Cost so much to upgrade unit

[yadaking]

I can't believe it costs so much to upgrade old unit to modern forms. Like spearmans or like to granaders. It only takes me anywhere from 4 to 8 turns to manufactuer them, but it cost like $200 to upgrade each unit.

If I don't want to spend that much money upgrading, what can I do with them? Have them hunt for food in farm? LOL. I remember the old Civ, there is improvement that can reduce the cost to upgrade unit. Besides, it didn't cost more than $150 to upgrade most units.

Am I missing something here? Did I overlook any city improvement?

[Arrian]

Nope, upgrades just cost a lot now. The idea is to kill the old CivIII style mass upgrade approach. I still do upgrade somewhat, but you will find yourself building more new units.

Sometimes you want to pay the money, though, for experienced units.

-Arrian

[Addled Platypus]

Originally posted by Arrian

Sometimes you want to pay the money, though, for experienced units.

-Arrian

amen

depending on the era, they dont have to be in city either, just in your boundry.

[ZargonX]

I thought the upgrade prices were pretty reasonable for letting me keep a core army of highly experienced soldiers through the years!

[Proteus_MST]

Yep, therefore If I´m at war I try to upgrade only those units which already have some experience
and use the remainder of my gold to hurry the production of new units within my cities,
If I let the city produce part of the production costs for a modern unit on its own and buy the unit then, after maybe 3-4 turns, this way it costs much less than upgrading older inexperienced units.

[Shr3dZ]

So since old units cant be transoformed/disbanded into shield towards your next unit - and if you leave them to do battle later on they just give your opponent basically free experience for their troops, are obsolete units completely useless?

-I suppose you could go pillage, but not with the 1 movement swordsmen or something, too ineffective...

-They could be fortified for that +1 happy bonus.

-They may be costing you money.

[Arkalius]

One thing to note about upgraded units...

They will maintain whatever level they are and keep all their promotions even if the promotion isn't valid for the type of unit you're upgrading to. However, an upgraded unit with more than 10 experience points will have it's experience reset to 10. It doesn't affect the level as I said, but if you have say a level 5 unit which has at least 17xp and needs 26 to reach level 6, it will have it's experience dropped to 10, and you will need to gain 16 more experience just to get to level 6 instead of the 9 more if it maintained its 17xp.

[Acidyl]

So that's what is was.

I was just about to create a thread about how I seem to have lost all my money (a couple of thousands) in like a very short time without knowing why. I must have upgraded every unit that I could, I only had like 23 gold left . Oh well, another lesson learnt.

[Proteus_MST]

Originally posted by Shr3dZ
So since old units cant be transoformed/disbanded into shield towards your next unit - and if you leave them to do battle later on they just give your opponent basically free experience for their troops, are obsolete units completely useless?

-I suppose you could go pillage, but not with the 1 movement swordsmen or something, too ineffective...

-They could be fortified for that +1 happy bonus.

-They may be costing you money.

Yep, I normally use them as garrisons for cities at some distance away from the enemy border.
The may not be worth a lot in combat, but if the enemy makes a sneak attack behind the lines (for example via units loaded on ships) and you don´t have the time to move your modern frontline units there, these old, outdated units could save your cities, as you could still upgrade one or more of them (if you have some reserves of money) to more modern units, which could repulse the attack

[Dr.Zoidberg]

expensive upgrades causes ai to keep around hordes of obsolete units.

[MattPilot]

Here's the cost break down to upgrade:


You got a base cost of 25 + 3 per hammer of difference there is between the old unit and the new unit.

Example: Archer -> Longbowman. Archer costs 25 and a longbowman 50 hammers. Difference is 25. Multiply that by 3 and add the base cost of 25 and you get an upgrade cost of 100.



Now get this.... Rushing a new unit or most buildings costs only 3 gold per hammer, if the production has already started, even if its a production overflow from the last build.

If you start a unit from stratch, with no production overflow, then it will cost you 4.5 gold per hammer.

Rushing a wonder will cost you 4 gold per hammer.

One thing i can't figure out is that while rushing a certain state religion temple (or monastary, can't recall) it was only 2 gold per hammer.


**edit:

So basically, upgrading is only useful if you are in dire need of good units because of an impending attack, or you are filthy rich.

The loss of XP while upgrading annoyed the hell outa me. I changed it to not do that anymore.

[asleepathewheel]

be careful if you hit alt to upgrade all if you don't have all the cash. FWICT, it upgrades units in your oldest cities first, so your capital which is fine with a warrior as the garrison will suddenly have a grenadier instead.

[Nacht]

Originally posted by MattPilot
One thing i can't figure out is that while rushing a certain state religion temple (or monastary, can't recall) it was only 2 gold per hammer.

Were you playing a spiritual civ?

Informative post btw

[krytonix]

Originally posted by MattPilot
So basically, upgrading is only useful if you are in dire need of good units because of an impending attack, or you are filthy rich.

Although this assumes you have universal sufferage which is not the case for a considerable portion of many games (the ones where you're beaten to the pyramids). Good info in general, thx!

[MattPilot]

Originally posted by krytonix


Although this assumes you have universal sufferage which is not the case for a considerable portion of many games (the ones where you're beaten to the pyramids). Good info in general, thx!

True.. Didn't consider that.

It's all hypothetical anyway