why religion promotion "zen" was not retained after splitting and merging unit?

tramwajg

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picture in attachment:) I have one main unit which is triple-merged longbowman, I needed to transport it to other continent so I splitted it, loaded on fluyt, and merged again, but promotion "zen" (heal while moving and some more benefits) was not retained. I now have triple-merged unit with 50/300 experience which can't heal while moving, which is quite problematic as with units with so many hp and heal speed reductions, heal while moving is the only possibility of keeping unit with high hp bar (they loose hp every turn when near hostile town too), anyone knows why it worked that way? my state religion is buddhism (the one that matches to this promotion)
 

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A free promotion will only go to the lead split unit. Then when you merge, only the unit initiating the merge will keep its free promotions. There are numerous loophole patching reasons for this. Unfortunately it also means that it matters which unit you select to start the merge process and should take great care with that.
 
it was hard, but I think I managed to catch exact time when it happens, not sure if it's not too minor and specific to even think about it? but I will describe in case anyone wants to look into it:)

I used unit heavy pikeman visible on picture in attachment (If I upgrade it to rifleman, it looses "zen" promotion totally, which I think is intended though?), and it has experience just enough to be promoted to upper quality. When I split it without promoting to upper quality, only leading unit retains "zen" promotion, others does not, after merging again, if my state religion is buddhism, I can promote it to zen again. But, if I use quality upgrade and then split unit, only leading will have "zen" promotion and others don't, also no free promotions, and if I merge again, then "zen" is lost without possibility of getting it again until unit gets hundreds of experience allowing next promotion after quality up. I don't know if it was maybe intended to work that way? but seems very minor and occuring in specific circumstances, I must have had bad luck to encounter it in game:)

unfortunately unit selection is not retained in save, I tried to mark with red circle where it's located, under zulu empire city near cities constructing power plants
 

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You have to be very careful with when you apply a quality up promotion as it has the potential to wipe out other pending promotions you may be able to receive. I found some edge cases where I couldn't see a way to correct the loophole there but I've done a lot to try to keep it from being selectable until the last retrain and in most cases I could. IIRC, during upgrades is a danger spot. I have a hard time saying if you've found a bug or an intended set of odd controls that are designed to prevent an abuse without looking much closer into it. I'll try to remember to take a look when I can but that might be a while if at all.
 
IIIRC my Chaser correctly got 2 promotions "reimbursed" after I upgraded the Wanderer that he used to be, that had leveled up to get Flanking 2 (because not a Recon any more).
(There's still a bug of the unattainable for the Chaser Mobility still being displayed as a possible promotion.)

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What kind of abuse do you have in mind ?

And I don't understand what you mean by "free" promotion ?

If it's one that you did *not* get through XP, then there seems to be a bug with, for instance, Combat 1 earned through C2C's Battlefield Promotions setting : it does NOT get lost for the "secondary" split units.
(While City Garrison 1 from Civic (Militia) auto-building *does* disappear on "secondary" split units.)
And how can a player know the difference between those (without remembering all of the game's history) ?

EDIT : Hmm, looks like it's more complicated than I thought : while that Combat 1 didn't require XP to get, my unit still got bumped from lvl 1 to 2, and now has 1/5 XP, meaning it's going to need to reach the usual 5 XP for lvl 3 and the 2nd "non-free" promotion.
EDIT 2 : Huh, so Battlefield Promotions is quite a nerf then, because not only you don't get the XP for that combat, you also lose the option to pick a promotion for the "next" level up ? (I guess at leas you get that promotion early...)
EDIT 3 : Ok, no, the issue is with the *interaction* between Battlefield Promotions and splitting : my unit shows level 1 and 1/2 experience *before* splitting !
EDIT 4 : And then all 3 units are still lvl 1 : 1/2 after splitting... however merging bumps that to lvl 2 : 1/5 !
EDIT 5 :
Then when you merge, only the unit initiating the merge will keep its free promotions.
This seems untrue BTW : my merged unit got City Garrison 1 back even though the "primary" split unit wasn't one that had it.

And can you even *get* Zen as a free promotion ? None of the Buddhist buildings seem to give it ?
EDIT : Oh, wait, I get it now : Zen itself isn't a free promotion, but Lead by Warlord that it requires is one ?
EDIT 2 : Hmm, but why did the merged units then got Lead by Warlord back ??
 
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Some of what you're saying doesn't jive with what I left it as but there has been a lot of refactoring so I may have to reexplore if battlefield promos was adjusted to work differently now. They used to, yes, absorb the xp from that fight where they were rewarded, BUT not count against your level and become part of the skills selected by levelling up. They should be automatically given to the upgraded unit since they're technically a free promotion (one not earned by xp levels) - unless the new unit doesn't qualify for it at which point it just vanishes. Someone might have changed it and maybe confused a few things there in the process but I'd have to playtest to find out.
And can you even *get* Zen as a free promotion ? None of the Buddhist buildings seem to give it ?
EDIT : Oh, wait, I get it now : Zen itself isn't a free promotion, but Lead by Warlord that it requires is one ?
EDIT 2 : Hmm, but why did the merged units then got Lead by Warlord back ??
Zen is a promo I haven't looked at in a while... including how it is given.
 
I misunderstood you saying "quality up promotion" as "upgrading unit", my bad - so the discussion about Wanderer into Chaser is completely unrelated.

(And it was unrelated to the Group Up/Down discussion anyway, my Wanderer did not get any Battlefield Promotions, and Explorers can't be Grouped Up/Down anyway...)

They used to, yes, absorb the xp from that fight where they were rewarded, BUT not count against your level and become part of the skills selected by levelling up.
Looks like that they still *usually* don't - it's only when you start Grouping Up/Down units that it gets messy...
 
