A long time ago there was a topic about the promotions - what is better

[Handel]

I remember the discussion was about what is better (lets say it is the 3rd promotion):
A. 3 promotions 10% strength each
B. To strengthen the main strength of the unit - ie the pikemen take "formation" to do better their main job
C. To strengthen the weakness of the unit - ie the same pikemen taking "shock" to have a better chances to survive when attacked by melee

Also I remember a discussion about what is better - ie for swordsmen presumed they will attack cities defended by archers:
1. 25% "city raider" (just an example)
2. 25% "cover"

 

[OneLeggedRhino]

If the unit is in the stack to defend, strengthen its strength. Think pikes and xbows, not strong enough to attack but great as a counter-unit. You want typically 2 units to defend each type.

If the unit is an attacker, you want an across-the-board bump, like combat or drill, unless it has one particular counter unit, in which case you probably want a bump vs that counter unit. So attacking elephants would get shock (to take spears), but an attacking knight would get combat upgrades since it can be countered by both pikes and elephants, and taking two anti-unit-type upgrades (25% some of the time) is probably worse than taking two combat upgrades (20% all of the time).

Rhinos, of course, only need the one-legged upgrade.

 

[civvver]

Well it has to do with how the odds are calculated. For whatever reason, in civ4 opposing bonuses cancel each other out, instead of multiplying the strength of each unit and then using that final number in the roll. Also I think the multipliers are all added and then that final multiplier is multipled by the base strength, not each multiplier on it's own. Like if you have three 10% bonuses you get base times 1.3, not base times 1.1, times 1.1, times 1.1, which would be greater.

For example, an archer with garrison fortified in a city has 3 * (1.2 for garrison + 1.5 for city defense + 1.25 for fortify) = 5.85 strength, vs an attacking axeman with combat has 5 * 1.1 for combat = 5.5. However if the attacking axeman has city raider the 20% cancels the 20% for garrison and you get 3 * (1.5 + 1.25) = 5.25 vs 5, which is worse odds for you, albeit very slightly.

But once you get to city raider 2 it won't cancel, unless the enemy has garrison 2. The point is you don't want to cancel out promotions if you are the stronger base strength unit, and you do if you're the weaker.

Generally you can stick to city raider promos with some combat mixed in, as that will work out the best. As far as having pikes in a stack, pikes are just there for defense against mounted so give them formation. Give a maceman shock. Play to their strengths when on defense, and on offense your city raiders will usually always attack anyway.

 

[AbsoluteZero]

For defenders I almost always take the + percent bonus against the target unit / situation.

So, if pikes take formation.

If xbows take shock.

If maces take city raider ( because they are usually the best for taking cities )

Siege should take city raider except in those rare instances where you are weakening an enemy stack in the open field, then it should be drill or extra collateral damage ( usually the stack will defend with a unit that ignores first strikes so extra collateral damage is usually the best choice ).

You probably won't have enough promotions to go up the combat line in most cases, so go for the + percent effectiveness.

 

[VoiceOfUnreason]

Can Openers
Promotions Strategies on Units
When to promote [First Strike]
Promotions

My own guidelines

1) Specialized defenders (spears/pikes) get specialized promotions. They do their job very well, and take the rest of the war off

2) Can Openers get City Raider - for games that are going to run to the gun powder era, this is important because gunpowder units aren't eligible for the CR line.

3) General attacking pieces tend to get Combat promotions for flexibility -- the difference between Combat and City raider is pretty small after the siege units have done their thing

4) Disposapults get City Raider, except when attacking units in the field (eg - killing the enemy stack)

 

[lymond]

I agree with most of the above. However, I'd like to mention something that I've been doing recently with most city-attacking siege. While most city-attacking pults will get city raider, I tend to give the first couple of units the collateral promotions. The odds are very high that you are going to at least lose the first couple of siege units if not more so, IMO, might as well do the most damage with them and collateral appears to do just that. Increases the survival chances as well for the following city raider pult attacks. If the collateral siege happen to survive, I will give them CR or accuracy as next promos depending on what I need. A few accuracy pults are nice to have, but generally a luxury.

As for mounted units - HAs and Curs - I tend to mainly go the Combat line. However, I like one Sentry unit and upgrade some shock units as needed, depending on what I'm facing at the time. Combat 1+2plus tends to be the best initial promo for mounted against cities since even if there are melee units, if you promo them to shock, they will face non-melee units first. So Combat is the most flexible.

 

[fyermind]

As to siege promotions I am probably all too fond of catapults. I tend to open with CR cats until the top defender is damaged then follow up with collateral or drill depending on the number of defenders until whatever my sweeping units are can clean up the wreckage. I find drill cats to be best against fewer than three defenders while collateral are better against five or more and they seem to be about the same against four. This is not math based, but more of the feeling that I get from a wall of axes and archers being pulped by my cat/archer ploy for metals.

I'd love to see someone actually crank out the numbers on this one.

Also, Drill is better for very high odds combat. Sweeping units and chokepoint defenders (in a fort on a hill fortified is already +75% an extra three shots is worth more than an extra +30% if base values are at all similar.) Flanking mounted units deal collateral of a sort and carry chariot rushes or HA rushes as well as Elepults (elephants are better at taking out the first defender than catapults).

