Your City Raiders...

[Mizar]

I was wondering how you promote your city raider troops that survive as the game goes on.

I ususally get a core group of CR-troops (axes, swords, later macemen) but after CR1 - CR3 usefull promotions are scarce.
I often use combat-1 and then cover, which strikes me better than combat-2.
Particulary for aggressive and charismatic leaders when my units may get the 6th promotion later, this sometimes bites me.
But as long as one fights longbows, CR3/C1/Cover macemen really rock and I just accept that cover is useless after the upgrade to rifles.

 

[Skallagrimson]

Unless a city is on a hill, if my stack has enough trebuchets to soften the city defenders, CR3 is plenty for macemen, against either longbows or crossbows. Post-CR3 I usually go to C1, and because of the size of my typical stacks and how I tend to spread XPs around (rookies go first), by the time I'm past CR3 and C1 on the macemen it's time to promote them to grenadiers or riflemen, at which time I usually then go to Shock so they'll be ready for that magical time when the AI gets Rifling or Mil-Sci gifted to them by some other AI that wants to see my conquest frustrated, and enough gold to upgrade all the longbows instantly. (And for that reason, when I have a choice of which rivals to conquer, I'll tend to pick the higher-tech rival FIRST! His low-tech buddies can't gift him anything he doesn't already have, and in Civ's unrealistic combat engine, sufficiently high numbers can generally overcome most tech leads in warfare, albeit with some painful WW in the process).

 

[carl corey]

Huh, I hardly get troops with that many promotions early on. Combat I is a pretty standard promotion as it opens up a lot of other things, but it's not Cover I'm looking for, it's Pinch. Most defenders when you have Rifles will be gunpowder units. Rifles already eat mounted units for breakfast, so no additional bonus is needed there. Pre-gunpowder units will have no chance against CRIII-CI Rifles. Cannons shouldn't be a problem either, their strength is too low anyway and they're rarely seen as city defenders.

 

[Skallagrimson]

Brain-farted on the promotion name. I did mean "that anti-gunpowder thingy" lol.

 

[troytheface]

The City Raider line is not as flexible as the Combat line. After Combat II one can have Amphibeous,or Formation.
I too like Cover. In attempts to make Bowmen uber units this is an important promotion. Optimal for Bowmen shock troops are Combat II, Amphibeous, Formation with Cover.

 

[carl corey]

Brain-farted on the promotion name. I did mean "that anti-gunpowder thingy" lol.

You can edit your posts.

 

[JTMacc99]

C1-Pinch. Never, ever, cover or shock. If for some reason I have an axe or sword that has a promotion available to a CRIII-C1, I will almost always select CII. As noted above, that opens up Amphib with the next promotion.

 

[Ormur]

I usually give the drill unless I have combat I (either from aggressive or upgraded Quechua that I turned into city raiders) then I give them cover or the other 25% vs something promotions based on the era.

 

[Mizar]

I usually give the drill unless I have combat I

The problem with drill is that Drill-1 is an extremely lousy promotion and you are not gona see drill-4 (would be the 7th), the only really good drill promotion.

 

[Mizar]

The City Raider line is not as flexible as the Combat line.

CR3 gets a 75% bonus, C3 a 30% bonus.
Against AIs, 3/4 of my fights are taking place when taking cities, so there's no question there.

I too like Cover. In attempts to make Bowmen uber units this is an important promotion.

Why would you do that? Fearing that the AI will rush you with archers?

 

[troytheface]

The AI will throw their melee units at them until it runs out and then will switch to archers - which are actually optimal. Barbarian archers can also be a problem without Cover.

 

[Phatkarp]

My .02 - After CR3 I start going down the C line. Depending on the era I'll either keep going down that line - C1, C2, C3 - or I'll take pinch if it's available. CR3 Pinch Grenadiers/Rifles are murderous!

 

[TheMeInTeam]

The CR III troops are pretty godly upgraded. And...enough experience implies these will be upgraded.

Combat line makes most sense since you don't know whether what is defending will be gunpowder, archery (in the rifle era possibly), or bizzare crape like MG's (siege technically) or armor/mounted. Combat is the most versatile by far after CR.

 

[AndrewN]

The city raider troops (melee and siege) get the city raider. I do this mainly because if you pick a specific bonus then you will invariably get a different defender to attack where as the CR promotions are valid against all defenders. The bigger attack bonus is just the icing on the cake.

As pointed out the AI tends to huddle in its cities when attacked which makes a mainly CR promoted stack a valid one, it might not work in multiplayer.

For open field and stack defence then I will use other promotions, depending on the circumstance.

 

[PieceOfMind]

The true city raider troops are the ones that attack first after siege damage, and these are not normally considered the units that benefit most from Drill. The drill line should usually only be used if you expect to get Drill 4. This is easy when you are either Protective or Charismatic.

Remember that usually units that get CR promotions do not have access to Drill too. If maces could get drill after CR3 I'm pretty sure that would be better than combat (try it in WB if you want to check).

Before musketmen come about, my city attacks normally consist of a few knights, a couple CR maces, and a few longbows with drill 3 or 4, as well as siege of course, and a pikeman or two, plus a healer.

By the way, I would be willing to put forward the (virtual) bet that after CR3, the drill line would almost always be better than combat, unless you don't use any siege at all. Any takers? (I could be wrong)... and consider the comparison at least from C2 compared with D2... D1 is a very lousy promotion by itself.

 

[PieceOfMind]

By the way, if you can come up with a realistic test battle, where an attacker already has CR3 and you are wondering whether to choose C1 or D1 (or c1,c2 or d1,d2 etc.) then let me know and I'll run it through the calculator I have.

I'm worried about Drill cos it's not getting any love so far (0 votes ).

 

[carl corey]

I didn't vote for anything. Let's say that you'll knock down cultural defenses first with accuracy-promoted siege. Once that's done, the drill could be interesting if you also have a healthy supply of CR or Barrage siege that can perform suicide attacks, since your opponents will already be badly hurt and few free rounds is all that's needed to finish them off. On the other hand if you can't afford to have suicidal siege units you'd need at least a few very strong Rifles to deal with the top defenders. Against a CG3 Rifle you'd be at 50% if you only have CRIII. With Drill I & II you'd be a bit over 50%. With Combat I & II you'd jump a bit more. But I bet that with Combat I + Pinch there would be no contest. I don't know how to include Drill promotions in the percentages exactly, but I think I got it right. You could probably do a test with these three cases to see what happens.

If you or the target are protective, charismatic, aggressive, have more/less CR/CG promotions, etc. things change of course.

 

[Bleys]

I almost always go Combat I, Pinch, Combat II and III.

 

[Ormur]

I'm not sure I'm doing things as best I could but usually my city raiders are Quechuas, axemen, swordmen and macemen that often have promotions like combat I, anti-archery and anti-melee plus city raider. I upgrade the survivors to the newest unit but after I upgrade them to riflemen the CR promotions isn't available anymore. I try to build a lot of macemen and upgrade them only when I have to.

In the renaissance I usually end up with a lot of riflemen that have the CR promotions and often combat I+ too. Then I start giving them drill. Should I continue up the combat path instead of going for drill?

 

[Phatkarp]

In the renaissance I usually end up with a lot of riflemen that have the CR promotions and often combat I+ too. Then I start giving them drill. Should I continue up the combat path instead of going for drill?

I suggest you pick one or the other and stick with it. That is, either go all combat or all drill. Don't do combat 1 then drill 1.