Which one?

[Simple Simon]

I love to play huge maps, with many civs, and many turns. 40 civs on earth map, marathon? Yes, please

Therefore, I tend to fight drawn-out middle ages land wars (preferably in Asia - not!), with huge numbers of troops. At the same time, such a game setup also means that very early on, war can be the only option to get ahead, and is also extremely profitable.

And so I am always torn on how to use my first Great General. Attach it to a Sword/Axe for a 'Can Opener' (City Raider 3, then all the combat promos, or cover/shock depending on the opposition)? Or a Great Healer (woodsman III + medic III)?

Obviously, it always depends on the situation. If I am in desperate need of a can opener, I make one. No discussion. But it is a real short-term investment: a great healer helps so much once you can stack 5 or 6 units, that I always later think that I should rather have gone for it.


What do you do?

 

[Supr49er]

I am a fan of the "Great Medic".

 

[Onionsoilder]

Super-Medic, hands-down. A 'can opener' as you so put it dies way to easily.

 

[bestbrian]

I do neither. All GGs are settled as Instructors or Academies (highly skilled troops coming constantly online from my Gun Pumps).

 

[eastsidebagel]

Can Opener, or even an uber-Can Opener which is an ancient unit with more than 30 XP and is constantly advanced alongside the technology tree. Those units are really fun to play.

 

[Joecoolyo]

I tend to settle all of my GG's, but the Great Healer sounds like a better long term investment. You won't attack with it much and you can bring it with you in all wars you'll ever have (since you can upgrade the unit with the promos).

 

[bestbrian]

I tend to settle all of my GG's, but the Great Healer sounds like a better long term investment. You won't attack with it much and you can bring it with you in all wars you'll ever have (since you can upgrade the unit with the promos).

It works if you deploy your forces in an Uberstack. I tend to disperse my forces into multiple stacks, so the Great Healer doesn't readily lend itself to my Strat. I can see, though, where it can be very useful, particularly on smaller maps (I play Huge so it's efficacy is further diminished).

 

[PieceOfMind]

It works if you deploy your forces in an Uberstack. I tend to disperse my forces into multiple stacks, so the Great Healer doesn't readily lend itself to my Strat. I can see, though, where it can be very useful, particularly on smaller maps (I play Huge so it's efficacy is further diminished).

I agree with this. I play mostly large or huge maps and the idea of having a great healer in one very specific location in the whole world seems fairly pointless to me. In enemy territory, where most people need medics, the base heal rate is 5HP per turn. A regular medic increases that to 15HP per turn. Further, when you capture a city and it is still in resistance, your units will heal at 15HP per turn or 25HP per turn with the medic (it would be 20HP per turn if the city was not in resistance or 30HP with the medic as well).

If you take advantage of the better healing rate in the captured city and the regular medic, I don't see a great need for an extra 15HP healing from medicIII or 15HP per turn from woodsman promotions. Besides, whenever I am attacking a city I'll make sure to do it in one turn so the defenders do not get a chance to promote AND heal in between turns, thus negating the real advantage of the super medic because you can heal pretty fast once inside the city anyway.

In the long run I believe it's more valuable to have 2 extra xp on possibly hundreds of units, so I don't usually take the can opener either. The only times I take the can openenr is when I want to have a bit of fun and I'm probably already going to win the game.

 

[Simple Simon]

It works if you deploy your forces in an Uberstack. I tend to disperse my forces into multiple stacks, so the Great Healer doesn't readily lend itself to my Strat. I can see, though, where it can be very useful, particularly on smaller maps (I play Huge so it's efficacy is further diminished).

I especially love them on huge map, because you face AI defense stacks. So you need large bombard stacks. btw, the great healer is pretty good in neighbouring tiles, too

But yes, mid-game I usually have two or three of the guys running around

I agree with this. I play mostly large or huge maps and the idea of having a great healer in one very specific location in the whole world seems fairly pointless to me.

Not so! Having such a healer means that you will very quickly have a large stack of CR3-units, that accumulate XP points rapidly. And you get GGs galore, which I can attach to CR units, or use as instructors. it is very nice to get a CR3 Mace built in a city. So while I use several stacks in a normal attack, one stack goes for the really big/important/must-grab-fast targets. And this stack... well, usually I do not bother with bombarding more than one turn once I have rifling, because 10 CR3, combat3, cover rifles take any town down, whatever the defense bonus is for the LBM. So get rifles, upgrade, rampage

 

[PieceOfMind]

It's not hard to get CR3 units without a super medic. Regular medics do just fine. In a newly captured city, you get 25HP per turn. Most units will be ready to go again within 2 or 3 turns. With a supermedic it might be 1 or 2 turns. I don't consider it gamechanging.

Since I was talking about larger maps, it's safe to assume it's at a slower speed as well (Epic or Marathon) and at these speeds the need for a fast healer is diminished.

