Elite units - without warlords!

[Diamondeye]

So, do any of you guys have a unit type that tends to survive long and get many xps without any warlord attached to it? Let's hear the stories of the knight that survived to kill off a tank or a longbow with CGIII Drill IV and Combat V! Summat!

Personally, my Knights tend to go a long way, have had several knights that got past Combat V, where I just didn't know what to do with them. They became medics or flanking or specialized (against melee and soforth).

 

[Refar]

You missed out the Radiocative Monkeys...

I checked Warrior, because they are the only one to have long enought livespan to actually accumulate those promotions... Of course beeing promoted as they go...

I had one playing Boadica - he got Shock as his first promotion, so he did not went the usual (for early warriors) Woodsman-line... He was upgraded to Axe at 10XP, then again to Mace (Loosing some XP ) and made it to a really mean Level 9 Stack protector Mace...

Does not happen to me a lot however, as i am not good at "Guarding my experienced Units"... They just die so easily...

 

[hecubus]

I picked Axemen because in any game where I've done some warmongering, I generally wind up with a dozen or so City Raider III+ Infantry that started life as Axemen. My Archers tend to get replaced more than upgraded, since the early ones generally have few if any promotions, but a lot of my Longbowmen will go up the path. Since they're primarily used on defense, though, they rarely have promotions earned from combat, only what they start with.

 

[LlamaCat]

gunships! they can attack and then move the hell out of there to avoid being killed next turn

 

[Philo_Beddoe]

Generally my early mounted units, expecially horse archers as I always give them the 2 flanking promotions first (barracks + stable), which the inate horse archer 20%, gets them a 50% chance to flank if they are gonna die.

They get upgraded to knights > curaisser > calvalry > and gunships

the flanking promos really do help them live to fight another day

 

[Scaramanga]

Horse archers/knights tend to go the furthest in my games as well in terms of number of promotions. With charismatic, amphibious blitz gunships are not unheard of.

 

[DigitalBoy]

Swordsmen, macemen, and especially knights.

By the time I get to riflemen, I'm spamming so many units I cease to care about the few elite units in my army.

 

[Stylesrj]

Navy SEAL. I got one up to Commando once...

I'd say Infantry/Mech Infantry, but only with a Warlord

 

[majk-iii]

Privateers

 

[Arksa]

You forgot paratroopers...

 

[Milly]

I don't really get that many elite units - sure, my defenders were awesome in the Charlemagne scenario, but eh.... Also, I hate Westpoint for this very reason, as it's impossible to get a level 6 unit for me.

 

[PibbZ]

You forgot privateers, thats usually my highest promoted unit.

 

[jeffreyac]

Oh, yeah, privateers! Wasn't thinking about them, but a significant part of my strategy involves beelining Chem and Ast before the AI, just to enjoy a nice long reign of terror...

Um... I mean, in order to properly protect other civs from the harmful effects of privateers...

 

[Gypsy1220]

Current game, had a praet get to 76 XP (CHM to boot) he had Combat V, CR III, Cover and Shock plus at least 1 medic promotion (maybe march as well). Then I did something stupid, I upgraded him by accident without adding a Warlord (to a gren). Lost all my XP back down to 10. Then forgot where I put him when I entered an even longer war and he got overrun trying to protect a small city from a stack of something like 8-10 cats, 8 or so Trebs plus dozens of other units...I had just taken from Hannibal. He was the best CR unit I've ever promoted without a Warlord

 

[jeffreyac]

You lose the exp (unspent, anyway) but keep the promotions when a unit upgrades, right? Or am I confused on this?

 

[Diamondeye]

You lose the exp (unspent, anyway) but keep the promotions when a unit upgrades, right? Or am I confused on this?

Keep 10 xp and all promos unless there is a warlord attached.

Oh yes, I have let out the naval units. Sorry, there were only 25 options, and I was mostly thinking of land units as they appear on all maps (opposed to naval, that only appear on watery map, for spelling out the obvious)

 

[Minmaster]

gunships...with blitz is awesome. but the problem is mounted units become almost useless when riflemen come out so you gotta babysit your knights and cavalries until gunships become available. once they do, they are so much fun to play with when you achieve blitz.

 

[Lord_Zath]

Privateers for me.

 

[reverend oats]

Play OCC AW Deity. Make your city a chokepoint on a hill across a river. Get archery. Build archers. Wait. By this method I got an archer-longbow-rifle-infantry-great general to 1200 xp. It's not that hard with him killing about 5 units a turn with leadership.