making most of promotions

[johncross21]

I often throw away troops on suicidal enterprises because it costs so much to upgrade them

the only exceptions are -

--when playing a tiny island map (there more commerce tiles than hammers)
when they have really useful promotions - best ones for me are city raider and garrison

The question here is am I right in thinking that extra promotions take more points than previous promotions ( in which case a cavalry with archery promotion is probably less useful than a fresh tank)

Another question is are there any promotions for catapults that increase their chances of survival

finally do you have a plan for achieving promotions. I tend to use archers to pick off weaker defenders in cities (instead of stronger units) just to give them experience but its pretty haphazard

basically any comments at all because I suck at promotions and upgrades

 

[Cer]

It's usually a bad idea to promote a unit until just before you expect it to defend or just before you attack with it. That way you pick the promotion that will give it the best chance to survive, and therefore it may actually get another experience level.

I usually send my attack stacks with no archers or longbowmen, because those units are cost-effective in cities, but outside cities axes/spears or pikes/crossbows work better.

So right as my stack attacks a city, the attackers get a city raider promotion.

I'm like you, I tend not to upgrade units using gold.... I tend to want every bit of research I can get.

And anyway, even units with city raider 3 tend to have a high risk of dying while attacking city-defense units of equal tech... so I don't worry too much about upgrading and promoting for the long term, I just try to win the battle at hand, re-use the units that survive though they may be obsolete (they can still finish off weakened enemies) and build new units for new battles.

 

[lilnev]

CR3 promotions are valuable because gunpowder-age units can't get them. I try to save several CR3 maces or swords to promote to grens/rifles/infantry. It really gives a much stronger core to the industrial era army. But otherwise upgrades are generally too expensive.

Yes, later promotions are more expensive (2,5,10,17,26,37,etc. XP totals), so someone with combat and shock, say, becomes less valuable than an unpromoted troop when the melee opposition disappears.

The best promotions for catapults are CR, unless you expect to facing enemy stacks in the field. But they'll never be very good at surviving, so bring extras and keep building replacements.

I generally micromanage my attacks to maximize experience gains -- there's a big nonlinearity between "barely stronger = 68% chance to win" and "barely weaker = 32% chance to win". Try to be on the right side of that nonlinearity if you're using a valuable unit. If you can't be, send a disposable unit. Then when you get to highly favorable fights, 97% odds will get you 2 XPs, whereas 99% odds will only get you 1. I'd rather fight at 97% usually, and if possible using a guy who's at 3/5 or 8/10, so he can gain a promotion from it. And once a unit hits CR3, further experience isn't worth much -- 7 more XPs to gain combat 1 -- so I'd rather let my greener troops do the mop-up.

peace,
lilnev

 

[johncross21]

livnev

you are clever - stats on EP - just what i needed

reminds me that - medic is a good promotion - i usually have a medic and use them to mop up last defenders

garrison II with hilltop is great for hilltop cities - makes them almost impregnable - at least till you can rush rienforcements

cheers

john

 

[Sisiutil]

I prefer to have as many of my troops survive as possible. More unit losses = more war weariness, and I often find WW to be a bigger obstacle to winning the game than any AI opponent. So the only units I use for suicide attacks are the siege weapons, and even then I prefer them to survive if at all possible. They usually do best (both pre-BtS and in BtS) with City Raider promotions, as lilnev said.

The more promotions a unit has, the more precious it becomes to me. When the odds are bad, I'll often suicide a new fresh Level 2 unit and then follow up with attacks by the stronger, more highly-promoted units who have better odds thanks to the defenders being weakened. Once a unit is at level 4, it only tends to fight battles it's pretty much guaranteed of winning (95% or better).

City Raider and Garrison promotions are good, but Combat and some of the post-Combat 1/2 promotions (Shock and Cover in the early game, Pinch and Formation later on) should not be ignored. I find these promotions are required to deal with counter-attacks and incursions into your territory. A City Raider is relatively weak when not attacking a city; same thing for a City Garrison unit when it's not defending inside one. However, a Rifleman with Combat I, II, and Formation is up to taking down a Cavalry unit that's aiming to pillage your gold mines.

I do tend to upgrade several units because Level 4 and higher is hard to achieve. That's usually my 1st requirement for a promotion: the unit has to be at Level 4 or higher. Chances are (like the CR units) I've nursed it along in anticipation of this. Another requirement is that the promotions have to be useful in the long term, so units with shock and cover rarely get promoted.

