[BTS] Charismatic. strategies? Best leader to play for this?

[NothingBesideRemains]

The super-duper medic is just not meaningfully better than the super-medic. The super-medic heals wounded units in 1 turn and badly wounded units in 2 turns. That's usually all you need.

This is another instance of the general problem with super-promoted units; they just aren't gamebreaking. You theorycraft some uber-unit but in real life your 90%-withdrawal can opener attacks 3 times then dies. And you could have suicided 2 ordinary units for more or less the same effect.

Agreed it is not meaningfully better, and all this generally falls under sub-optimal "fun" strategies but I have 5 additional notes:

1) Using 2 GGs for this is especially wasteful - using that second GG to promote a handful of units to their next break point would almost always be better in the short term, which is just about always what matters most in Civ IV.

2) Boudica or Monty doing this doesn't require much pre planning - and it is a little better, so making it happen can help.

3) If naval warfare comes heavily into play, the speed of healing can have a big impact, given units heal while resting on a galleon. So, island hopping with just 1 turn of transit time healing vs waiting 2 turns can be a huge relative gain in speed.

4) Withdrawal-heavy armies (mounted or seige) benefit greatly from healing, and if you are mucking around to get an 'all-march' army, then having the healing be A++ makes the army speed lightening fast.

5) Don't gloss over the related but positionally opposite 'medium-duper' medic I mentioned. Monty can get medic I + WM 3 with only 3 promotions on a jaguar, meaning that a 10xp jag might eliminate the need for a GG at all (or, give better healing to a secondary force that might not otherwise get one). From there, at some point you'll have an extra GG lying around and you can pump that medic up to super-duper. Boudica can get Medic I + WM 3 on 13xp, which starts to get a bit more abnormal but within the bounds of possibility without a GG (at least - could spread a GG around 3-4 units and still make 1 of them a medium-medic).

 

[floydmcw]

5) Don't gloss over the related but positionally opposite 'medium-duper' medic I mentioned. Monty can get medic I + WM 3 with only 3 promotions on a jaguar, meaning that a 10xp jag might eliminate the need for a GG at all (or, give better healing to a secondary force that might not otherwise get one). From there, at some point you'll have an extra GG lying around and you can pump that medic up to super-duper. Boudica can get Medic I + WM 3 on 13xp, which starts to get a bit more abnormal but within the bounds of possibility without a GG (at least - could spread a GG around 3-4 units and still make 1 of them a medium-medic).

That's an interesting point and I'll remember it. W3 medic 1 heals as much as M3. The normal supermedic has two advantages:
- Heals adjacent units, which is often nice when half the units are left outside a newly taken city and others shelter inside
- It's a 2-mover if you have horses. (Though a jag is a 2-mover if there's enough forest or jungle.)

 

[floydmcw]

Commando is fun but maybe March is the realistic strategy for CHA?

- March has no tech requirement!
- Much easier to get, 13 XP for CHA civs (Commando requires 20 for CHA or 26 for normal civs)

War with mounted units, promoting most of them up the combat line. The 4th promo goes to March; with a supermedic, your army fights and immediately moves out to the next combat. Has the potential to overwhelm the AI.

This could work for Mongolia and possibly there's some niche uses with AGG or PRO. Churchill could realistically hope for Drill IV March redcoats. No he can't.

 

[NothingBesideRemains]

Getting even sillier - a cho ku nu Crossbow rush can get some high-drill collateral-damagers, if you are able to abuse other xp cheese / unrestricted leaders. If you can stack up to March, you have a reason to be taking the poor fights that warrant constant healing.

I have had some fun on Immortal with Churchill of Native America unrestricted leader play, oracling Feudalism, rushing longbows and getting super-quick capitulations.

 

[Fippy]

China for collateral xbows

 

[NothingBesideRemains]

Getting even sillier - a Sitting Bull Crossbow rush can get some high-drill collateral-damagers. If you can stack up to March (would need char leader, realistically), you have a reason to be taking the poor fights that warrant constant healing.

I have had some fun on Immortal with Churchill of Native America unrestricted leader play, oracling Feudalism, rushing longbows and getting super-quick capitulations.

China for collateral xbows

right, fixed! I mixed 2 concepts in the post :/

 

[floydmcw]

Getting even sillier - a cho ku nu Crossbow rush can get some high-drill collateral-damagers,

It was already silly, sorry ... for some reason I thought March could follow Drill IV but of course it doesn't, you'd need the whole combat line.

There are some promos that require an equivalent level of Drill or Combat (like Shock and Formation), but March is not one of them.

