rifling (or mil sci) enemy garrisons will be amost exclusively mounted, gunpowder, and siege.

Rifles, for instance, have an innate cav bonus and cav does not take defensive bonuses. Rifles vs defensive cannon is also weaker than Rifle (pinch) vs Rifle (particularly if the defender is pinch). Until the AI gets some MGs; pinch let's you kill more units for fewer losses. Even after that you really want a mix of pinch, formation, and pure C guys, just use them in order when the top defender is vulnerable.

Play a test game. Take a war with prebuilt units (enough to swamp the AI); if needed WB the AI out of half of its units. Don't promote any offensive troops until you are ready to attack. Play it out using CR and then again when using C (for early warfare, do the same with pinch later), check your losses and turns to completion. I have an extremely hard time believing that C wins on either front.

Now with mass siege or a significant tech advantage (i.e. infantry vs muskets), you can get by perhaps faster with drill (due to the higher odds of taking no damage), but combat is just not that impressive compared to other options.

The city raider-line is way better than combat against cities, before and after siege. CRIII is +75%, C3 can't compete with that. CR also never goes out of fashion.

And spears should take formation. Use axes to protect spears. Pinch is a possibility for pikes.

I generally build my army with the idea of taking my rivals' cities, so city raider is the promotion I usually take. If you promote your early melee units with combat rather than city raider, then you'll never have CR III rifleman attacking a rival's longbowmen. That is a pleasure I'd be loathe to miss.

I don't promote until I'm ready to attack. If I catch a rival's stack out in the open, I'll promote to combat if my attacker is nearly equivalent to the defender or to drill for the first strike if I have an power advantage that will make the first strike count for more. If I have two promotions available and the rival's stack is composed of just one type of unit, I'll often take combat plus the appropriate countering promotion, e.g. cover or shock.

Would you care to say more about aggressive leaders' ability to form a specialized army? Since you said a specialized army is useful for defense, are you saying that the strength of the aggressive trait is defensive? That seems a counter intuitive way of looking at it.

There are a lot of fun ways to play the game. Thanks for your thoughts.

Hortulanus.
Prince/Monarch. BTS.

CR for melee (except spears/pike), CG for archery, Flanking for mounted, combat for gunpowder, CR for seige, Pinch for late gunpowder units, CR for armor. 80% of my promotion follow this and I have had not problems with warfare.

The biggest advantage to combat is better stack defense in the open field, however most of my units involve city warfare, either defensively or agressively.

CR for melee (except spears/pike), CG for archery, Flanking for mounted, combat for gunpowder, CR for seige, Pinch for late gunpowder units, CR for armor.

Great pilot candidate for a new strategy article series, "Learn Civ4 in 5 seconds". Part 1, promotions!

Nobody use drill.

I think its a very usefull promotion having better health unit in both attack and defense is prety good.

Nobody use drill.

I think its a very usefull promotion having better health unit in both attack and defense is prety good.

I use drill with certain UUs, use it when I have a unit with superior base strength (gunpowder versus longbows), machine guns, and privateers.

Once I start using siege everything gets combat or drill. CR is nice, but when all the defenders are low health I am less worried about actually taking the city and prefer a more well rounded promotion. Additionally, if it becomes advantageous to take on an enemy SOD in the field or in one of your own cities you do not have an entire stack of uselessly promoted troops.

It's really just all personal preference.

City Raider can be really good vs strong units, like Protective Longbowmen on hills.


Uhm, no. That's exactly the kind of target you shouldn't use CR1 against. If the longbowmen are stationed in cities, you'll get better combat odds using Combat 1 against them. Protective Archers in cities on hills are another example. Shock on horses against spearmen is another promotion that provides much, much less combat effectiveness than it's nominal value suggests, often making it no more effective than Combat. The general rule is: the higher the situational bonusses of the defending unit, the better Combat is compared to the alternatives.

Please take a look at the attached save for proof of my claims.

I don't think it's much of an argument to look at units after they're hammered by siege. If the target is damaged enough, Drill is better than either. OTOH, using City Raider instead of Combat/Drill means that I don't need to use as much siege - which means faster, cheaper wars.

And the promotions higher Combat unlocks aren't really very useful. Blitz is very rarely something that I could actually USE on ground units except for tanks, which come with it already (prior 2-move units aren't strong enough that multiple attacks end up being wise in most cases anyway). And Commando? Near-useless unless the entire army can get it, which is a VERY specialized case. March is the exception, but taking 2 or more weak promotions, then a third that doesn't provide any direct combat benefit, is a substantial cost so this is hardly a universal thing.

Against that, Combat provides better offensive capability outside of cities - not something that happens that much, and when it does siege is really the deciding factor anyway, so building the army for that doesn't seem like a good idea.

Uhm, no. That's exactly the kind of target you shouldn't use CR1 against. If the longbowmen are stationed in cities, you'll get better combat odds using Combat 1 against them. Protective Archers in cities on hills are another example. Shock on horses against spearmen is another promotion that provides much, much less combat effectiveness than it's nominal value suggests, often making it no more effective than Combat. The general rule is: the higher the situational bonusses of the defending unit, the better Combat is compared to the alternatives.

