Super-Medics

Definition
A supermedic is a unit that has the most possible of the healing promotions available: Medic III and Woodsman III. These healing rates will stack together for a whopping 40%/turn to units in the same square. Units in adjacent squares only get the Medic III bonus.

Usefullness
A supermedic can keep an advance going as long as you still have troops. No need for those silly drill promotions now! If you've never played with one, what are you waiting for? You'll never go back.

Restrictions
You can only achieve this by giving these promotions to a single unit. Simply putting a Woodsman III and a Medic III unit in the same stack will result in 25%, not 40%. The unit needs to be able to gain Medic III, so it must have a warlord attached. The unit also needs to be able to gain Woodsman III, so it must be either Melee or Gunpowder. Explorers, which would otherwise be great candidates for the job, cannot receive Woodsman III.

Requirements
You will need 7 promotions in total. Woodsman I-III, Combat I or Drill I (to unlock medic I), and Medic I-III. This is a total of 50 experience for most leaders. Since you must attach a warlord for the medic III promotion anyway, you can gain 20 experience from him for free. Make sure there are no other units in the tile or they will share the 20 exp. I will also assume you have a barracks where you are producing the troop, and are running Theocracy (but not vassalage). Great Generals (GG) settled in the city might help, but we want to use them to make supermedics! So we won't count on them, and the warlord effectively adds 25 exp.

Below are the ways to achieve the supermedic, ranging from worst to best. Please comment!

You can attach two warlords to a unit
You will then need only 5 more experience. I would recommend getting this experience BEFORE you attach the warlords, since it would really suck to lose your 49 exp. almost-supermedic. Make sure you don't take any promotions but the ones along the supermedic path. This option requires two generals, which means half as many supermedics. Plus, you have to wait until two are born before you make your first dude, which means a lot of fighting without your main man! Bad option.

Red Cross
You can wait until you've built the Red Cross, which gives out Medic I for free. This will also save you from taking Combat I, which means you only need 5 promotions, or 26 exp. You would only need to win one battle, or be running vassalage. But you want to have the supermedic available long before Medicine, so this isn't a very good option either.

Random Event
If you're lucky, you could get a random event that gives your _____ troops a free promotion, either Woodsman I, Combat I or Drill I. You can't really count on this though.

Charismatic Leader
If you use a charismatic leader (whose promotions cost 25% less) then you only need 38 exp. for the 7th promotion. You would need to gain 13 more experience. That's a lot of battles without any useful promotions (save for Combat I) but it can be done. You may be able to settle a GG before you have a troop worthy of the warlord. Cyrus is the best purely charismatic leader as he is also imperialistic, so you will have more GG's to attach to troops.

Protective Leader
Slightly easier is the protective leader, whose gunpowder troops start with drill I. This means you only need 6 promotions, or 37 exp. You'd still need to do a little fighting though, and you have to wait until Gunpowder to make one. Charlemagne is protective and imperialistic.

Aggressive Leader
Slightly better is the aggressive leader, whose Melee and Gunpowder troops start with Combat I. You can make a supermedic earlier than a Protective leader. Genghis is the best choice here, as he is imperialistic too.

Churchill
Churchill has both the protective trait and the charismatic trait, so only 28 exp. is needed. You can make up 3 exp. pretty easily.

Boudica
Boudica is Aggressive/Charismatic, and is one of the best candidates to make supermedics. Her troops start with Combat I and 25% less for promotions, so only 28 exp. is needed, and you can make the supermedic before Gunpowder.

Montezuma
Best candidate. He's aggressive, and his Jaguars start with woodsman I for free (as well as Combat I). You only need 26 exp. to complete the job. With Monty you can have supermedics very early in the game (even before Iron). You may not have Theocracy this early, but 3 exp. is not hard to come by. It's even worth saving a few 6exp Jaguars until later since they upgrade for free once the warlord is attached. I usually don't even upgrade them, since I don't want them even thinking about defending a stack!

