a few observations on leader generation

[Mr. T]

I have been playing mostly non-militaristic civilizations (Greeks, Persians, Indians, French etc.) so these observations may be different for militaristic civs, when I played the Germans I was getting a lot of leaders, and I thought it was commonplace, so I didn't pay much attention to the specifics of the situations.

I am not entirely sure about any of this info, these are trends from my realtively small sample size, feel free to add experiances they will likely be helpful for us all, case-studies if you will.

*it seems that leaders are more likely to be created in close battles
meaning, my unit loses more damage points and the battle is realtively close. I have never gotten a leader from a perfect (my unit keeps 5 points) battle.

*f your unit faces a strong unit it seems more likely to make a leader
so, if your horsemen beats a pikeman that appears more likely to create a leader than if your tank beats said pikeman.

I haven't paid much attention to this but ow does the initial dattus of the opposing unit factor in. If you beat an elite or veteran unit, is that more likely to produce a leader than beating a normal 3 damage or a conscrpit? I think it is likely....

what are your guys expiriances? are these general observations decent?

[Thoth]

I don't have any hard data, but your observations seem to be correct. My last game (as the Greeks, Monarch, standard map, 8 civs, archipeligo) I got 3 leaders (all late the first was in 1420 or so). All appeared after a close fought battle (all were against infantry in cities). None appeared after any of my many victories with tanks against archers.

[Magician]

Originally posted by Mr. T
*f your unit faces a strong unit it seems more likely to make a leader
so, if your horsemen beats a pikeman that appears more likely to create a leader than if your tank beats said pikeman.

I haven't paid much attention to this but ow does the initial dattus of the opposing unit factor in. If you beat an elite or veteran unit, is that more likely to produce a leader than beating a normal 3 damage or a conscrpit? I think it is likely....

what are your guys expiriances? are these general observations decent?

I got 2 leaders when 20 riders & calvarys tries to attack my army of 3 elite modern armor.. I am not playing a militaristic civ tho

[Mr. T]

any thoughts on how combat involving armies effects leader production? my original post was about individual units, although you bring up an interesting wrinckle

[DK36]

I've noticed that the more battles that unit faces THAT TURN, the more likely he is to advance in rank (and possibly to leader). For example, I've noticed this pattern everytime the situation brought it up (keep in mind this is 1 turn): a guy attacks my regular, my regular wins, a guy attacks my regular, regular becomes veteran, a guy attacks my veteran, veteran becomes elite. I'm assuming you can do a similar recreation of this and greatly increase your chances of dishing a leader out.

Also, I heard someone say once that capturing a capitol gives you a leader. My experiences say otherwise. Anyone have any comments on this?

[Bishop420]

On a several "warm-up" games played out until about 1000 A.D., I noticed that I would get about 2 leaders total, often using militaristic civs on high levels. Now playing Egypt, I am well into the 1600s and I have not seen even one leader. I do recall two specific times where I attacked a stronger unit with an already damaged unit of my own and that did it.

If only elites can get leaders, and militaristic civs advance unit ranks faster, and leaders produce wonders, I think I wanna restart my game....

[Skanky Burns]

Ive crushed many an enemy capital, and no Great Leader appeared to greet my weary armies...

On the other hand, i HAVE generated GLs from tank battles. I was fighting against Infantry or Riflemen at the time though.

[LaRusso]

russians and germans give me leaders. late greeks too, in some massive tank battles. however, i got absolutely none of them with babs (whole game) and indians. since indians are currently in some massive world war....it can happen. btw...naval units cannot get you a leader, right?

[Thunderfire]

Hmm yes it is very likely that tough battles will produce more leader
atleast my last game with the americans suggests this. This was on
monarch difficulty doing my best to defend Leeds form hordes of aztec
swordsman and longbowman. That town produced 3 great leaders
in 5 turns...

[Hurry]

If only elites can get leaders, and militaristic civs advance unit ranks faster, and leaders produce wonders, I think I wanna restart my game....

Yes, only elites can produce leaders.

