Stop me if you heard that before:
Brave Sir Warlord ran away
Bravely ran away, away
When danger reared its ugly head
He bravely turned his tail and fled
So you got a Great General and made a warlord, but you're so afraid to lose him that you don't attack at less than 99+% odds. Even then, you lament the low experience you get doing that. And if your stack is threatened, your Warlord hides away, not willing to risk being killed out as the "toughest on the block".
Often, I don't even get my Warlords into combat at all, because the risk of losing outweighs the benefits. He dare not go in early on a sea invasion, even if some units will survive, because he is the prime target.
How often is your Warlord just a glorified Medic?
Medic 3 plus Woodsman 3 is pretty excellent, to be sure, but a regular unit with Medic1/Wood3 isn't too shabby. The sort of unit which you actually want weaker than the stack, so it doesn't defend, and only gets combat XP when the enemy is trounced near to death, easy pickings, but otherwise never fights.
The problem is survivability. Warlords are too rare to be worth risking in ordinary battles. Compared to the use you get out of settled Generals -- many units affected over the course of the game -- a Warlord only has a few chances to actually affect combat directly.
I know this has come up before, but I think it is still a good idea: A Warlord whose unit is destroyed should have a chance to escape -- go back to the capital or somewhere, much like a spy after a mission. My suggestion is to base the survival chance on the Warlord's withdrawal promotions, perhaps with some base chance (10%?). Now, coupled with the unit's withdrawal chance, this could make for very good odds of survival. The tradeoff would be that you'd have to take the right promotions to do so.
It could be automatic, but then Warlords might become *too* good. As it is, though, they are of limited use in many games.
The other problem is defense. A tough combatant Warlord is often the best defender, and on defense, there is no withdrawal chance. You can have a stack of 20+ tough units there, and the Warlord is still drawn into the fight and killed anyway.
To fix that, make the Warlord the last defender. Don't let it defend unless there are no other units.
Alternatively, defending Warlords could have an evasion chance, to escape back home. We could do both, but that again might make them too effective.
We could take a poll and see, but I rarely use more than one or two Warlords in a typical game. If one dies, I might make another -- a super medic is still always useful -- but I often prefer to simply stack up instructors, so my units are born with an extra promotion, or an academy for higher production from my military cities.
Brave Sir Warlord ran away
Bravely ran away, away
When danger reared its ugly head
He bravely turned his tail and fled
So you got a Great General and made a warlord, but you're so afraid to lose him that you don't attack at less than 99+% odds. Even then, you lament the low experience you get doing that. And if your stack is threatened, your Warlord hides away, not willing to risk being killed out as the "toughest on the block".
Often, I don't even get my Warlords into combat at all, because the risk of losing outweighs the benefits. He dare not go in early on a sea invasion, even if some units will survive, because he is the prime target.
How often is your Warlord just a glorified Medic?
Medic 3 plus Woodsman 3 is pretty excellent, to be sure, but a regular unit with Medic1/Wood3 isn't too shabby. The sort of unit which you actually want weaker than the stack, so it doesn't defend, and only gets combat XP when the enemy is trounced near to death, easy pickings, but otherwise never fights.
The problem is survivability. Warlords are too rare to be worth risking in ordinary battles. Compared to the use you get out of settled Generals -- many units affected over the course of the game -- a Warlord only has a few chances to actually affect combat directly.
I know this has come up before, but I think it is still a good idea: A Warlord whose unit is destroyed should have a chance to escape -- go back to the capital or somewhere, much like a spy after a mission. My suggestion is to base the survival chance on the Warlord's withdrawal promotions, perhaps with some base chance (10%?). Now, coupled with the unit's withdrawal chance, this could make for very good odds of survival. The tradeoff would be that you'd have to take the right promotions to do so.
It could be automatic, but then Warlords might become *too* good. As it is, though, they are of limited use in many games.
The other problem is defense. A tough combatant Warlord is often the best defender, and on defense, there is no withdrawal chance. You can have a stack of 20+ tough units there, and the Warlord is still drawn into the fight and killed anyway.
To fix that, make the Warlord the last defender. Don't let it defend unless there are no other units.
Alternatively, defending Warlords could have an evasion chance, to escape back home. We could do both, but that again might make them too effective.
We could take a poll and see, but I rarely use more than one or two Warlords in a typical game. If one dies, I might make another -- a super medic is still always useful -- but I often prefer to simply stack up instructors, so my units are born with an extra promotion, or an academy for higher production from my military cities.