As for getting the gold for promotions, there are a lot of sources. Generate a GM for a trade mission and/or get the free one from Economics, sell your techs and map, hit your friends up for gifts of gold, pillage, capture cities, etc.

 

[Big Boss Man]

Tactic one : for an early upgrade start an archer with the drill promotion and hunt down a barb axe man . If your lucky and kill it you get alot more exp. points for killing a stronger unit . Now you have a drill III unit upgrade option and with a future weapon upgrade , a specialist for your standing army to deploy . Option to upgrade to long bow or cross bow and work on Drill IV .
With the aim for this unit to be a Drill IV Infantry Specialist

A note on the free combat promotion for agg. trait unit will get this
when they go to rifleman or infantry .

Tactic two : Combat specialist . The commando path to upgrade . The agg. trait starts unit with one star . If unit is made starting with 8 exp. points add two more stars . Soon after a battle or two your unit will have enough exp. points for the commando option . Combat tactic deploy with mounted units to provide cover on " pillage da village " ops .

Tactic three : Non combat medic . Upgrade an explorer with the medic upgrade . They are cheap and fast and free combat units to take combat promotions . They can keep up with mounted units and later even armored units . Note if your commando gains enough exp. points it can become suited for this role as well with a medic promotion

Hope this was helpful

 

[VoiceOfUnreason]

I'm forced to admit that a number of my promotion lines are chosen more for fun than for effectiveness.

Catapults promote toward accuracy until I have enough of those that I no longer get bored waiting for the walls to fall. After that, everybody gets city raider. (It's possible that barrage is a better choice in some circumstances, but I'll hold off on that until somebody publishes a demonstration that supports this).

I'll often promote attackers toward amphibious, with a mind toward attacking cities from naval platforms. You can also take good advantage of rivers when defending with amphibious units, but it's preferable to avoid circumstances when you are defending.

For mounted units, my preference is 1-2-3-blitz. Happiness is Blitz promoted Funships.

One of the interesting ideas that came out of the Ironman challenge (and also Epic 4) was to give your archer garrisons Guerilla before starting on the CG line [for those cities on hills]. The notion here is that you can rotate archers out to a neighboring hill, and allow some of the weaker but still adequate defenders to accumulate some experience.

(Plus they are a nice piece to have if you are trying to defend a hill resource).

 

[KMadCandy]

Another requirement is that the promotions have to be useful in the long term, so units with shock and cover rarely get promoted.

me too. today's bonus "i've seen people ask about this elsewhere so i'll mention it here" info: it's always cheaper to do upgrades in one step (chariot -> cav) than have a middleman (chariot -> knight -> cav), because there's a fixed fee as part of the price. it's not a huge savings but for penny-pinchers who won't be using the middle unit it may be worth considering.

i do recommend upgrading to the middleman if you're trading for a required resource. guess who forgot to upgrade mounted units before cathy cancelled my horse supply in an OCC?

CR3 promotions are valuable because gunpowder-age units can't get them. I try to save several CR3 maces or swords to promote to grens/rifles/infantry.

i use the same thinking for mounted upgrades. mounted units can get medic promo, gunships can't, so i make sure i have some in my empire.

I'm forced to admit that a number of my promotion lines are chosen more for fun than for effectiveness.

For mounted units, my preference is 1-2-3-blitz. Happiness is Blitz promoted Funships.

ditto!

 

[lilnev]

One of the interesting ideas that came out of the Ironman challenge (and also Epic 4) was to give your archer garrisons Guerilla before starting on the CG line [for those cities on hills]. The notion here is that you can rotate archers out to a neighboring hill, and allow some of the weaker but still adequate defenders to accumulate some experience.

If I know I'm going to be defending a hill city, Guerilla often comes before CG for counterattack purposes as well. Assuming there's another adjacent hill, the AI will usually choose to attack from it. When I counterattack, my Guerilla II longbow can sally forth to destroy that last weakened attacker without getting stranded.

I usually take mounted units up the combat line, but sometimes I'll give them shock or formation, or later pinch. But I don't build a lot of mounted units generally (unless I have Ivory or a mounted UU).

Also, I like to have one or two chariots with Flanking/Sentry for visibility purposes. Sometimes I'll have one or two chariots with Medic as well (in addition to the mandatory GG-Medic III, of course). They can stand with a defensive stack or a recently captured city while the Medic III goes with the main stack. In the modern era, I'll want a second Medic III to heal the airforce.

peace,
lilnev

peace,
lilnev