I misunderstood you saying "quality up promotion" as "upgrading unit", my bad - so the discussion about Wanderer into Chaser is completely unrelated.

(And it was unrelated to the Group Up/Down discussion anyway, my Wanderer did not get any Battlefield Promotions, and Explorers can't be Grouped Up/Down anyway...)


Looks like that they still *usually* don't - it's only when you start Grouping Up/Down units that it gets messy...
Yeah the trick to making sure you keep your free promos (like battlefield ones) is to make sure when merging you select which unit starts the merge with care.
 
Except, as I already mentioned :

1) Battlefield promotions don't seem to be lost to secondary split units (example : that Combat 1 above).

1b) And they aren't "free" any more once you merge units, looks like some code here tries to predict what a unit's level "should" be from the promotions alone that the unit has ?

2) It doesn't seem to matter what main unit you use for merging, you get the free promotion in the merged unit anyway (example : City Garrison 1 in my game, Lead by Warlord in his)

3) It's actually *normal* that his secondary split units lose Zen (also Heroic 1, and Leadership, and Morale) because they lose the free Lead by Warlord.
In fact the game even gives you a message :
"Having lost one of its prerequisite promotions, your <unit> has lost its <promotion> promotion and may now select a new promotion.
(And in the first screenshot Tactician and Overwhelm, because coming from the free Lead by Noble.)

4) *However*, Tramwajg seems to have hit the same or a similar bug as I did with levels not being properly counted ?
(Do you have Battlefield Promotions on ? That's a setting that seems to be Civ-with-BUG-wide, rather than kept in the save... (which IMHO shouldn't happen ! How can you even debug other player's games in these conditions ?!))

It's harder to say what happens in his first screenshot, but in the 2nd case (his save) :

Before splitting :
lvl 18, 344.28/342 XP
1 promotion left to add
17 promotions on unit (including 1 Buildup and 1 Standout status).
18 promotions total

After split :
lvl 18, 344.28/342 XP for all 3 units
0 promotion left to add for all 3 units !
(I don't think that units *should* have lost their ability to get promotions on that turn because of a split ?)
17 promotions on main unit (including 1 Group Down and 1 Standout status) - Does it make sense to lose Buildup (Fortifications) V ?
11 promotions on secondary units (including 1 Group Down and 1 Standout status) - Lost the free Lead by Warlord and the 4 promotions that came from it, lost the free Poison Tips, but *kept* the free Status (Standout), Way of the Warrior, Negligent II ! Total 4 non-free promotions lost.
Next turn :
1 promotion left to add on main unit
5 promotions left to add on secondary units (1+4 = 5, check !)
(But shouldn't the secondary units have lost levels ??)

Ok, now the merging back again :
lvl 16, 344.24/270 XP
12 promotions
3 promotions left to add
That's a problem, we somehow lost (1+4)-3 = 2 promotions left to add !
My guess would be that this comes from the Battlefield Promotions bug that I've discussed before, and that this unit got 2 Battlefield Promotions some time in the past ?

Also, contrary to what Thunderbrd says, I can't seem to find a way to make the merged unit to lose its free promotions that the secondary units lost when splitting (Lead by Warlord and Poison Tips) by picking a different main unit to start merging.

So, to recapitulate the issues :
A) Some of the promotions left to add seem to be lost (because of interaction with Battlefield Promotions ?)
B) Units when split for this turn lose their ability to get promotions left to add.

And maybe :
"C") Split units aren't losing levels when losing forbidden promotions, even though for some reason this doesn't affect the promotions left to add.
"D") The game doesn't display anywhere how many promotions left to add a unit has.
and/or
"E") The game doesn't display anywhere what will be the new level of the unit once all promotions left to add would be taken.

And maaaybe also :
""F"") Some of the free promotions aren't lost to secondary split units : Status (Standout), Way of the Warrior, Negligent II
""G"") Main split unit loses a promotion : Status(Buildup (Fortifications) V)

Now, for those, I guess that there are 4 things happening here :
α) Status (Standout) seems to be "special"... because all new units automatically get it ? Maybe this shouldn't be automatic for split/merged units ?
β) In further testing, all the other Statuses seem to be lost to secondary units when splitting (and regained on merging), because they're free promotions. Maybe Statuses should NOT be lost to secondary units ?
γ) Status(Buildups) seem to be lost even to the main split unit ! Looks like that this is to replicate the behaviour of Fortify being lost to all the split units ? But maybe it's the Fortify bonus that should, if possible, be kept to all the split units instead ?
δ) Way of the Warrior, Negligent II don't seem to be treated as regular free promotions because they're given by Civilization or Leader Traits ?
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This is kind of unrelated, but maybe they should be made more "immediate", just like for promotion requirements ?
AFAIK :
- Negligent doesn't seem (?) to be *immediately* given to all your units that qualify when you get the Leader Trait, nor *immediately* removed (?) when you lose it ? Maybe Leader Traits should ?
- Ditto for Ancient Way of the X : Civilization, not Leader, Trait, that obsoletes with Classical Lifestyle, but your units don't lose those promotions then because they *derive* from the trait. Maybe they should lose them ?
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But back to the issue at hand : if Civ/Leader promotions behave differently, their promotion icon should have a different shape ?
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In fact the icons of free and non-free promotions should be somehow different too... maybe a different *border* ?
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Some consistency for promotion backgrounds would be great too : see how all (Hero) promotions are green ? Make all the Lead by Warlord promotions red ! (Including Heroic, which is NOT a (Hero) promotion !)
(I guess that you might not have the original files that were used to make those icons, making recoloring them a chore ?)

Finally, here's my own save illustrating some of this, see the Neanderthal Slinger 1 (Niani) on my capital :
 

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