Please take a look at the attached save for proof of my claims.

Um, every calculation I make for a CR II or combat II melee against a city garrison longbow gives betetr odds for teh CR promoted units.

Ca,'t look at the save right now though.

I really only promote just before I need the respective troops, when I can see the enemy's face so to say. Then I choose promotions for the specific purpose.

Of course, stack defenders are mostly promoted before that, and full Drill is good when the AI starts to use siege massively.

I am really a fan of mounted units with combat and blitz, coupled with some siege. When Blitz becomes available, I am a huge fan of combat promotions for that reason :)

In general, Grey Fox, your points are very valid, but I only decide on promotions based on specific situations.

Another thing to be aware of:
When combat promotions are stacked, the become less effective with every stacking. Combat 2 only raises your unit's strength from 110% to 120%, which is an increase of no more than 9.09%.

City Raider and other stackable situational attack bonusses, however, become stronger with every stacking for as long as they reduce the situational bonusses of the defender and become as strong as their nominal value indicates (in CR1's case 20% for example; you could say the strength increase is "capped" at this value) when the defender does not have situational bonusses (left) at all. Mind you, this only goes for the last applied promotion, not for all promotions including the ones that were initially pitted against high defensive bonusses.

Um, every calculation I make for a CR II or combat II melee against a city garrison longbow gives betetr odds for teh CR promoted units.

When the promotions are stacked, CR is again more advantageous. However, you still get much less for the CR promotions than the game tells you you do.

However, you still get much less for the CR promotions than the game tells you you do.

Are you saying the odds are not correct, or is it the base descriptions of promotions?

I know CR promotions basically just negate defenders bonus's (thus CR II negates CG II) while Combat promitons are added directly to attacker.

Thus Longbow +145% versus CR II (+45%) Mace is


Longbow 12 versus mace 8 or 1.5:1

Longbow +145% versus combat II mace is

Longbow 14.7 versus mace 9.6 or 1.53:1

Slight edge to CR although combat maces have better field/city protection.

Going to CR rifles (promoted) versus combat II rifles

Longbow 12 versus rifle 14 is 0.85:1

Longbow 14.7 versus rifle 16.8 is 0.875:1

Always a slight edge to CR.

Are you saying the odds are not correct, or is it the base descriptions of promotions?

Just the descriptions, when interpreted the naive way as in "city raider 1 is combat 2 but only when attacking cities". But if you're making the calculations the way you do, you should already be aware that things don't work that way.

Just the descriptions, when interpreted the naive way as in "city raider 1 is combat 2 but only when attacking cities". But if you're making the calculations the way you do, you should already be aware that things don't work that way.

Except city raider 1 is one promo and combat 2 is two promos... are you trying to tell use 10% more strength attacking a city is better than 20% more?

Wow, I looked at the save, that doesn't make any sense. 20% should always beat 10%. I'd call it a bug in the way the math is done.

It's pretty easy to figure it out too- like you guys said they just strip the 20% city raider promo and the 20% city garrison promo, which means whoever has the higher base strength gets screwed. So axes vs archers with city garrison looks like combat 1 is better, but axes vs longbows looks like the city raider is better. Weird way to do the math, hopefully civ5 won't do it this way.

Except city raider 1 is one promo and combat 2 is two promos... are you trying to tell use 10% more strength attacking a city is better than 20% more?
I think the point is that each Combat level is presented as 10% while CR1 is presented as 20%, so one might naively think that C2 and CR1 would give equivalent results attacking cities, when in fact they do not because the bonuses are applied in very different ways.

Are you saying the odds are not correct, or is it the base descriptions of promotions?

I know CR promotions basically just negate defenders bonus's (thus CR II negates CG II) while Combat promitons are added directly to attacker.

Thus Longbow +145% versus CR II (+45%) Mace is


Longbow 12 versus mace 8 or 1.5:1

Longbow +145% versus combat II mace is

Longbow 14.7 versus mace 9.6 or 1.53:1

Slight edge to CR although combat maces have better field/city protection.

Going to CR rifles (promoted) versus combat II rifles

Longbow 12 versus rifle 14 is 0.85:1

Longbow 14.7 versus rifle 16.8 is 0.875:1

Always a slight edge to CR.

At city raider 2, but at cr1 and combat1 the slight edge (very slight mind you) goes to combat one for the mace at least, having done the odds on the rifle.

Still I'd rather go cr1 to get cr2 later.

The difference is so small either way, I guess it comes down to are you going to do much combat outside of cities or not. Otherwise for attacking cities a .5% difference either way shouldn't make a difference in the scope of the whole game.

I think the point is that each Combat level is presented as 10% while CR1 is presented as 20%, so one might naively think that C2 and CR1 would give equivalent results attacking cities, when in fact they do not because the bonuses are applied in very different ways.

I understand that but you should be comparing combat 2 to city raider 2 since they take the same two promos to get there.

I understand that but you should be comparing combat 2 to city raider 2 since they take the same two promos to get there.
When the point is that it looks like they give the same benefit, but they don't, comparing C2 to CR2 would be completely useless, since those DON'T look like they give the same benefit.

