Condensed tips for beginners?

[kcd_swede]

Thanks, kcd_swede, that saves me the trouble if firing up a game in worldbuilder to test it out!

Well, an interesting test would be to see if the resolutions that are in effect (blocking civics, or can't build nukes, for example) are removed if the UN is razed, or if they become premanent. I've never tried this... guessing that they become permanent as no more votes will ever occur but prioir votes (like return city to owner) can hardly be reversed. OTOH, I am pretty sure the "world considers you a villain" would go away if you raze the UN. (If you defy a UN resolution you are a villain, but if you raze the UN, you are a hreo? )

 

[Gwaja]

March only applies to the unit with the promo. So if your super medic has march then it can move and heal itself, but if the stack moves then those units won't heal.

I have a specific question regarding this:

Let's say you have a super medic with Medic 3 and March promotions. Let's also say that you have a stack of wounded units that do NOT move, that is 2 tiles away from your super medic.

Your wounded stack does not move, but the super medic moves right next to the wounded stack.

What happens in this case? Your super medic can heal while moving, but the wounded stack did not move. Does the super medic then heal the wounded stack that did not move?

Or is March's healing ability strictly limited to only that unit and not other units?

 

[Nick Carpathia]

Yep. You can tell because the stack may say something like "8 turns to heal" before your supermedic moves next to you, afterwards it goes down to something like "3 turns to heal". It's sometimes faster to heal your cavalry stack outside the city, considering they don't get defensive bonuses and newly captured cities have zero defenses. Just make sure you have a decent stack defender, or you have some full health cavalries to protect it, or just have so many troops that they're afraid of coming closer.

Therefore, don't promote supermedics with March, they're not meant for taking damage. Promote them with Morale, it's more flexible that way. For instance, near the end of a campaign, when the enemy stacks have been whittled down and they're left with nothing but city garrisons, your can heal half your stack while the rest of it advances to hit their remaining poorly defended cities before they can build more longbows. When you're happy with the health of the first stack, you can catch up to the attacking stack.

 

[Sisiutil]

Therefore, don't promote supermedics with March, they're not meant for taking damage. Promote them with Morale, it's more flexible that way. For instance, near the end of a campaign, when the enemy stacks have been whittled down and they're left with nothing but city garrisons, your can heal half your stack while the rest of it advances to hit their remaining poorly defended cities before they can build more longbows. When you're happy with the health of the first stack, you can catch up to the attacking stack.

I used to give Super Medic units the Morale promotion, but now I give them Leadership instead. This is because I now use a Woodsman III unit for the Super Medic because of that promotion's additional +15% healing per turn. Attaching a Great General won't get them all the way to Medic III; they'll have to fight for it. Leadership gets them there faster.

 

[Nick Carpathia]

That's pretty dangerous, you're going to have to take quite a few 95% odds to get the extra 20xp or so to get Woodsman I, II, III, Combat I, Medic I, II, III, Leadership. In fact, the only way you can have 90+% odds on attacking is if your GG is upgraded to the latest military technology, meaning he's almost going to be guaranteed to be the top defender due to Woodsman III's first strikes.

I'd say stick to making chariots or explorers supermedics, specialise your units so that you have a single safe supermedic, instead of a unit that is too poor at healing and is too valuable to risk fighting with.

 

[Sisiutil]

That's pretty dangerous, you're going to have to take quite a few 95% odds to get the extra 20xp or so to get Woodsman I, II, III, Combat I, Medic I, II, III, Leadership. In fact, the only way you can have 90+% odds on attacking is if your GG is upgraded to the latest military technology, meaning he's almost going to be guaranteed to be the top defender due to Woodsman III's first strikes.

I'd say stick to making chariots or explorers supermedics, specialise your units so that you have a single safe supermedic, instead of a unit that is too poor at healing and is too valuable to risk fighting with.

I usually use a Woodsman III Axeman (often an upgraded Warrior). They get very good odds against contemporary units in forest thanks to WIII. The other way they get XPs is mop-up duty. But you're right, he never attacks unless the odds are 95% or better.

 

[Gwaja]

@Sisiutil,

Wow that's a whole lot of experience to be gained to get all those promotions. But once you get there, it's gonna be pretty amazing indeed!

Side note: Too bad you are no longer doing ALCs anymore. You don't seem to post much other than in this particular thread. I'd love to hear you chime in on some online games posted here in the forums, including mine.

@Nick Carpathia:

Morale makes a lot of sense! Usually when I create a super medic, I make them with explorers so that they will never attack, they will almost always never defend, and they ignore terrain movement costs which is a boon in enemy territory. Having Morale makes this even better.

Still, I gotta try one of these days the Sisiutil way. That's some incredible medic right there. Too bad that Red Cross comes way too late to snatch a free Medic 1 promotion though.

