Combat vs. Drill: The eternal question

[Minor Annoyance]

From my experience the combat promotions are almost always better than drill promotions, (mostly from reloading a save to try both promotions which was time consuming). I know if a unit has a low natural power and has a large bonus against a unit type then drill helps more, like the anti-tank gun with it's 125% bonus, but in less extreme cases it still seems that combat is better. I used the world builder to try units in different combinations but writing down ever combination of a unit with a type advantage and a unit of that type and which promotion is better seems like a lot of work, and possibly insane. So does anyone have an easier way to figure it out without saving and reloading to try both?
You know what would be neat? If along with the percentage of winning the game gives you, it would tell you which promotion would improve it more, but some people might think thats close to cheating, like card counting or something. I wouldn't know how to mod that anyway.
I know there are thing written about the combat system already, but they really explained this that well.

 

[axident]

Combat is stronger than Drill in one-off situations, but Drill + powerful units vs. weaker units = the powerful unit takes less damage and can fight again in the same round with almost as much effectiveness. (Extreme example: if the enemy has no air-to-surface capability like airships or fighters, then a Combat 6, Drill 4 Modern Armor will bounce off almost any attack against it.)

If you want to learn more, try looking up the combat stats articles in the War Academy. There are graphs and details about the discontinuities in the probabilities and whether Combat or Drill is better in one-off situations. Also, ever wonder why certain % to win like 68%, 75%, 88%, 90.1%, etc. keep showing up? You will find the answer there.

Among all land units, I only Drill tanks/Modern Armor since Drill+Blitz vs. half-dead stuff (from bombing and/or siege weapons) = very efficient way to whittle down enemy troops.

I'll also Drill destroyers if they are going up against non-modern naval units.

 

[DarkFyre99]

Drill promotions are better than Combat promotions in two situations:

• When you have large tech advantage over the enemy
• When the enemy is heavily wounded

Drill promotions grant you the possibility to attack without being attacked back. Each first First Strike gives you a free attack.

When you have a huge advantage in Strength, your attacks have a great chance of hitting, and they do a large amount of damage. With Drill IV, you could kill the enemy with your first strikes alone, thus not taking any damage.

Similarly, when the enemy is heavily wounded, it only takes one or two hits before the enemy is killed. If you can get in that hit with first strikes, then you won't take any damage.

I often give tanks Drill promotions because I usually hammer the enemy with bombers and artillary long before I send in the tanks. Thanks to first strikes, a heavily damaged enemy), and blitz, these tanks can usually attack multiple times and thney don't have to wait to heal, allowing them to quickly resume the attack.

 

[kniteowl]

I forgotten where I Reed it but Drill 1 & 2 are pretty weak compared to Combat 1 & 2, but the Drill line becomes stronger then Combat once you reach Drill 3 and above. I dunno what the detail are but that's what I remember lol (could be wrong)

 

[Elandal]

Drill is better than Combat when the Combat promotions do not push you over any jump point. If you have lots of Drill proms, they may well be worth more than one jump point total.

Generally IMHO Combat 1-2 >> Drill 1-2 and Drill 1-4 > Combat 1-4.

Drill is at its best when you have advantage in modified strengths and Drill4 (for 3-6 first strikes) as you then have good chances of winning battles without taking a single hit. Examples are Drill4 MGs as stack defenders in defensive terrain, but other units may work just fine - Once I had a Drill4 infantry (or rifle - it's been a while) getting 19 experience points in a single turn as it withered a furious attack by enemy, defeating 19 weaker units (iirc mainly Cavalry or Knights - anyway lower tech mounted units).

 

[Elandal]

@kniteowl

The reason is that Drill promotions are weak in the beginning and strong in the end of the line:
Drill 1 - 1 first strike chance
Drill 2 - 1 first strike
Drill 3 - 2 first strike chances
Drill 4 - 2 first strikes

On average Drill 2 is twice as good as Drill 1 (it's 50% chance), Drill 3 as good as Drill 2, and Drill 4 again twice as good. So you get low value from Drill 1, medium value from 2-3, and high value from 4.

Compare that to Combat promotions: +10% strength per level. Value is equal at all steps.

Now, if we assume that Drill 1-4 is slightly better than Combat 1-4 then it's very likely that Drill 1 is worse than Combat 1, Drill 2 is slightly better than Combat 2, Drill 3 again slightly better than Combat 3 (and maybe now cumulatively as good as Combat 1-3), and Drill 4 a lot better than Combat 4, pushing the Drill line in value over the Combat line.

If you don't expect your unit to reach level 5, forget the Drill line. It's value comes from the superb Drill 4 promotion. But if you expect to get to level 5 (and above) then it's worth thinking about Drill line.

 

[KrikkitTwo]

^ or if you are Protective and expect to get to level 4

 

[DarkFyre99]

Another unsung bonus of the Drill promotion line is that it yields more XP on average than the Combat promotion line. XP is determined by the ratio of the attacker's relative strength over the defender's relative strength. Since Drill promotions don't affect the unit's relative strength, it'll yield more XP than normal.

One game, I added a late-game Great General to a Drill IV tank I was nursing for just that purpose. With the Leadership and Morale promotions, it was really racking in the XP, since it wasn't that unusual for it to gain 3xp per battle, even though the odds were greatly in its favor.

edit:

^ ^ or you're Charismatic, so level 5 isn't quite so far away...

 

[InvisibleStalke]

Drill also means you take less collateral - I like it a lot for that benefit as you often end up advancing through a storm of cannon.

