Only 1 leader possible from any given elite

This hypothesis was just recently brought up in the leader drought thread, however, I thought it important enough to have its own thread. Since not everyone is going to dive through that monster of a thread to find this important point.

I just ran a test map confirming this hypothesis. After receiving my GL on the third battle (I choose the Japanese to recheive elite status quicker), I then won 234 battles will no GL creation.

Methodology:
Gave myself one modern armor, modded to have 20 additional hit points and A/D values of 184. (I just want to win the battles with no downtime for healing, less the computer AI fights amongst itselves)

Gave 4 computer AI's a couple sets of 25 units, warriors, archers, rifleman, spearmen. I just used the settings from my last test run on this map, otherwise I would have ensured each civ had each of the unit sets (hence why only 234 combats).

As soon as the leader was generated it was used to rush build. Therefore there was no existing leader for the 234 combats, which generated no leader.

Diety skill level

Total combat battles fought 239.
sequence: Promation, Promotion, Nothing, Nothing, Leader, Nothing(234x)

Hence I believe we can safely say that for any given elite unit you can only have one great leader ever

I agree with others that Firaxis should modify the game so that a unit that has generated its GL is different from other units. This could be as simple as a name change. eg Paton's Tank Division. Or maybe give that unit another hit point, since it is now a special unit.

Did you use the leader after generating it?

you can have only one leader at a time

Well he has proved that you can't have two leaders at once or that you can have only one leader from a Elite but I doubt taht after reading all the Always at War Japan succession game

Originally posted by cegman
Well he has proved that you can't have two leaders at once or that you can have only one leader from a Elite but I doubt taht after reading all the Always at War Japan succession game

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They've had tons of leaders, but almost all the later ones have been used to rush factories only a few turns after getting one. So their going through their leaders really quick.

The leader was used immeadiatly upon generation (I know that you can only have one leader at a time). Guess I should have mentioned that.

Originally posted by etj4Eagle


Total combat battles fought 239.
sequence: Promation, Promotion, Nothing, Nothing, Leader, Nothing(234x)

Hence I believe we can safely say that for any given elite unit you can only have one great leader ever

I agree with others that Firaxis should modify the game so that a unit that has generated its GL is different from other units. This could be as simple as a name change. eg Paton's Tank Division. Or maybe give that unit another hit point, since it is now a special unit.

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etjEagle, thanks for your research. I did some other research that indicates that NEW elite units (which have not created a leader) DO produce leaders eventually.

Originally posted by sumthinelse


etjEagle, thanks for your research. I did some other research that indicates that NEW elite units (which have not created a leader) DO produce leaders eventually.

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Yep I that I agree with, and actually was the basis of the second test that I just ran. I created 3 MA and a 1 pikeman (to verify that the random seed was constant). After the 1st leader was generated, the other 2 MA would generate the 2nd GL on the 24th win. The other MA went 30 wins without generating another GL.

Therefore unless someone can post a save game where the same elite unit generates 2GL, I think we can safely assume each elite unit can only generate one GL.

Another fairly g-d d-mn-d important built-in programing block that should be and should have been revealed by Firaxis.

Many of us have spent hundreds of turns nurturing and holding elite attack units just to try for the chance at getting a GL.

GLs or no GLs can be fairly unbalancing particularly when trying to build the FP at some location more than 30 tiles distant from your existing capital.

To find out that in fact our chances of producing a second GL from an elite unit could be preset to zero by a programmers design choice that is not revealed may need to result in a public flogging.

With non-military civs, the elite unit production ratio can be very stingy, so you have to almost be at constant war in order to have a chance at multiple GLs.

Very disturbing revelation about the Firaxis mindset if this is in fact revealed to be true.

Can one of our more advanced hacker aces reveal if there is a flag or code that exists at the unit level that would conifrm that the code restricts GL production to no more than one per elite unit?

Originally posted by cracker
Another fairly g-d d-mn-d important built-in programing block that should be and should have been revealed by Firaxis.


Very disturbing revelation about the Firaxis mindset if this is in fact revealed to be true.

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Let's not be too hard on the game documentation. In a big software project, towards the end of a project, the technical people get too busy to talk to the documentation people, unfortunately. Things fall though the cracks.

It cost me a lot of effort to find the answer, so I should be the most aggrieved party, but you know they say "iter preamium est" -- "the journey is its own reward."

Maybe I am being cynical, but the thought occurred to me that maybe firaxis wanted certain things to be puzzles. In a sense, that might be interesting because I like to solve puzzles. Also, this might be a useful way of keeping the leader population down. After this discovery gets out, don't be surprised if you see complaints about too many leaders.

