promoting scouting warriors/scouts

[mfie]

How do you upgrade your scouting warriors/scouts?
I always give them wooddefense, because, They will have more defense in the woods (I try to let the scout and the warrior end there turns in forest for more defense) and at lvl 2 they can move 2 tiles in the forest instead of one. And when the rare situation happens (about in 1/3 of my games) that i can pop some exp from huts and get my warrior/Scout to lvl 3 wooddefense, they can serve as a healing unit in war. The problem is that you can only get this when you pop exp from a hut because, the unit doesn't get more exp from barbs than 6 (then it stops getting experience).
I ask this because I see a lot of players giving them +10´%, and I can't really see much advantage in this (maybe that it unlocks medic 1?)

 

[CornPlanter]

Wood I & II if there is reasonable amount of woods. C1 & Medic otherwise or if that particular unit is not meant to go far away from homeland. Its nice to have early medic for early wars

 

[Leventis]

You can get up to 10 XP from barbs. Handy for an early unit to have just to keep HE unlocked.

 

[mfie]

You can get up to 10 XP from barbs. Handy for an early unit to have just to keep HE unlocked.

After 6xp I never get more experience?
But I never attack (only defend), can you get more xp by attacking?

 

[Silu]

After 6xp I never get more experience?
But I never attack (only defend), can you get more xp by attacking?

5 from animals, 10 from barbs.

WM line for me too, with the occasional C1M1. A WM3 is a nice early game medic which also opens HE.

 

[dalamb]

If you don't happen to want to risk your Woods II warrior vs barbarians, once you get catapults you may be able to use the warrior against the last defender of a city if collateral damage from cats has damaged them enough. I've got Woods III that way sometimes, though usually from XP from a hut added to previous XP from animals.

 

[Monsterzuma]

For me, always combat. It's mainly the defenses on flatland that I want to improve. The fact that the promotion also helps on other terrain is a nice extra. Woodsman is unnecessary because defenses in forrests are excellent already anyway. The 2 moves from WM2 are more of a fun gimmick than an actual significant advantage and most of the time doesn't get reached to begin with.

 

[dalamb]

Yeah, but Woods III gives you a decent healer without using up a GG for Medic III. So you might want to promote one unit up the Woodsman line even if Wood I/II aren't too useful in themselves.

 

[TheLazyHase]

For me, always combat. It's mainly the defenses on flatland that I want to improve. The fact that the promotion also helps on other terrain is a nice extra. Woodsman is unnecessary because defenses in forrests are excellent already anyway. The 2 moves from WM2 are more of a fun gimmick than an actual significant advantage and most of the time doesn't get reached to begin with.

I often have WMII warrior, and most of the time they are just faster than unpromoted scout, because only flatland and unforested hill make them stop.

On a scouting warrior, I don't see the point of combat. It will not help enough to survive an unlucky bear or archer, when woodman help more, especially the II that help avoiding the bear in the first place.

 

[Silu]

For me, always combat. It's mainly the defenses on flatland that I want to improve. The fact that the promotion also helps on other terrain is a nice extra. Woodsman is unnecessary because defenses in forrests are excellent already anyway. The 2 moves from WM2 are more of a fun gimmick than an actual significant advantage and most of the time doesn't get reached to begin with.

Combat on Warriors doesn't do much on flatland against barb Archers tbh... My WM2 Warriors lose enough against them even when fortified on a forest hill.

 

[Monsterzuma]

A Woodsman promotion on a warrior defending in a forrest vs. any 2str unit doesn't do much of anything either. For one thing, the way defense additions work, the promotion only adds 66% of it's nominal value. For another, the unit has 90% chance of winning the battle without any promotions. In any of these battles that it would have won anyway, the promotion does nothing beyond speeding up the healing of the unit. That's all you get in the kind of battle you're most likely to find yourself in with Woodsman, and I get a good portion of that same advantage. On Forrest/Hill tiles, things are even worse (97% unpromoted winning odds).

Now take a barbarian warrior vs. my Combat 1 Warrior on flatland. My odds go from 50% unpromoted to 67% with Combat 1. That's a real increase.

Or let's take an archer attacking both of our warriors standing in unhilled forrests. You go from 43.2% to about 64%. I go from 43.2% to 60%. I get exactly the strength that matters most for this kind of battle, just narrowly pushing me over the 50-50 treshold so I get the big treshold boost. The increase you get relative to me is marginal.

Meanwhile, I get decent bonusses in all unforrested hill situations where you get none. I also get bonusses at city defense when I bring the warrior back home (again, originally 50-50 excluding first strikes vs. archers which is a bingo).

 

[TheLazyHase]

Now take a barbarian warrior vs. my Combat 1 Warrior on flatland. My odds go from 50% unpromoted to 67% with Combat 1. That's a real increase.

But, why your warrior is on flatland in the first place ? Because he desesperatly need to die ?

