Firaxis: How about a Training promotion?

[Willem]

There's been some discussion regarding the high cost of upgrading units. The consensus is that for the most part, it's better to just disband most of the old units and keep the ones that have more promotions. But it would make it much easier to do if at, say 5th level, we could add a Training promotion that reduced the cost of upgrading for that unit by 25-50%. This would represent the idea that the unit is more intelligent than most of the other soldiers and easier to retrain for new tactics and weapons.

[rjwoer]

Excellent idea, IMHO. This is a well balanced way to handle the ridiculously high costs of upgrading units.

Motion seconded.

[Kuciwalker]

I'd be a bit at wasting a whole promotion on it, though.

[xxFlukexx]

That is not the consensus, I like to upgrade my units and do it often. Grenadiers with City Raider III are one of the most powerful things in the game, now those things just annihilate. Choppers with Medic are pretty nifty too. Disbanding units is usually not a good idea unless you are playing on Noble and research very fast.

Having a 5th level promotion cut costs by 25-50%? You wouldn't even feel that, that wouldn't reduce your cost of upgrading your whole army by much. Now a World Wonder that reduced upgrade costs by 20%, that would be great.

[Feyd]

I upgrade my units and never delete them. I always have gold in my games, but city production is not something I want to use to rebuild defenders. Also, it allows me to keep my troops from the start of the game who all have 10 xp and nice upgrades because they were barbarian fighters.

[Axxaer]

Originally posted by Feyd
I always have gold in my games

What difficulty? (Seriously)

[Feyd]

Warlord or Noble. Either or, by the time I get gunpowder I'm raking in cash good enough to upgrade and still maintain a tech lead.

I like a game that I dominate, but at the same time face SOME challenge.

Heh... I've been thinking for awhile they should make a "lowbies" section for those of us who aren't good enough to cut it above noble.



Feyd

[Willem]

Originally posted by Feyd
Warlord or Noble. Either or, by the time I get gunpowder I'm raking in cash good enough to upgrade and still maintain a tech lead.

I wish I knew your secret. I play on Noble and I have a hard time coming up with cash, especially in the early game. I tend to be 4th or 5th in tech so when I do start making some money, I have to crank my research in order to catch up. I certainly don't have the cash to upgrade all those units. The game I finished recently I had my research up to 90% by the modern era, and I was still only in second place.

[Willem]

Originally posted by Kuciwalker
I'd be a bit at wasting a whole promotion on it, though.

Why not have it as a bonus promotion? If the idea is that these units are more intelligent than the ones who have fallen in battle, that would be an inherent thing, not something you need to give them. So any unit that reaches 5th level automatically gets it. I feel something like that would personalize a unit a bit more. Maybe there could be 2 ranks, one at 5th for a 25% reduction and one at 7th or 10th for another 25%. It would be a reward for having the unit survive that long.

[Adagio]

Originally posted by xxFlukexx
Now a World Wonder that reduced upgrade costs by 20%, that would be great.

I like that idea... but what wonder could that be?

[Tattila the Hun]

How about, make the training promotion similar to heal, so that it takes percentage off from upgrading units on the same tile? Maybe required to be in city for it to work?

[Adagio]

Speaking of upgrades:

I'd like to see old units gets upgraded automaticly after some time for free, though not to the newest unit of that type (unless you have invented Future Tech)
A unit that has been obsolete for a long time, maybe 50 turns after an upgrade for that unit has become avaliable, all units of that type upgrades to that upgrade (even though a better upgrade is avaliable)
This means that if you have an archer, then you invent the longbow, and 50 turns later, the archer upgrades (for free) to a longbowman

I'm just tired of seeing archers in 2000 AD, when I'm not interested in wasting money for an upgrade because the enemy can't attack there anyway

[Vlad Antlerkov]

Originally posted by Adagio



I like that idea... but what wonder could that be?

Nano Factory Leonardo's Workshop.

[ChaotikVisions]

There is an easy and simple way to have gold for upgrade and thats not having your science slider at max all the time. Either lower alot for a few turns or lower it slightly to get a steady buildup of income. This of course doesn't help in the ancient ages, only when your economy gets going. But i've done this as a warmonger and have been able to keep all my units upgraded. It would be even easier for a builder with less units.

Yes this does mean your science won't the best possible but i've done this in my games and still managed to lead in tech/keep tech parity.

[TheHateMale]

Do you get anything from disbanding a unit in this one? (Civ3 gave some shields if disbanded in a city IIRC. Not enough to make it really exploitable though).

I still like gifting outdated units to civs that I'm not planning on going to war with anytime soon/want to ally with in a war. Loading up transports and shiping the units off to another continent...