When to use CRII promo?

[Nobikaigan]

I have a question about promotions that has been bugging me for some time, but I've never really found the right thread for this discussion. I never take CRII as a promotion when I still have Combat I as an option. Even though, as my math tells me, the result vs. a city defender is the same, I like the +10% to be applicable to all situations, against all units, attacking or defending. Just makes much more sense to me, but I am noobish so I may be missing something really obvious.
An example, as I see it...
An axman with 2 promotions available attacking a city. First take CRI for +20% vs city. 5 + 1(20%) = 6
The next promotion is where I get confused as to usefulness of CRII.
The CRII approach. 5 + 1.5(30%) = 6.5
The Combat I approach. 5 + 1(20%CRI) + .5(Combat I) = 6.5

Is there something I am missing? I just prefer the flexibility of combat I and if there is no other reasoning I don't see the usefulness of CRII in most situations.

 

[Artichoker]

I have a question about promotions that has been bugging me for some time, but I've never really found the right thread for this discussion. I never take CRII as a promotion when I still have Combat I as an option. Even though, as my math tells me, the result vs. a city defender is the same, I like the +10% to be applicable to all situations, against all units, attacking or defending. Just makes much more sense to me, but I am noobish so I may be missing something really obvious.
An example, as I see it...
An axman with 2 promotions available attacking a city. First take CRI for +20% vs city. 5 + 1(20%) = 6
The next promotion is where I get confused as to usefulness of CRII.
The CRII approach. 5 + 1.5(30%) = 6.5
The Combat I approach. 5 + 1(20%CRI) + .5(Combat I) = 6.5

Is there something I am missing? I just prefer the flexibility of combat I and if there is no other reasoning I don't see the usefulness of CRII in most situations.

Yes, you are missing something.

The CRII promotion gives you 30% in addition to the 20% you got for CRI.

So, for CRII, you have:

5 + 1.0 + 1.5 = 7.5

which is better than taking CR I and Combat I.

However, as you mentioned, Combat I applies to all situations, whereas CR II applies only when attacking a city. So use your judgment.

 

[Refar]

Your math is bugged.
1) Promotions are cumulative so CRII is + 45% (CRI 20 + CRII 25)
2) CR (All 'situational' promotions) is not applied to your unit, it is taken away from the enemies multipliers.

So.. Say you attacking a archer fortified for 5 turns in a city with 20% cultural defense...

Your basic Axeman has 5
Archer: 3 * (1 + 0.5 (archers ability) + 0.25 (fortification) + 0.2 (city defense)) = 5.85

With CRI - Axe still 5
Archer: 3 * (1 + 0.5 + 0.25 + 0.2 - 0.2 (CR)) = 5.25

With CRII - Axe... well you guess it by now - 5
But Archer down to: 3 * (1 + 0.5 + 0.25 + 0.2 - 0.45) = 4.5

 

[BalbanesBeoulve]

City raider all the way. Your city raiders should be protected by other units and should never have to defend. In the medieval era for example, your city raider units should be protected by crossbowmen against enemy macemen and by pikemen/war elephants against mounted units.

 

[DigitalBoy]

The bonuses are cumulative. City raider units can be powerful, but just remember to have a sufficient number of combat promoted units to escort them so they don't get killed moving to the city they're going to attack.

 

[Nobikaigan]

Ahhhh now I am beginning to see it... Very informative that the situational promotions are not applied to my unit, yet they are being taken away from the defender. I knew there was no way they were cumulative and applied to my unit, I would have seen that for sure, so I was assuming the promotions just were not cumulative! This probably would be easy to figure out using a test game, but since I am at work right now and the nagging need to post a question hit me...
Thanks for all the help!

 

[Jtownsend]

Even without an appreciation of the math, once you have some CR2 and CR3 units you'll notice they have enormously better combat odds displayed than the rest of your stack in attacking those irritating strongest defenders. Perhaps I shouldn't, but I tend to look at those so long as I'm on the offensive, rather than working out the numbers.

CR is a fantastic promotion; units with it are the source of most of your 'pleasant surprises' in offensive warfare, and with any luck you'll save a nice big batch of them for upgrade into your gunpowder corps d'elite.

 

[UncleJJ]

The great thing about the CR range of promotions is that it doesn't matter what the defender is. As long as it is in a city or fort your bonus will reduce the defender's strength. In the early ages I like to have about half my stack of melee troops with the CR promotions (as specialist city attackers) and the rest of the melee troops in the stack with more general promotions like shock and combat that can deal with a wide range of situations.