We keep hearing in this forum that firaxis/infogames is in it only for the money, but while that is partly true, I have seen evidence in patch 1.21f that some of their people are really listening to what makes us unhappy, AND. it seems to me, going out of their way to do more than fix bugs.

The civilopedia says "An elite unit can create a great leader if it continues to be successful." From this ambiguous statement one could argue:

1) It says "a great leader" NOT "multiple great leaders." See, it's documented.

2) It says "if it continues to be successful" it can produce a leader, NOT "even if it continues to be successful it stops creating leaders after the first one appears." See, it's lying.

I prefer documentation that is NOT written in the style of the Analogs of Confucious. "Analogs of Confuse-us?" But I have learned that life is not perfect, and this is an isolated example. Compared to some documentation, the civ3 docs are great.

Is the fact that there can only ever be one great leader at a time official? Has anyone at Firaxis confirmed this as it's not in any of the lit?

The reason I ask is because when I was playing as the Japanese I produced 'Tojo' as the GL and promptly used him to build the FP. I then had one more GL (can't remember the name) and the third was Tojo again?! The only logical explanation for this is that more than one GL can be present at one time - now I very much doubt this and have never actually seen it happen, but then why did Tojo appear again when there was a perfectly good list of unused GL's waiting to be used?

Originally posted by Parmenion
why did Tojo appear again when there was a perfectly good list of unused GL's waiting to be used?

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This seems to be a name list bug, such as Civ3 trying again for the first name in the list not taken when you loose or rename a city. Very annoying to constantly get misspelled Munich, Munich, munich (should be München, but when i fix that in txtfile game crashes).

I have once had a Roman leader appear, used him for FP, next fight he was back!

Originally posted by Killer


).

I have once had a Roman leader appear, used him for FP, next fight he was back!

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i think he likes you very much
but from the name stupidities its really annoying sometimes

Well, this is very interesting results, etj4Eagle! I was almost certain the same unit could get several leaders, but you made me change my mind. I think I will do a test to back up your results, just to make sure.

When you think about it, it is not that strange that each unit has a "has created leader"-flag. The computer remembers which units have been in battles and automatically upgrades them if they win another battle during the same turn, but this flag is switched off after one full turn without victories.

Would be great to get confirmation from Firaxis, though.

I am now at 1010 AD and UP TO DATE I HAVE 7 Great LEADERS!
2 for army ,4 already used for building wonder and 1 more waiting for industrialisation for rush build woman suffrage...Come on....Do you know why?I think the number of leaders u get depend on how many civ u declare war on,I have declared war with Germany,Persia,Egypt,Babylonia,India and Japan so far.
If you really want to see the game ,ask me i attach the file

Han Wu Di: I had a game where I fought down 15 civs, often at war with 7 at the same time. Huge map, there must have been thousands of combats, and since I managed to keep a tech lead (Regent level) I fought most of the wats with elite Horsemen, then elite knights, then elite cavalry who won most of their battles. I experienced very many promotions - that is almost every unit was promoted to elite after two or three fights

but I didn`t get a single leader in the entire game!!!!!

So maybe there is a factor in it - the more bellingerent you are, the more leaders. but I`ve seen the opposite, and I`ve also had a game with >10 leaders (I built half the middle age wonders and several Industrial to modern wonders with a leader!!!!) - and all of the leaders stemmed from defensive battles! it was a game where i limited myself to 4 cities close together, then fortified lots of units around them, and the enemy would come and throw troops at them. I never declared war, and though I was at war with many at the same time, most were cold wars.....

I am using China the militaristics Civ,I am very offensive and by the way since i build heroic epic 3 leaders have appeared
Heroic Epic is useful!

Originally posted by Han Wu Di
I am using China the militaristics Civ,I am very offensive and by the way since i build heroic epic 3 leaders have appeared
Heroic Epic is useful!

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It is!

BUT: there is a bug so you cannot get a leader twice from the same unit - period! Even if you have militaristic + Heroic Epic.

Originally posted by Killer


It is!

BUT: there is a bug so you cannot get a leader twice from the same unit - period! Even if you have militaristic + Heroic Epic.

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that a very good information, ty jet eagle, and i think this info. should be into civilopedia. when you want a second GL then you know not to use the same one, who like to spend 100 turn without a leader

Originally posted by Killer


It is!

BUT: there is a bug so you cannot get a leader twice from the same unit - period! Even if you have militaristic + Heroic Epic.

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It is not necessarily a bug that you can't get two GL from a single unit. In some ways I can see the logic behind that decision.

However, what is wrong is that there is no way to tell which units have created their GL and which have not. This non-distinction is the "bug."