Upgrading units too costly?

[Willem]

I just finished a pretty peaceful game, my neighbour and I only had one small war at the beginning of the game so I was able to stockpile all of my forces. But I just couldn't manage to make enough money to upgrade them all. By the end of the game, I still had a whack of Rifleman/Grenadiers that I just didn't get around to since I was still upgrading units like Knights and Spearman.

I think either the costs should be reduced or we should get some National Wonder that reduces the costs involved, like Leonardo's Workshop in Civ 3. It's a bit silly that I still have Longbowmen hanging around when I'm able to build Marines.

[GeoModder]

That's what I use my Great Merchants for. Gettin' cash for the army.

It of course helps if you don't build too many units.

[Willem]

Originally posted by GeoModder
That's what I use my Great Merchants for. Gettin' cash for the army.

It of course helps if you don't build too many units.

Well I kept hoping a Great Merchant would pop up but he never did. And after seeing what the other civs were doing when I got my religion established in their cities, my forces weren't any less numerous than theirs. In fact throughout the game, I was always the second most powerful nation. So I don't think I was being excessive.

As for the Merchant, it wouldn't have helped much anyway. I checked my Frigates at the end of the game, I think I only had about 8-10 of them, and it was going to cost over 6000 gold just for those units, never mind all my others.

[Jaybe]

Selective unit upgrades is the key. And lest you wonder how the AI can upgrade their units seemingly whenever they want, understand they pay less: they pay only 45% on SETTLER, and goes down 5% per difficulty level. Allows them to stay in the game.

[Axxaer]

I agree that they seem too high initially, although after I spread 3 religions across half the world, forced an AI to a very expensive treaty, sold most of my excess techs and put the research slider down to 50%, I was rolling in enough money to upgrade every unit in the world... almost

[Medic911]

axxaer has a point, but i still think that it is outrageous. even Ethiopian militants and the Taliban and people like that can find the cash to buy stingers, rpgs and ak 47, 74, ms etc. but the thing is, there is no way to do that in civ4. basic income is too small for not being able to build an improvement or wonder that upgrades units cheaper.

p.s. not that any of that matters, i have almost 20 started games, and they have all crashed before the end of middle ages, and when i re-load them, its the same thing.

to all those that have a working civ4, have fun with it!

[Willem]

Originally posted by Axxaer
I agree that they seem too high initially, although after I spread 3 religions across half the world, forced an AI to a very expensive treaty, sold most of my excess techs and put the research slider down to 50%, I was rolling in enough money to upgrade every unit in the world... almost

Well part of the problem was having to crank my research up as high I could go in order to keep up to the top civ. At the end of the game I was running at 90% research and I never quite caught up to him, I was alway a close second. I've tried various strategies for getting ahead early in the game, but I always find myself towards the bottom of the pack when I finally make contact with all the civs, and I have to scramble to catch up. I guess I'll have to work on that one some more.

Still, it would be nice to see a Leonardo type National Wonder in the game, even if it only made things 25% cheaper. Somewhere around the time of Rifleman/Grenadiers would be nice. It's pretty costly trying to upgrade all those Longbowman, Spearman etc.

[Willem]

BTW, do we get hammers if we disband units in a city? I've tried to do that but I get no indication that this is the case, so I stopped doing it. I just disband where they stand if I do it.

[Enigma_Nova]

No, make it available at Machinery. After all, Leonardo was famous for inventing lots of mechanical gadgets, and such a wonder would come around the time you want to start upgrading things - at Guilds and Engineering.

[Saurus]

Upgrading units sure is one of the most tricky things in CIV 4. And this aspect of the game is abit unbalanced as well I think.
This is because during the early phases of the game, the upgrading cost is just plainly insanely high while during the later eras this is no longer a problem at all.
During early game, the game is so artificially made to counter the human player - Insane upgrade costs, wild animals that kill only human players, barbarians that A.I-player gets bonuses against.
Generaly I think upgrading should be cheaper. Expecialy during the ancient+classical eras.

[Thrax]

Upgrade costs are high yes, while i was playing victoria english (fin trait FTW) damn i could get enough money for the trick at max tax, still a few turns saving but doable.

However mostly, just build new units is faster, use ur old as cannon fodder

On epic though time went to fast, so you skip middle ages and cavelry, start that tank production.. On Marathon speed this might be quite different.

[Proteus_MST]

Jep, upgrading units is only interesting for those units which already have gained some experience.
For all of the other units it might be better to build new units instead of upgrading them

[Tattila the Hun]

Or use them as military police.

[LDiCesare]

On standard speed/standard map size it's almost useless to upgrade any unit. 100 is a typical cost (to upgrade warriors, axemen, archers...), and if you keep that in order to keep better science, you'll often gain a tech 2 turns earlier than if you updated a mighty ONE unit. Scrap it and rebuild one is almost always better.

[Cort Haus]

I think it depends on whether you have a commercial or production oriented economy. If you have cottages everywhere, you can lower the slider and make gold for upgrades without slowing tech too much. 50% of a lot is more than 90% of not much. If, OTOH you have loads of mined hills and can pop new units out in no time, but a low GNP, then it's better to rebuild.