what is your preferred line of promotions for gunpowder units?

[auntjemima]

Hello community,

My questions is thus, lets say I'm playing as Hannibal (or another charismatic leader) and I've got enough civics, settled GG's and whatnot to produce units out of my main military city with 4 promotions. My main gunpowder unit is rifles (eventually infantry).

Assuming rival civs are at about tech parity, meaning they have or will have rifles or grenadiers soon if not already and likely cav as well, how would you typically promote your rifles?

I see the options as being combat I-IV / Drill I-IV / City Defender I-III+drill I / Combat I-II+Pinch+formation.

How would you go about things? Lately I've been hearing a lot good things about drill 4 gunpowder units (mostly churchill redcoats although in the rare instance they come into play, drill 4 navy seals have been pretty good for me too) but I feel that combat I-IV seems overall more useful, although I guess drill IV also makes a good defender once you capture a city.

Whats are the community's thoughts on the promotions and their relative values?

Thanks

 

[Jerrymander]

As follows is not fact, only empirical observation on my part.

Taking Drill is really risky, because then all semblance of combat odds making sense are thrown out the window. The mechanic that produces the shown % grossly overestimates the effects of First Strikes in combat. Not only that, but after you get your "free combat rounds" you're stuck with a 100% strength unit for the remainder of the battle. Combat promotions don't give you free rounds, but they do give you 30% or 40% more strength for each round of combat.

Drill promotions are better as a 4th-7th promotion for city garrison units (although the reason you would have level 5 units as garrisons is unknown to me).

Drill is useful in three situations:

1. Your opponent has heavy siege stacks.
2. Your units compared to your enemy's units have (a lot) more base strength.
3. Your unique unit is gunpowder and has great synergy with Drill (I'm looking at you Ethiopia).

In any other situation I would take Combat over Drill, simply because it offers more reliable chances of success with units. That being said, having your units come out unscathed from combat because you had 8 First Strikes is really fun.

I suppose I could open Worldbuilder and create 100 Infantry for two parties and smack Combat I-IV on 50 of them and Drill I-IV on 50 of them and compare their relative strength after attacking their enemies. But that's a lot of effort.

 

[lymond]

I generally like Combat > Pinch > More combat for Gunpowder. As for the Drill line, I find that useful only for Protective leaders like your Churchills or Tokus, or the ORomo Warriors, since the can start out the gate later as you mentioned with at least Drill III. It's really Drill IV that shines on that line so you want to be there as soon as possible.

 

[Jerrymander]

It's really Drill IV that shines on that line so you want to be there as soon as possible.

This is another good point. Drill promotions give larger bonuses as they advance, with Drill I being nearly useless and Drill IV being powerful. The Combat promotions will always give the same return per level, so they serve units with less than 4 possible promotions better.

I've also ignored Pinch/Formation/et al because they are situational choices. Ideally, you would give most of your units promotions to counter what most of your enemy is fielding (likely Pinch) and give a smaller amount (20%-30%) promotions to counter the minority of your opponents' forces (likely Formation and Charge).

 

[TheMeInTeam]

Drill is good in siege cleanup, with a big tech lead vs superior #s, and otherwise battles where your bonuses are already very high.

Combat is better otherwise, and especially against things immune to first strikes of course.

When in doubt, go combat unless you're doing something very unusual like always war.

 

[auntjemima]

Thanks for the thoughts so far, has anyone had any experience or opinions on garrison units. Say for example I just took an enemy city, and I want to keep my main stack moving so I rush in a small group of defenders to hold the city from counterattack. This stack will likely be coming from my main military city, so I could give it Drill IV, or city defender I-III + Drill 1. Which would you go with?

Alternatively if playing a protective leader and having civics or barracks to have your archery or gunpowder units receive at least one promo on creation, would you take drill II or city garrison II?

 

[Jerrymander]

Thanks for the thoughts so far, has anyone had any experience or opinions on garrison units. Say for example I just took an enemy city, and I want to keep my main stack moving so I rush in a small group of defenders to hold the city from counterattack. This stack will likely be coming from my main military city, so I could give it Drill IV, or city defender I-III + Drill 1. Which would you go with?

Alternatively if playing a protective leader and having civics or barracks to have your archery or gunpowder units receive at least one promo on creation, would you take drill II or city garrison II?

Drill IV would probably be better. But if the enemy has units that ignore First Strikes, you can use Combat promotions for your garrison units, too.

However, you might want to keep one or two units with City Garrison III, just to defend against the counter attack the turn after taking a city. These CG units wouldn't take part in the siege of the city, fyi.

On a Protective leader, advancing the Drill line over the City Garrison line is superior, unless your unit is going to be only a city defender.

 

[Clam Spammer]

One medic per stack, one or two Formation if enemy has horses, a few to Drill if I have a strength advantage, mostly Pinch once the enemy has Rifles. Maybe one or two to City Garrison if I'm expecting a heavy counterattack after taking a city. Otherwise just Combat.

