Knowledge

[wioneo]

I just have a few general questions.
1. When you upgrade units, do they lose their promotions?
2. How do you know what wonders are in a city before you torch it? I was lucky enough to see a little pointy thing before London started burning...
3. Does anyone else just create one stack of about 12 or 15 units and just move the stack acroos the enemies land? I know that a lot of people use several different stacks, and I guess that my way is a bit slow...
4. Does the whipping trick work in version 1.54(2)? I got tired of re-installing 1.61.
5. ...How much wood could a wood chuck chuck if a wood chuck could chuck wood?

 

[Cam_H]

1. No - they don't lose their promotions. This can be particularly useful for units with the City Raider promotion for instance, as they can be upgraded to units that don't normally have access to that particular promotion.

2. You can also get some information from the 'Info <F9>' screen within the 'Top 5 Cities / Wonders' sub-screen.

3. It's common to use mixed stacks due to the 'paper-scissors-rock' nature of battle in Civ 4 where some units are very vulnerable to particular attackers, however with an appropriate countering unit in the stack, it can protect the stack. For instance, adding in a couple of Spearman to a stack of Swordsmen will help protect that stack from Horse Archers. Stacks are however vulnerable to collateral damage. Units with the Medic promotion can heal a lot of units in a resting stack.

4. Yes.

5. You asked!

 

[The Tyrant]

1. When you upgrade units, do they lose their promotions?
They keep their promotions, but if they have any experience points above ten, those get reduced to ten. In other words, if you have an axeman with 16/17 XP, if you upgrade him to a maceman he will end up with 10/17 XP but with the same promotions he had before. In that example, he would then require 7 more XP before his next promotion so it would be better to keep him as an axeman until he gets 1 more XP (gets the next promotion) and then upgrade him.

2. How do you know what wonders are in a city before you torch it? I was lucky enough to see a little pointy thing before London started burning...
Other than using the zoom (and knowing what each wonder looks like) the only other way is to use the info screens that Cam H mentioned.

3. Does anyone else just create one stack of about 12 or 15 units and just move the stack acroos the enemies land? I know that a lot of people use several different stacks, and I guess that my way is a bit slow...
It depends on the stage of the game. In the early wars my stacks might be as small as three-to-six units each. In the late game I'll have over 50 in a stack. Really large stacks can absorb collateral damage better (it gets more spread out) and can steamroll over all opposition.

4. Does the whipping trick work in version 1.54(2)? I got tired of re-installing 1.61.
Yes. There wasn't much change between the last two patches, so almost everything in this thread should still apply.

5. ...How much wood could a wood chuck chuck if a wood chuck could chuck wood?
Thanks, Cam H. Now, how many angels can dance on the head of pin?

 

[Pantastic]

1. When you upgrade a unit, it drops to 10xp if it had more and keeps all of its promotions. It will still have the same target amount for the next level. If you upgraded a unit with 17 xp and combat I-IV promotions, you'd end up with a unit at 10 xp, with those same promotions, that wouldn't get another promotion until 26 xp. If you're close to getting a higher level, you may want to hold off on upgrading and wait for something wimpy to get that last xp or two.

2. Use the demographics screen or look for the graphic in the city. There's no warning that you're about to destroy a wonder.

3. After the early game, my stacks are normally around that size. Using stacks much smaller than that will generally be a lot slower; my stack will simply walk up to a city, blow down the walls in one turn, then kill all of the units inside. Smaller stacks will have to bombard longer and may not have enough units to take a city in one go, which tends to make it harder to take later because of promotions.

 

[wioneo]

Thanks guys 244 butt cords, eh? Well I guess that I didn't ask number 3 clearly. I meant do you just have 1 stack throughout an entire war? I have a stack of 3 elephants, 4 catapults, 8 keshiks and 2 axemen. Noone else has any mounted units or metals.. weird. Anyways, I just have this stack move from city to city, dropping off keshiks(which are replaced) I have used this same stack to attack every city in two civs so far(there's one left on my continent). Even though this has worked so far, it takes about 5 or 6 turns between cities. It took about 20 turns to conquer each civ! and the remaining ones get stronger...

 

[Pbhead]

how many boards could the mongols hoard if the mongol hoards got bored? -calvin

 

[Pantastic]

In the very early game, I'll usually have one attacking stack with most of my 'out-of-city' forces, plus a stack of 2-3 units that takes weak cities or defends. By medieval times, I start forming real armies, where I'll have a mix of units including city raiders and cats. These will be somewhere from 10-20 units strong, depending on the situation and tech levels. I'll have anywhere from 1-4 of these armies from then up until modern times. I don't just put everything into one army, but I will use one large army if I don't have enough to field two that I consider adequate.

Also, I normally play on marathon, so the time isn't as big of a deal, but losing significant number of units is. Smaller stacks take more casualties as they're vulnerable to collateral, have fewer guys to defend with, and are easier to end up with the whole stack damaged and enemies popping up.

 

[wolfigor]

For the stack issue I follow a similar line of behaviour as Pantastic.

Later, when better and more specific units are available I have more than one stack at the same time.
At least one or two "steamroller" with my artillery (cats) and infantry.
And a variable number of smaller but faster, stacks for deep penetration in the enemy territory (e.g. knights) to conquer weaker towns and/or interdict any possible reinforcement and counterattack from the enemy.

Modern wars, if the match reach that time, are based on coordination of air-land-sea attacks.

Generally I always have a front line stack and a reserve following to be able to replenish the main stack when units get damaged.
I always plan all the movements for the fight well ahead, knowing pretty well in advance what I need to conquer all my targets.

 

[wioneo]

Thank you, guys Now I just need to stock up some butt cords.

 

[aelf]

how many boards could the mongols hoard if the mongol hoards got bored? -calvin

Mongol hordes.

 

[ZerrorR]

Now, how many angels can dance on the head of pin?

Is that pin manmade or godmade?

On a manmade pin there can be infinite numbers of angels dancing (man can't made a perfect pin).
On the other hand, on a godmade pin there can't be any angels. (the pin is perfect)

this is my interpretation of the old theological question.