3 unique units come to mind though for possibly making it a little faster in terms of getting all those promotions as well as being mobile

1. Jaguar: Starts with Woodsman I promotion to begin with.
2. Impi: 2 movement points plus Mobility promotion
3. Keshik: 2 movement points and it ignores terrain movement costs.

Also if you get lucky enough with a scout in the early game that you are able to get him to at least Woodsman II fighting animals and barbarian warriors, it kinda makes it cool to have it upgraded to an explorer. It has to be Woodsman II though because I think explorers start with Woodsman I by default.

 

[Sisiutil]

@Sisiutil,

Wow that's a whole lot of experience to be gained to get all those promotions. But once you get there, it's gonna be pretty amazing indeed!

Side note: Too bad you are no longer doing ALCs anymore. You don't seem to post much other than in this particular thread. I'd love to hear you chime in on some online games posted here in the forums, including mine.

Between the Leadership promotion and a few battles with 95%-98% odds (usually worth 2 XP, which works out to 4 XP thanks to Leadership), you can get there pretty quickly. By the time my Woodsy III Super-Medic is closing in on Medic III, I usually have Catapults if not Trebs, so mop-up duty comes along pretty frequently. Which is a good thing, because as I get closer to Medic III, I want to take fewer chances with that unit--he usually only fights battles with 99%-100% odds by then. I've only lost one of these units a couple of times, and it was my own fault, because I sent him into a battle with 80%-90% odds because I was getting impatient and greedy.

(Also keep in mind that Woodsman III + Medic I = any other super-medic unit. So once he has those two promotions, everything after it is gravy.)

(Obviously, that random event where one of your wandering Warriors earns the Leadership promotion out of the blue early in the game is one of my favourites. It's only happened to me once, but it was fantastic. Getting experience from a hut and/or from barbs to get to Woodsy III in the first place is also very helpful.)

Overall, though, I usually only go this route if I'm going to be doing a lot of warmongering, because otherwise taking all those risks for an extra 15% healing per turn that I'm not going to use isn't worth it--never mind the fact that you have to be doing a lot of warmongering to earn the Medic III on top of Woodsman III to begin with, even with Leadership. A Medic III Chariot will suffice if I'm going for a diplo, culture, or space win. In those situations, if I fight, it'll usually be a defensive war in my own territory, which automatically gives my units a healing boost. But if I'm going for conquest or domination, the extra 15% healing will frequently save my stack 1 or even 2 turns of healing in hostile or neutral territory. That adds up pretty quickly, and being able to go back on the offensive fast is a huge advantage.

As for following posted games--yeah, I would like to get a little more involved in them again, but the 3-year run of ALCs burned me out. Even following someone else's game (never mind posting my own) taxes my seriously-diminished attention span these days. Thanks for the compliment, though!

 

[Riflin'Joe]

Does the amount of experience a unit gets from combat depend on the strength of the unit it defeats? Are wounded units worth less xp?

 

[Sisiutil]

Does the amount of experience a unit gets from combat depend on the strength of the unit it defeats? Are wounded units worth less xp?

Indirectly, yes. The XP gained from winning a battle is directly based upon the combat odds. Therefore, a weaker and/or injured unit would increase your chances of success and, thereby, lower the amount of XPs won. However, this can vary from unit to unit depending upon promotions and other inherent abilities. For example, even a wounded Longbowman can still be extremely formidable, especially if it's fortified in a city on a hill.

 

[Nick Carpathia]

My point stands that going the Woodsman II route for a supermedic is too much risk for too little reward. You need 65xp for these 8 promotions. Assume your starting warrior survives to Woodsman III unmolested (10xp). A great general adds another 10xp, and gives 2 promotions: Leadership and Combat I. Assuming you take 95% victories only (at 4xp a pop), that means you'll need ~9 of them to get 65xp. By simple binomial probability, there is a 37% chance your supermedic will bite it if you take 9 battles at 95% odds.

Stick to non-combatant supermedics. Your base unit only needs 6xp for Combat I, Medic I, II, III and Morale. There, you have something that can keep up with a mounted stack, will act as a force multiplier, and be nigh impossible to kill without annihilating your entire army.

 

[Riflin'Joe]

Thanks, Sisiutil, nice to get a speedy answer from a civ legend.

I guess that does put something of a dent into my plan of building CR2 maces after rifling and upgrading them once they get to CR3, since they'll mostly be only doing clean-ups at near certain odds by that stage.

 

[Sisiutil]

My point stands that going the Woodsman II route for a supermedic is too much risk for too little reward. You need 65xp for these 8 promotions. Assume your starting warrior survives to Woodsman III unmolested (10xp). A great general adds another 10xp, and gives 2 promotions: Leadership and Combat I. Assuming you take 95% victories only (at 4xp a pop), that means you'll need ~9 of them to get 65xp. By simple binomial probability, there is a 37% chance your supermedic will bite it if you take 9 battles at 95% odds.

