HA rushing promotions

[rah]

IMO stack specialization is more important for defensive reasons, of which your point above is a reverse example. Offensively, it's all about siege or mounted, so specialization doesn't matter.

Yes, 100% correct. I wasn't considering the defensive side. But in that case just a couple of units are needed.

 

[AutomatedTeller]

I never make medic HA - i generally make a couple of chariot units, one for medic and the other for sentry.

I used to use flanking a lot. Not as much anymore except when I'm running into spears.

 

[Choggy]

Choggy - You were really promoting all your HA's to medic I?

Not all of them, but yeah, the majority I did As I said earlier, I didn't realise the effect wasn't cumulative with multiple medic units stacked together. Still, I did learn something I didn't know.

Until you get your first GG, you might promote a HA to medic II in a pinch and possible use him as your GG super-medic. However, the low risk option is to use a scout as a super-medic, or chariot. Almost no chance a scout ever defends a stack.

I've never actually lost a HA super medic in a battle, there's usually plenty of better units around to take the damage if my stack is attacked but in theory you're absolutely correct. I thought you could only make a guerilla 2 scout promoted from killing animals at the start of the game into a super medic if they were aggressive trait? (Guerilla 2 - 5 xp -> Combat 1 - 10xp -> Medic 1 17xp -> Medic 2 26xp?). Or do you build a new one especially?

One thing I will say about HA super medics over Chariots and Scouts is that a GG promo on a combat 1 medic 2 HA gives you the ability to build West Point with a couple of easy fights against weakend enemy units. Getting to level 6 just through winning fights is pretty tough.

I find Combat line the best for HAs too. I think that is pretty standard. However, once in a while, if i have a lot of HAs and up against a tough stack, I will promote several Flanking II HAs. Even then, I will only do this if I already have a super medic, as it will otherwise take forever for these guys to heal. So if you are early in the fight, without a super medic, I would not bother with flanking - it will slow down your war and possible put you in a situation of failed AI counterattacks.

That seem to be the best way to do it based on what everybody has told me. Next time I do a HA rush I might post it up on the board as a walkthough/critique exercise based on what you guys have suggested in this thread.

 

[Seraiel]

I also like Combat-Healer-GGs better than Scouts or Explorers. A 50% withdrawl HA-Supermedic has high survivabilty, and Championship helps gaining GG-Points and lvling the unit in 98% 4 XP-Fights. I think scouts are gay, just look at their attitude, "I cannot attack, I can only defend and that not even well" . If I loose a GG because RNG owns me, I just suck it up and the next one is normally waiting in line.

You get 7 XP Scouts btw from running Vassalge + Theo if I'm not totally wrong, never tested it.

 

[lymond]

Choggy - Scouts don't benefit from aggressive trait. I either use the scout I started with if he survives (promote to combat I if he gets a promo and Medic I if he gets two) or just build him when I pop a GG. If you start with a scout and he gets experience or if you are Char, then the attached GG will not only get him Medic III but also Mobility for 3 movements points. I recommend always giving the super medic Mobility if he gets that extra promo, so that you can either move him out of danger or move him between stacks.

A super medic HA is not bad though, as long as you are sure he will always be well protected. Always keep him a level behind once you get Curs or Knights, that is, if you have Curs, keep him as a HA or Knight. Just be careful using him in combat - only as clean-up at 99.9% odds. I would never use a withdrawal medic as Seraiel does, they are just too important and I often want more than 1 for multiple fronts.

 

[Seraiel]

You understood, that I promote my Medics to Medic 3 first, then to Championship for lvling, and that I also use multiple ones of these, right. Getting the 2 promos can be achieve by having a 7 XP unit, after that, I let the unit fight 98% battles as those give 2+2 XP with Championship, so Withdrawl and extra-movement usually follow shortly after that, reaching 50-70 XP is not unusal for Medics in my games.

Might be a Huge Marathon thing though, more opponents, more units to kill equal endless XP and GGs.

I do think about completely skipping Supermedics on Marathon though and settling all of them, as the healing of a Medic 2 is not that bad, at least not on that speed. Most units take about 3 turns to heal to full with Medic 2, the Supermedic only saves 1 turn in about 50% of the cases, so not that much as the word "Super"medic would suggest.

With fast warfare, I found that it's more important to have decent numbers of healers, like 4-5, and set up main-healing-centers aswell as secondary healing centers. Saving 1 move because one has 1 more medic in place is better then having to move units to the Supermedic, I only move the very heavily damaged units to that one.

