Drill IV or Combat IV? You decide! Includes graphs

[muxec]

My question was bad. Let's say we have only 2 attacking artillery and 3defenders. Now we have a reasonable chance to hold the city.

 

[nanomage]

that basically changes nothing - it's too difficult to solve analytically. the only feasible way seems to measure the probability with computer experiments.

 

[troytheface]

lol. nonsense. analytically Venn Diagrams clearly show that combat is preferable,

Fact- more options

Fact- negates bonus of enemies that avoid first strike

the evidence is clear- Combat is the superior.

 

[MadmanAtW]

PieceOfMind, I just want you to know that your evangelism is why I'm playing Ethiopia in my current Civ game.

 

[PieceOfMind]

PieceOfMind, I just want you to know that your evangelism is why I'm playing Ethiopia in my current Civ game.

'Tis true that since the start of this poll I have gone more the way of Drill and so possess more bias nowadays, but I'm yet to have gone so far as to describe myself evangelical!

Anyway, a couple of comments...

• Funnily enough, I did Drill IV a slight disservice in the original analysis post at the beginning of the thread, because I completely left out the effect of damaged defenders on the combat outcomes. One of the reasons I value the drill promotions so much now is that they work more and more effectively the more HP the defender has lost (if using drill on the attack, that is! ) in comparison with using other promotions. I frequently advocate using drill units after siege units attacking cities because of their high effectiveness even with lower base strength, and their fast xp earning capacities. Seriously, if you get to cannons or artillery and can bring along oromo warriors, don't bother upgrading D4 oromos to riflemen or infantry, just let them follow siege and clean up! Isn't it cool that a D4 oromo warrior can attack a 36HP machine gun for 93.34% odds and earn 4XP for doing it?

• I'm pleased to see the spread of votes in the poll. For the record I never voted! Still more people prefer Combat IV but I expected that. Combat IV is an easier-to-use promotion and so for most people it's more likely to have been seen as the superior promotion. Utilising drill to the fullest is not straight-forward, in comparison. There are other reasons like combat opening up amphibious etc. (Amphibious is something I think is overrated), people tending to stay away from Protective leaders (using a Prot leader is about the only time drill is worthwhile, so when not playing Protective I'd rate Combat IV almost the same as, if not better than Drill IV)

 

[fed1943]

Combat is always useful.
Others can be or not, depending on the situation.
Best regards,

 

[PieceOfMind]

Combat is always useful.
Others can be or not, depending on the situation.
Best regards,

A bonus of +1% is also useful always. But how useful?

A 10% bonus is not trivial I agree, but when you play in such a way that you pick the fights, taking advantage of other promotions is often easily worth it. I'd say it comes down to how much one is prepared to micro the individual combats. For example, if one pays no attention to where units are positioned, combat will often be the best promotion available.

By the way, D4 is also technically always useful, except against oromo warriors who are the only non-mounted unit immune to first strikes I can think of at the minute. Any other non-mounted immune to first strike units as well.

 

[batavier]

By the way, D4 is also technically always useful, except against oromo warriors who are the only non-mounted unit immune to first strikes I can think of at the minute. Any other non-mounted immune to first strike units as well.

D4 is very useful when fighting against oromo's that also have D4. You want to
get rid of THEIR first strikes.

 

[PieceOfMind]

But D4 doesn't make the unit immune to first strikes. If the enemy you wish to attack is immune to first strikes and is not a mounted unit, having all four drill promotions will do nothing at all. That means D4 is useless on a unit attacking an oromo warrior.

 

[TheMeInTeam]

We're just arguing semantics now. The D IV promo on oromos is not enough to overcome combat ONE on knights. Mounted is still the way to go vs heavily-promoted drill opposition.

I will use drill as any civ if I have a tech lead + reliance on siege (it's best vs damaged units after all, so I want my non-siege units to kill with as minimal damage as possible). Otherwise I will favor combat with non-protective leaders, since it's more versatile and some of the benefits of minimal drill damage can be mimicked by promo-delay abuse.

I strongly disagree that amphibious is overrated. The AI does not strategically garrison coastal cities at all. If you want to chain capitulations on a water map, that is the way. Capture 4-6 cities within a couple turns, stuff a lot of CG in there, take capitulation, and let the fireworks begin...