 

[VoiceOfUnreason]

Executive summary: the barrage line is pretty weak.

While most city-attacking pults will get city raider, I tend to give the first couple of units the collateral promotions. The odds are very high that you are going to at least lose the first couple of siege units if not more so, IMO, might as well do the most damage with them and collateral appears to do just that. Increases the survival chances as well for the following city raider pult attacks.

I don't believe the gains are very much, in practice. You're really only going to see a significant gain if the extra collateral damage pushes you over a jump point.

Assuming my old collateral calculator is still relevant....

vs Archers
12 collateral damage (base)
13 with Barrage I
15 with Barrage II

vs Longbows
9 collateral damage (base)
10 with Barrage I
10 with Barrage II


If you then take those numbers over to the combat calculator, the news doesn't look very good. Giving an Archer 115% bonus on defense (135% less the 20% for city raider I), you can scan down the attacker win percentage column.

For example, 12 damage will give the next CRI catapult a 35.7% chance of winning; 13 damage will produce 36.4%.

Two base catapults will do 12 x 2 = 24 collateral damage, so the third CRI cat has 44.6% winning percentage. Two barrage I catapults will do 13 x 2 = 26 collateral damage, the third has 46.13% chance of surviving.

Under those same circumstances, City Raider I takes survival chances of the first catapult from 8.8% to 18.5% - so it looks clear to me that you'll save more catapults in the long run by promoting on the CR line right away.

Now, 135% probably isn't a good number to choose - I grabbed it because it was already loaded in the sheet. You should go through the exercise with whatever defensive numbers you think are appropriate.

The key points to remember are (a) that defender bonuses don't change collateral damage, (b) you get significant differences in survival odds when you cross a jump point, and (c) if you do any damage to the top defender, it's going to be more than the collateral damage, so you can ignore that defender further


Side comment: a complete analysis would also work in the odds that you don't injure the top defender at all.

 

[Handel]

So the opinion is to strengthen the default unit strength which is not surprising.
But sometimes a unit with "uncommon" promotion can be very helpful. Just stopped an attack from elephants, knights and trebuchets, luckily supported by just one pikeman and no macemen. Quite accidentally I had in the city a pikemen with both shock and formation promotion. And he handily killed the enemy pikemen, then my elephants picked the enemy's and the trebuchets alone were useless. Without this promotion I probably would have lost couple of units.

 

[lymond]

@VoU....good analysis you provided. However, I should have added to my comments about leading with barrage siege, that I only do this against cities with a larger number of defenders. I'm not a big math person, but just by virtue of the tremendous amount of games played that barrage is more effective when facing larger stacks of defenders in cities. I think the reason is that barrage will do more damage to a large group of units, while a stack of..say...4 or less units it would be less effective. I find in this case that it leads to the survival of more siege units and attackers in the long run. However, I have no mathematical proof...just observation.

 

[r_rolo1]

The issue VoU points here ( and that he already pointed out some years ago ) is the reason I run away from that line of siege promos ...

My thumb rule for siege promos:

- CR to the end if the siege unit is to attack cities

- Drill . I know this is not commom wisdom, but besides opening some lines of promo that are closed for siege otherwise ( like medic ), it actually can have a discernible effect in combat ( especailly against units that have FS/FS chances )

- In the very end of the game, maybe a couple of interception promos . But most of the times is not needed

 

[VoiceOfUnreason]

@VoU....good analysis you provided. However, I should have added to my comments about leading with barrage siege, that I only do this against cities with a larger number of defenders. I'm not a big math person, but just by virtue of the tremendous amount of games played that barrage is more effective when facing larger stacks of defenders in cities. I think the reason is that barrage will do more damage to a large group of units, while a stack of..say...4 or less units it would be less effective. I find in this case that it leads to the survival of more siege units and attackers in the long run. However, I have no mathematical proof...just observation.

Sending a disposapult against a single defender is clearly pretty silly, so it makes sense that below some point collateral damage isn't enough to justify the loss of hammers. I don't know that anyone has proposed a good model here, but certainly below some point you shouldn't bother.


As for the other, I can see a couple possibilities.

One is that either (a) by looking at archers instead of long bows, (b) by underestimating the defensive bonus in the median case, or (c) by limiting the defenders to a single first strike, I've distorted the problem from what you commonly see.

Alternatively, you may be using the attack odds of some other piece to judge where to shift strategies. For example, even though the catapults may not be observing a jump point, some other piece (say, a city raider mace) might, shifting this into a different problem. That doesn't seem like a good match for your problem.


When do you shift from barrage to city raider? In other words, what data does the game give you that tells you it's time to change promotions? Do you have a feel for how many hit points the top defender has then?

- Drill . I know this is not commom wisdom, but besides opening some lines of promo that are closed for siege otherwise ( like medic ), it actually can have a discernible effect in combat ( especailly against units that have FS/FS chances )

That's a really challenging idea, although I feel a need to twist it a bit. One of the regular claims is that Drill promotions are good for mop up work - which to some degree describes what the last few catapults are up to when I'm flat lining a garrison. Maybe CR to skim the top, and then Drill to smooth things out?

