Early GG use

[shyuhe]

If you're warring against another civ before theology is accessible, should you settle your first GG or make a medic? I used to go medic all the time but recently, I settle my first GG more often. I find CR2 siege, axes, and swords to be that much better.

 

[Sisiutil]

It's a judgement call. The medic unit means you fight the war faster; a military instructor means that more of your units survive.

Speed is vital to an early rush, and you usually won't have many units, so getting them back to full strength ASAP is handy. You want to swoop down on the enemy before he gets a chance to build/whip too many defensive units. It also means your smaller army is ready to defend against counter-attacks sooner. But promoted units, like I said, tend to win more battles and survive. Being able to build Accuracy catapults early is handy as well.

There are other considerations. If you have a good early UU, you may not be as worried about early promotions. Same thing if you have plenty of barbs spawning nearby for practice, and/or if you're Aggressive or Charismatic. If you're Imperialistic, you should be able to spawn your first two GGs relatively quickly, so it doesn't really matter which use you go for first. If you build or capture the Pyramids, settling the GG has the side benefit of 3 if you run Representation (but then you're more likely to build units than research multipliers in that city).

 

[PaulisKhan]

I almost always settle my first GG for exactly that reason. But I don't really make use of super-medics.

A typical pattern for me is first GG in the capital, second GG in future/current HE city. Allows 2 promo units regardless of civics.

 

[admtanaka]

A dead unit doesn't heal any quicker with a medic 3 in the stack.

I almost always settle my first GG.

 

[futurehermit]

I usually use my 1st for a medic. Occasionally will settle, but usually a medic. Quickly unlocks HE and with a few victories WP. Also great for healing all game long. I prefer to settle my GGs in bunches in my main military cities and my initial cities may not be suited for this.

 

[Stewie0416]

A dead unit doesn't heal any quicker with a medic 3 in the stack.

I almost always settle my first GG.

Yeah but think about the time you save. A Medic GG almost always saves me upwards of 2-3 turns of healing. A C3 Axe at .1 health isn't going to survive against anything really.

 

[oyzar]

I usually settle him. Medic is not that good when you are building replacements faster than the main stack heals anyways.

 

[bobbyboy29]

For me it depends on how much i will be warring. If i get the GG during an early rush and i plan to continue warring for a while or start a new war soon i may go for the supermedic, however if it is apparent that pretty soon i will be going builder mode for a millenium then obviously the level two siege units are a priority. By the end of most games i like to have my HE city churning out 11xp siege weapons as they have a hard time accruing xp otherwise.

 

[StrategeryBush]

I just like having a Super-medic, and he needs to start early. Particularly if I have a Charismatic leader, I like to go for the Woodsman 3, Medic 3, Leadership, Combat 1 - Medic, just to see if I can get it.

 

[Dragonxander PR]

You can also use vassalage (available with Feudalism) to get +2 xp in ALL your cities.

I nowadays prefer to settle the general, instead of getting super units or a military academy. I usually find more useful getting lvl 3 units faster. It's really useful for mounted ones with barracks, stable, theo, vassalage & 1 settled general (non charismatic leader). If you're using a charismatic leader, you don't need vassallage (for mounted with stable) or stables (with vassallage & for all land units).

 

[§L¥ Gµ¥]

I usually go for a super medic. The only issue with that is that I rarely get a GG before the end of an initial rush because I try to get there before I have to wage 30 battles.

 

[JTMacc99]

Almost always medic for me, but there are times when it makes more sense to settle. (Like when I got the general at the very end of a War Chariot rush, already had the level 4 unit for the HE, and had no intention of going into another war for a VERY long time. Made a lot more sense to settle than to just build the medic and have him sit around for 200 turns to be ready for the start of the next war.)

 

[PaulisKhan]

I prefer a settled GG to an early medic. Allows a buildup of CRII swords/maces during peacetime civics which become CRII rifles during war.

 

[shyuhe]

I rarely tech feudalism myself. I almost always trade for it. So I don't pick it up until quite late. I was thinking more of what to do with a GG in the sword/catapult era, where I think settling is the better option.

 

[admtanaka]

Yeah but think about the time you save. A Medic GG almost always saves me upwards of 2-3 turns of healing. A C3 Axe at .1 health isn't going to survive against anything really.

I guess my comment was a little too strong. There's no doubt of the value of a medic 3 unit; the question is only what is more important around the time you're likely to get your first GG.

Early on you have fewer hammers to spare. You therefore have fewer units to spare. A medic 3 might get victorious troops back into battle more quickly, but it doesn't replace the dead ones. I'm also aiming to get a few guys to CR3, and this requires a little less luck with the extra EXP. A medic 1 spear is generally serviceable to keep my stack moving.

Perhaps on very high difficulties (I pretty much only play emperor) the extra turn or two makes or breaks an offensive. I haven't seen it enough though to really convince me to create that medic so early, but maybe someone here can change my mind.

 

[madscientist]

Depends on the leader but I usually settle them (and the second and the third).

 

[PieceOfMind]

Tips:
-If you can get a unit to Woodsman III, you may not need a super medic, as 15% healing is not far off 25% that a super medic does.
-If you take advantage of the +15% you get simply from being in home territory (e.g. when capturing a city) the difference in healing times is usually 1 turn at most between Medic 1 and Medic 3. See the graphs below to judge this for yourself.
-If the city comes out of revolt quickly, then it's +20% healing from the tile.
-Also consider that whenever you attack with a unit it can't heal on the next turn. This lessens the gap between the healer types (in terms of speed). It means there is still a limit on how fast you can do the attack-heal cycle.
-Promoting a unit heals half of its lost hitpoints. If you time your promotions well, this lessens the need for fast healing.
-Avoid healing in enemy territory whenever possible. Healing in enemy territory is the main thing that gets the substantial improvement from Medic 3 (though W3 still competes well).

Spoiler Graphs :

 

[StrategeryBush]

In the long term, I can see where may be more useful to settle the first GG than to make a Medic. Still, another advantage of the GG healer is that the units he is healing are much closer to the front than the replacement units, which can be many turns away from the front in the early part of the game, when Swords and Cats and such only move a max of 2 spaces, even on your own roads. It is certainly situationally dependent, and I will think more about settling my first instead of automatically aiming for a healer.

 

[Crusher1]

Early wars with Chariots, Axes, Sword, Catapults = Medic
Later wars with Rifles, Cannons, Grenadiers = Settle

 

[DigitalBoy]

As a force of habit, I tend to settle Great Generals. I've never even used a super medic unit before; guess maybe I should give it a shot, as it's arguably the best use of a warlord led unit and has minimal risk of actually losing it.

But my first Great General would probably end up a super specialist anyway; I like having level 3 units pre-Vassalage/Theocracy. Got one in my current game from a swordsman war that I'm considering using to make and wage war with CR2 catapaults.