I used to use City Raider a lot, but last couple of months I've been going away from it more and more cause I don't need it and there are more situations where I've wished this unit had Combat promotions.

I'm also feeling like this with City Defense. Often when it comes to the Riflemen or Infantry wars I've been looking at my stacks seeing an awful lot of City Defense units which I now wish was combat I.

Early on I use City Raider, but mostly on units that will die anyways or before siege to take a barbarian city or an axe rush or something.

How often doesn't your units have 95%+ in attack odds vs cities anyways? If so I'd rather have a unit that can properly defend itself after taking the city.
And even if the odds is 75% instead, winning that battle will yield more experience.

I'm not saying it's useless, far from it. It's one of the best promotions. But for the long haul games, going for domination or conquest, I'd rather have an army of Combat 4, 5 units than City Raider units. Combat units tend to survive longer in my experience too.

And when it comes to Blitz and Commando.
They are great on Helicopters. I'd rather have Blitz on them than Flanking II.
And Commando is hard to get, but if you are Boudica and have a city that can produce lvl 5 units ("only" 13xp) you can make them from build. 20xp for other Charismatic.

In my last game with Cyrus I had 4 cities that could produce lvl 5 units. It was awesome. (Thanks AI for settling your generals :D)

I generally like combat, because of how the game picks stack defenders. Usually my CR troops are siege, so the only time I use CR on non-siege is before cats. However, I frequently choose to fight with mounted then (if available and I don't have a good melee UU), and those can't take CR, so they get a combo of flanking II and combat.

I generally like combat, because of how the game picks stack defenders. Yeah, I know my first post was a bit fussy, but I mentioned this and it's probably the biggest reason why I prefer Combat.

From time to time I hope to demonstrate that Combat -> Medic -> March is a useful line for fast conquest, only to (re)discover that the siege needs to take breaks anyway.

Please take a look at the attached save for proof of my claims.

Knock down the culture defenses with cats and the odds swing towards CR1. But your point is true that CR and other specialty promotions get weaker (while attacking) the more defensive bonuses the defender has. If a defender is getting 100% defensive bonus, CR1 only weakens the defender by 10%.

On the flip side, the Combat line gets weaker when the unit has some natural bonuses against another unit. For instance, a quecha gets 100% bonus versus archers, plus Combat1 for free. Giving a quecha Combat2 as its first promo only makes it 4.76% stronger versus archers (4.2 -> 4.4). Giving it CR1 or Cover will certainly make the archer more than 4.76% weaker (typically 7-12% weaker).

If you're trying to decide how to promote a stack defender like a spear, pike, or Xbow, you definitely want to chose the specialty promotions as soon as they're available. That is, choose Formation for the spear/pike before C3 because C3 only makes the spear/pike 4.55% stronger defending against mounted units. Choose Shock for Xbows. Same principle applies for spears/pikes/Xbows attacking the unit they counter.

From time to time I hope to demonstrate that Combat -> Medic -> March is a useful line for fast conquest, only to (re)discover that the siege needs to take breaks anyway.

If you have a tech lead, it's not nearly as bad. Say you have infantry and the opponent has yet to field machine guns or its own infantry. With some cannons to bombard (and maybe ONE collateral hit or something), your infantry will generally have good odds and can just keep going.

Although the usefulness of this against just waiting to promote, then insta-healing with promotions is debatable. Medics range from very useful to completely useless depending on how quickly you can end the war (if your units never stop and you're going to cap them in 5-8 turns, medics don't do a whole lot).

Multiplayer really brings out the power of Combat. You can't bet on facing all longbows, catching the majority of units in cities, etc.

Combat is slightly worse than the "appropriate promotion" for just about any situation, but its far better than having the wrong promotion for the job.

I never promote specialized anyway, except for stack defense: one mace/axe with combat shock, one spear/pike with formation if possible to get that many promos, sometimes a longbow with guerrilla.

The health benefits of the higher combat levels seems to be marginal if it doesn't stack (and even if it does) with any benefits provided by medics that should be in ANY stack that has combat 4/5 units.

If I am going to be attacking with a unit it generally get combat or CR (heavily dependent on how much/kinds siege I can muster at the time - which basically means CR early but once I have trebs my melee units will start getting combat.

Defenders get which ever promotion lines will maximize their traditional role (c1,2+formation for spears; CG for archery; and some guerilla/woodsman for stack defense as needed)

except for CG promoted which I try get start at 5XP; I rarely try and get XP; but for everyone else they can assist in mop-up duty and get to level 4 over time (stack defenders rarely get level 5) and then start getting another stack defender promoted up the chain.

Knock down the culture defenses with cats and the odds swing towards CR1.

Yes, this seems to be the case with the defending longbowmen, but not with the archers. I mistakenly believed longbowmen get 50% city defense like Archers do.

If a defender is getting 100% defensive bonus, CR1 only weakens the defender by 10%.

Close. 120% is the turning point. The leftover percentage after the reduction needs to be 100%. In other words to get the actual ratio change caused by the promotion, add 100% to the leftover percentage, divide 1 by it, and multiply the nominal percentage by it. In this case ( 1/(100% + 100%) ) * 20% = 10%.

