promotion question

[Proteus_MST]

Originally posted by LordShiva


This is still possibly problematic, if promotions are preserved with upgrades. A unit that's been upgraded from a 4000 BC warrior shouldn't be invincible in 2000 AD. Perhaps upgrades should lead to "demotions"?

Maybe, like in previous Civ-Games,
units are upgradable only to a certain amount,
i.e. at one time the Upgrade changes them into a unit type that cannot be upgraded any longer (Cavalry would be a good example for such a dead end as they cannot upgraded to more modern types of units [like tanks]).

[Addled Platypus]

Originally posted by LordShiva


Perhaps upgrades should lead to "demotions"?

sounds like a winner to me

[sophist]

It wouldn't be invincible. It would just be powerful. Even that would be hard to achieve, though, because to earn 10 promotions would require the unit to be victorious 1024 times. I don't know what you consider invincible, but under such a diminishing returns scheme, you'd rarely have any units with more than 4 or 5 promotions.

[Aro]

Seems reasonable to me.

[LordShiva]

Originally posted by sophist
It wouldn't be invincible. It would just be powerful. Even that would be hard to achieve, though, because to earn 10 promotions would require the unit to be victorious 1024 times. I don't know what you consider invincible, but under such a diminishing returns scheme, you'd rarely have any units with more than 4 or 5 promotions.

Yes that sounds reasonable.

I guess my concern was more with promotions being preserved through upgrades - in my mind there's no reason why a unit that started out as a completely different unit 1000s of years ago should be significantly more powerful than a younger one.

[Solver]

Well, but by that logic, your old units can also get more powerful in other ways. You have a Chariot. Later, you build a Knight. Even later, you upgrade your old Chariot now to Cavalry, which is better than a Knight.

Instant unit upgrading isn't realistic. Units surviving for 1000 years isn't realistic. But it's pretty fun. Promotions NOT disappearing when you upgrade your units is definitely the simplest way to handle it - I sincerely doubt, though, it could lead to balance problems. If you upgrade your promoted Chariot to a Knight, you get a promoted Knight. Your new Knights can also get the same promotions later. It's not as if you upgrade an old Chariot to a Knight which is suddenly as good as a Tank.