Combat promotion line rocks!

[hunterai]

Woah! I just have new respect for Combat line of promotion.
Previously I view Combat lines mostly as necessary evil you need to take in order to unlock the counter promotions.

@killmeplease, based on your spreadsheet, it seem that I would have gotten more bang for the bucks if you stick with combat most of the time right? I mean in most cases CR line will only have very slim margin over Combat. And Combat is more versatile.

 

[blitzkrieg1980]

Yeah, but having CRIII combatII rifles is cool, too

 

[mirthadir]

What is trifecta? I use cr on siege, MA in the late game. I may use it on tanks if i don't have enough fighters/bombers/MA to weaken defenders enough. Most of the time the siege/air units will have been devastating though in that case i prefer combat/pinch. I find that stack defense is often more of an issue than the actual taking of cities in the modern game.

A trifecta is an expression used to denote a set of three things that together bring success. In this example tanks provide brute force, fighters bombardment/collateral, and paras provide support (e.g. medics, hill defenses, CG) and a highly mobile strategic reserve. This is an extremely powerful combo which is extremely hard to counter (for the AI), and wins wars quickly. It lasts until choppers or mech inf.

Prior to MArty, I don't like to slow down the offensive enough to lug in 1 move Arty, before you get out to laser or composites, what do you put on your tanks? There is a limit to how much damage you can inflict with fighters (particularly if you can't abuse carriers or forts) and the top defender vs tanks is virtually always gunpowder. This makes CRIII much better than CIII (and normally by this point in the game, my major unit pumps are churning out 10XP or just barely shy and 3 promos out the door is not that hard).

With the above setup. Planes take combat maybe eventually taking range. Tanks get a mix of CR and D. Paras take whatever is needed ASAP.

If I'm hitting paper targets (which have already been wounded to oblivion), then I fail to see why combat is preferred to drill. The most dangerous thing in the open field is collateral damage. The AI rarely (if ever) fields ambush tanks or anything else aside from ATs (which are decimated by pinch paras), a straight up hit by even a C3 gets stymied by drill tanks. Having all that collateral damage not wound you as much seems to do far more for unit survival than raw strength.

 

[Dirk1302]

If possible i use lots of carriers which i just ship in the cities itself to enhance fighter capacity. You don't lose a turn rebasing fighters too as it's the carriers that make the move. You use paratroopers, this a good idea as they'll provide better defense in cities and on hill so you can afford to give city taking promos on the tanks. I'll keep that in mind.

 

[civzombie]

"And I am aware that my Combat III axe has 2 promotions compared to the CR I axe. My point is the combat odds are slighty different than they appear at first. "

it took me a while to realize this too (and some visits to the boards). I was always a bit resentful looking back that two 10% promos did not equal one 20% promo.

 

[Virtual Alex]

Sorry for butting in and asking such a stupid question. But so many people here are talking about para I wanted to ask some questions.

Well I don't even know what it is I don't know.

I have no idea how they work, can someone explain it to me? You can stockpile them in cities with airports, and then airlift them (1 per turn) anywhere on the map? I have never built a paratrooper before so I don't even know. Do you take a city with tanks and then paradrop some troops in to garrison it? Can they move before/after a drop? Can they attack during the drop (can you drop them ON an enemy unit?)

 

[Grey Fox]

When they stand in a city they can paratroop into any land terrain (except peaks or enemy occupied tiles). After which they can move. They can't attack right after jump, but they can take empty cities (units nuked or destroyed by helicopters which can't capture the city).
Beware however, they can get shot down by Airplanes Anti-Air units. If they survive a successful air defense, only taking damage, they can't move that turn either.

 

[dirtyparrot]

@Grey Fox:

Aren't units attached to GG's attacked first if they are your most advanced troop (even if there are stronger defenders)? This is my main hesitation in using GG's for anything more than super medics.