And having a fighting Supermedic makes sense, as he has to stay and heal in a city, taking the Medic completely out of fight is like loosing a really good unit imo.

 

[Choggy]

Choggy - Scouts don't benefit from aggressive trait. I either use the scout I started with if he survives (promote to combat I if he gets a promo and Medic I if he gets two) or just build him when I pop a GG. If you start with a scout and he gets experience or if you are Char, then the attached GG will not only get him Medic III but also Mobility for 3 movements points. I recommend always giving the super medic Mobility if he gets that extra promo, so that you can either move him out of danger or move him between stacks.

A super medic HA is not bad though, as long as you are sure he will always be well protected. Always keep him a level behind once you get Curs or Knights, that is, if you have Curs, keep him as a HA or Knight. Just be careful using him in combat - only as clean-up at 99.9% odds. I would never use a withdrawal medic as Seraiel does, they are just too important and I often want more than 1 for multiple fronts.

Scouts don't get combat I through agressive? Make that two things I've learnt today, although I've never paid them much attention as I only promote them through guerilla promos to get them to do what they do best, y'know...scouting so have never given it much thought.

If my style of play was to use them as super-medics I can see how your promo path would be the best way of managing scout promos though.

Totally agree with the high odds if you do attack with a GG unit and delaying their upgrade path. They don't need to ever be promoted until Cavalry come along, by which point they can be anything up to 80XP if handled right. A pinch/formation/combat 2/medic 3/Leadership Cav unit against anything up to modern era is a killing machine in it's own right.

@Seraiel. I don't play Marathon/Huge maps because even a normal map at normal speed takes me between 20-30 hours to complete (I'm a micro-freak) so I imagine you get many more GG's than me. I'm guessing they're not as 'precious' as quicker games with less GG's, that said I do agree that a GG unit at the speed I play at can be both attacking and defensive. The day I lose a GG super-medic in a 99% win fight I might change my mind though!

 

[Nicol.Bolas]

In my recent game I followed this path:

Combat I + II (I use stables) for about 3/4 of the stack
Combat I + Shock for 1/4 of the stack

In case of more promotions, I use more combat (and few medics of course).
I would use more crushes if the enemy has lot of spearman or even pikeman, but if I want to use these stacks long term (along upgrade path) I would use combats.

I know its a numbers game, but flanking rarely seems to have an effect for me.

Lately, taking the defense system into account, I consider combats the best solution, since specialist get mostly ignored.

 

[Mylene]

I love super medics on fighting units (HAs, Curis and so on).
With morale they are nice cleanup units (kill that roamer, move back into city for healing).
Had situations where only my medic was able to reach that city with only 1 wounded defender left ~~
Beats scout medics, for me.

Flanking in most cases is nooooobish, i can represent Obsolete for you

 

[r_rolo1]

Flanking in most cases is nooooobish, i can represent Obsolete for you

Well, not completely true Flanking is a specialist promo line IMHO, like the Guerilla one : the point is not to mass spam Flanking II units, but do some of them. The issue is how much of them ,and a lot of times the awnser is none

Like others said, flanking is useless if you are going to win the battle anyway and ( not sure if anyone said it so far ) it is only really useful if the unit survives and does some damage before retreating ( otherwise you just mauled one of your mounted units to redline for 1 XP for you and the enemy and some eaten RNG calls ), thus making it somewhat bad against too strong enemy units . Besides that, in most of the SP conditions, where the enemy garissons are a strong CG II/III group of units and the rest is assorted junk ... and that is probably the worst scenario for flanking mounted, since they will most likely not do a lot of damage to the top defenders ( it is better to lose some HA and cripple the top defenders than having them all to survive and let the enemy relatively unharmed ) and the competing promos will do a better job vs the rest of them ...

P.S Obsolete could be acid , but he normally had a point and was not shy of putting himself in the spotlight to prove it ...

 

[piblokto]

If you start with a scout and he gets experience or if you are Char, then the attached GG will not only get him Medic III but also Mobility for 3 movements points.

Is this correct? Civopedia says scouts can't get Medic III or Mobility, but I've never checked in a real game. I know they can get Medic II and Woodsman II.

 

[Seraiel]

Scouts can get Supermedics, confirmed for BTS 3.19

 

[ecuwins]

With a GG attached, some promos that aren't normally available, become accessible.