[BTS] First strikes are insane

[RRRaskolnikov]

It's also typically a lot more advantageous to have 10 units with 20 exp than 1 unit with 200 exp. The latter is great if you're just trying to run a skeleton crew defense to minimize unit cost, but it does nothing in helping you go on offense. That unit is now a dramatic risk, a terrible dice roll can wipe away 200 of your hard earned exp. And that unit is still only going to attack once a turn. And of course exp -> promos follows an exponential function. You get a lot more overall promotions spreading that exp around, and then you have a lot of really good units that you can go on offense with.

I agree with all your post. But you can also settle earned GGs (Charlie behind a great wall comes to mind)

 

[Tobiyogi]

Do I understand right @drewisfat that the same way one earns EXP points one can also lose them if the highly promoted units die? Or is it just a very good unit that is lost? If the GG bar on top of the screen should also walk backwards (in case of losses), that would surprise me a lot. But I never really watch it.......

 

[AcaMetis]

Just a very good unit that's lost, at least I don't know of anything in the game can cause earned GG progress to decay or be removed. Unit XP is lost if the unit dies, GG experience is not.

 

[drewisfat]

no, you keep the GG exp points you bank. My point was that if you have an insane superdefender with like 200 exp, there is a huge liability in that one bad series of dice rolls can result in you losing something you've invested 200 exp in. So you can have an amazing unit that can fight battles that would otherwise be suicide, but you get 95%+ odds on. But even a 1/20 chance of dying is quite unacceptable when we've invested far more than 20 fights to get this unit to 200 exp.

 

[dankok]

GG points don't decay. His point is just that all the XP going towards one unit isn't all that great because if this super unit fights hundreds of battles even at 99% odds it will probably eventually die whereas if that load of XP was distributed among 10-20 units, you'd have a much stronger fighting force and much more difficult to kill as well. Because at lower XP's you're gaining more promotions per fight. Once XP gets to like 50 you need lots of fights to gain a promotion. However, one can at least somewhat mitigate the problem he pointed out by letting other units fight battles so they get XP as well. For instance if a city is being attacked by a stack they can clearly defeat, move the super unit out and let others fight.

I still think the biggest weakness of drill is that mounted units from HA's on have FS immunity either inherent or easily attainable. And AI's don't exactly hesitate to build hordes of Knights and such and throw them at your stacks. When using Oromos, I'll often have a mix of mostly Drill IV and some Drill II/Formation/Combat I. The latter when fortified can take on Knights quite well, in some cases with high city defense even slightly better than Pikes.

 

[earthy]

Yeah i definitely wasnt playing that too strategically, it was more of a "relax with a beer after work" game. I didnt even intend to make a super defender, but after a while he wasnt letting anyone else take fights and i was afraid if he lost his fortify bonus by moving that he would die when i moved him back in. It was also a bit exciting seeing how strong he could get. In the end he did die at around 56% odds which led me to ragequit. No idea why he even took the fight at such bad odds when i had other full health lvl 4-5 longbows though.

 

[Tobiyogi]

Ok, I thought so. Another problem is, that at some point, with too many exp points, the guy is "out-promoted". In one AW game, I had a samurai with over 280 exp points, combat 6, drill 4 etc, nothing left to promote. And still he died in a furious knight attack from Shaka..... In the end, no-one is immortal

 

[dankok]

Yeah i definitely wasnt playing that too strategically, it was more of a "relax with a beer after work" game. I didnt even intend to make a super defender, but after a while he wasnt letting anyone else take fights and i was afraid if he lost his fortify bonus by moving that he would die when i moved him back in. It was also a bit exciting seeing how strong he could get. In the end he did die at around 56% odds which led me to ragequit. No idea why he even took the fight at such bad odds when i had other full health lvl 4-5 longbows though.

One option the game should have is to be able to select a unit not to fight.

 

[pi-r8]

Yeah i definitely wasnt playing that too strategically, it was more of a "relax with a beer after work" game. I didnt even intend to make a super defender, but after a while he wasnt letting anyone else take fights and i was afraid if he lost his fortify bonus by moving that he would die when i moved him back in. It was also a bit exciting seeing how strong he could get. In the end he did die at around 56% odds which led me to ragequit. No idea why he even took the fight at such bad odds when i had other full health lvl 4-5 longbows though.

I think there is some oddness where the game treats units with a lot of first strikes can be treated as "best defender" even when there are others with slightly higher odds to win. Not sure about the details of that.

 

[AcaMetis]

I believe one example is a Drill IV Ironclad that will attempt to defeat a Destroyer before another ship that actually stands a chance? I recall reading that somewhere.

 

[6K Man]

Some counterpoints to the amazingness of first strikes, cuz I'm a hit at parties:
Drill 4 is an amazing promotion with +2 first strikes, -20% collateral damage and +10% to mounted units. However, the rest of the drills are underwhelming.
Drill 1 is particularly awful with just +1 first strike "chance"
Drill 2 is +1 first strike and -20% collateral
Drill 3 is + 2 first strike chances and -20% collateral (this is actually slightly worse than drill 2!)
So you have to put a lot of investment in weak promos before you get the amazing drill 4.