On the flip side, the Combat line gets weaker when the unit has some natural bonuses against another unit. For instance, a quecha gets 100% bonus versus archers, plus Combat1 for free. Giving a quecha Combat2 as its first promo only makes it 4.76% stronger versus archers (4.2 -> 4.4). Giving it CR1 or Cover will certainly make the archer more than 4.76% weaker (typically 7-12% weaker).

I tested this and got a result that refutes your claim; see the attached save. The spearman has 4 base strength with 2 combat promotions. The Quecha has 2 base strength, +100% situational strength and 2 combat promotions. They get the same combat odds against an unpromoted archer on flatland. Combat promotions work independent of situational bonusses.

120% is the turning point. The leftover percentage after the reduction needs to be 100%. In other words to get the actual ratio change caused by the promotion, add 100% to the leftover percentage, divide 1 by it, and multiply the nominal percentage by it. In this case ( 1/(100% + 100%) ) * 20% = 10%.

Good point. I dislike CR for this very reason. The only time it's a decent promo is when you're either desperate, or have a techlead which lets you attack cities with 120% defence bonusses succesfully. Regular combat will usually be just as effective against garrisons, while also being stonger on the field and on defence.

Good point. I dislike CR for this very reason. The only time it's a decent promo is when you're either desperate, or have a techlead which lets you attack cities with 120% defence bonusses succesfully. Regular combat will usually be just as effective against garrisons, while also being stonger on the field and on defence.

You're not interpreting the data correctly. Above 120% defensive bonus CR1 is completely useless because it gives the same bonus as Combat 1 in fewer situations. So in such cases it is in fact not a decent promotion at all. You'll want to use CR1 in battles with lower defensive percentages than that.

The argument that I like to use against CR is that in the battles that are most likely to give you trouble (archers in cities on hills), CR is at it's weakest. Combat is also just more reliable and versatile than any other promotion. It doesn't limit your options or irrevocably lock down the function of things.

You're not interpreting the data correctly. Above 120% defensive bonus CR1 is completely useless because it gives the same bonus as Combat 1 in fewer situations. So in such cases it is in fact not a decent promotion at all. You'll want to use CR1 in battles with lower defensive percentages than that.

The argument that I like to use against CR is that in the battles that are most likely to give you trouble (archers in cities on hills), CR is at it's weakest. Combat is also just more reliable and versatile than any other promotion. It doesn't limit your options or irrevocably lock down the function of things.

I did have it backward there for a bit.

But this also means CR and siege have great synergy.

I hadn't heard this said before, so could someone please help me with the math?
Specifically Monsterzuma's claim that CR isn't as good vs an archer on a hill.

I hadn't heard this said before, so could someone please help me with the math?
Specifically Monsterzuma's claim that CR isn't as good vs an archer on a hill.

Basic idea: what we compare is the ratio of attacker's strength and defender's strength. In each case, strength is some base strength with a multiplier. So we can write that

R
= ( A-strength * A-multiplier ) / ( B-strength) * (B-multiplier)
= ( A-strength / B-strength ) * ( A-multiplier / B-multiplier )

A-strength/B-strength is inherent to the units we are comparing - promotions have no effect here. So if we want to compare to promotions, we need only consider the effect that they have on the multipliers. Now the formulas here aren't quite what you would expect, because combat is treated differently than the attach multipliers. Roughly, we have:

A-multiplier = 1 + A-combat-bonus
B-multiplier = 1 + B-combat-bonus + B-defensive-multiplier - A-attack-multiplier.

Since the defenders combat bonus and defensive multiplier are used in precisely the same way, we can combine the two to simplify the expression. For an attacker with a single promotion available, we have a choice between a 10% combat bonus or a 20% city raider bonus. To determine the break even point, we set the two different expressions equal, and try to figure out what value of B makes that so.

(1 + 10%) / ( 1 + B ) = 1 / ( 1 + B - 20% )
1.1 / (1+B) = 1 / ( .8 + B )
1.1 ( .8 + B ) = 1 * (1+B)
.88 + 1.1B = 1 + B
.1B = .12
B = 1.2 = 120%

In other words, when the city-defender's bonuses are exactly 120%, combat and city raider are exactly equivalent for the attacker ( 110%/220% == 100%/200% ).

Since that's the only value for B where the ratios are the same, you only need to find one representative value on each side to know what's better. CR is the superior when B = 0 (110%/100% < 125%/100% == 100%/80%), and Combat is the superior when B = 230% (110%/330% == 100%/300% > 100%/310%) and therefore that answers the question for all of the other values.

One area where combat promotions appear superior is for air units - particularly fighters. It may be down to the way air combat works, but I often get air units with enough experience points to get them to level 6; as long as I give them combat one and two (and three, if possible) to start out and then park them on intercept near an enemy who also has fighters/bombers. In fact I will always try to build my airforce in cities with settled great generals and/or West Point to max their initial promotions.

An interesting example on a current game, earth map as Tokugawa.