That's how it's done. Anything I've missed, or helpful comments always appreciated.

Interesting and informative. I've often made a go at the woody III medic III healer. So far, I've only done it once (before the game ended) using one of shaka's impi's. Although shaka is aggressive, I gave him leadership after medic III in order to cut the xp in half. I put him in the stack of death and only used him to attack when he had a 96%+ chance of winning, after my seige engine had inflicted all possible collateral damage.

Don't forget that even if you have a super medic already, attaching one to another unit in the stack allows xp bleed into your super medic. I often make a super medic, then lead later troops as a warlord to give the medic more 10 XP boosts until it hits W III. This is especially easy for CHA or AGG leaders of course. Usually the other warlord unit is a super city raider - at least CR III combat I on average to start as a result of the 10 XP. Nurse it a little and it gets pretty strong - far from useless actually. I risk them sometimes since I only need the medic, saying 90% odds are OK if it's an important time in the war. The general already served its purpose.

Then again, I only care marginally about settled GGs. Their appeal to me just has nothing on a super medic or having more cities earlier/more easily.

Note: PRO leaders, should you start war late, can also go W III Medic III more easily as drill opens medic. Archers don't get woodsman IIRC, but gunpowder can. Don't forget this if you do it late. If drill II opened amphibious I'd like PRO a lot more but oh well :/.

As I was writing, I thought drill opened medic but after I checked the promotions section of this site, it clearly says that it doesn't. I played a game to check, and sure enough drill works as a prerequisite. You're right, that would give protective leaders some edge as well but only with gunpowder troops as archers cannot get woodsman.

Churchill would be particularly good as well, being charismatic/protective, but you'd have to wait until muskets to make one.

I'll update the post.

You can attach two warlords to a unit

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No, you can't. Only one warlord can be attached to a unit. Meaning that the second great general will be attached as warlord to another unit, giving the medic only 10XP for a total of 30XP from the two GGs.

Plus, you have to wait until two are born before you make your first dude

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No, you don't. Attach the first as Warlord and make a Medic III unit. Attach the second to another unit and share XP with the medic later. No need to wait.

About the requirements, I'm not sure why you're saying you're not running Vassalage. Nothing wrong with running both Theo and Vassalage especially if you're Charismatic, as it will get you 1XP from level 4 for melee/archers and will put you 1XP over level 4 for mounted units (with stable) so not only your one future super-medic will benefit from this. If you're not Charismatic then only your horsemen will really benefit from it (1XP short of another promotion) but that's not that bad either.

But anyway, with a leader who's not protective, aggressive or charismatic you're still only at 3 (barracks) + 2 (theo) + 2 (vass) + 30 = 37XP, which is good for Woodsman III+Medic II or Medic III+Woodsman II. You're one promotion short of the super-medic. That's assuming a "virgin" unit being used for this. I often try to get a Woodsman III unit in the early game instead (Warrior or Axeman) by fighting barbarians, which means 3 more XP. Not a lot, and still 10XP short of the super-medic, but that means one more shared GG will do.

A simple breakdown of number of XP needed by traits:
- aggressive and not charismatic: free combat I means the unit is super-medic at 37XP; barracks + theo + vassalage + 2GGs.
- protective and not charismatic: free drill I also means one promotion less, so 37XP is still enough. The disadvantage, as you said, comes from making the 37XP super-medic a possibility only at Gunpowder.
- charismatic and not aggressive/protective: 38XP for super-medic. 1 more XP needed for a just-built unit.

You've already covered the leaders that are favored by having two of those promotions or other special advantages (Monty's jaguars). Also, with unrestricted leaders Boudica of the Aztecs can get the super-medic at 20XP, basically you just need to attach the GG to a 0XP Jaguar. Since you need to use at least one GG (for Medic III) that's the fastest way to get a super-medic.

One more thing: if you build West Point that's +4XP for your starting unit for a total of 11XP with barracks + Theo + Vass which makes future medics a little easier to get. I'm saying future medics as you most probably opened up West Point by making your first super-medic.