Some of you say that you have got leaders after defending. This has never happened to me - all my leaders (as well as all enemy leaders) have shown up after a successful *attack*. Of course. this i probably just coincidence. since you will use elites for attacking more than defending.

Someone mentioned (in another thread) that there is a 1/16 chance of producing a leader. Any facts to prove this?

[9 ECAC Titles]

I believe the stat quoted (from the properties file) was that it was about 1/16 without the army-improving wonder (I forget which it is), and then 1/12 with it, with numbers a little better for the Militarist Civs.

Contrary to what I've been reading, I've found almost all my leaders were generated fairly early (say, late middle ages), but this tends to be when there are closer battles. In the modern age, you are often either way ahead or way behind.

In my current game on Monarch, I launched several half-assed assaults on opp cities with superior, but too few, units. These were done in by a combination of typically bad luck on my cannon bombardment, atypically bad luck on head-2-head, and really bad strategy by me splitting and resplitting until I needed to depend on say 4 or 5 cav taking out 2 rifle defenders (possible, but not something you want to depend upon, esp. when the rifle are behind city walls). I got creamed, but when I finally got around in a few turns to taking those cities, damn near every one had someone popped out a leader (and then, inexplicably, not cashed them in).

[Nadexander]

Originally posted by LaRusso
btw...naval units cannot get you a leader, right?

I beleive someone on this board posted that they got a leader after winning with an elite battleship (John Paul Jones of the Americans). No common, but possible.

[MadWombat]

Well, I have had plenty of leaders so far, but I have noticed one thing; I don't think you can have more than one leader at a time. In my game, I decided the time was ripe to kill everyone (ie, I discovered synth fibres, and no one else had ecology yet....).

One of my first combats netted me a leader. I kept that leader for the rest of the game, and never made another. This was after destroying three civilizations completely (and yes, I always make optimal use of elite units).

I have never gotten a defensive leader, but apparently, from this thread, they do happen. =]

I DO get leaders from battles that aren't close (ie, still at 5 pts, and get a leader), and also from beating on weaker enemies (my modern armour hit a spearman and gave me a leader).

[Kinjiru]

You can definitely have more than one leader at a time. I have had upto three at once and I have seen the AI (Russians) have five at once, including three created in the same turn.

[inca911]

I had two leaders created when I took 2 enemy capitals (the first time I took each one's capital). Most likely it is just coincidence, but I now make sure that an Elite unit is the one to defeat the last defender and enter the capital (just in case).

[Capt Dizle]

I was just trolling with the John Paul Jones thing. A hoax. Sorry.

[Hurry]

I did a bit of testing. As you know, if you reload the random seed will be the same as last time. So, if you get a Leader, you will get one if you reload and try again. My (very limited) testing showed that en elite unit got a Leader each time another unit would have been upgraded. However, if I already had got one, nothing would happen after my elite won (even if a veteran would be upgraded).

This leads to the conclusions:

* The probability of getting a Leader is less if you recently got one.
* Getting a Leader corresponds with upgrading. However, the actual probability is unknown to me. One would believe that the probability is higher for upgrading than for Leader-spawning, but my results show an equal probability.

[9 ECAC Titles]

> My (very limited) testing showed that en elite unit got a Leader each time another unit would have been upgraded. However, if I already had got one, nothing would happen after my elite won (even if a veteran would be upgraded).

I don't quite follow this. Are you saying that once a given elite unit has generated a leader then that particular unit can't generate another one?

[rah]

Jeeze, if that's it, I can see all the reseters cheering now.

If they have a stack of vet and elite units doing an attack and one of their vets wins and gets upgraded, just reset and do the attack with an elite unit, instant leader.

At least this should be easy to verify. God, I hope it's not that predictable.

RAH

[Arrian]

I just thought I'd mention that I have gotten a leader from a defensive battle. If I recall correctly (this happened a few weeks ago) it was a Bab. bowman defending vs. and Impi. Just so ya know.

Also, I was playing around with one of my first Monarch games (the first few went... poorly) and decided to go back, via the autosave, and do something a bit differently. The autosave I chose happened to coincide with my seige of Athens. The first time around, I took the city without incident. This time, however, I must have varied something, because I got a leader. This seems to support what Hurry is saying. If it is the case, just don't exploit it.

