Dividing XP from Generals

[Artichoker]

Do you divide XP from Generals among multiple units?

I have been playing mostly Protective and Aggressive leaders lately, and I find that the free Drill I or Combat I allows me to create my Medic III unit more efficiently. There are still cases where I don't choose to do so, but that has more to do with having enough units to take the bonus XP.

Specifically, having free Combat I allows me to gain Medic III with only 10 XP (3 non-free promotions), as does having free Drill I. This means that if an Archer or Axeman starts with 5 XP, it needs to gain only 5 XP more to enable Medic III.

The advantage of this is obvious. The remaining 3 units that gain 5 XP from the GG can be used to gain an extra promotion for those 3 units, significantly increasing the power of my military during the early stage of the game.

Do any of you use similar strategies for dividing XP from GGs?

 

[Soirana]

i splitted it on two units few times

one for MIII another heavy CR.

In short i liked results. Better than puting leadership on MIII and hoping it will be WIII some later day. Lot of better.

 

[JammerUno]

On occasion I split it over 20 units. If you produce units one xp short of the next level.

I believe it makes far more sense having 20 units gain one level that have one gain 3 or 4. The added value of the GG to one unit is the unique promos, and with leadership you'll get him up to high level fast enough.

 

[UWHabs]

i splitted it on two units few times

one for MIII another heavy CR.

In short i liked results. Better than puting leadership on MIII and hoping it will be WIII some later day. Lot of better.

You really need a lot of mop-up battles with leadership to get it to M3/W3. Unless if you get lucky and get Monty who's like 3 ages behind you attack your M3 rifleman or infantry in a stack with a bunch of units (so that it can win like 10 battles), you probably will never get there unless if you start well and/or are charismatic.

 

[Soirana]

Honestly i never made to MIII/WIII.

But i've heard some people do...

 

[lilnev]

If I'm Agg or Cha, I'll use one and a half GGs to make a super-duper medic (Medic III + Woodsman III). The other half of the second GG typically makes a second Medic III, hopefully from a chariot.

Once in a while, usually as IMP, I'll spend a GG to promote four or five trebs to 10 XP. If you use them right (when CR2 would be below 50% odds but CR3 is well above) they can go a long ways.

 

[lilnev]

Super-duper isn't that hard with Agg or Cha (Pro can do it, but only after Gunpowder).

Agg: 6 XP naturally, +20, +10 = 36 (6 promos plus the free Combat I)
Cha: 7 XP naturally, +20, +10 = 37 (7 promos)

 

[Artichoker]

i splitted it on two units few times

one for MIII another heavy CR.

In short i liked results. Better than puting leadership on MIII and hoping it will be WIII some later day. Lot of better.

I do this sometimes as well. It works like this:

1st unit begins with 7 XP
2nd unit begins with 7 XP

Both units gain 10 XP each. The 1st unit gains Medic III and the 2nd unit gains CI+CRIII.

When using this plan, however, you sometimes have to be careful about the long-term prospects of the 2nd unit. Since it's not a general unit, any XP gained beyond 10 XP need to be re-gained after upgrading the unit (this doesn't apply to the general unit).

With the 4-unit plan (made possible by Aggressive or Protective), you may still run into the same problem, but it won't be as likely since each unit will have less XP after attaching the GG.

 

[Soirana]

re:10xp limit

I always thought it might be smarter:
to attach GG to CR unit and move another to WIII [and hopefully later MI] since medic can live unpromoted
The only problem is units i like as medic[mounted] are not eligible for Woodsmen line. Although in early eras woodies usually can keep up due to extramovement via woods.

 

[royal62184]

To be honest in situations where the free promotions come in effect, I try to get the Woodsman 3 Medic III super medic going.

Protective, Aggressive, and/or Charismatic helps getting this sooner. So no I don't divide GG at all to be honest.

EDIT: this has already been stated 5 times lol, I stepped away from my computer for 30 minutes then submitted the post.

 

[Artichoker]

re:10xp limit

I always thought it might be smarter:
to attach GG to CR unit and move another to WIII [and hopefully later MI] since medic can live unpromoted
The only problem is units i like as medic[mounted] are not eligible for Woodsmen line. Although in early eras woodies usually can keep up due to extramovement via woods.

I hadn't thought of that idea before, but yes there are advantages with that approach.

The non-general unit starts with 7 XP and gains another 10 XP, so it can have C1 (free) + W1 (2 XP) + W2 (5 XP) + W3 (10 XP) + M1 (17 XP). Of course, this assumes that you have Aggressive. Without Aggressive, you will need 26 XP to gain M1 and W3.

