Promotion Trade Offs

[Nick723]

Inspired by the debate in this thread...

https://forums.civfanatics.com/thre...-numidian-cavalry.657996/page-3#post-15781077

I would have also assumed that flanking had value vs combat, but it seems not.

Does anyone have a definitive answer to some of the other (to me at least) non obvious promotion choices? I’m thinking:

Barrage vs City Raider (siege)
Drill vs City Defense
Drill vs Combat (Land)
Drill vs combat (Navy) - here my experience suggests drill is better than it is on land...but I may be wrong!

There may be others...

 

[AcaMetis]

Not an expert who's done extensive testing, but as far as my knowledge of the game goes:

• Barrage does more collateral damage, City Raider does more damage to the top defender specifically. City Raider is better, since that increases the survival chance of your unit and the top defender is generally the one you're worried about.
• Drill is better if you've got a significant strength advantage, whether on offence or defence, otherwise it's at best competitive. City Garrison/Combat is overall better, though stacking tons of FS on a unit (read: Drill IV Oromo Warriors) is by no means impossible to make work.

 

[lymond]

Some will know a lot more about the math side of things. I don't have any thoughts on Naval at all. Always use combat regardless.

City raider I'd take on siege as it's more about doing more damage to top defenders (in cities)....collateral less impactful. But barrage can be good if using to soften stacks out in the field.

Drills strength primarily comes from Drill 4, which makes it quite strong but only on units that have a reasonable chance of getting to Drill 4 in short time - like Oromos or totem SB archers. City Garrison is always going to be stronger on units defending cities unless you don't want to defend but rather attack.

 

[dankok8]

I'll give you my take on this. I am a pretty warlike player at this game but I only play Emperor/Immortal and there's lot of Deity folks here. Some may disagree with me.

Barrage vs CR

I think CR in most cases. Everyone who's attacked heavily fortified cities with siege knows that siege units die a lot. CR gives them better odds to survive and at the same time a higher chance to damage the primary defender. Barrage just increases the total collateral but isn't as good in practice IMO as it sounds. Your siege die more and the units that clean up after the siege generally get very high odds anyways.

If you're attacking stacks in the field (not attacking a city) then barrage wins out but against the AI this is somewhat infrequent. In the late game when destroying SOD's in the field, it makes sense to go with Barrage though because CR does nothing for you.

Drill vs CD or Combat

Generally you only want Drill if you're fighting with a large strength advantage because it gives you a higher chance of winning unschathed or with minimal damage taken. If you're facing hordes of inferior units, it can do wonders. But be wary of mounted units like HA's, Knights, Cuirassiers that are immune to FS. Against them Drill is just about useless unless you get D4 which is +10%. Drill really gets strong with D4 actually. Unless it's late game Toku or Oromos it's hard to max out for a full effect. Note that D4 also get -60% collateral which is sick.

The majority of the time I will go for CD or Combat over Drill.

Drill on Water

It's great if you're first to Combustion and fighting wooden navies with Destroyers because you have a huge strength advantage. You can absolutely clean up. But in parity situations, Combat all the way.

 

[Nick723]

Thanks all - very helpful!

 

[Fippy]

If several very strong defenders sit in a city and my siege has no chance of surviving at start, i use barrage first.
CR might do a bit more damage to 1 defender (not guaranteed, could also still take 0), but barrage does more combined (this should be guaranteed).

 

[Tobiyogi]

I found Barrage/Drill promos mostly useful in "Always War" games. Longbows with up to Drill IV can absorb endless attacks when the AI brings along lots of siege. Barrage II (also means +10% against Melee) is a perfect stack-weakening weapon (even better for Catapults are Drill 1 + Shock). But those dont really help in city raiding. However, I reserve the barrage/shock promos for 2 or 3 catapults here and the Drills for a couple of archery units. Drill II is also a valuable promo for your own stack defending Long- or Crossbow before moving into enemy land. It helps to absorb catapult counter-attacks that happen all too often.