-Arrian

[kmrmjm]

Just an observation .... but leaders appear to be pretty powerful things - wonder completion, army creation - and you can only obtain them by warfare.

Not played many games yet , but this seems to be a pretty harsh thing if you decide to play a peaceful game and not use the military option at all.

Are there actually any bonuses to not being at war ? In the older games didn't being pacifistic improve your score ?

There seems to be no reason not to be militaristic and obnoxious ( like the russians,germans ) in this .

Kev

[ledj]

I had an impression that if you use your elite uu to win a battle you had a better chance of getting a leader. Did any one had a similar experience?

[Hurry]

In my test I was waging a war against the Babylonians (I am the Greeks). I have Armor, Artillery and Infantry, while the Babs have Cavalry and Infantry and just got Artillery. I am now attacking several of his cities and have little trouble. Anyway, this is how I tested.

I recorded the exact outcome of each battle, and also recorded the number of random events needed for each battle. For example, if my veteran armor attacks a conscript infantry in mountains, the battle outcome might be Hit (on the infantry), Wound (on my tank), Hit (and the Inf dies). This requires three random numbers. Another one is needed to decide whether the tank is upgraded or not, making a total of four events.

After recording a number of events (about 40), I reloaded and made my attacks in a different order with different units and again recorded the results. As you know, the random seed won´t change by reloading, so results can to some extent be predicted.

EVENT__UNIT_HPs_DEFENDER ___HPs_OUTCOME_____EXTRAS
1-9_____Arm__5__Inf, fort, city ___3__NWWWHHWH__Not upg
10-12___Arm__4__Inf, fort, city ___2__HH___________Not upg
13-16___Arm__5__Inf, city_______2__WHH __________UPG/Leader!

TEST2:
1-4_____Arm__5__Inf, fort, city ___3___AWWW______Retreated
5-7_____Arm__5__Inf, Mountn. ___2___HH__________Not upg
8-14____Arm__4__Inf, fort, city ___3___CWHHWW____Def not upg
15-16___Arm__5__Cavalry,clear ___1___H___________UPG/Leader!
17-22___Arm__4__Inf, fort, city ___2____HWWWH_____Not upg
23-26___Arm__3__Inf, city _______2____HWWW_______Def not upg
28-29___Arm__5__Inf, fort, city____1____H____________Leader*

Event: Number of random events
Arm: Armor
HPs: Number of hit points
Defender: Type of defender (Inf=Infantry, Cav=Cavalry) and terrain (fort=fortified, city=metropolis-sized city)
Outcome: N=not hit by cannon, W=attacked wounded, H=defender wounded, A=1 hit by defending artillery barrage, C=1 hit by defending cannon barrage.
Extras: Retreated=faster unit retreat from battle. Neither side have the chance to upgrade, Not upg/Def not upg=unit not upgraded (def when defender won battle). Elite units which would have been upgraded instead spawn a Leader.
* See below

The interesting thing concerns event 29. If I had got a Leader from event 16, nothing would happen if I used an elite unit at event 29. If I here had a veteran or less experienced unit, it would get upgraded. But, if I used a veteran or less experienced unit at event 16 (which, thus, would be upgraded and not spawn a leader), and an elite at event 29, a Leader would be spawned from this battle!

As you can see, it is the event number (or actually, the random number residing at that event) which decides when a unit will be upgraded - not anything like hard or thight battles, or capturing the enemy capital. In Test2 my elite Armor spawned a leader after killing a 1HP Cavalry in clear. Not exactly a hard-fought win!

As you can see, this is a test on a very small scale, and I can only say that it is less probable to get a second leader if you recently got one. As some have pointed out, several leaders can be spawned the same turn, so there must be something more complex involved than just a simple "No More Leaders In The Next 10 Turns For You"-routine. It might be that there is a sliding percentage. I had not got a leader for a long time before this test, so it might be that the chance of spawning a leader was the same as for upgrading. When I got one, it could have jumped up again to a much lesser probability.

