Upgrading veteran units: Increased upgrade costs instead of lost experience points

[lockstep]

One little thing that bugs me about Civ4 is that high-experience units (more than 10 xp) are reset to 10 xp whenever upgraded. Say, you have a knight with combat IV who is about to reach 26 xp so he can be promoted to commando and use those enemy roads. Then you research Military Tradition and - dang. If you upgrade your combat IV knight to cavalry, he'll be a formidable unit indeed, but chances are high he will never, ever use enemy roads. For me, this isn't fun. It may be one way to preserve game balance, but it still isn't fun.

When Warlords came out, the best gameplay addition for me weren't vassal states or the new traits (though I appreciated those, too). It was the fact that some units (those attached to a warlord) can be upgraded without losing xp. I didn't care too much about upgrading them free of charge - hell, I would have paid a heavy price to retain my precious 10+ xp ... and then I had a sudden inspiration.

Why not handle the upgrading of veteran units this way: Instead of resetting experience points to 10, additional xp's will increase the upgrade cost for the particular unit over and above the normal price (which is 25 + 3 * (difference in hammer costs)). Each additional xp preserved is worth, say, 12 gold. This way, you can have contemporary units that aren't locked forever in their current experience level, but only if you're willing to spend larger amounts of gold. (If preserved xp's aren't worth their price for you, simply upgrade only units with up to 10 xp.)

Numerical example 1: You want to upgrade a unit to its contemporary counterpart which would cost 30 additional hammers if built from scratch. (This is the hammer difference for e.g. swordsman to maceman, musketman to rifleman, rifleman to infantry and knight to cavalry.) The relevant unit has 17 exp (freshly promoted to level 5). Currently, upgrade costs are 115 (25 + (3 * 30)), and the unit is reset to 10 xp. In my proposal, upgrade costs are 199 (25 + (3 * 30) + (12 * 7)), and the unit still has 17 xp (which means an actual chance to reach level 6).

Numerical example 2: You have this combat 4, 25 xp knight that is one xp short of being promoted to commando. You consider upgrading him to cavalry. Currently, you have to pay 115 gold and to forget about the commando promotion. In my proposal, you pay through your nose (295 gold), but your combat 4, commando cavalry is only one xp away.

What do you think - should this change be implemented in Civ4?

[Blaupanzer]

I like the current method. One, the next promotion is only 7 away. Two, in RL, a rearmed knight-style unit would not be nearly as experienced in its new weapons. Since you don't lose previous buffs from promotions, I fail to see the problem. I'm not hardover on this, just don't see the problem. You can choose commando at the 17 experience point.

Note, from a programming POV, your suggestion is probably easier to implement than the current "reset to 10" process.

[lockstep]

Originally posted by Blaupanzer
I like the current method. One, the next promotion is only 7 away.

This isn't true for units that have already reached level 5 before being upgraded. E.g., upgrading a 25/26 xp knight to cavalry will reset his xp not to 10/17, but to 10/26.

Two, in RL, a rearmed knight-style unit would not be nearly as experienced in its new weapons.

I concede that the current way may be more 'realistic'. My point was that, to me, it isn't fun. (The old 'realism vs. fun' debate, again.)

[Brael]

I like it. Units losing exp always annoys me. If you don't upgrade the unit it's going to fall behind and die. If you do upgrade it, it falls behind in exp and likely never promotes again. Going Knight to Cavalry for example you gain 50% strength to lose exp. Keeping that unit as a Knight and getting 1 maybe 2 promotions more, its still going to be weaker than the Cavalry is. Also, unlike what the previous poster said for it not making sense, I think it makes perfect sense. Sure, one part of a promotion represents that units prowess with its weapons but the main part would represent its experience and experience is more about knowing terrain, anticipating enemy tactics, and properly defending yourself, not about being a better marksman (well, unless you were a sniper... but even then it's more knowing the best places to hide, how to get away, patience, etc than being a perfect shot.) Also it makes sense from the perspective that experienced people get promoted for doing well... promotions involve raises, you pay more for more experience... if they're worth it to you, you pay.

[Six Thousand Year Old Man]

I don't see a problem with the change - it seems to be sufficiently expensive to not be an exploit.

The bonus is that you'll be doubly frosted when your 25 XP Cavalry loses a 98% battle

On a related note - is there a formula for assigning XP? Seems to me that I can have 2 Knights attacking 2 fortified Longbows, and one will get 3 XP and the other, only 1 XP...?

[Jaybe]

Choices -- have I heard before that this game is all about choices?
Do I upgrade or do I keep the experience points?
At least I keep the promotions.

I'd keep it as is. I would change OTHER things.

[lockstep]

Originally posted by Six Thousand Year Old Man
On a related note - is there a formula for assigning XP? Seems to me that I can have 2 Knights attacking 2 fortified Longbows, and one will get 3 XP and the other, only 1 XP...?

http://forums.civfanatics.com/showthread.php?t=137615

This is the relevant part:

Originally posted by Arathorn
Experience Points

The winner of combat gains experience points. Like most of combat, experience points are determined by the ratio of strengths. The value is floor(iXPValue*opponent_strength/your_strength), where iXPValue comes from the XML file. For all standard units, iXPValue is 4 for an attacking unit and 2 for a defending unit. The minimum number of experience points for a successful fight is 1, however. The strengths are the displayed modified strengths (from bonuses and hps).