Alternatively, you can just get one unit to Wood III, Combat I, Medic I and not worry about burning a Great General on a medic unit. Wood III, Medic I still gives you a whopping +25% heal rate per turn (for a total of +30% per turn even in enemy lands). That's pretty great considering you normally get only 5% per turn in enemy lands.

Save the Great Generals for a really cheap upgrade from a highly promoted early game unit that you can take from Warrior/Axe/Sword to Rifle or settle them in the Heroic Epic city. You'll get a lot more bang for your buck that way and you can still get most of the Super Medic without the Great General.

Well, I want to get my medic on time (before gunpowder) and want him to also open the door to WP, not the opposite.
So, 5 promotions are needed, that is 26 XP.
The goal of the medic is to heal the fighters and to be protected by them; i.e. he must not fight and works mostly in enemy lands.
His healing power can be +25% or +40%, actually 30% or 45%, meaning 3 or 2 turns to heal,most of the times, a badly hurt fighter.
Obvious, 45 is greater than 30, but the last is usually enough. More important is to remember that the medic must be there, on the needed tile, and retreat with troops if necessary.
So, the top medic is a scout/explorer (if I'm lucky enough to get one with the
6 XP) or a chariot (easier to get 6 XP).
Hence, 1 GG needs to be burned to get a medic, hopefully for the whole game.
IMHO, that's the sound way to get the medic.
If special good situations are there (traits, enough previous fights) take profit, but never forget the "sound way".
Best regards,

Interesting. Do you use your first GG to start up a super-medic, or settle him and wait for the second?

I'll potentially use this technique in an upcoming civ showdown

The first, because each GG needs previous fights, so fights without the help of the medic.

And the healing power of the good doc is better than 2XP (1 promotion for archers,melee
and siege) for several units.

Best regards,

Probably a stupid question, but do you do medic 3 then head down woodsman or do you do woodsman 3 then head down medic line for maximum healing power over time?

My doc is a medic 3, and it's unlikely he gets woodsman,
because (hopefully) he doesn't fight.

Best regards,

Loki Strikes said:

Probably a stupid question, but do you do medic 3 then head down woodsman or do you do woodsman 3 then head down medic line for maximum healing power over time?

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Well, if you get its first promotions through fighting, for example with an axeman, you'll take Woodsman III first, as Medic III only becomes available by using a Great General. If you're gonna attach a GG to a unit that doesn't have many XPs then go for Medic III first, as it heals units in adjacent tiles too.

I just thought I'd throw my two cents in. What I like to do is take my starting Warrior and have him explore, killing animals and enemy Scouts to get the 10 EXP needed for Woodsman III. Woodsman II makes it incredibly easy to worker-steal (even when you're at war!) and even Chariots or Mali Skirmrishers won't try to attack you if your on a Forested Hill, or on a Forest across a River.

Once you get Woodsman III you gain the healing, in addition to two first strikes and the +50% Forest Attack(which essentially negates the enemy's forest defense bonus). With this, even a Warrior can run around picking off weakend units and stealing lots of scouts, as well as stagnanting an enemy civ's growth by fortifying on a forest outside a city. Usually by the time I get Combat I on the same unit, Axeman are around so I have to pull out. However, around the same time I usually get my Great General. Simply pop the GG on the Warrior, upgrade him to an Axeman for free, then send him back into enemy territory. This gives enough EXP to get Medic I, II, and III.

Requirements
Great Generals (GG) settled in the city might help, but we want to use them to make supermedics! So we won't count on them, and the warlord effectively adds 25 exp.

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Actually, you need only one GG. I always create super-medics from the first warriors that explore the area and are deliberately killing wild animals. They end up with Woodsman 2, Woodsman 3 sometimes if enough barbs at the gates. Later on I upgrade them to axes and use them to finish off really wounded enemies for free exp. Once a GG arises, I use him to get the last 20-ish XP to get Medic 3.

