The warlord unit, and the special warlord promotions

[peter450]

I like the idea of the warlord unit, and it can be fun to use although there are some area's were it could be better designed, not only to better reflect the realword use of generals but also to make it more important to your plans for battle, at the moment it's a fun to use kind of unit when your messing around rather than being a potencially important part of your army, it does'nt reflect in game terms the role a great general plays in leading an army.

It does have some useful features, the extra healing being a notable one, i just feel it's close to being a good addition but is not quite there yet.

Heres what's currently available on a warlord unit

Morale - Medic 3 - combat 6 - Leadership - tactics

The first 4 can all be very useful, they all give the unit an extra edge in certain area's like overall str, speed, or support capabilities which fit nicely into the ethos/role of the unit

The last one however is a bit of a dud....because it's not the realworld way a GG would lead his troops, even GG who liked to get stuck into the action like alexander the great, did'nt in the main go in for suicide charges Tactics give's a 30% withdrawl chance, which sounds good, but the way withdrawl works is totaly at odds with the way a warlord unit is best used

Indepth explantion of why here

Spoiler :

With any units that have a withdrawl bonus as the odd's of victory increase, the chance of withdrawl decreases, so upgrades that boost str, an thus chances to win, in effect cancel out the benefits of withdrawl promotions by lowering the bonus, so the upgrades if used in conjunction are in effect counter productive if used in combination since they cancel each other benefits out to quite a high degree.

The main use for units with high withdrawl chances is to go in first to soften up tough defenders, the best withdrawl bonus's come when a unit has little chance of winning. However here in lies the problem, this is not the way anyone would use there warlord unit as it will effectively result in a pretty short lifespan.

So what can tactics provide instead ? the 2 things i think that should be added is

A ,2 first strikes, this is small bonus so it's hardly going to cause any real balance issues? but it's one that ties into the fact the warlord is a slightly superior unit, so in the same way it can get a combat 6 upgrade that gives a nice str boost, 2 extra first strikes represent it's abilty to strike first through superior tactics

B, the second addition is the biggie! in short the abilty to choose which unit in the stack defends.

At the moment this is on auto choose, which works ok i guess for the most part but it's a pretty blunt tactical instrument.
The abilty to choose a stack defender rather than have one chosen for you would tie nicely into the promotions name "tactics" and also to the purpose of having a general lead your army, they are there to provide superior leadership an tactics, this change would allow this to be represented in the game by giving stacks lead by a warlord unit with this promotion the abilty to be organised with total player control rather than have the computer take over when defending.

While a stack with no general would organise itself along the lines of strongest units defends like now, this ties into leaderless armies not performing aswell in the field due to no coardinated control.

A stack with a warlord unit with this upgrade would allow you to choose as the general provides superior unit organisation allowing controlled descions to be made under fire, the benfits of this would be to give players a lot more control of there stacks

Why thats a good thing, and how it would work

Spoiler :

your stack may be attacked by a lone unit, your strongest defender takes point, the odds of you winning are 30%, so in effect your odd's on to loose, you loose a potencially good unit in your stack. If your army has no general thats fair enough a leaderless army getting attacked would have less discipline so tactics would be harder to implement as there would be less control, in the game this would be represented by the current system of strongest to defend regardless of if thats a smart move or not!

By having a general/warlord leading you can employ superior tactics represented in the game by you!! having the choice, as a player you can see that your odd's on to loose an so send out the worst unit in the stack to take the fall, at once no more frustration at loosing good units because the computers making choices that should rightfully be yours, the games about strategy, a great general should be about giving you more strategic options and this change would mean it does via the tactics promotion upgrade.

There are so many possibilties when this could really be useful, if your stack is outgunned an your taking a pasting this would allow you to keep you better units back in the hope he run's out of attacks before you run out of units, an thus preserve your better units to fight another day.

The way it would work is when a stack is attacked the current defender would be highlighted with it's chances to win and the units individual stats an promo's listed in the left hand box just like when you attack an hold the right mouse over an enemy an you can check the odds before you attack.
Now you have too options, yes unit confirmed as defender, or no as general i have another battle plan, click option 2 an you have all your unit icons lined up at the bottom just like when you click on the stack to move it etc, and you can then highlight one of those icons which when you do it's combat odd's come up in the left hand box along with it's stats, then once your happy at the choice you can click on the button that says defender confirmed

The thought behind this is idea is to have the logical benefits of a general leading your troops, represented into the game mechanic
To do so in a way that doesn't need loads of new promotions or changes to how units work or operate, the only change is you now make the decisions

 

[KrikkitTwo]

There is almost no reason for option B... unless you have a specific strongest defender that you want to protect (like the general themselves)... the reasons generally are a highly experienced unit is needing to be saved for 'safe' battles, or you want to promote a weaker unit.. so die or get exp. It is of far too limited use.