 

[cabert]

(tanks aside, but tanks don't get drill anymore).

since when?
I gave my tanks drill promotions yesterday, and I'm fully updated afaik

you must think about barrage


one more experiment would be of interest to me

It's about attacking at very low odds (=sacrificing).
But my interest is not for D4 vs C4.
I'm looking at throwapults vs LBs and thinking "I'll never kill him. What' promotions will at least give some insurance to scratch him?"
It's more CR2 vs d2 that would be of interest.

 

[PieceOfMind]

since when?
I gave my tanks drill promotions yesterday, and I'm fully updated afaik

you must think about barrage


one more experiment would be of interest to me

It's about attacking at very low odds (=sacrificing).
But my interest is not for D4 vs C4.
I'm looking at throwapults vs LBs and thinking "I'll never kill him. What' promotions will at least give some insurance to scratch him?"
It's more CR2 vs d2 that would be of interest.

I can do this for you. But roughly what size defense modifiers do you want to test?
Longbows might have

+50% (in a city)
CG promotions,
+25% from fortify,
cultural defense
+50% (hill)
other promos

 

[cabert]

I can do this for you. But roughly what size defense modifiers do you want to test?
Longbows might have

+50% (in a city)
CG promotions,
+25% from fortify,
cultural defense
+50% (hill)
other promos

make it really tough :
- fortified
- Cg2 promoted
- hill
(cultural defenses will be down!)

 

[PieceOfMind]

About 5% more likely to damage the longbow with D2 than with CR2.

Even though the survival odds are so low for the catapults, CR2 still means three times more will survive. With CR2 about 3 out of every 200 would survive, compared with about 1 of every 200 with D2.

Since you consider them as throwapults anyway, it's up to you to decide whether the extra 5% chance of hitting the longbow is worth it.

Spoiler :

 

[Roland Johansen]

Remarkable, the expected amount of hitpoints left for the defender is exactly the same in both cases: 82.2. In both cases, the promotions are also not very effective in improving the odds of winning or doing damage.

By the way, these kinds of cities are the reason that CR3 trebuchets are in the game. Not that they'd certainly win, but they'd certainly hurt the longbowmen. If you're regularly fighting at these odds after bombing away a castle, then it's likely a good idea to invent trebuchets.

 

[PieceOfMind]

Remarkable, the expected amount of hitpoints left for the defender is exactly the same in both cases: 82.2. In both cases, the promotions are also not very effective in improving the odds of winning or doing damage.

By the way, these kinds of cities are the reason that CR3 trebuchets are in the game. Not that they'd certainly win, but they'd certainly hurt the longbowmen. If you're regularly fighting at these odds after bombing away a castle, then it's likely a good idea to invent trebuchets.

Yeah the 82.2 HP on both made me look twice. I think it's just a freakish coincidence. Bear in mind, of course, these are rounded; I doubt they'd be the same at the second decimal place.

Alternative to the CR3 trebs is the high withdrawal chance mounted units that people like TMIT tend to advocate. These are used to soften the top defender, like this longbow, and then the siege attacks may continue further afterwards.

 

[Roland Johansen]

Yeah the 82.2 HP on both made me look twice. I think it's just a freakish coincidence. Bear in mind, of course, these are rounded; I doubt they'd be the same at the second decimal place.

Alternative to the CR3 trebs is the high withdrawal chance mounted units that people like TMIT tend to advocate. These are used to soften the top defender, like this longbow, and then the siege attacks may continue further afterwards.

I can see that work in case of a single CG3 unit and several CG1 units. Then you might incur less losses when you try to weaken the CG3 unit with a mounted unit with flanking promotions. If there are several strong defenders, then it's again probably better to go for collateral damage right away. That's what keeps the game interesting. The best choices aren't always the same.

 

[cabert]

I read those a bit differently, and flanking horses don't do what I want.

My target is to take the city, obviously.
I brought the siege to bomb down the defenses then to do the needed colateral damage for "real" troops to be able to finish them. Nothing very new here.
But very often (in 31.99% of the fights, according to the odds given above) there is no damage to the top defender. This is the reason why I don't select barage as promotions for my siege units.
But I often wondered if, given the very low odds, one or 2 more rounds of combat was better to at least hurt the top defender. I'm totally aware of the fact that the damage will be less than with CR promotions, but :
- the first catapult will die whatever the promotions
- this will be true for more catapults if some good defenders are unscratched.
- sometimes I want to promote some catapults to defend (or attack) in the field, and since there are no more combat promotions for siege, drill is the way to go.