Random Event
If you're lucky, you could get a random event that gives your _____ troops a free promotion, either Woodsman I, Combat I or Drill I. You can't really count on this though.

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There's also a rare event that gives you Leadership promotion. Even more handy.

Athena69 said:

Interesting. Do you use your first GG to start up a super-medic, or settle him and wait for the second?

I'll potentially use this technique in an upcoming civ showdown

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NEITHER!

You do NOT need a Great General to make a super medic. Wood III at 10 XP is a huge difference in healing in enemy territory (20 HP per turn instead of 5HP per turn). Wood III gives you a 4x healing rate in enemy territory.

Medic I plus Medic III gives you a 30 HP total healing rate in enemy territory.

Medic I plus Wood III gives you a 35 HP healing rate per turn in enemy territory. That medic sounds pretty super to me and it just needs 17 HP for an Agressive leader.

The super-duper-wowie-zowie medic with Medic I, Medic III and Wood III requires:
Great General
Combat I
Medic I
Medic II (WORTHLESS!)
Medic III
Wood I
Wood II
Wood III

That's a lot of investment to put into a unit that has such a big chance of dying on its way to Medic III.

Do you really need a 50 HP per turn heal rate instead of the 35 HP heal rate the Wood III/Medic I grants? By avoiding the Medic III, you slow your healing rate by just 30% and you save a Great General and quite a few combats.

Unless you're playing the Aztecs, you're unlikely to ever see that Wood III/Medic III unit, so why not drop the Great General on someone who will help take cities or settle him in your Heroic Epic city. You'll get a lot more bang for your buck.

popejubal said:

Medic I plus Medic III gives you a 30 HP total healing rate in enemy territory.

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Nope, it gives 35XP on the tile and 35XP (Medic II+III) on the surrounding tiles. See thread in my signature.

Medic I plus Wood III gives you a 35 HP healing rate per turn in enemy territory. That medic sounds pretty super to me and it just needs 17 HP for an Agressive leader.

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Indeed, but only on the tile with the medic. I sometimes heal the troops directly on the tile they occupy before the capture of the city. While that requires two "stacks" that need some protection, it's also usually faster.

Unless you're playing the Aztecs, you're unlikely to ever see that Wood III/Medic III unit, so why not drop the Great General on someone who will help take cities or settle him in your Heroic Epic city. You'll get a lot more bang for your buck.

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I actually agree with this. There are very few cases in which I go for such a super-medic, but the simple Medic III does have its advantages over Woodsman III, and even over Woodsman III + Medic I.

I normally give my Great General the leadership promotion. I usually start with a Woodsman II warrior, so 30 to 50 xp is 20 fights (only at 99% odds after catapults, of course). 30 - 64 is 17, with leadership. It also means that he sees lvl 9 or 10 by the end of the game. I figure it'll be a bit faster anyway, so why not get a free promotion while I'm at it?

I never bothered giving my supermedics any of the woodsman promotions. The bonus to healing it provides is not that large anyways.

Another thing that just came to me is that giving your medic woodsman promos is dangerous. Taking the Jaguar as an example. When you give it woodsman 3 (and medic 3), it will have a staggering 12.6 defensive rating on forested tiles and 14.1 on forested hills + 2 first strikes. That is much higher than the modified defensive strength than that of Macemen or Knights!! Your Medic Jag will be the first unit targeted if even your medieval or renaissance stack uses defensive cover other than bare hills. You'll be forced to approach enemy cities on flat terrain or an occasional unforested hill which will make your SoD much more vulnerable to enemy attacks. Not worth it. I'm gonna stick to Medic III.

Combat I Maceman has 12.8 on forest and 14.8 on forest hills.

Edit: Apparently the first strikes count for enough to put the Jaguar top. I don't remember seeing a formula for how first strike affects defender ordering.

Never lost a GG in a forest tile. I make em every game.