What might make the Tactics worthwhile is to make it a 100% chance of Withdrawl (so the Great General always withdraws on an Attack)

 

[Infantry#14]

or make the great general chooses the defender to fight with. (I know it's not going to happen.)


Hypothetical scenario: My knight faces the defender of combination of 1 pike and 1 longbow. Haha, my GG attach to the knight and I can kick the longbow's butt. Then my mace can finish off the pike and take the city.

 

[KrikkitTwo]

^ you could just say 30% of attacking the weakest* unit in the stack (instead of the strongest)

* probably weakest non-0 unit

 

[bob_x]

The only thing a Warlord unit can do that other units can't is Medic III.

Yeah, you can use the 20XP to make the unit the strongest unit in your army, but even the strongest unit will have a good chance of dying when attacking the enemy's strongest defender. Considering the rarity of the Warlord, it's better to suicide a few catapults and use the Great General as a military instructor giving large numbers of military units a boost.

Being able to churn out large numbers of units with City Raider III is better than one Warlord.

 

[peter450]

There is almost no reason for option B... unless you have a specific strongest defender that you want to protect (like the general themselves)... the reasons generally are a highly experienced unit is needing to be saved for 'safe' battles, or you want to promote a weaker unit.. so die or get exp. It is of far too limited use.

What might make the Tactics worthwhile is to make it a 100% chance of Withdrawl (so the Great General always withdraws on an Attack)

You can get a 100% on a sub, base 50% chance + flank 1 an 2 + tactics, except the game wont allow you to get more than 90% so you cant actually choose those 3 promotions one of them vanishes after you get the other two

Because the way withdrawl works in order to get that 100% you chance of winning has to be zero so it's of no real use, if you have a 50% chance of winning that 100% will drop down to 50%, withdrawl is designed for assault an mounted style units in order for them to be more successfully used in certain situations like flanking siege weapons in a stack, or having a chance to survive an encounter with a tough defender that is far stronger than your unit, withdrawl style promo's are best used on units that are going to engage in low odd's combat, since the base chance of winning is so low these units would gain little benefit from basic strength promotions.

At the end of the day, when i attack with a stack i get to choose, i dont want the computer picking who it thinks is my best attacker an then sending him in, i might want to sacrifice a green unit first to soften up the defender or i might want to use a lower level attacker to level him up in experiance, a similar logic applies in reverse when defending

I had a recent example were i had a group of knights and maces + some siege weapons on a forest tile, my knights were all quite well promoted, between 3 an 5 stars, my macemen had between 1 an 2 stars, due to the terrain the macemen were only slightly lower odds than my knights, yet thanks to the computer deciding for me that it knows best i lost half my well promoted knights, my choice of defender would have been the macemen, only slightly worse odd's an cheaper to build an replaceable with like for like since i got 2 promo's on my units when built, my knights however had to be replaced with lower level versions and to add insult to injury they are more expensive to build aswell.

There have been other instances as well when i have lost city raider 3, combat star 1 promoted units because they were picked over city raider 1 only promoted units because they had a marginally better % chance thanks to the 10% str.

The idea is simply to give the warlord unit a more meaty leadership role which sits much better with the great general tag & giving people the option by using a warlord unit of having full tactical control of there stacks, the options there for those that want it an can easily be ignored by those that dont.

 

[bonafide11]

I've always felt the Warlord should give bonuses to the entire stack.

 

[ShunNakamura]

I agree with Bonafide. Perhaps the general only promotions can always affect units on the same tile[like the healing boost].

I.E.

Combat 6 increases the strength of all units in the stack[this would apply when attacking too so that it is an offensive and defensive promo].
Tactics could give a withdrawal boost to all units increasing everyone's chance of survival.
Moral; well boosting an entire stacks movement would likely be WAY too powerful.... but it is an oddly named promotion anyways.
Leadership; once again its effect to the whole stack would likely be too much.
​

Also if they affected the whole stack the effects shouldn't be stackable[ie two GG's with C6 would be wasting the second GG's combat boost;]

 

[Spearthrower]

I also agree with Bonafide and have listed some ideas in the past about promotions that would affect the stack.

