Defensive unit promotions

[Tor Inge]

I'm still very green when it comes to promotions, and I'm wondering how you upgrade your defensive units.

I'm thinking for example archers in a city, at a hill or in a forest.

Like, do you upgrade CG 1, CG2 or CG 1, Drill 1...? Or perhaps leave a promotion to match the attackers?

How about units without CG in a city?

 

[Martin79]

For cities, I would have defender specialists (CG3+Drill or Guerilla if city is on hill) and some attackers like calvalry and siege units (catapults, cannon, etc) to conterattack enemy stacks.

 

[troytheface]

I prefer to promote to Guerilla and send early archers out to fight barbarians and promote to Guerilla2.
On border cities built on hills they can serve as great defenders or support attack troops if that 2 movement can be utilized within the enemies terrrain.

 

[madscientist]

I go along the CG I, II, III. Then I hit the Guerilla line.

 

[r_rolo1]

It depends a lot of where and what from are you defending....

IMHO:
-If you're facing a lot of obsolete units, the Drill line is better, especially if you're defending in the wild
-In cities/forts CG line in most units with some drill in the middle ( upper drill promos give bonuses against collateral damage ) and Guerrilla if in a hill
-Woodsman deserves a special mention.... woodsman III is a awesome promo and it should be present in every stack. But if defendinfg in cities the woodsman promo is useless ( not necessarily in forts... )

 

[Babibo]

In the endgame, I need to defend my coastal cities against massive surprise attacks, and I tend to choose the Drill line for my riflemen/infantries instead of the CG line.
My reasonning is that first strikes are more powerful against lots of less powerful units. A unit with first strikes will win less often, but if it does, will end up with more hit points. When your ennemy attacks with a bunch of cannons, you don't just need to survive, you also need to have a lot of hit points...

 

[TeraHammer]

If your city is on a hill, i would promote guerilla.
If not, city garrison.
If you want to use your archers in attacks too, use drill or strenght.

 

[AnsonMage]

I'm a big fan of Garrison for any troop you intend to leave in a city.

I'm also a fan of "The best defense is a good offense." I try to keep 2-3 Attack units in a central location to quickly move to any of the surrounding cities for support. These units can come in very handy when playing with raging barbarians or early in the game when you are still working from a single Barracks, etc.

For other promotions, I almost always follow up a Garrison promo with Guerilla if the city is in the hills or Drill if it isn't. I've found that the first strikes can give tremendous bonuses when attacking but not so much when defending. The reason for the Drill despite it's defensive weakness is like r_rolo1 said, they will get collateral damage bonuses in later drill upgrades. Combat 1 is awesome as it opens up the Medic 1 upgrade. If you are playing an aggressive leader you should get this automatically. Use the Medic upgrade for at least one unit after the first.

For the best defense, try including several different types of units rather than only one type. For instance, keep Archers/Longbow/Musketmen/Riflemen/Infantry for straight defense, but you'll also need Catapults/Trebuchets/Cannons/Artillery for stack defense against invasions and in the later game you'll want SAM Infantry/Mobile SAM/Mech Infantry for aircraft interception.

 

[DigitalBoy]

For defensive archers:

Guerilla (if city is on hill) > City Garrison > Drill >> Combat

For barb hunting archers:

Combat >> Drill > Guerilla > City Garrison

 

[Tor Inge]

Hm, never thought of the Guerilla promotion for cities on mountains. No wonder I had problems beating an early war protective city on top of a mountain.