Battlecry -> Commando for taking cities

[Mango201]

I know the orthodoxy is that Tortoise is the promotion for taking cities, but let me make a counter-concusses argument (p.s: these comments are geared towards MP with competent humans, not the AI).

In theory tortoise is better for taking the city attacks, but when playing against competent players who are tracking your army strength and location its really hard to achieve a total surprise attack. You're usually going to be attacking a city surrounded by troops. In this situation you'd put yourself at a big disadvantage by attacking the city while the defenders attack you, instead you first have to clear the defenders, and then attack the city.

• Battlecry gives you an advantage against everything outside the city walls, whereas tortoise only works against the ranged units and the city attack. The more effective promotion will depend on the exact mix of defending units but its certainly possible for Battlecry to be more effective (say if you're facing 3 melee units, a garrisoned ranged unit, and the city walls).
• Once you get the Commando promotion (+1 movement), I'd argue that Battlecry + Commando is more effective than Tortoise against all the defenders outside the city, even if they are all ranged. Without the Commando promotion a competent player will just kite your melee units with ranged units - shooting at you when you're attacking the city walls, and retreating when you go for the ranged units. With Commando, you can actually chase down all the ranged units and destroy them much more quickly due to Battlecry, and then attack the city when its isolated. This is the reason I prefer Commando as a second promotion instead of Battlecry + Tortoise - it also gives me a shot at getting Urban Warfare earlier which is brutal against cities. Finally +1 movement gives you a 50% better travel time to the next city, which allows you to take more ground before your opponent can stabilize (say by closing the gap on a military tech advantage that you have, mobilizing allies etc.).
• Tortoise only really becomes effective once all your units have it, until that point it's easy for the defender to throw their range/city attacks at the units without tortoise, and their melee attacks at the units with it.

In a nutshell I'd summarize my argument as follows. Taking a city requires you to overcome two distinct hurdles. The city (city attack + ranged garrison) and the defenders (everything outside city walls). Against a competent player, Tortoise + Amphibious or Tortoise + Battlecry is better at tackling the first hurdle while Battlecry + Commando is better against the second. The second tends to be bigger than the first in the hands of a competent player, and scales better as the game progresses. Hence overcoming the second hurdle is more important.

Again, I know its an unpopular opinion, but just thought I'd put it out there. Anyone agree?

 

[Archon_Wing]

I think Battlecry is better in general. If you can't beat the enemy's army in the open field (which is likely if they have +7 against you), then you will stand no chance when they hold a defensive position.

Taking Tortoise pretty much assumes your army's superiority to surround a city in the first place.

 

[jehtro777]

For some games, I try to alternate the promotion I take. This makes you gain levels when you combine to Corp later. In reality, you are right that certain promotion branches seem superior. I agree with you that those melee promotions are far superior.

I think it is also true with some other units. For instance, scouts taking the hill promotion up to ambush feels like a better promotion path to me. Also, light cavalry up to Depredation for better pillaging almost always feels stronger as well. And finally siege units up to Shells for the extra damage vs. districts and better defense I far prefer.

The rest I can kind of see go either way and the naval units I didn't have a super-strong opinion on.

 

[Stacked_Deck]

Now that we have man-at-arms you're free from the tyranny of a single crossbowman on a wall wrecking your army, so I don't value tortoise that highly anymore.

 

[Victoria]

I don't value tortoise that highly anymore

If all you have are frogs then a frog virus can wipe you out... diversify have some tortoises and some battlecries.
Wierdly we spend a lot of AI battletime defending them attcking us in hardened ground, in these cases battlecry is useless but we are talking of taking cities.
The key thing with battlecry is they are good at attacking city walls and so make sure they are at full strength and you have other weaker/more damaged units to take the fire. UNderstand how the AI targets your units and making the right mix of tropps to be successful is better than just making everything the same.

 

[PiR]

@Mango201 I really like your argument. Thanks!

 

[Socrates99]

Vs the AI I'm battle cry all the way. Battle cry makes up the deity combat bonus and commandos movement bonus is huge for shifting units around to siege a city. You might take more damage from city attacks but that movement gives you more survivability since it gives the unit the ability to retreat if necessary.

I could see using tortoise more in pvp but even there I often go battle cry to commando. Movement is king in pvp, at least in my book. You need to be able to adapt quickly to the other player's movements. For me it's easier if I go the same path with all units so I'm not wasting time thinking about what promotions a specific unit has. I feel like its impolite if my turns go too long.