Stick to non-combatant supermedics. Your base unit only needs 6xp for Combat I, Medic I, II, III and Morale. There, you have something that can keep up with a mounted stack, will act as a force multiplier, and be nigh impossible to kill without annihilating your entire army.

GGs add 20 XPs, not 10.

Sometimes the game is about playing it safe. Sometimes it's about taking a chance for a greater reward. Cuz it's fun.

 

[Nick Carpathia]

Whoops, but the point is that you'll need 9 battles for the rest of the 35xp. And tell me you have fun when your GG gets ventilated by a longbow!

 

[Ghpstage]

Indirectly, yes. The XP gained from winning a battle is directly based upon the combat odds. Therefore, a weaker and/or injured unit would increase your chances of success and, thereby, lower the amount of XPs won. However, this can vary from unit to unit depending upon promotions and other inherent abilities. For example, even a wounded Longbowman can still be extremely formidable, especially if it's fortified in a city on a hill.

This is close, but not exact. The amount of XP units gain from fighting depends on the ratio of modified strengths ('R value') between them, and whether the winner is attacking or defending.

XP often does appear to come from combat odds, but attackers get significantly more XP than defenders and first strikes increase combat odds without changing the R value, meaning the XP gained doesn't go down.
Theres a section on XP in the combat explained article in the war academy. Link.

 

[BIOGENETIC]

Thanks for the replies! Just played a game and made good use of my Diplo Destruction Stack (killed the AP and UN within 4 turns of them being built!) Sorry for the noob questions, but I'm really getting into this game and can't find the answers using search.

What causes buildings inside a city to be destroyed? I always find myself building what I had thought I already built in that city, and then getting confused. Quote and fill in the brackets (y/n) for a quick and easy reply!

Capturing? []
Bombardment []
Getting attacked []
Siege Weapons []
Air Strikes []
Air Bomb []
Nukes []

Anything else? Thanks!

 

[kcd_swede]

Thanks for the replies! Just played a game and made good use of my Diplo Destruction Stack (killed the AP and UN within 4 turns of them being built!) Sorry for the noob questions, but I'm really getting into this game and can't find the answers using search.

What causes buildings inside a city to be destroyed? I always find myself building what I had thought I already built in that city, and then getting confused. Quote and fill in the brackets (y/n) for a quick and easy reply!

Capturing? []
Bombardment []
Getting attacked []
Siege Weapons []
Air Strikes []
Air Bomb []
Nukes []

Anything else? Thanks!

Capturing, yes.
bombardment and all the rest, no.
Espionage missions, yes.
Random events (if enabled), yes.

 

[dalamb]

(Obviously, that random event where one of your wandering Warriors earns the Leadership promotion out of the blue early in the game is one of my favourites. It's only happened to me once, but it was fantastic.

Do you remember what this event is called? I searched for "leadership" in the random events guide and didn't find it.

 

[nfw]

Thanks for the replies! Just played a game and made good use of my Diplo Destruction Stack (killed the AP and UN within 4 turns of them being built!) Sorry for the noob questions, but I'm really getting into this game and can't find the answers using search.

What causes buildings inside a city to be destroyed? I always find myself building what I had thought I already built in that city, and then getting confused. Quote and fill in the brackets (y/n) for a quick and easy reply!

Capturing? []
Bombardment []
Getting attacked []
Siege Weapons []
Air Strikes []
Air Bomb []
Nukes []

Anything else? Thanks!

Nukes, definitely, they'll even destroy national wonders.

 

[Gwaja]

Just like your ALCs, your explanations are very easy to understand with great details, Sisiutil. Thanks again.

Another quick question just popped in my head as I was playing my Cathy online game:

What happens when the builder of the Apostolic Palace, who happens to be the resident, converts to another religion or adopts Free Religion?

I ask this because you have to be in the religion that the Apostolic Palace belongs to, in order to be a full member. You get demoted to only a voting member if you don't run that religion. As far as I know, only a full member can be elected resident, correct?

So if you are running a different religion from the Apostolic Palace, then obviously you shouldn't be a full member. Being in Free Religion means you don't have a state religion, so that obviously should demote that civ to a voting member.

Or, does it not apply in the case for someone who built the Apostolic Palace? Is that civ qualified to be a resident no matter what religion it is running just because it built that wonder?

In my online Cathy game, Liz built the Apostolic Palace when she was running Buddhism. Now she is in Free Religion, but still a resident. I am wondering if she will keep her residency, or continue to be eligible for it, or be ineligible for reelection. Check it out if you are curious btw. ^_^ I could always use more advice and criticism.