 

[Simple Simon]

It's not hard to get CR3 units without a super medic.

No, it si not hard. but a stack that heals in two turns in enemy lands(!) - well, in a big siege these units can fight two, three times..... I do not know what kind of games you polay, but I often face 25+ defenders in chokepoint towns.

In a newly captured city, you get 25HP per turn.

Once you have it. Now add 'can heal while moving' to your SuperMedic, and it becomes a major force. Not a game-breaker, but an important help.

 

[PieceOfMind]

No, it si not hard. but a stack that heals in two turns in enemy lands(!) - well, in a big siege these units can fight two, three times..... I do not know what kind of games you polay, but I often face 25+ defenders in chokepoint towns.

Once you have it. Now add 'can heal while moving' to your SuperMedic, and it becomes a major force. Not a game-breaker, but an important help.

The march promotion (aka heal-while-moving promotion) must be on the units you want to receive healing - not the supermedic. A supermedic can move around as much as it wants and it still heals units wherever it ends its turn.

You might notice, by the way, I wrote the strategy article on unit healing which you should check out if you haven't already done so. It doesn't have a lot of detail on supermedics but the basic details are all the same.

If I face a city with 25+ defenders, I just make sure my stack is big enough to take them all down. It might take 10 siege and then 25 units of pretty much any type at all. My point is that if you are waiting for your own units to heal, the defender has more time to bring more units to the city, whip away more population (population you could have used when captured), heal his own defenders and promote his defenders that happened to survive your first attack. All these things must be weighed against the perceived benefit of having your units heal a bit faster than with an ordinary medic.

If you are fighting very early wars before a lot of siege is available to you, the supermedic may be more useful, but only for a limited time IMO.

And I don't see what's so great about healing your attack units in 2 turns in enemy territory. In that time the enemy defenders will heal at least 20HP per turn as well, usually more because they will promote for the fast promotion-heal.

I play mostly large/huge epic games at Emperor (sometimes above) with Better AI. What games do you play?

 

[Simple Simon]

PoM, i know your (excellent) article.

I always use my supermedics for 99% attacks. They often have CR3, too, after a while and that's when the heal-while-move comes into play.

I agree that siege makes supermedics less useful. However, I rarely have to deal with healing enemies different style of warfare, I guess. So healing in enemy lands means for my playstyle that I advance a lot faster than without it.

 

[PieceOfMind]

Oh so you mean you are using your supermedic for attacking?

Getting a super medic to CR3 is a fairly unconventional way of using them. If you are talking about the M3/W3 supermedic, that is already 6 promotions... getting to a 9th (CR3) doesn't feel right.

Or are your supermedics just the M3 variety?

By the way, you need Combat 3 or Medic I to get the march promotion. So unless your city raiders are reaching the 7th promotion (CR3 then C3 then march), I don't see how you are getting many march units, and if you're only talking about your supermedic getting the benefit of march, that is most unusual.

 

[Simple Simon]

I am talking about stacks with 5 or 6 units that are all level 10 I often keep a weak civ closeby with a town or two for GG farming, too.

 

[Scoottr]

Your super medic also heals your artillery (be that trebuchet, bombard, etc) If you have slapped a CR promotion on them, then they have a good chance of surviving. Then you can whack the city with another round of artillery. The AI moves troops in? Fine, I decimate them over and over until he has most of his military in one city where I've knocked them down so much that my troops rack up promotions just picking them off.

I love when I get bombard and do this. I often have a 80% or more chance of withdrawl after I have barraged the city.

So having that super medic to quickly heal up those artillery to do another round of damage can be big.

 

[PieceOfMind]

If you are milking the enemy for XP like that, then there is pretty much no hurry anyway. If you're confident with your stack sitting outside their city for some number of turns then you'll probably be comfortable waiting one more turn for your units to heal. These are nice "gamey" tricks when using a medic but nothing about them demands a super medic over a regular medic.

Weight it against the possibility of more than half of your stack having an extra 2XP due to a military instructor. Trebs at 7XP reach 10XP faster than trebs at 5XP.

 

[Spartan117]

I would settle the general. Easy choice. The larger the maps the more units and the bigger advantage having more units with an extra 2 xp. In my most recent game with marathon and a larger than huge settings, a few great generals appeared. These settled generals will also allow me to concentrate unit production while still allowing 2 promotions per unit without having theocracy or vassalage as my civics. Thus allowing me to use other civics for either increased production for buildings and extra commerce. (organized religion or bureaucracy)

 

[TheMeInTeam]

Super medic.

While marching around with a big stack, you heal damaged units while bombarding or the turn of attack with guys you don't use (you leave them there). With a sufficient stack size the damaged guys heal up as you head from place to place, and the march continues...

 

[ferenginar]

It sounds like a good idea, but I have never tried it. I always started with can openers, then I would get irate when they lost. Now I settle for unit factories. A continuos stream of promoted units seems better to me.