The general unit also starts with 7 XP and gains another 10 XP, giving it C1 (free) + CR1 (2 XP) + CR2 (5 XP) + CR3 (10 XP) + an extra promotion (maybe C2 or Leadership). The advantage it has, of course, is that you can upgrade it without needing to re-gain XP past 10, and without gold.

 

[Bostock]

After playing around to great satisfaction with mounted Medic III, I'm beginning to think it's better than the Medic III's that are eligible for Woody III. If you concentrate the XP on one unit, you can quickly go on to give the mounted MIII unit the Morale promotion, which is really really nice: for example, it can easily fight a mopup battle in the vicinity and go right back to providing its healing bonus -- good for XP, good for not having to use another unit on the mopup battle (where the mentioned other unit will often end up exposed, possibly requiring some units to make some less than ideal movement to provide it with combined-arms defense on the enemy's turn).

Trouble is, I haven't actually used M3/W3 :-D. How good is it?

 

[Artichoker]

On occasion I split it over 20 units. If you produce units one xp short of the next level.

I believe it makes far more sense having 20 units gain one level that have one gain 3 or 4. The added value of the GG to one unit is the unique promos, and with leadership you'll get him up to high level fast enough.

If you have Aggressive/Protective and Charismatic (Boudica or Churchill), you can do the 20-unit GG and still have enough XP for a Medic III.

Vassalage+Theocracy gives you 7 XP per unit, and 1 XP more puts you at 4th level. This is enough XP to gain Medic III if you have free Drill I/Combat I and Charismatic.

In fact, I might try this the next time I play one of these 2 leaders.

 

[§L¥ Gµ¥]

personally, a WIII MIII is a little bit of overkill on the medic. If my unites are down to 0.1 after a battle, then leave them behind for a turn, your stack shouldn't be stretched so thin a unit or two will make the difference in the next siege.

I've only created the scout MIII with the warlord, and settled the rest. But the idea of having a warlord promote a stack of units with the 50% faster experience promo seems like a good idea to me, might be worth it to do that rather than settle all those generals, especially if you aren't charismatic.

 

[Skallagrimson]

My first warrior that explores, I try to get him to WIII if possible via exploring and surviving barb warrior attacks (sometimes requires lengty fog-busts). Then my first gg promotes him first to leadership, then along the Medic line. Then he gets his free upgrade to whatever (usually maceman at that point). It typically doesn't take long for him to get his magic MIII, especially since he has Leadership, so all his powder puff no-risk fights against almost-dead enemy units still net him 2 XP each.

And as a bonus, West Point is opened up.

 

[royal62184]

I've always wondered if I should give leadership first before promoting down the medic line. I could never convince myself to do leadership or not, so I never do. Ultimately, I want the W3/M3 as soon as possible, so would leadership make it quicker? I guess I would need to do some math to determine that when I get home.

 

[UWHabs]

It's not too hard to figure out. I remember working it out a while ago, and not counting special cases, it works out to be about the same (you maybe save 1 battle).

So, if you're playing Boudica (or anyone charismatic with the Aztecs), being charismatic and needing only 6 promotions, you can get W3/M3 at like 28 XP, obviously it's not worth it to go leadership (since you're probably only a few XP away normally). If you're just playing a charismatic leader, you need like 38XP for W3/M3, so there it's probably not worth it. If you take leadership, then you need to get up to 50XP for it in total, so it's 12 more battles. ie. it's the same going from 26 to 38 without leadership as it is to go from 26 to 50 with leadership.

My problem is if I'm not charismatic, when you need like 65 XP or something, it just seems to take forever. Sometimes I'll just go C1/M3/Leadership, then figure I can't fight enough other safe battles (especially if you leave the unit back to heal people, it's not always at the front lines), so I'll just give it something like Morale so it can move fast.

 

[cabert]

WIII isn't a GG only promotion is it?
In fact, for an agg or a pro leader, you can use a pair of medics with only one GG.
10 XPs each and you're done.

 

[UWHabs]

WIII isn't a GG only promotion is it?
In fact, for an agg or a pro leader, you can use a pair of medics with only one GG.
10 XPs each and you're done.

Problem is they don't stack. So if you have one unit with W3 and one with M3 on the same square, you only heal at 25% a turn, not 40% like if they were only the same unit.

 

[Artichoker]

WIII isn't a GG only promotion is it?
In fact, for an agg or a pro leader, you can use a pair of medics with only one GG.
10 XPs each and you're done.

True...you can have CI (free) + WI (2 XP) + WII (5 XP) + WIII (10 XP) + MI (17 XP) for 2 units. That is, assuming that both units began with 7 XP and you have either Protective or Aggressive.

But the drawback here is that both medics don't have MII or MIII, which means that they cannot heal units in adjacent tiles.