What's the best promotion for the Praetorian?

[Gaius Octavius]

What’s the best promotion for the Praetorian unit? When I first started playing as Rome, I would normally give my Praetorians (which I renamed to Legionaries) Combat I, plus Cover or Shock, as an extra bonus against archers and axemen. I also thought it would be good to have ones with city raider (obviously).

But after a few tests and a lot of experience I am beginning to wonder about that. I did three tests to see how the Legions would stack up against a group of archers defending a city. I gave each archer a city garrison just to make it more interesting.

I divided it into three cases, where I threw Legions with 1) Combat I and Cover against them, 2) Combat 1 and 2, and 3) City Raider 1 and 2. If I remember correctly, I found that city raider generally did a little better than combat 1 and cover, but not by much. But the best overall (fewest losses, and hence fewer units needed to take the city) was Combat 1 and 2.

Now, on this forum I have read repeatedly that people like to use city raider, which is understandable given the main use of the Praetorian. But after playing many, many games as Rome, I wonder if this is really the most effective promotion. I have used most of the time only combat promotions, which sometimes got units up all the way to Combat 5 or 6. That would almost never happen for city raiders, as they’d get killed off too easily. So am I missing something here?

I am well aware that a mix of promotions and units is best, and that’s generally what I try to do. But it seems like Combat still beats City Raider most of the time.

 

[Dominico]

Something went wrong with your test. For taking cities, city raider is the best promotion.

For the real world though where your legionaries must fight in the open too, its often worth giving them a combat promotion. It just helps them deal with normal fighting i find. Though im not all that good at this game so my imput is not that usefull lol!

 

[ezwip]

I rarely use the Romans but I believe combat to be a better upgrade. It opens the path to healing which when added to any stack makes it a larger threat. Often I find my level 3 raiders attacking a axeman/longbowman and dying both in the open or a city. For this reason I'll go with city raider until the tech for catapults has been discovered, then switch over to combat. Unless you are in a tank and the other player has a soldier your city raider promotion won't do much if anything. You're better off throwing a rock at them then moving a commando in for the kill. Since you have to hit the defender with something first it really doesn't matter what type of promotion the next soldier has, if any at all. They are likely to win the fight. City raider will pretty much guarantee it in such a case, but to me it's a waste to spend promotions on this once you have siege weapons.

 

[Ecofarm]

The problem with the test is that you are hitting archers only. Throw a few axes in there (and even spears). When you are not 2:1 in strength, (archers vs C2 praets), city raider will shine.

 

[CivDude86]

Combat is worth .8 and CR1 only takes .6 off an archer. I still take CR so I can have an army of CR Prats when longbows come around and to upgrade to gunpowder units if need be. But you do want some combat prats to protect the CRs because the game will make a CR3 defend over a CR1 even though they have the same strength.

 

[Killroyan]

CR1 takes away 0.6 of the archer indeed but then it is 8:2,4 which is 3,33:1. With combat 1 it is 8.8:3 which relates to 2,93:1 so CR1 is clearly the better promotion for attacking cities (the 10% city raider special has been left out of the calculation).

But then again when you are building stacks you make sure you get 1 shock praetorian, 1 medic praetorian (or war chariot with GG) and the rest will get the CR promotions. When getting to CR2 the praetorians are unstoppable.

 

[largedarryl]

As described by CivDude86, the thing about the CR promotion is it subtracts strength from the defender, this is why the praet has such a long life. With the use of CR promotions they are still usefull against longbowman (instead of taking 0.6 str for an archer, they take 1.2 str from a longbowman). That generalization doesn't take into account any of the other longbowmans modifiers.

 

[Yakk]

       City  +20%  +40%  +60%  +80%  | Hill  +20%  +40%  +60%  +80%
Archer 50%   70%   90%   110%  130%  | 100%  120%  140%  160%  180%
City1  70%   90%   110%  130%  150%  | 120%  140%  160%  180%  200%
City2  95%   115%  135%  155%  175%  | 145%  165%  185%  205%  225%
City3  125%  145%  165%  185%  205%  | 175%  195%  215%  235%  255%
C3H1   *     *     *     *     *     | 195%  215%  235%  255%  275%
Hill1  *     *     *     *     *     | 120%  140%  160%  180%  200%
Hill2  *     *     *     *     *     | 150%  170%  190%  210%  230%
H2C1   *     *     *     *     *     | 170%  190%  210%  230%  250%
H2C2   *     *     *     *     *     | 195%  215%  235%  255%  275%
H2C3   *     *     *     *     *     | 225%  245%  265%  285%  305%

Comparing +C strength to -R their strength:

S is to X - D*R
as
S * (1+C) is to X

Where X is the defenders effective strength, and D is their base strength.

Solve for K:
K S = X - D*R (1)
K S (1+C) = X (2)

K = X / (S (1+C)) from (2)

plug into (1)
X/(1+C) = X-D*R
D*R = X (1-1/(1+C))

With combat 3 (C=.3) and City Raider 3 (R = .75) and defending archers (D=3), we get:

3*.75 = X (1-1/1.3)
X = 9.75

or combat 3 equals city raider 3 at +225% defence bonus. (higher defence bonus makes city raider worse).

Note that the strength of the attacker doesn't factor into this. Abilities like +10% vs cities (swordsmen) would.