 

[Mylene]

From my experiences, i do what i can to give Catapults & Co. a chance to survive.
So they usually all end up with CR

The reason is not hammers, i rarely calculate those when going to war. Will produce as many as needed.
It's more that it can get complicated to get reinforcement siege to where they need to be, will often need ways to sneak them in or add defender units..or just being stuck without enough for the next city.

One thing i sometimes did is giving Catas drill + shock, in semi defensive/offensive battles against someone like Monty with lots of melee units.

 

[lymond]

I use Drill mainly on Cannons for the open field. Not much on earlier siege.

VoU - Again, don't get deep in the math, but basically will use barrage when facing very low odds against a rather heavily fortified city. [this could be early (cats/trebs) or late (cannons), but irrelevant to my preferred form of combat (mounted)] I'd probably have a stack of at least 50%...say..cats...and the rest attackers and support. I suicide a couple or more barrage cats until my CR cats get at least 40% odds or my attackers get very high odds. However, in that case, if my CR cats are getting that low of odds, then my attackers probably won't fair much better at that point, but it really depends on what my attackers are and what I'm facing. In most cases, just a couple of barrage cats will get the results I need. CR cats tend to survive a lot at 40% or great odds. However, again, it is quite situational too. How many defenders? How much damage they took from the initial hits? Health of the top defender? In other words, I may switch to CR cats early or at lower odds if it looks like I can clean up easily afterwards. Also, if the barrage cats happen to survive, I will promote them CR and use them on the back end of future attacks at higher survival rates such that they become valuable later.

I agree that ultimately CR is the best for city attacking siege, but I think barrage has some value and underrated for certain cases.

 

[vranasm]

I see it a bit other way L.

Since siege's collateral weakens already weaker units, it's more important to make a bit more damage to top defenders. Thus when attacking city CR is imo clear winner 100% of time.

What I would like to do is to get some accuracy cats, but since I usually struggle with holding on good amount of cats it's something I only dream about. The attrition rate is pretty high in my wars ;-).
I like steady progress better then waiting to reinforce with suicide siege while sitting at 5 accuracy cats.

 

[r_rolo1]

That's a really challenging idea, although I feel a need to twist it a bit. One of the regular claims is that Drill promotions are good for mop up work - which to some degree describes what the last few catapults are up to when I'm flat lining a garrison. Maybe CR to skim the top, and then Drill to smooth things out?

Yup, in top of the CR line Drill promos beat all possible competition ,except maybe in catapults ( that are ridiculously weak compared with the foes it normally has to face ). My list was sequential, so what I wanted to say was actually that, CR first if you will attack cities with the siege, then Drill. Anyway, my gut feeling is that in open field drill line is actually the best promo line as well ( have not done the math, but let's face it, most of the other options are really weak in the open field ). The barrage line is ridiculously weak most of thetimes anyway ...

@ lymond

I agree that the breakpoint for clear usefulness of drill in siege is between trebs and cannons, because of the weak base str of both cannons and trebs. Anyway, I'm quite reticent on the value of the other promo lines in weak units like those ( except accuracy for cats, that doubles their bombard rate ), so if I get a CR III cat and it gets to 4th promo, it will most likely get drill anyway

P.S @ VoU

I guess your idea of using drill for mop up is also a nice one ( that was not my point, as you can see above ). BTW I remember to see a post by DanF stating that , due to the way the xp points are calculated, that drill siege had a slighty higher than expected xp return rate ... should try to find it

Ok , found it ... but aparently it only goes on defense :/ Anyway, it is a good thing to have in mind for MGs or those rifle + arty wars ( where the arties are highly likely of being the top defenders )

 

[nfw]

I like taking counter counter promotions for some units, like shock for elephants, horse and spears, cover for axe.

 

[Pangaea]

I always take City Raider on siege, except when attacking stacks in the open, where I have tended to use naked siege, or barrage (but not sure if barrage or drill is best in such situations). In addition I prefer a few accuracy for taking away cultural defence. However, I'm now in a pretty weird circumstance. Took over a city with 5 settled GGs. Fantastic Heroic Epic city. Settled another one, so with 6 GGs, Barracks and Theocracy, artillery with 4 promos are rolling off the production floor. CR3 is a no-brainer. However, when attacking cities, is drill or barrage best? Have taken a few barrage so far, but probably leaning more towards drill. Looks like barrage does pretty much nothing, and drill should give units with good survival chances even better chance. Typically I get 85-90% odds on the initial artillery attack, against infantry. At least after some airship assaults.

CR3+barrage or CR3+drill?

 

[elmurcis]

I love " it higher, it higher"
Outside CR line I keep it simple: Low odds ("suicide" to do something with "big defender) Drill, average odds (should damage top-defender) Barrage, high odds (good chance of staying full health) Drill again

 

[Pangaea]

I went with CR3-Drill1 for the rest in that game, and it worked out okay, but don't think it mattered much either. Odds went up a little bit, from for instance 76% to 78%.