With 4 promotions out of the gate as mentioned in the OP, if I have Iron for Cannons then probably half or more of my Rifles will get Drill IV. Pinch + Formation on one unit is a waste - give some Pinch and others Formation, and all your counter-promoted units get Combat III as well.

 

[plasmacannon]

If you are talking about a dedicated city defender, check to see if the city you just captured is on a hill.
City3/Hills1 would be a viable option. Then, give it Hills2 on its next promotion.
If you don't have roads to these cities yet, go Hills2/City2 for the faster (speed 2 over hills) deployment to the new city.

But, as dedicated City defenders, Grenadiers work better vs gunpowder units and they upgrade to machine gunners.
So, Drill4 would be a better promotion path for these. Then add Medic1+2 later.

 

[revengeofmakno]

Generally good points being made here. You might say that Drill enhances an advantage that is there (for example in tech level) but does not give one the way combat can. I don't use it much at all except with a protective leader. Pinch is great as it is a great boost over many opposing units and can still be combined with other promotions. Some specialized city defenders are essential. A couple of mech infantry with ambush can also come in handy.

 

[CajNatalie]

My defending units always get City Garrisons, after that I'd start loading with Drills if I ever got them promoted enough (not happened yet).
My attacking gunpowder units go Combat I -> Pinch -> Combat II-V.
Ultimately everyone's going to be defending with gunpowder units (mech infantry is a gunpowder unit, too, not an armored unit), so pinch is what I need for my city raiding style of play. Meanwhile, combat promotions are too reliable to toss away. Just 10% doesn't look like much, but it's made a lot of difference, especially when it stacks up to 50% (and then to a total of 75% for a general with Combat VI +25%).

 

[sydhe]

I prefer to get city raider II or III macemen and upgrade them to grenadiers. You can keep building macemen until you get rifling.

New grenadiers would be getting city garrison or drill.

Riflemen generally get drill.

Infantry vary because they're multi-use.

 

[CHEESE!]

Tokugawa. It's the only thing he can do. Do it well.

 

[karadoc]

I like to have a mixture of promotions normally.. and I often choose promotions for each unit one by one to match the situation at hand...

But as a rough rule of thumb, I just go drill I, II, III, IIII if I have a protective leader, and combat otherwise. Often on the combat line I choose march before combat IIII.

I like to keep at least one unit with medic I in the stack, if I can get one, a unit with woodsman III. I'm under the impression that the the healing for medic and woodsman stacks.

The mechanic that produces the shown % grossly overestimates the effects of First Strikes in combat.

I was told on these forums that the displayed odds for victory are completely accurate except for in special circumstances (usually involving sieges retreating).

 

[Jerrymander]

I was told on these forums that the displayed odds for victory are completely accurate except for in special circumstances (usually involving sieges retreating).

Those and first strikes. Especially if one has first strike chances.

 

[karadoc]

If the attacker has first strike chances, are the displayed combat odds an over estimation or underestimation?

 

[CajNatalie]

New grenadiers would be getting city garrison or drill.

I could never give them city garrison, just like I'd never give garrison to marines.
They're designed for attack, so that's how I use'em.
Grenadiers are especially useful at blowing up Riflemen (they get +50% making 18 attack), so I always specialize them that way so that the first time an AI starts using rifles, it'll be no problem to defeat them.

 

[Jerrymander]

(they get +50% making 18 attack)

No, percent bonuses are applied to the other units. The Rifleman's strength is lowered, not the Grenadier's raised.

 

[TheMeInTeam]

Those and first strikes. Especially if one has first strike chances.

First strikes were patched to yield an accurate win % long ago. The only known issue with win odds display is siege withdrawals, and only then at very specific break points that do not occur too often in practice. This is definitely less of an issue than most of the other problems in the game.

I prefer to get city raider II or III macemen and upgrade them to grenadiers. You can keep building macemen until you get rifling.

Upgrading specifically to carry CR III or especially II into rifles/grenadiers is not usually an efficient use of money. Some issues in particular with CR grenadiers:

1. They have less base str than rifles.

2. Because of how combat works with combat promos being applied to attacker while everything else is applied to the defender, at very high defensive %s combat promotions can actually beat CR promotions outright. Unless you are using spies or siege with your rifles/grenadiers, that high % is quite likely.

3. If you *are* using siege, you should probably be teching for steel rather than military science, because 1) cannons can bombard effectively and 2) cannons can *always* take CR, and can do it with or without being upgraded from previous units.

These factors make specific mace ----> rifle or grenadier upgrades a bad idea in a lot of cases, especially if done just for CR. If you want a rifle war, a good option is to draft, draft, draft an army of them which gains impressive #'s very quickly and for rifles very efficiently. If you want a siege war pull some cannons (upgraded from trebs or just built), if you want a cavalry war just build/upgrade mounted.

Of course if you are attacking with maces directly CR is worth consideration, but only if you can bombard defenses away, which is difficult but not impossible with castles around. However, in that era trebs are usually the better heavy lifters.