Units should upgrade over time

[Dis]

I think it's silly to have warriors around in the year 2050. Who's with me? anyone?

The concept is simple. When you reach a new age, all your units upgrade. Whether you have the cash or not. Or perhaps we could have an incentive system for upgrading. Say your cities go into unhappiness when you have outdated units.

Now obviously we have to maintain a tech advantage. As a tech advantage is clearly evident in the modern world. Say you reach the modern age and can build infantry. Obviously they shouldn't automatically upgrade to infantry. But maybe they can upgrade to rifleman.

To pay for it, the game would force you into a higher tax rate. Whether you want to or not.

Just some ideas, I haven't fully fleshed them out, but I'd like to hear all your thoughts on the subject. Personally, I can't stand having longbowmen around in the modern age. But often I find myself in this situation.

and perhaps you could designate certain units not to upgrade if you so choose (though this shouldn't be too much a problem since they fixed the marine upgrad issue)

[Jaybe]

No, I am not with you. Obsolete units in Civ represent units with obsolete equipment or low training/readiness.

It is visually much clearer to show an obsolete unit than to show a modern unit with low strength.

[Dis]

then get rid of the club the warrior is holding and give him an AK-47. . It's silly to have guys with clubs guarding a city of 10 million people.

yes I started this thread because of the warrior in the baseball thread.

[Alexander I]

Well, I think it's lame to have to spend a large sum of money to upgrade an existing unit when it's a lot cheaper just to train new ones.

Maybe something like Leonardo's Workshop from Civ2?

[Pythagoras]

Originally posted by Alexander01
Well, I think it's lame to have to spend a large sum of money to upgrade an existing unit when it's a lot cheaper just to train new ones.

Maybe something like Leonardo's Workshop from Civ2?

Its very fast to upgrade units if you have cash sitting around.

Here's something fun I like to do. Let my military get out of date with a big slush fund sitting around. Let the AI declare war on me, they'll attack some crappy city then I upgrade bomb the place and the war turns to my side very rapidly.

[CerberusIV]

One way to "modernise" units could be that once you have Industrialism all your pre-industrial units (everything older that infantry, machine-gunners and cavalry) automatically become a "guerilla" unit in camouflage fatigues and waving an AK-47. Stats would be slightly better than a rifleman but less than infantry and not any further upgradeable. (At Industrialism you would have had some time to upgrade units to infantry if you want to).

That would be a strong incentive to upgrade experienced units but you could allow the rest to default to guerillas.

I have to say that I once I build West Point and hopefully the Pentagon I generally replace almost all my units and just upgrade the handful that have more experience than a new unit would get.

[Melloyello]

I like the idea of the guerrillas, they can change the appearance of worker's, cities and improvements over the ages why not units. I don't think they should upgrade their attack or gain any experience though!

[Diadem]

Yes, units should get more advanced as your technology increases. But you have to do this yourself, as it's not free.

Do you think units got more modern automaticly in the real world? No, they had to be upgraded as well, for a lot of money.

The reason we have no warriors now is not because they upgraded themselves, but because all the existing nations thought their army important enough to invest in upgrading it. The nations that didn't upgrade their warriors went extinct long ago.

[eris]

Nope, this idea doesn't work for me. Deciding which units to spend cash on is one of the interesting decision challenges in the game. If it is automagic according to the era or tech or something it takes that power of decision away from me. This almost sounds like forcing all workers to be automated. Even if workers are smarter than they used to be, I want the control. The same is true for unit upgrades.

[DirtyMartini]

No auto upgrades -- part of the strategy is deciding whether that longbowman sitting in an interior city is worth keeping or upgrading or if he should be disbanded to save the upkeep. I can still get in trouble if I try to play defense on the cheap and I get invaded. Autoupgrading removes or reduces this danger.

[JackRudd]

Originally posted by Alexander01
Well, I think it's lame to have to spend a large sum of money to upgrade an existing unit when it's a lot cheaper just to train new ones.

Maybe something like Leonardo's Workshop from Civ2?

Ah yes, Leonardo's Workshop. Aka God's Gift To Munchkinism. (Mix with the Civ2 Great Library for the full cheese effect.)

[MasterDave]

Originally posted by Dis
then get rid of the club the warrior is holding and give him an AK-47. . It's silly to have guys with clubs guarding a city of 10 million people.

yes I started this thread because of the warrior in the baseball thread.

Policemen in England are mostly armed with billy clubs, although they do have better uniforms than Civ4 warriors.

[Adagio]

Originally posted by Dis
I think it's silly to have warriors around in the year 2050. Who's with me? anyone?

I am, but my idea is a little different:

You can get free upgrades to a certain extent. Like when you invent gunpowder, your archers slowly* upgrades to longbowmen and your warriors upgrades to swordmen, etc

* slowly as in one unit per 1-5 turns (depending on speed setting)

This way you don't get to have warriors and archers defending you capital, when you're fighting with tanks, while the upgrades are still too far behind to make much of a difference

I don't like to see all my cities protected by archers, but I don't want to spend a lot of money on upgrading them, when there's little risk of those cities getting attacked

[MasterDave]

You should have to pay for your troop upgrades. Weapons and training are expensive and they should not just appear in your soldiers hands because you know how to build them. If an empire chooses to spend their money on other priorities other then keeping its military up to date, then there should be consequences, and that empire's units should be obsolete.

If you want to spend your gold on butter, you should not get your guns for free.

[Thedrin]

Instead of free upgrades what about free promotions?

When you discover gunpowder your melee units (just yours) get pinch. When you discover industrialism your melee units and mounted units get ambush. If such units are upgraded to gunpowder or helicopter units they lose their free promotion (could be awkward to implement).

I see no good reason to give these promotions to archery units. Applying them to city defender's could be unbalanced.

Overall, the whole idea doesn't seem worth the effort. I'm happy with the game's current implementation.