Auto-promotion

[Danielos]

Am I the only one to use the auto-promotion-feature for military units? I actually prefer it. Sure, you have less control of your units, but it also feels a bit "gamey" to promote your units in a prefered direction. In reality, what type of experience a unit gains in combat is hardly up to the government to decide. Now, you have to make the best with what you got...

 

[cthom]

auto-promote!!? i must read the manual again, i didn't know about that! but no, i wouldn't use it. i see promotions as rewards for units who win, and training expertise when promoted from the start.

 

[Azatoth]

I never use auto-promotion. The kind of upgrade I give to my units depends of the future battles I want them to take part in.
If I plan to attack an ennemi with riflemen, why would I give (or would I let the computer give) +25 % against melee units instead of this nice +25 % against gunpowdered units ?
In my opinion, promotion management is part of my military stategy - exactly like chosing the type of units I'm training to take advantage of an opponent's weaknesses.

 

[BCLG100]

I do but im a lazy civ player but find it works quite well tbh.

 

[bippukt]

I never use auto-promotion. The kind of upgrade I give to my units depends of the future battles I want them to take part in.
If I plan to attack an ennemi with riflemen, why would I give (or would I let the computer give) +25 % against melee units instead of this nice +25 % against gunpowdered units ?
In my opinion, promotion management is part of my military stategy - exactly like chosing the type of units I'm training to take advantage of an opponent's weaknesses.

Exactly. I would never allow the AI to auto promote my swordsman when I want to use him to attack a city. +75% city attack bonus is really nice

 

[senwiz]

I would never autopromote. For me it feels like automating a worker...A significant no-no, IMO. I promote a unit based upon it's intended purpose.

City Raiding? Use those first strike and city raiding promotions.
City defending? Hit those hills and jungle promotions.
Need a medic?

There are too many promotions to let the AI decide that for ya. I just can't stand giving up that much control to the computer.

 

[Rex Tyrannus]

I've never used it. Out of curiosity, does the computer create specialists or does every unit get more or less the same promotions?

 

[Mahatmajon]

That's quite interesting. I agree with your logic that it creates an interesting and more 'real' variation when your units are promoting on their own instead of what might be best from a 'game' aspect.

I'm curious too at how they tend to promote. Do they get level 1 of everything or do they specialize? I think I'll try this for a game or two.

 

[scooter]

I usualy save my promotions for when my units need to regain health so auto-promotw is defenately no for me.

I agree, I do this often. If any of you don't know this when you give a unit a promotion it gets a certain percentage of its health back (25% maybe?). That can come in handy to get that health bonus while upgrading your unit. the other advantage of waiting is you might not know what you want to do with the unit. you can wait until combat time to decide what you actually wanted to do with the unit. I NEVER auto-promote.

 

[Pantastic]

I don't see how random promotions are more realistic at all, it would make about as much sense as only being able to produce a 'unit' instead of picking one, especially since the gunpowder-modern era mainly distinguishes units by promotions. There's no such thing as a 'mountain infantry' unit in-game, but put geurilla promotions on a generic infantry and you've got one. There may not be antitank guns, but put ambush on an artillery or machine gun and there you go.

I would find it unrealistic if somehow my units were trained in a barracks, directed by the Pentagon, and with officers from West Point, but that I couldn't offer the least direction in their training. Plus it's pretty clear that choosing promotions is supposed to be as much a part of building a military as picking what types of units to build.

 

[Jarrod32]

There's no such thing as a 'mountain infantry' unit in-game, but put geurilla promotions on a generic infantry and you've got one. There may not be antitank guns, but put ambush on an artillery or machine gun and there you go.

That's exactly right...that is how you need to think of it...if you give the guerilla promotions to an infantry unit, you are training them in mountain warfare, essentially making them a 'mountain infantry' unit.

If you give your infantry or marine unit the ambush promotion, you are effectively giving that unit anti-tank weapons and training them in the use of such weapons.

And by the way...an ambush promoted infantry or marine unit can be a very effective counter to tanks, particularly if the tanks have limited themselves to nothing but City Raider promotions. In the open field, such tanks are sitting ducks to ambush-promoted infantry and marines.

 

[Xanikk999]

I just uncovered this feature recently and i am surprised it exists. It takes alot of fun out of the game to autopromote. Also you cant effectivly plan your military conquests with the wrong promotions.

And i bet they would give you absurd promotions. Just check out the AIs promotions sometimes. I saw a chariot with pinch.

 

[Breunor]

I don't see how random promotions are more realistic at all, it would make about as much sense as only being able to produce a 'unit' instead of picking one, especially since the gunpowder-modern era mainly distinguishes units by promotions. There's no such thing as a 'mountain infantry' unit in-game, but put geurilla promotions on a generic infantry and you've got one. There may not be antitank guns, but put ambush on an artillery or machine gun and there you go.

I would find it unrealistic if somehow my units were trained in a barracks, directed by the Pentagon, and with officers from West Point, but that I couldn't offer the least direction in their training. Plus it's pretty clear that choosing promotions is supposed to be as much a part of building a military as picking what types of units to build.

Pantastic,

I didn't know about random promotions, but I do think it may be more realistic than waiting for the last minute or after a unit is wounded to promote.

Using your example, after a unit is trianed in a barracks directed by the pentagon, I would think it is more realistic to give the promotion right then and there. Right now, players move, and say, ' If I get to the other city, I'll use city attack. But if the enemy sends out a strong force, I'll use strength. I think the OP feels that the promotion should be chosen at the time of promotion.

Best wishes,

Breunor

 

[Danielos]

Well, I haven´t found any real patterns in the auto-promotion, but there is a lot of variation in the promotions, which I like. I like unpredictability...

However, the best system would be that the promotion you got depended on what the unit did.

If you defeat a mounted unit, you would have higher probability to get promotions against mounted units. If you fight in cities, you get city defence-promotions, if you fight in hills, you get promotions affecting hill fighting and so on...

 

[zeeter]

I set up auto-promote after my first couple of games. It just took promotions out of the picture for me. I didn't know which units were promoted with what unless I looked at them. With it back on now, I know exactly where my three-city raider + one star swordman is and which units have two city defenses versus one. Turn it off and you're just attacking or defending with whatever units happen to be at hand at the time. Either that or you're constantly rearranging troops so that you have the right units in the right places.

 

[Albatoonoe]

They need some macro management system. You can tell the computer to specialize units for you. that would make things easier. Something similar to contacting the governor in CivIII, only applying to stuff outside the city.

Sometimes, I just don't want to spend time having to promot units. It's useful and all, but I just skip through it sometimes. Especially if I'm not at war. I could be fighting any number of people, so I could be on the defense.

 

[Pfeffersack]

Auto-promoting was added with the patch, IIRC.I never use it.Picking the right promotions is just to essential for waging sucessful wars.And the "health potion"-effct of a stored promotion is an interesting option, too (it adds 50% of the difference between actual and complete HPs AFAIK).

 

[Pantastic]

Why do you think that random promotions are more realistic than nonrandom? I know a lot of games do random promotions, but that's not a good argument for realism. It makes more sense to me that a veteran unit gets additional equipment and training for some specific role than that it goes out, fights, then becomes some kind of specialist at random.

 

[Stylesjl]

I never knew there was an auto-promote feature

I probaly won't use it because i take promotions quite seriously

 

[Older than Dirt]

Surely the promotions are not random. The AI units seem to get promotions based on appropiateness, i.e., archers get city defense and Axemen get Combat I.