 

[r_rolo1]

The best use of Drill in in navy, if you can have a upper hand in technological terms. AI in BTS seems to suffer a "obsolete navy " syndrom and likes to have swarms of triremes or caravels when you reach astro.... That said, my Privateers always go to the drill line ( and hunt in packs of four )

 

[OKScientist]

I use Drill for Machine Guns, Infantry etc that are garrisoned in my coastal cities. These defenders must be prepared for naval invasions, and I find that they have a higher chance to survive multiple attacks with Drill.

 

[Pikkis]

Compare that to Combat promotions: +10% strength per level. Value is equal at all steps.

Don't forget that Combat IV-V give bonuses to unit's personal healing speed. Also, if you have a warlord, going for Combat VI is much better goal (at least for me) than going for Drill IV + 2 other promotions.

 

[popejubal]

Combat I is outstanding for Privateers since it lets them take Medic after a few more XP.

Other than that one Medic for each Privateer region, Drill is the way to go for Privateers. Strength 6 vs. 2, 3 or 4 means you're winning virtually everything and only losing when you are wounded. Drill keeps you from getting wounded in many more fights and that means you get to keep fighting for longer (especially if you're parked in enemy waters and only heal 5% (15% with Medic buddy).

Compare that to Combat which gets you extra strength. It's not needed against Strength 2, 3 and 4 units and it's not good enough against Frigates, so might as well go Drill.

 

[oyzar]

drill are also good for dealing loads of damage to the enemy. In adition to taking less damage if you win it also causes you to cause more damage if you lose both on average of course. As said earlier otherwise drill is only good if you have huge bonuses like cg3 on longbowmen on hills or something equally stupid.

 

[vicawoo]

Mathematically it's good for weakening a defender, if your odds don't drop too low.

 

[Dan Quale]

In single player, the obvious choice for 75 % of troops is CR, and lets face it the 25% of your troops who are not cr really aren't determining the outcome.
In multiplayer, taking shock,CG, etc collateral on siege is your best bet when you finally do promote, so truly the drill line really isn't that important. You need combat 1 to take on shock/medic so therefore I have to vote in favor of combat, even though neither of these lines is truly important except for the occasional (very lucky) elite unit.

 

[Minor Annoyance]

So to chose promotions well I have to write down the strength ratios where there is a jump, and have a calculator with me to figure out how much of an increase combat would give and then calculate the new ratio to see if it passes a "jump point" and if it does I take the combat and if it doesn't I take first strike. I assumed that what I'd have to do but I was hoping there was an easier way.
One problem I have is that the graph on the combat explained page doesn't make sense to me
http://www.civfanatics.com/civ4/strategy/combat_explained.php
Where the ratio is 1.0 meaning both the defender and attacker are equal strength, and following the black line which is when they have equal first strikes, at that point on the graph they are perfectly equal, but it has the win percentage below 40%. That doesn't make sense. It should be 50%. What am I missing here?

 

[axident]

So to chose promotions well I have to write down the strength ratios where there is a jump, and have a calculator with me to figure out how much of an increase combat would give and then calculate the new ratio to see if it passes a "jump point" and if it does I take the combat and if it doesn't I take first strike. I assumed that what I'd have to do but I was hoping there was an easier way.
One problem I have is that the graph on the combat explained page doesn't make sense to me
http://www.civfanatics.com/civ4/strategy/combat_explained.php
Where the ratio is 1.0 meaning both the defender and attacker are equal strength, and following the black line which is when they have equal first strikes, at that point on the graph they are perfectly equal, but it has the win percentage below 40%. That doesn't make sense. It should be 50%. What am I missing here?

The color of the line indicates how many first strikes the attacker has versus the defender; if they are even, use the black line.

As for the rest of the graph, the ratio means the ratio of their strengths (attacker:defender).

If you look to the left of the graph, where it's sub-1.0, that means situations where the attacker has less strength than the defender.

At 1.000000001, black line (meaning, 1.0, equal first strikes), it's about 60% chance of attacker victory. At 0.999999999, it's less than 50%. It's exactly 50% if they are equal strength, equal first strikes.

Text says that if both units have equal strength but attacker has Drill 1, odds are 56.8% in its favor. But it's more like 60% if it has Combat 1 instead of Drill 1.

 

[DaveMcW]

I would estimate...

If your odds are less than 80%, take Combat I, otherwise take Drill I.
If you odds are less than 70%, take Combat I, otherwise take Drill II.
If your odds are less than 50%, take Combat I, otherwise take Drill IV.

Sorry that these aren't exact numbers.

 

[Random-X]

I'm playing an all war maze, 3 wide atm with aggressive/Protective celts, and I got 12 Generals in my red cross/West Point city, so I get combat 5 or drill at will right out of the box. As far as defense is concerned, first strikes + hill/city/ forest defense really rip it up, because you have higher strength, but less actual strength = more XP. However I had to get some combat units when lots of horse archers started to show up. I mean, which horse archer says "Immune to combat 1"? I do get a good number of combat 4-5/ Hill3 / Magic bullet Mechs though, because they are better at riding out of the choke. On offense, universal strength + magic bullet promotion like flank or formation combined with hills 3 are vastly superior to drill, because more emphasis lies in one attack as opposed to fighting off some large stack where your defenders might get hit multiple times.

btw, you should try that type of game, nothing beats combat1, medic, march, city def 1, hill def 1, drill1 mech Infantry that comes with 37 XP right off the assembly line.