Unit upgrade path

[Kurbads]

Hi!

this must be discussed before, just couldnt find exact answer, so here goes:

I have tank with 28. two combat promotions make it 33.6. Does this means, that this tank needs only three sucess rounds per battle (despite enemy strengh - it can be worrior or modern armor), to make enemy 100 HP down to 0 and kill him, versus standart 28, that ends in 4 sucessful rounds?

the relative strenghs is all about who wins each round (worrior none to modern armor most), while this brute force just gives major chance to leave battle unharmed at all?

is so, any tank needs two cobats as a must, any marine needs one combat and so on? and specific upgrades like city raider or city defender should only be used later? probably except marathon game, where You can heal units not counting turns until somebody builds that last culture or flies away in the sky. (I just like to kill them ALL, all the rest is a semi victory, and leaving culture and space on is extra challanhe to kill fast and sure)

 

[Artanis]

The relative strengths determine who wins a round, while the relative base strength determines how much damage is done on such a win. So when two healthy units at equal strength battle, it'll take each 5 victorious rounds to kill the other, regardless of whether it's 2 vs 2 or 28 vs 28 or 100 vs 100.

What putting two Combat promotions on a Tank does is:
1) Gives it a higher chance to win a given round
2) Makes it do more damage per victorious round, and take less damage per lost round

Basically, Combat is an "all-around" promotion. It's good for when your unit is fighting in the open and you don't know ahead of time what types of units the enemy will send at you. City Raider is a LOT more effective when attacking a city, City Garrison is a LOT more effective when defending a city (CG 3 is roughly equivalent to Combat 8 when defending a city), and so on.