Attacking a Barb city with an unpromoted archer, not border pops. I have 2 axes, one combat III (from previous battles) and another combat/CR I fresh from the barracks. When I hover the unit over the defender the Combat III axe has 69% (6.5 vs 5.25) chance of success, and the Combat I CR I axe is onlt 66% (5.5 vs 4.65). Considering both should have apparent +20% extra aganist the defender, I gotta rethink the combat promotion a bit. In all the above conversation I got the impression the combat line did better when the defender get's more bonus, but here it's as bare as you can get.

And I am aware that my Combat III axe has 2 promotions compared to the CR I axe. My point is the combat odds are slighty different than they appear at first.

Just test : CR III Rifle have slightly more chance than Combat III Rifle against a CD III long bow in a hill city with 60% culture defense

Just test : CR III Rifle have slightly more chance than Combat III Rifle against a CD III long bow in a hill city with 60% culture defense


Errr... Trebuchet, YOU first!!

To add to all what was said, do not forget that combat promotions do a better job for the attacker than for the defender. They are, in a sense, the only multiplicative promotion, but only when attacking :)

Errr... Trebuchet, YOU first!!

fail, what does trebuchet do ? CR always have higher chance than Combat regardless of culture defense or the strenght of the defenders. In the end, that what CR specialize , to raid city :D

2 promos:

(1 + 20%) / ( 1 + B ) = 1 / ( 1 + B - 45% )
1.2 / (1+B) = 1 / ( .55 + B )
1.2 ( .55 + B ) = 1 * (1+B)
.66 + 1.2B = 1 + B
.2B = .34
B = 1.7 = 170%

Just test : CR III Rifle have slightly more chance than Combat III Rifle against a CD III long bow in a hill city with 60% culture defense

Careful!

(1 + 30%) / ( 1 + B ) = 1 / ( 1 + B - 75% )
1.3 / (1+B) = 1 / ( .25 + B )
1.3 ( .25 + B ) = 1 * (1+B)
.325 + 1.3B = 1 + B
.3B = .675
B = 2.25 = 225%

A CGIII longbow in the 60% city on a hill is...
85% Tile defense (60% + 25%)
100% City defense
25% hill defense

For 210%... if the longbow is unfortified. If that longbow has been fortified for 4 or more turns (in the world builder, you can simulate 4 turns of fortification by giving the longbow Guerilla I), the odds cross the line (defender is at 230% after 4 turns or 235% after 5) and the combat promotion line gives the attacker slightly better odds than city raider.

All the maths I've seen here asume we know how cr anc combat multipliers are applied. Can somebody explain this to me?
I always thought that if I had a unit with 10str, having +20% would bring it to 12, and having +10% would be 11. So I always chose CR for attacking.
But it seems the bonus is applied different, how's that?

For gunpowder units I have usually half drill, half combat. The drill guys are the first out of the gates and I pray the first strikes cause some decent amount of damage, then the combat guys clean it up and get the next promotions. That way when I reinforce my army with new units, they almost always are replacing drill promo's because the combat guys don't die as often This is not because they are superior just because I choose to let them attack when the odds are in their favour already. I find using first strikes as a can opener is effective, but I'm not a math guy and I can barely understand half of what was written above so I'm not going to claim this the most efficient. Btw this is all related to conquest, not defence.

If a defender is getting 100% defensive bonus, CR1 only weakens the defender by 10%.


Close. 120% is the turning point. The leftover percentage after the reduction needs to be 100%.

I'm being a pedant here, but what he said isn't untrue. He said it reduces by 10%, which CR1 does to a 100% defense unit. It's just that combat 1 is a 10% increase to the attacker, the equivalent to the defender being a decrease of ~9% (1 - 1/1.1) at 100% defensive bonuses. Hence the turning point of 120% like you said.

fail, what does trebuchet do ? CR always have higher chance than Combat regardless of culture defense or the strenght of the defenders. In the end, that what CR specialize , to raid city :D

Uhm, this entire thread has pretty much been a discussion on how what you just said is what appears should happen but is actually done differently. CR most definitely does not always have a higher chance when attacking cities as many people have thoroughly explained.

All the maths I've seen here asume we know how cr anc combat multipliers are applied. Can somebody explain this to me?
I always thought that if I had a unit with 10str, having +20% would bring it to 12, and having +10% would be 11. So I always chose CR for attacking.
But it seems the bonus is applied different, how's that?

As far as I know, when attacking, your combat promotions modify your base strength, then the other types of multipliers come into play after that. Those second types of bonuses cancel each other out. For instance, a spearman with C1 attacking a horse archer with no promotions you see in-game as 4.4 vs 3.0. I'm fairly sure it goes:

4.0 vs 6.0
4.4 vs 6.0 after the spearman's 10% combat 1 (first phase, attacker strength)
4.4 vs 3.0 spearman's 100% bonus against mounted (second phase, defender strength) - bonus in attacker's favour so it reduces the defender's strength

The crucial thing is that only the attacker's combat promotions get multiplied against his base strength. If the horse archer had combat 3 then:

4.0 vs 6.0
4.4 vs 6.0 spearman's 10% combat 1
4.4 vs 3.53 spearman's mounted 100% - 30% from defender's combat = 70% attacker's favour. 6 / 1.7 = ~3.53

It's strange because if the horse archer attacks instead:

6.0 vs 4.0
7.8 vs 4.0 HA's 30% from combat 1, 2 and 3
7.8 vs 8.4 spearman's mounted 100% + 10% from combat = 110% defender's favour. 4 * 2.1 = 8.4

So the HA gets better odds when attacking a spearman than when being attacked, because of the way combat promotions are applied. The same things goes on with city raider promos. If a defender has something crazy like 200% defense, then an attacker's CR1 promo will make that 180% defense, whereas combat 1 would add to his own base strength and give him better odds.


