Drill 4 vs Combat 4

[Crusher1]

If your last post was geared towards me then (if it was geared towards Oyzar then disregard ^^):

It's Drill IV vs Combat IV!

the vs. insinuates promotion vs promotion yes?

Man! Lol ^^. Just keep it simple - put it on auto promote and kill everything anyways .......... or give everyone jungle even though there is none and go kill everything. I mean really, It's the AI and it has no idea how to War - Just go kill them with any randomly promoted units after siege of course ^^.

My point is fairly simple, even if exaggerated; AI's are in fact inept at war. They don't do it well, they never have. They don't use siege well, etc, etc. Any human player that has enough siege doesn't need to worry about the ideal and mathematically perfect upgrade. I really do play with auto upgrade a lot - I even used it in my last Deity win *shrugs* lol.

P.S.

Have you ever read any of "Troy Attacko" threads/post. They are nothing but "trolling" =D

 

[PieceOfMind]

Crusher1, I agree the OP was d4 vs. c4. I am arguing with oyzar about the statement that "base strength is irrelevant to whether combat is a good promotion or not". He believes it depends only on the sum of defense modifiers (I agree this is a factor). I claim that on high base strength units, promos other than combat work not very well, making combat better by comparison for those units than for low base strength units.

I have gone off topic I admit but I have to prove a point when I see it being massacred with inaccuracies.

On topic, I use combat promos a lot because I do like to have the flexibility in future battles. I pretty much only go for Drill IV as protective leaders. When playing a protective leader, getting to D4 so much easier means it easily rivals C4 for effectiveness.

It's true you can win the game at deity without choosing your promos yourself (though I haven't done it). But there are probably many things you don't have to pay attention to at deity but people still do. If you ignored every micro detail then you'd lose. Missing a few micro details is probably ok. I don't over analyse promos when I'm actually playing a game but I find theoretical discussions in the forums useful for strengthening my understanding of how combat works.

P.S. I have seen attacko's threads. lol. I've even responeded to a couple of his posts, though I haven't been drawn in. I only chime in when I can shoot him down in a brief post.

 

[enigmagic]

What promotions are best for transports, destroyers and missile cruisers ?

Naval warfare is one of my biggest weaknesses. I never know what's best for them so tend to promote them down the combat line.

 

[UWHabs]

What promotions are best for transports, destroyers and missile cruisers ?

Naval warfare is one of my biggest weaknesses. I never know what's best for them so tend to promote them down the combat line.

It's all situational. Often, I'll promote transports flanking 1 then down the navigation line, so I can get them moving faster (since they start slower than destroyers and battleships).

It also depends what you're battling. If you're picking off caravels and frigates, then either C3-blitz or D4 would be my choices. A sub I might consider doing F1/2 on it to get 80% retreat odds. Otherwise, yeah, usually down the combat line. Maybe one guy in a group I'll give M1/2 to scurry around healing.

 

[TheMeInTeam]

What promotions are best for transports, destroyers and missile cruisers ?

Naval warfare is one of my biggest weaknesses. I never know what's best for them so tend to promote them down the combat line.

Usually you take combat on the high seas. If you have a tech lead and enough XP then navigation is better.

That's all you need until the modern navies (which are finally significant, rather than frigate/galleon/SOTL spam). In modern times, take some carriers/fighters, slam few combat battleships into the rival naval stack for collateral, then clean up with whatever (a lot of people like high combat + blitz, but just regular things will work too).

Alternatively, just use a token naval force, but find where your target is housing its navy (the AI always keeps it in a city). Capture that city the turn you declare war, and just about all of your naval concerns are over.

 

[obsolete]

I love abusing Drill IV, but it should be remembered that promoting STRENGTH does add ambient FS effects.

 

[Monsterzuma]

Defender base strength 9 (a musket for example). Attacker's are cataphract and pikeman. This time the defender has +100% vs. the cataphract but not the pike. So the ratios come from 12:18 and 6:9. (Both are R=2/3).

Both attackers start with odds 9.94%. Giving both attackers combat 1 leads them both to get odds of 20.91% (as predicted by oyzar).
But giving each of them a +25% vs defender bonus (eg. Pinch promotion), the numbers change...

Cataphract gets 22.66% vs. the defener. The pike gets 27.23% vs. the defender. This again means the higher base strength attacker does comparitively better by using a combat promo than using an ordinary counter-flavoured promo.

This example is interesting because the battle where the defender has more defensive bonuses is the battle where the combat promo is the least effective.

This last statement has to be in error. The combat promotion is comparatively more effective on the cataphract, which is the unit that fights against a defender with a defensive bonus.

 

[PieceOfMind]

This last statement has to be in error. The combat promotion is comparatively more effective on the cataphract, which is the unit that fights against a defender with a defensive bonus.

That's right. I had that round the wrong way, I think.

 

[DrPepper836]

Here's some data that I recently ran for the samurai, but it should help with everybody. Basically, CR > C > D. That's just the way it shows.



All of the tests include all of the previous line's promotes and C 1 and D 1 for the samurais. Keep in mind that a samurai also has 2 first strikes innately. Longbows have 20% fortification bonus and no culture bonus. They are in cities. Field tests were on grassland.

 

[blitzkrieg1980]

Shows attacking %, but what are the defensive %?

I'd rather have Drill 4 crossbows defending my stack than combat 4 crossbows (str 6 +40%=strt 8.4) because of the potential to receive damage from suicide catapults. Even though the AI is pretty bad at war, they still suicide plenty of catapults into my stacks.

Having Drill I/II/III/IV gives 3-4 first strikes, -60% collateral damage, and 10% vs. mounted units. IMO a perfect stack defender.

Now, for attacking purposes, the only reason I send in Drill promoted units is if I've reduced the enemy units' health with siege and want to promote my drill units further . Combat and CR units are for attacking otherwise.