I can't answer the poll peter450 because you have stacked the deck. You have linked the idea of more control over units with your idea and linked the rejection of your idea as support for letting the computer decide. The poll is, whether intentional or not, totally deceptive about its results.

I don't like the ideas you have listed, but I would prefer to have some control over combat. However, civ is a really lame duck at warfare - warfare is really not it's strength and I don't think that anything can rescue it. The engine simply doesn't support truly meaningful combat. That's not a problem, it's abstracted in an enjoyable enough way, but to make it a significant part of the game would require a total rewrite.

 

[mystikx21]

I'm not sure this is a necessary change for the warlord, but I agree the 30% is pretty useless. Something like a super 1st strike, say an extra str count (not modified by promotions), and the more bland immunity to enemies 1st strikes would be useful. Generals are a superior figure on the battlefield, but not that superior. Most of the planning to win is done at higher levels than in-game combat represents, such as where and when to attack and with whom (and in civ, what promotions). Once a battle is entered, it's won or lost by the grunts and the game represents this fairly well.

As far as picking the unit, that might be useful for say, subs, with some appropriate counter-measure (dd/attack sub in the stack), but I don't think it's good game balance for the land war. There are certainly RL examples where picking on the weak broke a battle in favor of one side or another (Eastern front was replete with such cases), but CIV is not RL. And generally one should be rewarded (when in every other way one is penalized) for being on the defensive by putting the best defense up one can offer first.

 

[KrikkitTwo]

^ however, it would only be the great General that could do this.

I do agree the Leader is uniquely weak... its primary benefit is the medic III

I feel it should give significantly more experience (to make it worth adding to a stack) something like 30-40
and give the attached unit 1 or 2 free promotions (to make the Leader itself worthwhile)

Allowing the unit to have 100% withdrawl means it Cannot die on the offense, really nice for a strong unit

*************
The best 'redesign' idea might be that all units in a stack act get the effect of the Leader's promotions if they don't have those promotions themselves... of course then you would have to remove the super promotions the great general gets, but imagine.. the Leader has City Garrison 1 so all stack units Without CG1 that Could have it get an extra 20% if defending a city (if they already have CG 1 the leader has no effect).. and the Leader being there wouldn't stop units from promoting to CG 1, and wouldn't allow them to promote to CG2.

'Leader' specific promotions (Leadership, Tactics, Morale, combat 6) might be exempted, only benefiting the Leader itself or
else change their effects to be less strong/eliminate them.

So it might be better to have a Leader with March and Medic 1 (units heal at +10% every turn) than Medic 1+3 (units heal at +25% when resting).

Give your Leader CR 1-3, and your units all have it*, and can spend Their promotions on combat
*why should probably only apply to units that that promotion is available to (wouldn't want an army of Elephants Led by a CR3 Catapult Leader, to get +75% to city attack)

You might have it extend 1 tile away as well depending on balance.

Of course the units in the stack get their own experience, so their promotions wouldn't help the Leader. Its only when the Leader got involved in combat that some benefit could hapen to the stack [unless the Leadership promotion was changed to something like 'Leader gets 50% of stack experience']


That would make the Leader's true Leaders, rather than just Super units. Also if a Leader was in a stack with a unit that was already highly promoted, the Leader wouldn't give it too much help (since the Highly promoted unit would probably have most of the promotions the leader could give it.)

 

[peter450]

I also agree with Bonafide and have listed some ideas in the past about promotions that would affect the stack.

I can't answer the poll peter450 because you have stacked the deck. You have linked the idea of more control over units with your idea and linked the rejection of your idea as support for letting the computer decide. The poll is, whether intentional or not, totally deceptive about its results.

I don't like the ideas you have listed, but I would prefer to have some control over combat. However, civ is a really lame duck at warfare - warfare is really not it's strength and I don't think that anything can rescue it. The engine simply doesn't support truly meaningful combat. That's not a problem, it's abstracted in an enjoyable enough way, but to make it a significant part of the game would require a total rewrite.

The idea to have the the choose defender option tied into the warlord unit, is simply to give the GG a bigger role other than supermedic in regards to the benefits given to your stack, thats the main reason why i suggested it be tied into the warlord unit, so you have a ingame representation of the benefits of having your army lead by a general.

I would like to see the same choices given when defending as when attacking, I dont think anyone would like it if the next patch changed it so that when there stacks reach a city the attackers are picked for them by the computer, having the choice an option to determine how you attack is part of the strategy, however the same reasons why you would want to control your units on the attack also works on the defense, it's just that this side of the game is hidden since the computer basically takes over regardless of if you want it too.