What I'm not sure of is how defenders are chosen. It's been alluded to, so does anyone mind giving a quick explanation?

I've made a spreadsheet with all the calculations (XLS)
http://www.keepandshare.com/doc/view.php?id=1348419&da=y

Thanks for the explanation Lieu. I've been playing civ quite a lot, and always thought it would add the modifiers to each units strength, be it the attacker or defender. Seems it works very different, don't really understand why.

Doens't make much sense actually. The example you made of the spearman and horse archer proves this, since none of them as any bonus on beeing attacker or defender, and the odds change drastically depending on which of them attacks.

ps don't forget that CR3 gives +10% vs gunpowder as well

Wow lots of calculations here. Combat is of course a good line of promos. If you have cavs and the ais have muskets and maybe grens it seems criminal though not to give the cavs pinch. I think the OP is too focused on the situation where a unit reaches c4 or 5. The problem is that some units won't reach that level since they die underway while they would have survived if they had gotten the specific promotion they needed at that time.

Rifles are typically city defenders, a few in a stack is nice but i prefer mounted units there which are better in open field. So i'm usually not in a situation where a i have loads of cgIII rifles in a stack. In the typical case that you go with a slow siege stack without mounted units i agree, combat is the best line but after c2 i would 100% give formation to units first since you just know that 90% of the attacks on your stacks will be mounted attacks. cr promos on other units than siege are imo very bad, exception would be cr on swordsman in the cat age, often this promo will save you a few cats. Maybe also maces with trebs but i don't have experience with this stack, probably just let the trebs do the attacking.

Is it really that uncommon for other high level players to use late game CR and D?

I'm a huge fan of fast war for the late game, running the tanks/fighters/paras trifecta is my preferred late game war build. As such for a long time the top stack defender in a city is going to be one of the few ATs the AI builds. CRIII giving a bonus vs gunpowder, I find I have a better survival rate with a few CRIII can openers and mop up with D tanks; and roll on to the next city sooner as the D tanks either have left over promos or have taken no damage.

Granted most units are simply unpromoted until I know what, exactly, I need, but I don't find C tanks anywhere near as good a CR/D mixes.

What is trifecta? I use cr on siege, MA in the late game. I may use it on tanks if i don't have enough fighters/bombers/MA to weaken defenders enough. Most of the time the siege/air units will have been devastating though in that case i prefer combat/pinch. I find that stack defense is often more of an issue than the actual taking of cities in the modern game.

What is trifecta? I use cr on siege, MA in the late game. I may use it on tanks if i don't have enough fighters/bombers/MA to weaken defenders enough. Most of the time the siege/air units will have been devastating though in that case i prefer combat/pinch. I find that stack defense is often more of an issue than the actual taking of cities in the modern game.I agree with this especially the part in bold. (Though I prefer combat II over pinch)
And people keep mentioning siege in the City Raider discussion. Well duh, you can't take Combat with them! :P - So yeah City Raider is the best for siege. Though I like some Barrage to weaken large stacks, and sometimes on the first few throwaway on a city.
Drill + Shock can be nice on a lvl 3 Catapult vs Melee in the field. Especially for Korea I guess.

Tanks still meet gunpowder units a lot but these are not the most dangerous units so there's an argument for c2 on tanks. Different for cavs though i alternate between c2 (longbows, future formation) and pinch (muskets, grens). If the ai has rifles i give almost every cav pinch so my cavs are at least competitive in open field.It's hard to see pinch out of scope on cavs before cavs go out of scope themselves or become choppers where pinch is also ok. Sometimes you just have to give a cav shock to give him at least a chance against a pike, maybe i should use double flank in those cases or indeed take my chances with c2, don't know really. Shock is pretty useless later.

Yes, I specialize on the individual level at times. Like in your examples, but I do prefer to take combat as much as possible.
Double flank is ok on about 25-50% of my mounted units. More earlier game, and more later as Cavalry start to become obsolete but you can still use them. They are even decent vs Infantry even without siege if you got enough espionage and enough units and speed is really crucial (just prepare to take the losses like a man). With Knights you usually want strength, because they have bad innate flanking and comes at a time where they can be at a real strength advantage and you want to push that further.

Though mixed in with your riflemen and cannon, they stand a better chance versus the Infantry. And can have a higher percentage of Combat.

Another reason to take combat II on mounted is because if you run out of for example anti-mounted in your stack, your horses can sometimes become the defender against enemy horse attacks! That's also a motivator for taking Formation on your mounted. Though Combat III isn't much worse and has more use.

For every specialized promotion you take you lose the opportunity to make this unit a truly great one. Blitzing Cavalry (or Helicopters) can help a lot if you use together with siege or air. March is nice to have, and probably a lot more useful overall than pinch.