I still don't see the reason behind using combat, except if you want to rush someone (quechua especially). It may be if on my map there is a huge desert, but that's not exactly often. And if he wait somewhere it will never be a flatland. And consequently, I'd better get the two bonii on woodsman, the mobility one and the strength one, rather than the mediocre combat bonus.

Edit : I don't get the treshold thingie. 50%->60% is exactly the same boost in survivability as 40%->50%. There no treshold on combat odds, the treshold AFAIK is between unit strength and odds, not between odds and I-don't-know-why.

 

[TheMeInTeam]

A Woodsman promotion on a warrior defending in a forrest vs. any 2str unit doesn't do much of anything either. For one thing, the way defense additions work, the promotion only adds 66% of it's nominal value. For another, the unit has 90% chance of winning the battle without any promotions. In any of these battles that it would have won anyway, the promotion does nothing beyond speeding up the healing of the unit. That's all you get in the kind of battle you're most likely to find yourself in with Woodsman, and I get a good portion of that same advantage. On Forrest/Hill tiles, things are even worse (97% unpromoted winning odds).

Now take a barbarian warrior vs. my Combat 1 Warrior on flatland. My odds go from 50% unpromoted to 67% with Combat 1. That's a real increase.

Or let's take an archer attacking both of our warriors standing in unhilled forrests. You go from 43.2% to about 64%. I go from 43.2% to 60%. I get exactly the strength that matters most for this kind of battle, just narrowly pushing me over the 50-50 treshold so I get the big treshold boost. The increase you get relative to me is marginal.

Meanwhile, I get decent bonusses in all unforrested hill situations where you get none. I also get bonusses at city defense when I bring the warrior back home (again, originally 50-50 excluding first strikes vs. archers which is a bingo).

Apparently, however, people like ABCF will take that WII warrior, steal like 2+ workers, and proceed to dance around and slow an AI.

On Deity.

Unfortunately I've not been able to easily replicate that...

 

[Silu]

Agree with the rabbit man, though for Quechuas you'd usually want to pick Cover if thinking about a rush since they start with C1 and you'd need to be against more than 150% defensive modifiers for C2 to win out = just the capital on a hill, generally. IMO you shouldn't promote against warriors and panthers, should almost never move on flatland and the vast majority of the fights should be on forests. WM2 2move shenanigans and the possibility for WM3 are just icing on the cake.

 

[babybluepants]

@TMIT, on that topic, check out all of Gosha190's posts here:

http://forums.civfanatics.com/showthread.php?t=325760&highlight=botm

My all-time favourite quote (emphasis added):

500AD stats: pop 156, land 214, tech 91, wond 65, 20 cities, 27 workers (26 was stolen from AI).
Research rate: 1017 bpt at 100%.
Game score 1804, Final score 189923. 3 AI still alive and continue worker production for me.

 

[Monsterzuma]

If you're going to avoid both hills and flatland when scouting, it's going take it's toll on your scouting results. Floodplain expanses, river deltas and deserts are extremely common terrain configurations. The first of these two are also important scouting goals and the third also is due to the promise of Floodplains and Gold. Warriors have a high chance of dying regardless of what you with them, so getting them to their target in a straight line increases the chance they actually get there, all things being equal.

 

[BigTime]

For both I usually go Wood 1+2, it makes exploring faster and more efficient. A wood 3 warrior is also really handy

 

[siggboy]

For me, always combat. It's mainly the defenses on flatland that I want to improve. The fact that the promotion also helps on other terrain is a nice extra. Woodsman is unnecessary because defenses in forrests are excellent already anyway. The 2 moves from WM2 are more of a fun gimmick than an actual significant advantage and most of the time doesn't get reached to begin with.

I disagree. WM2 is easily obtained with a lot of open land (= many animal/barb encounters) and it allows you to scout much quicker if there is forest or jungle. If that advantage is "significant" is of course a matter of opinion. I think it's well worth it since it also allows you to run away effectively if e.g. you meet an archer and rather keep the scout than lose it...

Since the very early explorers are kind of "disposables" anyway, I would not stress myself out too much over which promotions to give them.

 

[LuCiver]

My original scouting warriors/scouts have a job to do: Scouting. So I typically give them Wood2 to speed up the scouting. A W2 scout running through the jungle can pick up a few extra huts and still have a decent chance of dodging barbs. A W2 warrior has some potential for future upgrade to axe for stack defense. Anyone who hits 10 exp will hightail it back to the capitol for retirement to unlock the HE.

C1/medic for your early scouts? You got to be kidding. Wait until you have chariots to start prepping a useful unit for promotion to supermedic. 5xp units will be a dime-a-dozen once barbs start wandering around unless you are in love with spawnbusting (I'm in love with barb exp harvesting).

 

[Solon70]

Do you really need to "retire" the Level 4 warrior to unlock the HE? My understanding was that once you have a Level 4 unit, the HE is unlocked permanently, even if the unit dies on the following turn and even if you don't have Literature yet.