 

[NothingBesideRemains]

It was already silly, sorry ... for some reason I thought March could follow Drill IV but of course it doesn't, you'd need the whole combat line.

There are some promos that require an equivalent level of Drill or Combat (like Shock and Formation), but March is not one of them.

Boudica of the English would give you the rifles you're looking for, in that case.

 

[Gumbolt]

Getting even sillier - a cho ku nu Crossbow rush can get some high-drill collateral-damagers, if you are able to abuse other xp cheese / unrestricted leaders. If you can stack up to March, you have a reason to be taking the poor fights that warrant constant healing.

I have had some fun on Immortal with Churchill of Native America unrestricted leader play, oracling Feudalism, rushing longbows and getting super-quick capitulations.

Having Cha Leader as China would be crazy. CKN have super high combat probability anyway. Of course when HA arrive that can staunt their use as immune to first strike. Getting drill 3 promo is not hard even without cha. I do love my CKN games. So much fun! Wonder what othr silly combos might be good? Use of Roman Praet? Inca's Quecha? Mongols UU might be great too. A strategy towards grenadiers is interesting with Romans?

I agree leadership is not great. I would not want to risk my medic for some cheap victories. Better to try and get a warrior early on to 8xp using barbs. Then you have the magic 8xp.

Problem I have is on games where I whip a 30-40 strong army early on meeting longbows can easily kill off cr2/3 units. So you stand to lose a lot of units on hills.

 

[floydmcw]

Having Cha Leader as China would be crazy. CKN have super high combat probability anyway. Of course when HA arrive that can staunt their use as immune to first strike. Getting drill 3 promo is not hard even without cha. I do love my CKN games. So much fun!

I love CKNs too. They aren't subject to the 1 XP siege nerf, so when you throw a D2 CKN at 10% odds and it survives, now you have a D4 CKN.

Wonder what othr silly combos might be good? Use of Roman Praet? Inca's Quecha? Mongols UU might be great too. A strategy towards grenadiers is interesting with Romans?

Oh man imagine Quechas with March. And two captured workers, roading for the stack as it moves to the next enemy capital.

I agree leadership is not great. I would not want to risk my medic for some cheap victories. Better to try and get a warrior early on to 8xp using barbs. Then you have the magic 8xp.

Problem I have is on games where I whip[ a 30-40 strong army early on meeting longbows can easily kill off cr2/3 units. So you stand to lose a lot of units on hills.

Yeah, I think the subtext behind C3 March is a lot of warring, and by the time you get highly promoted units you're fighting a large but backwards civ that you want to KO before they can mobilize and upgrade.

 

[NothingBesideRemains]

I think Leadership only has value if you are doing a large stack promotion - ie: give 10 guys 2xp each to get to level 3, and throw in someone with 0xp to get to level 2 - that 2xp cannon, as an example, might get to level 3 or 4 after a few seiges, if you win a handful of 95% fights.

 

[floydmcw]

I think Leadership only has value if you are doing a large stack promotion - ie: give 10 guys 2xp each to get to level 3, and throw in someone with 0xp to get to level 2 - that 2xp cannon, as an example, might get to level 3 or 4 after a few seiges, if you win a handful of 95% fights.

This is Leadership: https://civilization.fandom.com/wiki/Leadership_(Promotion)_(Civ4Col)

I think settling a GG on a stack for +20 XP is called "attaching"?

 

[coanda]

I think Leadership only has value if you are doing a large stack promotion - ie: give 10 guys 2xp each to get to level 3, and throw in someone with 0xp to get to level 2 - that 2xp cannon, as an example, might get to level 3 or 4 after a few seiges, if you win a handful of 95% fights.

The problem is the scaling of XP. The first "extra" promotion that Leadership earns you is just making up for the one you burned on Leadership, so you don't actually come out ahead from the promotion until it's earned you two surplus promotions.

Even if you take Leadership with a 2/2 XP unit (maximizing its value), that unit doesn't need to win a handful of 95%+ fights. It needs to win 18 of those. At that point it's at 38/37 XP, level 6, instead of being at 20/17 XP, level 4; that's the first time the leadership promo is coming out ahead.

With Charismatic it's not quite that awful, but it's still very bad.

 

[Fool's Gold]

Having Cha Leader as China would be crazy. CKN have super high combat probability anyway. Of course when HA arrive that can staunt their use as immune to first strike. Getting drill 3 promo is not hard even without cha. I do love my CKN games. So much fun! Wonder what othr silly combos might be good? Use of Roman Praet? Inca's Quecha? Mongols UU might be great too. A strategy towards grenadiers is interesting with Romans?