The idea was simply to try an fix two issues in one, that of not having proper control over defending units and warlord leaders not giving the kind of benefits to a stack, namely more tactical options, that would logically seem to be the area were they would given bonus's

However my main gripe is not having proper unit control, which is something i think should be available either via the warlord or on all units were more than one occupies the same tile

 

[peter450]

I've always felt the Warlord should give bonuses to the entire stack.

I agree with you there, some extra warlord promotions that give little tweaks an bonus's here an there would be nice.

 

[peter450]

I have taken onboard peoples comments about the poll being to biased/limited i have updated a new expanded poll, that covers more options,

http://forums.civfanatics.com/showthread.php?t=244739

 

[lulu135]

I think attaching a GG should give leadership automatically. It's silly to have to waste a promotion on this. Right now, except for the immediate XP boost, a unit with a GG is no different than one without until you get the special promotions.

 

[Quagga]

The conundrum with GGs is that if you make them strong, they will defend and then perhaps die. To avoid that, you keep them weak, with attack-only bonuses such as City Raider. However, if they are called upon to defend, they are even more likely to die.

What might solve this is to recognize that elite troops protect the general, so therefore provide a big defensive bonus (perhaps as an Elite Corps promotion option). But still, you don't want the general to defend, so somehow he should be chosen only as a last-resort defender (i.e., everybody else is dead).

Another idea: A Retreat promotion. This promotion changes the defensive strength of the GG unit to zero, but adds automatic retreat. This defensive strength makes the GG the last defender in the stack (everybody else dead). When attacked, the GG is able to move up to its movement limit, presumably to where friendly troops are encamped.

 

[peter450]

The conundrum with GGs is that if you make them strong, they will defend and then perhaps die. To avoid that, you keep them weak, with attack-only bonuses such as City Raider. However, if they are called upon to defend, they are even more likely to die.

What might solve this is to recognize that elite troops protect the general, so therefore provide a big defensive bonus (perhaps as an Elite Corps promotion option). But still, you don't want the general to defend, so somehow he should be chosen only as a last-resort defender (i.e., everybody else is dead).

Another idea: A Retreat promotion. This promotion changes the defensive strength of the GG unit to zero, but adds automatic retreat. This defensive strength makes the GG the last defender in the stack (everybody else dead). When attacked, the GG is able to move up to its movement limit, presumably to where friendly troops are encamped.

Well if GG units always had the maximum retreat chance regardless of combat odd's (withdrawl chance goes down in proportion to the odd's going up) then tactics would be a good promo,
So a gunship which has a retreat chance of 85% with all the flanking + tactics promo's providing of course it's odds on winning are zero, now if the withdrawl chance stayed at 85% regardless of combat odd's, then the promo would be a good one, would also help people keep there GG alive a little better

 

[Infantry#14]

I think the main problem is that ppl dont like GG, because they have a tendency to die in very good odds. (like 90+%) A way to get over that would be 100% withdrawl with tactics, but I think that is too powerful (attach to a horse unit and you can basically do collateral to siege units). Or you can make it so that tactics grant the general immunity to death when you have over 90%+ attack odds (immunity to death implies withdrawing when attack, or some other unit in the stack defends when GG is calculated to be killed in defense). Of course, if below 90%, you are basically risking your GG in attack, and also GG will most likely to defend last in stack.

 

[peter450]

I think the main problem is that ppl dont like GG, because they have a tendency to die in very good odds. (like 90+%) A way to get over that would be 100% withdrawl with tactics, but I think that is too powerful (attach to a horse unit and you can basically do collateral to siege units). Or you can make it so that tactics grant the general immunity to death when you have over 90%+ attack odds (immunity to death implies withdrawing when attack, or some other unit in the stack defends when GG is calculated to be killed in defense). Of course, if below 90%, you are basically risking your GG in attack, and also GG will most likely to defend last in stack.

If you use odd's of 99.9 they wont die, i've never lost a warlord at these odd's, and getting these odd's get's a lot easier with siege weapons (collateral dmg/bombardment), after you have got most of the promotions you will find these odd's get a lot more frequent and that your warlord can take on full str defenders at 99.9, it takes time to get a warlord to this level, but it's readily do able. 90% odds are not hard to get on a warlord city raider 3 an 3 or 4 combat stars will see a swordsman be 90% + on all but the most defended cities, and it would be overpowered to gurantee your unit at these odd's