 

[Virtual Alex]

I don't think being attached to a GG has any effect on stack defense. Other than the generally stronger units as a defender.

 

[Grey Fox]

Only if they are the strongest defender. Which they can be. But usually they win the first battle. If that lowers their strength, well other units will defend as usual. Basically it's a risk you have to take for having a stronger unit. Bring defenders with you, a good enough mix to protect against the possible dangers.

 

[r_rolo1]

Not exactly. The unit that defends is not always the best defender ( my reaction to this was was pretty much this icon ). See this, this and this thread for some explanations about this ( it was not posted a compreensive one so far ... I sugest reading them by the order I posted them above as well ). And no, I'm not talking of caravels defending before galleons

 

[dirtyparrot]

^ Which is pretty much why I don't try to make super units out of my GG's. The game can still decide that it defends even though it's hurt and likely to die, there are better defenders in the same tile, etc. The problem is you might get this information in passing, it sticks with you and you apply it, but are unable to give a good explanation to someone else. IIRC, there is a special bonus added to a unit attached to a GG that makes it more likely to defend (outside of the attack/defense odds).

 

[r_rolo1]

Well, basically:
-the code for best defender values a lot first strikes and first strike imunity. That can make it chose as best defender a weaker unit just because it has lots of FS ( DanF posted one very explicit example in the first thread I linked )
-the game, in case of tie between odds choses based indirectly on the base strenght of the unit and the number of promotions. By default GG attached units have more promos than the average unit of the same type ( atleast the Warlord promo ) , so, if the game has to decide between a medic III and and a CR I unit, most likely it will pick the medic III ( for the sake of example ).

So, if you make a GG with lots of FS/ FS immunity ( say, Drill IV ) you are basically throwing him to the front line

 

[Grey Fox]

My Combat VI generals basically never dies though.

 

[Bei1052]

^ Which is pretty much why I don't try to make super units out of my GG's. The game can still decide that it defends even though it's hurt and likely to die, there are better defenders in the same tile, etc. The problem is you might get this information in passing, it sticks with you and you apply it, but are unable to give a good explanation to someone else. IIRC, there is a special bonus added to a unit attached to a GG that makes it more likely to defend (outside of the attack/defense odds).

This is why I tend to make a SM out of a warrior.

But, anyway, so many things on this thread seem counterintuitive. I guess I'm going to have to play a game with nothing by combat promotions.

 

[Monsterzuma]

Close. 120% is the turning point. The leftover percentage after the reduction needs to be 100%.

I'm being a pedant here, but what he said isn't untrue. He said it reduces by 10%, which CR1 does to a 100% defense unit. It's just that combat 1 is a 10% increase to the attacker, the equivalent to the defender being a decrease of ~9% (1 - 1/1.1) at 100% defensive bonuses. Hence the turning point of 120% like you said.

You're totally right. Thanks for the correction.

The crucial thing is that only the attacker's combat promotions get multiplied against his base strength.

Yes, that is something very very strange (a dubious design decision, imo) and something I neither expected nor noticed up to this point. The implication is that Combat isn't nearly as good a promotion for defensive units than it is for offensive ones.

I need to correct one of the claims that I made earlier in this thread: when situational offensive modifiers are stacked on a modifier that already favors the attacker, every stacking again weakens every next promotion. So, for situational stackings, wether your next stacking will weaken or strengthen the promotion relative to the last one depends on wether the value got (respectively) farther away from or closer to the zero point. One practical example: City Raider on a Quecha against an unfortified archer inside a 0 culture city (situational modifier balance heavily in favor of offense) is a relatively weak promotion and every next City Raider promotion is increasingly much weaker in the relative sense. The strongest your promotion will ever be, is it's nominal percentage (which the game shows you) and it applies only when the situational modifier balance was at 0% before applying the promotion.

 

[AccipiterQ]

I did have it backward there for a bit.

But this also means CR and siege have great synergy.

trebuchet+CR3 would work well then....