Now to Tanks, yeah these I am more liberal with the use of City Raider because that can be necessary. If the opponent are ahead of you tech-wise though or suddenly becomes, that can be unwise.

I think we basically agree then i often choose combat too when i really need to promote a unit but there's no urgent need to choose a special promotion. Most important exceptions are probably pinch on cavs and CG or guerilla on rifles in cities. I tend to defend cities very lightly so i like to get as much defense on these units as possible.

I need to try out flanking more. I don't fight too often with cavs against infantry but double flank is obviously great in that case.

I don't tend to fight with heavily promoted units, most of them will typically be in the 5-15 range. I tend to have lots of them when i begin a war. As for formation against c3, the ai often comes with c3 mounted, our c3 is 50%, formation gets us a nice edge. It's open field and defending the stack (defense) is often harder than taking the cities. I think you just have to mix it up in the end, take 9 lvl3 cavs, 3 with c3, 3 with c2 pinch and 3 with c2 formation would feel right to me most of the time. Clearly strongest on defense, on attack it depends, you can start with the c3 units, later switch to the units that suit the remaining defenders best.

I guess you guys will think I'm crazy for giving tanks flanking and drill promotions :lol:

Drill makes sense. Since they are a strong unit often fighting weaker (at least outside cities).
But since they are strong, Combat boosts them a lot too (consider combat 1 is +2.8 str on a full hp tank). But drill can probably give them that edge they need to continue blitzing (since they will have more HP after battle most likely).

The reason I give them flanking is that they actually do withdraw if they don't win. Sometimes I'll have a CR1/flanking2 or CR2/flanking2 (if a lot of warring happened) because they took away my tank collateral damage! :mad: So the damage and withdraw works for me :D The Flank2/drill2 units I use are specifically for simulating collateral damage. I know it's way inefficient, but I enjoy it :).

I also normally give a lot of my infantry/paratroopers guerrilla III or woodsman III as these promotions generally get a lot of other bonuses besides just defense/attack/movement in hills/forest/jungle. Ever had a gunpowder unit withdraw from battle? It's pretty cool.

Guerilla III sure is nice. So is Woodsman III. Especially for those paratroopers who usually end up behind enemy lines.

Celts can really specialize on Guerrilla III and Monty can make quite a few Woodsman III healers. The two first strikes and offense bonus is quite nice. Not to mention the double movement for the II's on both. Guerrilla is especially nice once you get to Riflemen/Infantry as you point out and if the enemy has cities on hills. And if you are traveling through hill terrain your stack can feel pretty safe.

Get some Great Generals attached to your guerrilla III units and you can make 80% withdrawal units, pretty sweet :P - though with the Celts (especially Boudica) I prefer to settle the generals.

Woah! I just have new respect for Combat line of promotion.
Previously I view Combat lines mostly as necessary evil you need to take in order to unlock the counter promotions.

@killmeplease, based on your spreadsheet, it seem that I would have gotten more bang for the bucks if you stick with combat most of the time right? I mean in most cases CR line will only have very slim margin over Combat. And Combat is more versatile.

Yeah, but having CRIII combatII rifles is cool, too ;)

What is trifecta? I use cr on siege, MA in the late game. I may use it on tanks if i don't have enough fighters/bombers/MA to weaken defenders enough. Most of the time the siege/air units will have been devastating though in that case i prefer combat/pinch. I find that stack defense is often more of an issue than the actual taking of cities in the modern game.

A trifecta is an expression used to denote a set of three things that together bring success. In this example tanks provide brute force, fighters bombardment/collateral, and paras provide support (e.g. medics, hill defenses, CG) and a highly mobile strategic reserve. This is an extremely powerful combo which is extremely hard to counter (for the AI), and wins wars quickly. It lasts until choppers or mech inf.

Prior to MArty, I don't like to slow down the offensive enough to lug in 1 move Arty, before you get out to laser or composites, what do you put on your tanks? There is a limit to how much damage you can inflict with fighters (particularly if you can't abuse carriers or forts) and the top defender vs tanks is virtually always gunpowder. This makes CRIII much better than CIII (and normally by this point in the game, my major unit pumps are churning out 10XP or just barely shy and 3 promos out the door is not that hard).

With the above setup. Planes take combat maybe eventually taking range. Tanks get a mix of CR and D. Paras take whatever is needed ASAP.

If I'm hitting paper targets (which have already been wounded to oblivion), then I fail to see why combat is preferred to drill. The most dangerous thing in the open field is collateral damage. The AI rarely (if ever) fields ambush tanks or anything else aside from ATs (which are decimated by pinch paras), a straight up hit by even a C3 gets stymied by drill tanks. Having all that collateral damage not wound you as much seems to do far more for unit survival than raw strength.

If possible i use lots of carriers which i just ship in the cities itself to enhance fighter capacity. You don't lose a turn rebasing fighters too as it's the carriers that make the move. You use paratroopers, this a good idea as they'll provide better defense in cities and on hill so you can afford to give city taking promos on the tanks. I'll keep that in mind.