Sorry for the long post, but I felt this needed some thorough explanation.

[karlmarx9001]

'As you can see, this is a test on a very small scale, and I can only say that it is less probable to get a second leader if you recently got one. As some have pointed out, several leaders can be spawned the same turn, so there must be something more complex involved than just a simple "No More Leaders In The Next 10 Turns For You"-routine. It might be that there is a sliding percentage. I had not got a leader for a long time before this test, so it might be that the chance of spawning a leader was the same as for upgrading. When I got one, it could have jumped up again to a much lesser probability.'

As the chance of a getting a leader for winning with an elite is only 1/16th, what you're seeing is probably random chance. The chance of generating a leader is so low that you'll see inconsistent results over a small sample set.

Here's my speculation as to how its all generated:

The game uses a psuedo-random number generator which produces a random number, given a seed. The seed is saved in the same game. Every time a random number is generated, the seed is slightly changed based on the action being taken, then applied to the function, and a percentage result is produced (50%, 73.4%, whatever). That number is then used for whatever action just occured. This explains why you get the same results on save/reload, but if you do actions in a different order you get different results. That the seed is modified by the details of what you're doing (map square, probably, among other things) keeps you from reloading and attacking under the same conditions elsewhere in the game, and getting the same result, which probably looks a little too deterministic for players.

The implications of this system are that if you're willing to waste the time, you can reload a save game over and over and do things in a different order until you get an "optimum" result. Also, diplomacy appears to involve some random generation, so that can also be used to advance the seed. It just stops save/reloading every time you lose a battle.

To really test leader generation, you'd probably need to have something like 128 elite units in a row win, not just fight. You can't use "promoting veterans" as part of it, as the chance of promotion from veteran to elite seems to be much higher than 1/16th. Now that I think about it, this wouldn't be that hard to do, although boring.

[Nakar Gabab]

I took about 30-40 cities in a single turn the last game I played; I got one leader out of it, and many promotions from veteran to elite. I was using armor, so many of the elite units were attacking after being promoted... but I still didn't notice anything major.

Is everyone SURE you can get more than one leader at a time? I was the Aztecs and I'd figure that sacking dozens upon dozens of units in a turn, with Heroic Epic and the Militaristic trait, would produce 2-3 leaders if it's possible to have that many at once...

[karlmarx9001]

Well, here's an example of why leaders are so hard to get:

Most of my combats are either knights vs. pikeman, cavalry vs. musketmen, or tanks vs. rifleman, with the defenders in size 7-12 cities. According to the combat calculator:

http://www.columbia.edu/~sdc2002/civulator.html

The knights, cavalry, and tanks have a 53%, 60%, and 86% chance of winning, ignoring the fact that some combats will be fought against defenders with less than the full number of hit points for the moment. Dividing by 16, 3.5%, 4%, and 5.5% of elite units should produce units, according to the era of the combat.

That's 1 in 30, 1 in 25, and 1 in 20 of all elite combats. Sounds fine to me.

[Nadexander]

I wish firaxis would just tell us what the equation for deciding the chance a great leader would be spawned instead leaving us quessing! Just a line of code... just one... not enough to reverse engineer anything .. i promise!

[karlmarx9001]

If I remember correctly, I think someone from Firaxis did. They said there was a 1 in 16 chance of a leader appearing anytime an elite land unit wins a battle, with a 1 in 12 chance for militaristic civs.

Or maybe it was from the strategy guide. Can anyone confirm this?

[Hurry]

My point is till valid: there must be more than a fixed probability of getting a leader. Look at my test again.

In event 29 I would ALWAYS get a Leader if I attacked with an elite unit. A non-elite unit would always be upgraded. However, if I already had got a leader in event 16, a new Leader would not appear in event 29. If the only thing considered was if the random number falls under the 1/16 chance, I would get two leaders during my Test2 run. I did not. Only one leader.

So either people are wrong in that you can get several leaders shortly after each other (same round), or then the probability is not fixed.

[MadWombat]

... or the probability is not 1/16.