Thus, I read the odds this way:
- I can give drill promotions to 1 or 2 catapults to defend in the field, without losing efficiency vs the city, on the contrary!
- going down from 32% odds of unscratched to 27% is not 5% better, it's a (1-27/32) = 16% reduction in the odds of leaving a big gun unscratched.


Thanks for the calculations...

 

[popejubal]

I can see that work in case of a single CG3 unit and several CG1 units. Then you might incur less losses when you try to weaken the CG3 unit with a mounted unit with flanking promotions. If there are several strong defenders, then it's again probably better to go for collateral damage right away. That's what keeps the game interesting. The best choices aren't always the same.

When you're facing a city with a decent sized complement of CGIII defenders, the Catapults might have some significant difficulty in taking that top defender off of 100 HP. In that case, if you throw 1-2 Cats at the city, you'll knock all of the other CGIII defenders off of 100 HP, giving all of your other Siege significantly better survival odds. That top stack defender is still going to eat the Siege units for lunch, however, because he'll never take any collateral damage (that is, he takes only regular combat damage and not Collateral).

After the 1-2 suicide Siege do their work against the defending stack, you can then throw your Flanking II Mounted unit into the fray to damage the top defender. At that point, all of the units in the city have taken significant damage and your remaining Siege units can do their work in relative safety. This is especially needed against Protective leaders since the CGIII/Drill I-II makes the top defender especially tough against repeated Siege attacks.

Edit: I should probably mention that I like this strategy of bringing an extra mounted unit or two along because it lets me take a Sentry promotion into enemy territory so that I'm significantly less likely to be surprised by something unpleasant after my stack moves. It also lets me pillage on the move - even when I'm moving through forests/hills. Just pillage before you move and you can ruin tiles while still keeping up with the rest of the stack. I'd probably just sacrifice one of my CRII/III melee units against the city otherwise.

 

[PieceOfMind]

I read those a bit differently, and flanking horses don't do what I want.

My target is to take the city, obviously.
I brought the siege to bomb down the defenses then to do the needed colateral damage for "real" troops to be able to finish them. Nothing very new here.
But very often (in 31.99% of the fights, according to the odds given above) there is no damage to the top defender. This is the reason why I don't select barage as promotions for my siege units.
But I often wondered if, given the very low odds, one or 2 more rounds of combat was better to at least hurt the top defender. I'm totally aware of the fact that the damage will be less than with CR promotions, but :
- the first catapult will die whatever the promotions
- this will be true for more catapults if some good defenders are unscratched.
- sometimes I want to promote some catapults to defend (or attack) in the field, and since there are no more combat promotions for siege, drill is the way to go.

Thus, I read the odds this way:
- I can give drill promotions to 1 or 2 catapults to defend in the field, without losing efficiency vs the city, on the contrary!
- going down from 32% odds of unscratched to 27% is not 5% better, it's a (1-27/32) = 16% reduction in the odds of leaving a big gun unscratched.


Thanks for the calculations...

Alternatively you can say it's only a 7% increase in the odds of the hitting the big gun.

Also, though this might be a rare case, the expected damage done by taking either CR2 or D2 is more or less the same - it's just the likelihood of dying is more of a problem for D2.

Generally speaking I've noticed that drill promotions tend to keep the expected hitpoints of both units low when compared with using other promotions like combat or CR. Drill tends to make the extremes more likely (walking away with either 100HP or dying) while promotions like combat tend to make the typical result more likely. So really, the idea of using drill on units you expect to die is more natural than I'd have first thought. EDIT: I think the only reason we've gotten so accustomed to using CR promos on catapults is that they do a better job of increasing the exact statistic that we observe in the vanilla game (without ACO ). If the only statistic we were shown was the odds of hurting the defender, I suspect many more people would have gotten used to always using drill instead, especially because it's also useful as a defensive promo. However, we are talking very high defense modifier battles here and I suppose with less extreme defense modifiers the CR stands up a lot better. I have to admit though, I haven't really tested it very much. I just always assumed that because D1 is a bad promotion and you can't get it on siege with Protective, that drill would generally be pretty bad on siege units.