CHA + Ger is interesting because it gives you Level 3 Keshiks while letting you skip Barracks, and Level 4 once you get Vassalage / Theocracy. (I guess CHA + Drydocks would do the same for any navies, but those come late.) Then after you finally get around to building Barracks, you just need to settle 1 GG in your unit pump to get Level 5s. Play as Cyrus of Mongolia for best results.

Aside from that, I think CHA + XP-granting UBs mainly allow you to skip either Vassalage or Theocracy when aiming for the 8 XP sweet spot and Level 4 units: seen a good number of previous Unrestricted Leaders threads here suggesting Churchill of Native America (PRO / CHA synergy with Totem Pole and ranged units, aim for Feudalism for Vassalage and Longbows) or Spain (PRO / CHA + Engineering for fast Citadels and Level 4 Trebs without needing to switch to an XP-granting civic)

I've always wanted to try Boudica of the Aztecs though - not just for Super Jaguars, but also because I'm wondering if the higher cap + Sacrificial Altars could synergise for some crazy whipping.

 

[NothingBesideRemains]

The problem is the scaling of XP. The first "extra" promotion that Leadership earns you is just making up for the one you burned on Leadership, so you don't actually come out ahead from the promotion until it's earned you two surplus promotions.

Even if you take Leadership with a 2/2 XP unit (maximizing its value), that unit doesn't need to win a handful of 95%+ fights. It needs to win 18 of those. At that point it's at 38/37 XP, level 6, instead of being at 20/17 XP, level 4; that's the first time the leadership promo is coming out ahead.

With Charismatic it's not quite that awful, but it's still very bad.

I think your math is off. 95% is about the cusp of giving 3xp/fight (i could be wrong, and I know the actual math is slightly different from the actual power comparison? Maybe impacted by first strikes?), but even assuming 2xp per fight, getting 3 fights of 4xp instead of 2xp, means 12xp gained instead of 6. Add on the 2 we are hypothosizing from the GG, and that's a 14xp unit with leadership vs an 8xp unit without. That's already break-even for promotions between them (whether Char or not, though obviously better with Char), at the cost of having 3 fights be worse than they otherwise would be. Not a slam dunk, but not anywhere close to being as bad as needing 18 won fights to pay off.

ETA;

After winning a single xp fight starting at 2xp, the charismatic leaderahip unit is at 4xp, getting a first promotion, breaking the tie with the non-leadership unit at 3xp and still 1 promotion. Win a 2xp fight after that, and the leadership unit is at 8xp, retaining the tie with the non-leadership unit at 5. 3 more xp retains the tie for both sides. etc etc down the line until superiority for the leadership unit.

I havent run a data table to compare, but it seems the leadership unit quickly achieves parity after a single xp gained, and retains it until it achieves superiority.

2nd edit:

Ive run the numbers, and results are as follows:

Charismatic leaders achieve parity at 1xp gained post-GG as stated above (dip to deficiency with exactly 2 xp, given a 4xp non-leadership unit has 2 promotions and a Leadership unit has only 1 promotion at 6 xp). They then stay at parity until 9 base xp is gained, when they achieve superiority ( dip to parity again at 12 and 13 base xp gained, then back to permanent superiority).

For non-char leaders, it isnt very different. Parity achieved after earning 4xp, then superiority at 12 xp gained (dip at 15,16,17 xp gained, then back to permanent superiority after that).

Conclusion: For char leaders especially, Leadership is valuable when doing a large stack promotion, defined by achieving parity after a single combat, and approaching superiority after 9 base xp gained.

 

[drewisfat]

Assuming an initial 2xp is a helluva cherrypick.

 

[NothingBesideRemains]

Assuming an initial 2xp is a helluva cherrypick.

No, that's the initial conceit - what I opened with is that Leadership has more (any) value when the GG does a large stack promotion. Bumping 10 units up 2xp each would be the best case scenario.

 

[drewisfat]

I'm fine with only adding 2xp from promoting 10 units. The problem is attaching to a unit that started with 0xp. That's not a realistic example, but it's the example that most favors leadership math.

 

[elitetroops]

I'd say leadership is never worth it. Biggest problem with units like that is that people are too afraid of losing them and use them only at very high odds. If you refuse to use a unit at anything below 95% odds, then that unit is less valuable to you than all your other units. If you're not afraid to use him at lower odds, chances are he'll be dead before earning enough XP for leadership to come out ahead, while he might still be alive had you given him a useful promotion.

 

[Fippy]

Always war, every super defender should start with leader.