Drill and Flanking: Red herrings, or am I missing something?

[mirthadir]

Flanking knights are pretty good at wasting trebs in the field, curis even better. Flanking off the siege and hiding with some CG or D troops behind a hill castle is idioticly more efficient than using C mounted for defense. In many cases I find it to be more efficient than either killing the stack with my own siege or getting more defenders into the city.

On a rush (mostly HA) flanking works reasonably well damaging the top defender and getting me an AI cap on turn 2 or 3 of the war at low losses.

Lastly, let's not forget sentry. Knowledge is power, and nothing gives you reliable scouting like a sentry until zepps (yes spies work better, and GSp are immortal but the normal ones get caught, overbuilding is very hammer inefficient, and keeping a GP just for scouting seems a bit harsh).

Drill is insanely good. Of late I've been playing around with a late game rifle/arty/fighters combo. Drill on everything except the fighters works out rather well and utterly curb stomping AIs who lack Fighters and mass SAMinf thanks to spy burning oil fields. I've even begun using drill siege when I start getting a good air power engine going.

 

[ungy]

It's a big deal when you are out-numbered. Medics only heal once per turn, not per battle.

yes if you're playing deity or high level AW and get swarmed then of course you need super units with drill. But that's the exception.

 

[PieceOfMind]

I'm a bit late to the party but given I'm the drill defender, my input here is necessary.

Drill is strong in special situations.

• Drill units attacking injured defenders. Drill III longbows might not quite be as good as CR3 maces but when you use them after siege they can do quite well.
• Drill units tend to earn xp a little bit faster than other units that fight odds at equivalent odds. This is because first strikes (i.e. more first strikes) do not decrease the xp you can expect from combat.
• Protective civs. Seriously, the drill line is barely worth touching without a Protective leader, or Zara for obvious reasons.
• Sometimes useful for siege attacker/s if you really want to be a tiny bit more likely to damage the strongest defender. Drill 1 instead of CR1 means your cat is more likely to die but it's also more likely to damage that strongest longbow. Generally speaking drill doesn't work well on siege though because they can only withdraw with 1xp all the time.
• Drill IV is where it's at. It's rarely worth investing too much intro drill units unless they have a reasonable chance of reaching drill IV.
• Milking for GG points. You can earn around two times more xp in post-siege mop up if you use drill troops instead of CR troops. Mainly useful for PRO civs.

Disadvantages of drill:

• Weak against most mounted units. This is ok if you can ensure you always have spears or pikes mixed in (something that most PRO haters tend to ignore). Also, with drill attackers, at least mounted units defending don't get defensive bonuses.
• Injured drill units are unfortunately still valued quite highly as defenders. As such, highly promoted drill units sometimes defend at very bad odds when better non-drill units are available. While they're at full health they can be very strong defenders obviously.
• Drill I itself is probably the weakest promotion in the game. I suspect a lot of the disappointment in drill comes from first impressions when people try Drill I. It compares very poorly to C1. On the other hand, the later drill promotions like Drill IV are arguably better than a single combat promotion.
• Strangely, there are some promotions like March that are open to the combat line but not the drill line. This is a big thing for especially gunpowder units.

Generally speaking the benefits of drill are much more subtle than with combat promos and often never seen because people hate PRO civs with such a passion.

Combat promotions are pretty much the easiest promotion to use in the game, because their effect is pretty much the same whatever type of combat you use. Using drill troops properly requires more micro (read: tactics ) so if you're lazy you probably won't find much use for drill.

Remember that with PRO civs you get 3-6 (average 4.5) first strikes with just 3 promotions (and the free one). Don't make all your units drill - that would be like making every city a cottage spammer. Specialise your units with the same care you give to specialising cities and you might start to appreciate their uses a bit more. Also, learn what thresholds for modified combat strengths give each number of xp. With even just a couple of first strikes, it can be quite easy to regularly take 3xp per battle even at very favourable odds if the defender is at least a bit injured to start with (e.g. post siege attacks).

 

[PieceOfMind]

For the reccord, Drill does not modify any attack values at all. The reason the combat odds (seem to) increase with Drill is because your armour lets you last longer, which means more chance to get extra HITS IN when things go bad.

= Higher winning rate over all.

This is very misleading IMO. Technically drill lets you last longer because in the first few rounds of combat (depending how many first strikes you have) you are allowed to dodge any strikes that would have ordinarily been landed on you. Call it armour if you will but really you're just obfuscating the concept.

So the reason your odds are a bit better when you increase your number of first strikes is because you're decreasing the amount of damage you are likely to take in the first few rounds of combat.