Benefits of Charismatic trait in long term warring: overstated?

[Mango]

Combat I is not something I choose though, so I find the Aggressive promotion only gives me 10% on city attackers most of the time. The arguement for medic and shock axes is there, but how often is that used?

I make medics out of units that I know will not defend. A lot of players go for spearmen as medics, but I'd rather stick them on a catapult. Lately I've been using my first GG to give 20 XP to a catapult so that I can get Medic III and March. This makes land sieges a lot easier and since it's a catapult I can use it to bombard and I don't have to worry about it defending and dying. Thus, the easy medic promotion thing is lost to me. Maybe having a medic early will make the axe rush a bit faster, but I don't think 10% per turn is too big a deal.

Shock axes are very nice in case your axe rush runs into some problems, but what are you really using them for? If you say to defend against other axemen then I say why not build chariots? Okay so sometimes you don't have horses, but if you do have them you should really be building a bunch of chariots anyway since they are the best units for fogbusting, protecting your cities from barbs and exploring rival territory after you get open borders. The only real use for shock axes is protecting your cities after your axe rush, and yes I will concede that slightly. In a game against another human that would be important. Against the AI it usually isn't the end of the world.

I see the biggest benefit being with Spearmen/Pikemen. You need combat II to get formation, and that is pretty hard to do with Spearmen/Pikemen because they're pretty terrible attackers. An aggressive leader can produce formation spears/pikes with just barracks and vassalage or theocracy, giving them +145% against mounted units.

I still find the advantage more favorable for charasmatic since it is faster to CR III. +75% city attack and +10% against gunpowder units really makes for something special. If you upgrade a CR III mace to a grenadier and the AI is defending with rifles like it usually does then you're looking at a unit with 28.2 in attack power. That is a bit overpowered to say the least, and I find that without charasmatic I usually have 3-4 CR III grenadiers and about a dozen CR II's. The difference between those two against rifles is almost 5 points.

 

[InvisibleStalke]

Shock axes aren't so much to protect an army of axes as to protect an army of swords or cats. And medics help your units recover faster - probably one less turn spent healing means the next city is attacked one turn earlier which means one less turn for them to produce defenders etc.

I like the catapult medic 3 though - did that in my last game and it was great. More useful than a medic 3 chariot.

Good point about spears. I love my formation pikemen.

I am not sure you are really faster to CR3. The thing about aggressive is that because the units start better, they survive better. You don't lose so often so your units reach the higher promotions in greater numbers. And once you get 10xp, the rest is really icing on the cake.

I used to downplay aggressive thinking the advantage wasn't that big. But my most devastating games have been with aggressive leaders, not charismatic. Playing as Monte on Emperor and drafting pinch riflemen en-mass, after my maces and axes had already cleared two AIs. Or Kublai and nearly taking out three AIs before civil service.