Upgrading units too costly?

[Diadem]

Are upgrade costs dependent on game speed by the way? They should be I guess, but I never noticed this I think.

I agree that upgrading is too expensive. In fact, if you have The Kremlin, then rushbuying units is often cheaper. Rushbuying a infantry from scratch costs 165 gold. Upgrading a grenadier costs 145, while an axeman costs 340 gold.

That's just stupid!

[Provost Harrison]

Yeah, it is a cost that needs to be seriously dropped...

[Diadem]

Another example: Rushbuying a Mech Inf costs 225 with Kremlin, while upgrading an infantry to a Mech Inf costs 205.

What's the point in upgrading then?

[GeoModder]

Originally posted by Diadem
What's the point in upgrading then?

Depends if you need to keep busy with constructing an infrastructure after your basic defense is in order or not. Upgrading a few well-promoted units may be the thing that keeps an other civ off your throat. Remember that the defender more offen then not has the benefit (at least in my experience).

[ghen]

Upgrading military forces is hard, time consuming, and expensive. Its not a matter of puting a rifle in an axeman's hands.. its about the training, maneuvers, teamwork, etc. that is involved to make that unit just as good as any newly produced unit but with all the old one's experience.

Upgrades should be done quite sparingly, and only if you really really need it, like if there's an army at your doorstep. Otherwise, keep those old units for random pillagings deep in enemy territory when you aren't looking to get them back

[Strategist83]

See my thread about the same subject: http://www.apolyton.com/forums/showt...hreadid=145069

[Willem]

Originally posted by Provost Harrison
Yeah, it is a cost that needs to be seriously dropped...

Or we should at least have a National Wonder that reduces the cost considerably at some point. I found it rather silly that I was scrounging the money in the modern era to upgrade the Longbowman I still hadn't been able to upgrade.

[Willem]

One thought I just had, we could have a special Training promotion which would allow you to upgrade a particular unit at a reduced cost. Make it a 3rd-5th level promotion so only your more elite units would be eligible. It would indicate that the unit who had the promotion was a bit more intelligent and flexible than the average grunt, and had been around long enough to learn a few lessons.

[Strategist83]

Willem, that is just brilliant!

[Willem]

Originally posted by Strategist83
Willem, that is just brilliant!

Well hopefully someone at Firaxis has been following this thread and considers it. It makes a lot of sence to me. I can understand why the costs are so high, my last game I had so many old units hanging around I wouldn't have had to build any new ones if it would have been easy to upgrade them all. At least with a promotion like that, we could pick and choose which units we want to keep, and dump the rest if we run of cash.

[bonscott]

I think too many people try to upgrade all their units. You really only need to upgrade your longbows that are on the front, correct? Why upgrade them in your well defended/hard to reach core or backside? Don't waste the money. Only upgrade units that you really need to.

And I bring level2/3 city defense upgraded longbows along with my more modern army all the time. They work pretty well as extra units to wittle down a counter attack in a just taken city. Plus with those city def. promotions they can hange toe to toe with even grenaders and rifles for a time. Long enough to get reinforcements in anyway. You wouldn't want only them but a couple plus a couple grenaders/rifles and you've got a decent defense for a turn or two to bring up more units. And sometimes that's all you need.

[Willem]

Originally posted by bonscott
I think too many people try to upgrade all their units. You really only need to upgrade your longbows that are on the front, correct? Why upgrade them in your well defended/hard to reach core or backside? Don't waste the money. Only upgrade units that you really need to.

For me it's a matter of principle. I don't like the idea that I have these archaic units hanging around even though they can do the job just as well as one the brand spanking new. I want to feel that my empire is up to date.

[DrSpike]

Upgrade costs are high yes, but I think it's about right. The balance consideration is that you shouldn't be able to defend your empire on the cheap with one set of units you produce in the ancient era. There is also the old build stack of x, get tech, upgrade to stack of y on the cheap trick, which I wont miss.

[Proteus_MST]

And after all in Civ IV (unlike previous Civ-Versions) you are able to get a full range of promotions for your units, which is another good reason to make upgrades more costly, so that it isn´t too easy for you to upgrade your high-level veterans
(although there might be a solution:
Make two kinds of upgrade:
1. The Veteran upgrade, which is more expensive than the upgrades are to date, but works like the current upgrades, i.e. the unit gets upgraded and retains all of its promotions as well as its XP up to level 10.
2. The "normal" upgrade which is much cheaper than the upgrades to date. The unit gets upgraded but looses all of its promotions and XP (or at least retains only the promotions it earned till level 2 but looses everything that it earned above that))

[mgdpublic]

The only issue I might take with the upgrading costs are the differential between upgrading early game and late, the latter being too easy relative to the former.

I for one like the high upgrade costs. It makes for tough choices as to when to build your military and it makes it so you can't buy your way out of poor planning. If you find it difficult to upgrade while maintaining full-bore research that's because that is a reality of budgeting.