AI not very good with it's warlord...

[peter450]

I noticed now the AI builds the odd warlord, how bad it is at using them...it actually seems a waste at the moment for the AI to use a GG in this way as it get's so little benefit

Would it not be an idea to maybe have the AI use it's warlord a little smarter, like have it be the priority attack unit if the odd's are like 99.9% but not attack at odd's lower than these, so it would gradually earn XP safely when it can, but not loose it to some foolish attack

And maybe if it always kept a warlord in a stack of a certain size and as soon as the stack got taken down by X amount, or it meets a larger stack the unit would do a runner back to friendly city via the safest route available?

I can't help but feel the way the AI use's it warlords at the moment it would be far better if it always make a academy or instructor out of them, but that would also kinda spoil the diversity too

A few simple changes like having the AI always keep it in a stack of a certain size and have it only fight when safe to do so, + have it run when endangered or if a larger stack is moving towards it's stack, would probably see the AI get more value from this unit and maybe even get one up to quite a high XP level, which would be fun to see

 

[Roland Johansen]

I agree that a warlord unit should be in a stack so that it's not lost needlessly. It's a shame to lose the unit because it is attacked by two units while alone. But I don't agree with the other elements of your argument. If you only use the unit when it has a 99.9% chance of victory, then you're unlikely to lose the unit, but the unit is also not accomplishing something that couldn't be done by another unit of its type. Another non-warlord unit would have a little bit fewer promotions and thus have a chance of victory somewhat lower, say 98%. But if you're only using the warlord unit so that you have a 0.1% chance of losing instead of 2%, then the warlord is accomplishing very little. The number of units that will not be lost due to this tactic is very low, on average likely less that 1.

By the way, I think that the choice to add a warlord to a unit to create a super strong unit is rarely a good choice. I think it's more efficient to add it to a city so that this city can create more better promoted units that are likely to win more battles than lower promoted units. Of course the chosen city should be a dedicated unit-production city. A warlord unit with some very special promotions could maybe add something special to a stack such as the well known super medic.

Since the availability of the woodsman III, medic I units from BTS, I don't use warlords anymore.

 

[peter450]

The thing with the 99.9% odd's is that a lot of combat starts to fall into that % once those promo's start comming in, i use warlord units quite a bit, and have made a few mods to make them more viable, mainly the mounted, siege ones

One thing i did not need to change though was the tank and gunpowder warlords as they were very poweful once promoted, i always use 99.9% and while the units are slow to promote up at first, they soon get going

A swordsman with city raider 1,2 and 3 and combats 1,2,3,4,5 & 6 will get 99% odd's on cities without good defenses (as in walls + at least city garrison 2 archers)

Trouble is in order to get a high XP WL unit you have to be conservative and take a long game view, you need high odd's combat, otherwise you never get past 70 or 80 xp before a unlucky bout kills you

A warlord is just one unit, but once it's well promoted it can be worth manytimes more, just because your starting out slow does not mean your not getting good value, you still benefit from a medic promo, the key with a warlord is not loosing it, if the AI focus'd on safety, easy combat and picking the right promotions, there's no reason it could not end up with a high XP warlord that really starts to make a differance to it's combat stack, but it needs to survive if it's to thrive

 

[Roland Johansen]

The thing with the 99.9% odd's is that a lot of combat starts to fall into that % once those promo's start comming in, i use warlord units quite a bit, and have made a few mods to make them more viable, mainly the mounted, siege ones

One thing i did not need to change though was the tank and gunpowder warlords as they were very poweful once promoted, i always use 99.9% and while the units are slow to promote up at first, they soon get going

A swordsman with city raider 1,2 and 3 and combats 1,2,3,4,5 & 6 will get 99% odd's on cities without good defenses (as in walls + at least city garrison 2 archers)

Hmm, 9 promotions on a swordsman? Really? That's 82 XP very early in the game. You get 20 from the warlord, 3 from a barracks and uhm 59 from 59 single XP battles. No way, not that early in the game.

Lets say that you have a city raider 3, combat 4 swordsman (50-64XP XP is still way too much that early in the game but whatever). It only gets 99.9% odds against pretty weak units like a city garrison I archer that has been fortified for 3 turns instead of 5 (15% defence instead of 25%) in a city without any defence bonuses on flatland.

A quite ordinary city raider 3 swordsman would have 98.7% odds in this same scenario. The 4 extra combat promotions help very little. So what have you gained here? 1.2% odds for lots of easy battles that could have given experience to other units and a great general. It helps, a little, but I'd rather settle a few great generals and create those city raider 3 swordsmen en masse in a military production city that creates a new one every 2 turns.

The problem with warlords in Civ4 is that the game uses a system of diminishing returns. Even strong units with lots of experience keep encountering decent units that can beat them. The 50+ xp swordsman described above would have 69.4% odds of beating a city garrison 3, drill 1 archer fully fortified in a hill city with zero city defences. And the problem is that you will encounter these situations regularly when you're fighting a protective opponent (and sometimes fighting a normal opponent). So what use is the super promoted unit when it does barely better than good units and can still easily encounter units that have a decent chance to beat them.

I'd rather produce 20+ good units, then 1 super unit that I need to babysit and can't use for dangerous fights and 19 mediocre ones.

 

[peter450]

The AI could always be given a cheat, to make up for the fact it lacks human smart thinking, perhaps a it could get a 90% withdrawl chance on all it's warlords, that way they will last quite a bit longer and the AI might get some real use out of them

Otherwise it's probably better if the AI does not make them at all, as like you say, without smart use, standard units are a lot better