Exceptions: A unit which attacks and retreats gains a single experience point in all cases. The defending unit receives no experience points in this case.

Example: A sword (str:6) attacks a spearman (str:4) on flatlands. If the sword won, he would receive 2 (floor(4*4/6)) xps. The spear would gain 3 (floor(2*6/4)) xps if it won.

Example: A modern armor (str:40) attacks a spear (str:4). If the modern armor wins (odds: 99.999999+%), it gains 1 xp, not 0 (floor(4*4/40)). If the spear wins (odds: 6e^-13), it would gain 20 xp (floor(2*40/4)).

In your example (two knights attacking two longbowmen), the knight that gained more xp for winning did so because he had worse odds than the other knight.

EDIT: The Civfanatics thread may not be updated for Warlords, but IIRC, the xp formula didn't change since Civ4's original release.

[lockstep]

Originally posted by Jaybe
Choices -- have I heard before that this game is all about choices?
Do I upgrade or do I keep the experience points?

Well, in my proposal the choice would be - do i upgrade this particular unit or do I keep heaps of money I could spend on other things?

[Brael]

Originally posted by Jaybe
Choices -- have I heard before that this game is all about choices?
Do I upgrade or do I keep the experience points?
At least I keep the promotions.

I'd keep it as is. I would change OTHER things.

This is an extremly good point, what makes Civ 4 such a great game is that there are so many viable choices that people can make to determine a strategy. I think however that you're overlooking the choices this opens up. Your viewpoint is of one that you're losing the choice of having an older unit you can still promote or having a newer unit thats unlikely to see anymore promotions (or atleast any for a long time). What you're overlooking though is the additional choices this opens up with keeping older units with exp (exactly the same as now) vs being able to pay more to keep experience when upgrading, that brings in more strategies with wanting to build commerce to fund military upgrades, having the option of a smaller, modern, highly experienced army for the same cost as a larger less experienced one, lowering your science rate to have the option of upgrading or other methods of generating gold, and others...

In short, the more cash sinks you are, the more you need to decide what you really want in that situation since you can't have everything. This sort of change would increase options, not decrease them.

[Six Thousand Year Old Man]

Originally posted by lockstep

http://forums.civfanatics.com/showthread.php?t=137615

This is the relevant part:



In your example (two knights attacking two longbowmen), the knight that gained more xp for winning did so because he had worse odds than the other knight.

EDIT: The Civfanatics thread may not be updated for Warlords, but IIRC, the xp formula didn't change since Civ4's original release.

That's very helpful. And a little annoying for my playstyle - the more promotions a unit gets, the less likely I am to send it into risky combats. And so, it's only going to get 1 XP per win, in all likelihood

Not to go further off topic, but is "strength" modified by terrain or other bonuses/handicaps, or is it just base strength? A Longbow fortified in a city on a hill isn't the same as a Longbow sitting on grassland for combat purposes - are they the same for XP purposes?

[lockstep]

The formula uses modified strengths, which include all sorts of general, terrain and fortification bonuses (and also the missing hitpoints of injured units). Worse battle odds definitely result in more xp's if you still manage to win.

[lockstep]

Playing a few games at Monarch level (and even winning some of them ), I've encountered yet another thing that bugs me about losing xp in the upgrade process. I always try to build Heroic Epic ASAP in my designated 'unit building' city, and at Monarch, this became even more important to me. When I play as an imperialistic civ, my first GG will be used for boosting a unit to level 5 and possibly 6, but for other civs I will try to 'fight my way up' to level 5 without a GG. A lot of potential level 5 units will be axemen and swordsmen, but often I will research the prereqs for macemen and still not have unlocked Heroic Epic. Any swordsman or axeman with at least 11 xp will be reset to 10 xp when I upgrade him to a maceman. I didn't like this even in vanilla Civ4, but then losing xp meant at least that I had already earned Heroic Epic. Not now - in Warlords you can lose xp and still not be able to build HE.

I really wish for a way to preserve xp - either by paying heaps of money for upgrading veteran units or at least by increasing the limit for 'no xp resets' to 17 xp.

[sparkyal]

I like the idea of paying more to gkeep a unit's experience. In real life, once that knight gets his new weapons, additional training (money) must be done. This is easily seen in term s of money. I actually like the barbarian scen where you can buy promostions too, but I don't know if I would like that implimented in the regular game.

Maybe a nice varient would be, it takes one turn to upgrade the unti and another turn to give it its experience back?

sparky

[Will9]

In cIIIv elites would upgrade into veterans. The reson is the same as always, you are retraining your troops.

[Proteus_MST]

I see it like Blaupanzer, i.e. I like it the way it is.
As it was mentioned, everything in the game is about choices and, if you have Warlods you are able to save the XP from at least some of the units you have [which is again something about choices as the GGs you use for your units cannot be used as instructors to increase the XP of newly built units).

But it´s also something about balancing. At higher difficulty levels not having the XP cap for upgrading could make it impossible for people to win the game by the builder way, as it gives enormous advantages to those (computer) players who wage war from the beginning of the game on (i.e. much greater advantages than they already have ).

The only thing I would change about the existing way XP and upgrading is handled would be, not to let units loose all XP above of 10.
Instead it would just be 50-80% of the XP over 10, so that the unit still retains 20-50% of the XP ist gained after the 10th XP (and therefore has to regain much less XP than currently to get the next promotion.