What is the best way to use a Great General for a Super Medic? I chose a Chariot I had lying around and got him Comabat I and Medic 1-3. But later on I checked the Promotion tree in Civopedia and found out with Woodsman 3 you can get even more healing, but horsies don't have access to that. Is it therefore better to use a melee unit as a super medic? Or can you risk they get involved in defence if you slap Woodsman 1-3 on a Super Medic?
Use the weakest melee unit you have (have a spare warrior?). Explorers sadly do not get woodsman III.
Anyway, unless you're charismatic or aggressive it will take a lot of experience points. (level 7 unit)
A Woodsman III/Medic III unit by far contributes the most healing per turn: 40% per turn, +15% more than the Medic I/III Chariot's 25%. But it's hard to get a unit to that point, mainly because you have to use so many of the easy-to-reach promotions to acquire the Woodsman benefits.
Fortunately, I usually give my early exploring Warriors the Woodsman promotions anyway; the extra movement through jungle or forest from Woodsy II is great for exploring, and with so much of both around in the early game it enhances their chances of survival. Makes them top-notch worker-stealers, too. There is also a random event which, IIRC, grants a Warrior that wins a battle against a barb unit the Leadership promotion--more on that later.
Once one of my exploring Warriors reaches Woodsman II and I have copper or iron, I upgrade him to an Axeman. Depending upon the map and other circumstances, he may then become a home-bound anti-barb unit, or he may resume exploring. Either way, the idea is that he is now going to go barb-hunting in pursuit of Woodsy III. He then becomes a medic unit, because Woodsy III gives +15% healing per turn--the equivalent of Medic I.
Now comes the tricky part--how to get him all the way up to Medic III? He needs Combat I, Medic I, and Medic II, then needs to have a GG attached to get Medic IIII. (The good news is that once this unit has Woodsman I/II/III, Combat I, and Medic I, it has the equivalent healing power to the Medic I/II/III Chariot mentioned above. So getting to Medic III is gravy.)
What I usually do, especially if I'm not Charismatic, is attach the GG ASAP and give him the Leadership promotion so he acquires double XPs for every battle he wins. It may seem like a diversion, but I find I can get a unit with Leadership up the promotion tree a lot faster. (This is why that random event that may grant you a free Leadership promotion is so nice.) You have to choose your battles for this unit carefully; fortunately, Woodsy III makes the unit pretty awesome at attacking other units in jungle or forest, so that's one good use for him. Other than that, go after Construction ASAP and assign him clean-up duty when attacking cities once the Catapults have done their work.