Agree that Drill 4 is the prize on the Drill line, but for those readers who may be confused, the bonuses for each level of Drill are cumulative. So a Drill 3 unit has 1 first strike, 3 first strike chances (equivalent to 2.5 first strikes on average, since a “chance” is 50-50) and -40% collateral damage. Drill 4 adds 2 more first strikes (3-6 total, or 4.5 on average), and a further -20% collateral (-60% total).

I keep meaning to try the Woodsman line as an alternative to Drill. A Woodsman 3 unit gets 2 first strikes, double movement on Forest/Jungle, +50% to combat on both Jungle and Forest, and better healing than anything short of Medic III. A Drill 3 unit gets 2.5 first strikes and -40% collateral, which pales by comparison. The trouble, of course, is that there’s no prize like Drill 4 waiting after you get Woodsman 3.

 

[lymond]

hmm...don't think I ever really noticed that Woody III gives 2 first strikes. I use it exclusively for super medics. It my preferred option to use my first GG on a Warrior, who has likely already worked his way up the Woody line. But the idea of mass promoting the Woody line had never crossed my mind. Even with the 2 first strikes I don't see it as a good option and Woodsman loses its value in other ways as the game progress and trees torn down. But a woody III super medic is always great.

But yeah, the benefit of Drill is only fully realized when you hit Drill IV and then it is pretty amazing. I love Oromos for this fact as it is so easy to get, then later make them Rifles. So many times with Drill IV they don't even take damage on attack or defense.

However, in the case of say AW if you are playing defensive with archers/LBs, you want to always take CG line first as it makes them hugely strong in cities - where it counts.

 

[6K Man]

I tend to promote to W3 instead of Medic II when building a healer, just because W3 is better at the 10xp point. So I usually have a bunch of W2 and W3 Warriors or Spears. In the early game, or on a heavily forested map, I wonder how useful a W3 stack of Axes/Swords would be. 2 moves through forest would be a surprise.

 

[pi-r8]

I tend to promote to W3 instead of Medic II when building a healer, just because W3 is better at the 10xp point. So I usually have a bunch of W2 and W3 Warriors or Spears. In the early game, or on a heavily forested map, I wonder how useful a W3 stack of Axes/Swords would be. 2 moves through forest would be a surprise.

Jaguars work pretty well for that. You can usually get them out when there's still lots of forest on the map, so they do move quickly. The first strikes help a lot when you're finishing off a wounded archer. But they'll struggle at attacking heavily defended cities on hills.

 

[RRRaskolnikov]

I tend to promote to W3 instead of Medic II when building a healer, just because W3 is better at the 10xp point. So I usually have a bunch of W2 and W3 Warriors or Spears. In the early game, or on a heavily forested map, I wonder how useful a W3 stack of Axes/Swords would be. 2 moves through forest would be a surprise.

I 'll keep my CR3 + C1/shock (as pi-r8 said, it's higlhy situational, you are Monty starting in the jungle, build a few, but even then CR3 will loose less fights).

 

[drewisfat]

Agree that Drill 4 is the prize on the Drill line, but for those readers who may be confused, the bonuses for each level of Drill are cumulative. So a Drill 3 unit has 1 first strike, 3 first strike chances (equivalent to 2.5 first strikes on average, since a “chance” is 50-50) and -40% collateral damage. Drill 4 adds 2 more first strikes (3-6 total, or 4.5 on average), and a further -20% collateral (-60% total).

2.5 FS average doesn't tell the whole story. It's worth noting that first strike chances aren't 50/50 coin flips. In any battle, Drill 3 promos gives a 25% chance of 4 first strikes, a 25% chance of 3 first strikes, a 25% chance of 2 first strikes and a 25% chance of 1 first strike. So 25/25/25/25, as opposed to 12.5/37.5/37.5/12.5. In other words, the extremes are more likely to happen than if independent coin flips were going on. If we assume a defensive battle that was in our favor, we'd rather minimize RNG and have consistent middle values instead of the relatively large 25% chance of only getting a single first strike. Opposite would be true if we were instead were fighting a low-odds battle. However, players will naturally try to select for high odds battles more often than low odds battles, and drill units (often archers) are used more defensively than offensively.

 

[Lexicus]

When I get enough GGs settled in a city to get 4 promotion units I usually build some Drill IV units as stack defenders in case I get hit with siege while my stack is in enemy territory. Other than that I find Combat/City Garrison generally give better outcomes.

 

[rah]

I like going up the combat path to eventually get march for my elite troops. Lest rest necessary to keep the war machine moving.
Especially with mobile forces.

 

[Lexicus]

I like going up the combat path to eventually get march for my elite troops. Lest rest necessary to keep the war machine moving.
Especially with mobile forces.

Yeah, march is really helpful. Once I get to Infantry, though, I will usually take Combat IV and V over March because all the Mechanized Infantry get March for free, and combat V units are just monsters.

 

[rah]

Yeah if close to mech i'll promote similar. Even more fun since I don't believe in wimpy supper medics and upgrading my GG infantry (with movement to keep up with my mobile forces) upgrade to mech for 3 move. Or my GG CR3 infantry into mech.