Comparing Combat I vs CR I:
3*.2 = X(1-1/1.1)
X = 6.6

At +120% defence and under, CR I is better than Combat I. Above that it is worse.

Note that the problem with cover and shock is that the defender gets to pick. These promotions are best used either defensively, or to shore up a weakness in the unit's combat abilities, or in an attempt to "overload" defenders of a certain type, or if you know that the defenders have no effective defenders except that unit type and your unit will be killed before the promotion becomes obsolete.

The core of all of this is to pay attention to the ratio of attack vs defence.

Also note that high level city raider improves in effectiveness, while high level combat doesn't.

In civ, combat is generally the best "all around" offensive promotion by a significant margin. It never goes out of style, it generates lots of nice side benefits, and it is good in all situations.

And even in the specialist areas, it nearly matches the efficiency of other promotions.

Defensively, it is a different tune.

Oh, and trechepults should go for city raider. With their built-in +100% city attack, you can often completely beat down the defender's defence modifier. When you do that, you get really amazing returns for more negative modifiers.

 

[Quagga]

Note that the problem with cover and shock is that the defender gets to pick. These promotions are best used either defensively, or to shore up a weakness in the unit's combat abilities, or in an attempt to "overload" defenders of a certain type, or if you know that the defenders have no effective defenders except that unit type and your unit will be killed before the promotion becomes obsolete.

Yakk's point is interesting and important. Many promotions are useful primarily for defense. Because the best defender is automatically selected, one will often find that their shock-promoted attacker will be paired with a bowman, while the cover-promoted unit will be fighting a maceman defender. Because of that, the CR and Combat promotions are the most useful for attack, while the others provide their benefit on defense.

An exception is Formation. This promotion typically is given to spears, pikes and rifles to make them even more effective against intruding mounted units. These units often arrive unescorted, so Formation can be used effectively by the attacker.

The rarely-used Charge promotion can have an interesting use. One often finds an attacking spear or axe paired-up with a defending (undamaged) catapult. If the attacker has Charge, worst-case the attacker is more likely to win, but often the attacker will be paired with the mounted or mele unit it wanted to fight.

But back to the original question. Give those Praetorians CR prmotions until you get all three. Then go on to Combat and follow up that promotional chain. Be careful when you upgrade your Praetorian (or any unit), as the upgrade will reset the XP to 10. You shouldn't upgrade until you can upgrade to Grenadiers, since their bonus against rifles is useful in attacking cities, whereas rifles bonus against mounted is not as useful in that context.

If you get to this point early enough, March is a very nice promotion. However, it's probably wasted if you're applying it to Infantry, as the next upgrade to Mech Inf gets it for free.

Commando is a seemingly wonderful promotion that is available after Combat V. But it's not really that great because you need a whole stack of Commandos to do anything useful. I've never had more than one or two in a game.

 

[Yakk]

For the less math inclined:
If your opponent has lots of defence (over 200&#37 and you can't take it down, combat beats out city raider.

Below 100% defence modifier, city raider wins -- the less modifier, the better city raider is.

In between, combat and city raider duke it out. Higher levels of city raider are better than combat against better cities.

The difference between the two is small in most situations, even if city raider is better.

Back to math: here is an interesting question. Can city raider get you over the "tipping point" faster -- the tipping point is the point where you are stronger than the defender. When this happens, it takes your opponent 6 hits instead of 5 to kill you, which has a large impact on the odds of success.

8 = 3 * (1+X-R)
and
8*(1+C) = 3 * (1+X)

5/3+R = X
and
5/3+8/3C = X

5/3+R = X
and
5/3+8/3C = X

Def
R.2 187%
R.45 212%
R.75 242%
C.1 193%
C.2 220%
C.3 247%

This implies that combat gets you to the tipping point faster than city raider does.

Note that City Raider just moves the target tipping point down linearly.

The base tipping point seems to be (A-D)/D, wher A and D are attack and defence base strengths.

City Raider adds to the tipping point linearly.

Combat adds to the tipping point scaled by A/D.

So if your goal is to hit the tipping point, Combat I is "worth" Attack/Defence points of city raider attack.

This means combat III on a swordsman is 6/3 * 30% = 60% of city raider -- worse than city raider III.

Combat III on a prat is 8/3 * 30% = 80% of city raider -- better than city raider III.

This, of course, assumes your goal is to break the tipping point, and get your unit to be strong enough to actually win. Attacks whose goal is to win by attrition use different targets and needs.

One huge advantage for city raider is that you can't get it once you become a gunpowder unit -- and gunpowder units stop having the "low defence defenders with mass bonuses", which makes raw combat less important and city raider better.

Whew!

 

[30+]

SP get CR, where incidently, imo, Rome is best (not so hot in MP).
MP get +25% vs melee units. Aggressive Leaders own Praetorians hard when there axeman have 25% vs melee; cheaper cost, faster build time, and of course, a > % chance to kill your Praetorians than you have to kill there Axes. Not to mention they dont need Iron. And it takes a while till your first GG comes into effect giving you the ability to promote every Praetorian as needed. This means that in MP, even if you have iron relatively quick, your Praetorians will still be at a very very hefty disadvantage vs the Aggressive Leader Trait with copper.