"And I am aware that my Combat III axe has 2 promotions compared to the CR I axe. My point is the combat odds are slighty different than they appear at first. "

it took me a while to realize this too (and some visits to the boards). I was always a bit resentful looking back that two 10% promos did not equal one 20% promo.

Sorry for butting in and asking such a stupid question. But so many people here are talking about para I wanted to ask some questions.

Well I don't even know what it is I don't know.

I have no idea how they work, can someone explain it to me? You can stockpile them in cities with airports, and then airlift them (1 per turn) anywhere on the map? I have never built a paratrooper before so I don't even know. Do you take a city with tanks and then paradrop some troops in to garrison it? Can they move before/after a drop? Can they attack during the drop (can you drop them ON an enemy unit?)

When they stand in a city they can paratroop into any land terrain (except peaks or enemy occupied tiles). After which they can move. They can't attack right after jump, but they can take empty cities (units nuked or destroyed by helicopters which can't capture the city).
Beware however, they can get shot down by Airplanes Anti-Air units. If they survive a successful air defense, only taking damage, they can't move that turn either.

@Grey Fox:

Aren't units attached to GG's attacked first if they are your most advanced troop (even if there are stronger defenders)? This is my main hesitation in using GG's for anything more than super medics.

I don't think being attached to a GG has any effect on stack defense. Other than the generally stronger units as a defender.

Only if they are the strongest defender. Which they can be. But usually they win the first battle. If that lowers their strength, well other units will defend as usual. Basically it's a risk you have to take for having a stronger unit. Bring defenders with you, a good enough mix to protect against the possible dangers.

Not exactly. The unit that defends is not always the best defender :faint: ( my reaction to this was was pretty much this icon ;) ). See this (http://forums.civfanatics.com/showthread.php?t=331227), this (http://forums.civfanatics.com/showthread.php?t=333365) and this (http://forums.civfanatics.com/showthread.php?t=333931) thread for some explanations about this ( it was not posted a compreensive one so far ... I sugest reading them by the order I posted them above as well ). And no, I'm not talking of caravels defending before galleons ;)

^ Which is pretty much why I don't try to make super units out of my GG's. The game can still decide that it defends even though it's hurt and likely to die, there are better defenders in the same tile, etc. The problem is you might get this information in passing, it sticks with you and you apply it, but are unable to give a good explanation to someone else. IIRC, there is a special bonus added to a unit attached to a GG that makes it more likely to defend (outside of the attack/defense odds).

Well, basically:
-the code for best defender values a lot first strikes and first strike imunity. That can make it chose as best defender a weaker unit just because it has lots of FS ( DanF posted one very explicit example in the first thread I linked )
-the game, in case of tie between odds choses based indirectly on the base strenght of the unit and the number of promotions. By default GG attached units have more promos than the average unit of the same type ( atleast the Warlord promo :p ) , so, if the game has to decide between a medic III and and a CR I unit, most likely it will pick the medic III ( for the sake of example ).

So, if you make a GG with lots of FS/ FS immunity ( say, Drill IV ) you are basically throwing him to the front line :(

My Combat VI generals basically never dies though. :P

^ Which is pretty much why I don't try to make super units out of my GG's. The game can still decide that it defends even though it's hurt and likely to die, there are better defenders in the same tile, etc. The problem is you might get this information in passing, it sticks with you and you apply it, but are unable to give a good explanation to someone else. IIRC, there is a special bonus added to a unit attached to a GG that makes it more likely to defend (outside of the attack/defense odds).

This is why I tend to make a SM out of a warrior.

But, anyway, so many things on this thread seem counterintuitive. I guess I'm going to have to play a game with nothing by combat promotions.

Close. 120% is the turning point. The leftover percentage after the reduction needs to be 100%.


I'm being a pedant here, but what he said isn't untrue. He said it reduces by 10%, which CR1 does to a 100% defense unit. It's just that combat 1 is a 10% increase to the attacker, the equivalent to the defender being a decrease of ~9% (1 - 1/1.1) at 100% defensive bonuses. Hence the turning point of 120% like you said.


You're totally right. Thanks for the correction. :)

The crucial thing is that only the attacker's combat promotions get multiplied against his base strength.

Yes, that is something very very strange (a dubious design decision, imo) and something I neither expected nor noticed up to this point. The implication is that Combat isn't nearly as good a promotion for defensive units than it is for offensive ones.

I need to correct one of the claims that I made earlier in this thread: when situational offensive modifiers are stacked on a modifier that already favors the attacker, every stacking again weakens every next promotion. So, for situational stackings, wether your next stacking will weaken or strengthen the promotion relative to the last one depends on wether the value got (respectively) farther away from or closer to the zero point. One practical example: City Raider on a Quecha against an unfortified archer inside a 0 culture city (situational modifier balance heavily in favor of offense) is a relatively weak promotion and every next City Raider promotion is increasingly much weaker in the relative sense. The strongest your promotion will ever be, is it's nominal percentage (which the game shows you) and it applies only when the situational modifier balance was at 0% before applying the promotion.

I did have it backward there for a bit.

But this also means CR and siege have great synergy.

trebuchet+CR3 would work well then....