Units should upgrade over time

[rah]

While I miss leos.....
I don't mind the upgrade model.
BUT, I wish it wasn't quite so expense for us and cheap for the AI. A better balance would be nicer.

I do like the GG freebie

Unless you have a highly promoted unit, it just isn't worth it.
with the exceptions being quick upgrades to stand off surprise wars or turning my calvary into gunships.
That's ony 110 so it's worth it for my 3 promo calv.

Maybe you should be able to build upgrades in your city production. for x amount of shields for each level and you bank them. At least you would get something out of the old troops. Disbanding seems such a waste.
Instead of clicking all hammers for culture/money/science, add a fourth for unit upgrades that are banked. At least through those turns when you're short building to build you could build something useful for the future.

[Tattila the Hun]

How about, you could combine obsolete units to new ones... Add a warrior to a rifleman for 10% more HP, every unit giving something else, like archer giving drill. Limit to one unit per unit. Small things.

Or combine two archers to get a longbowman.

[Virdrago]

Originally posted by rah
While I miss leos.....
I don't mind the upgrade model.
BUT, I wish it wasn't quite so expense for us and cheap for the AI. A better balance would be nicer.

Maybe you should be able to build upgrades in your city production. for x amount of shields for each level and you bank them. At least you would get something out of the old troops. Disbanding seems such a waste.
Instead of clicking all hammers for culture/money/science, add a fourth for unit upgrades that are banked. At least through those turns when you're short building to build you could build something useful for the future.

First part: agree completely.

Second part: It would be a nice idea. Those extra hammers would be used instead of money, right? Or could they be used as well as gold, like settlers and workers use a combo of food and hammers?

[zeace]

What if...

Let's assume that the first gold spent on maintaining a unit is spent on keeping him in top fighting form. This would include learning about modern weapons an techniques.
Therefore we could justify that upgrading a unit should be discounted by the number of turns that unit has existed.

The warrior you started with will therefore have hundreds of free upgrade gold by the time you're building rifleman, so his upgrade will be cheap. Your brand new units, though will still cost almost full price to upgrade. As soon as you upgrade a unit, his free gold should reset to zero so that old units don't become auto-upgraded every advance.

I like this idea because eventually you can upgrade your crappy old warrior for free, but it doesn't break the existing upgrade mechanics for most of your units.


Maybe it would be better if the unit collected free upgrade gold at a rate of the number of units available above it in the upgrade chain. So when you research Macemen, your warrior can upgrade spear->pike->mace so he gets 3 gold a turn towards his next upgrade. This way totally obsolete units will quickly get the chance to upgrade. Maybe these upgrade gold should only be usable to upgrade a single step, so the warrior will slowly become a spear, then a pike, but will never catch up to your current unit (unless you don't research a new unit for a few hundred years )

[Ijuin]

I don't like the idea that you are harsly forced to upgrade everything ASAP, but I would like to see some incentive to do so. Everybody remember how an ungarrisoned city gets +2 unhappiness? A possibility would be to apply that penalty to any city that is guarded by obsolete units--the people feel that being defended by longbows is not "good enough" to protect them if the can have rifles instead.

[Dis]

Originally posted by Ijuin
I don't like the idea that you are harsly forced to upgrade everything ASAP, but I would like to see some incentive to do so. Everybody remember how an ungarrisoned city gets +2 unhappiness? A possibility would be to apply that penalty to any city that is guarded by obsolete units--the people feel that being defended by longbows is not "good enough" to protect them if the can have rifles instead.

yeah this is a decent idea.

and a few other decent ideas in this thread. Keep em' comin'.

[Dis]

Although... In modern times the idea of city defenders seems a bit silly. We don't have infantry or mechanized infantry guarding my city. It's completely undefended.

But if you leave your cities undefended in civ4, they ai will target those cities.

One thing I think is missing from civ4 is the concept of a front line, and territory under enemy control. I know it isn't a wargame, but war is limited to 2 basic options (well maybe 3). Your units enter his territory and pillage everything (there are no real front lines when you do this). Your units conquer his cities. Or your units just conquer his attack force (either on his territory or yours).

Some wars were fought and only a few miles of land were gained or lost. I'd like to see a village/cottage improvement change hands (regardless of culture) during a war without having to conquer the city that exerts cultural influence over that tile. but perhaps I'm getting off topic for this thread.

I know the city is the core of civ gameplay, and you really can't take it out.

[Thedrin]

Post deleted.

[Shogun Gunner]

I just don't get too hung up on the picture of the warrior. If I still have a warrior around 1900 I see that unit as having better, more modern clubs, not those tree stumps in the unit picture.

Military costs go far beyond whatever weapons soldiers carry. I'm not for any free upgrades.

If Firaxis ever added an auto-upgrade feature in, it would be easy enough to toggle this on/off during game setup.

[Tattila the Hun]

You know, that thousands of years old warrior propably has some mean martial arts skills... That should be reflected somehow...

[Dis]

my last game I didn't upgrade my last warrior until the 21st century. I forgot I had him down in the artic wasteland scaring away barbarians. That's a crappy duty station. I felt bad for the fella.

[kiky]

IMHO, It will be great if Units are tradeable with other Civ.

That way you can sell units for gold or even buy if it is on emergency.

[Alexander I]

Maybe the AI could send you some annoying messages or something.

"Your Warrior in Backwater is obsolete by 15 centuries. Would you like to upgrade to poorly armed local militia/backwater garrison/bicycle cavalry?"

[fed1943]

No to the free upgrades.

Anything (upgrades,gold, and so) must be paid for, to keep game

balance.

Best regards,

[Saurus]

Originally posted by rah
While I miss leos.....
I don't mind the upgrade model.
BUT, I wish it wasn't quite so expense for us and cheap for the AI. A better balance would be nicer.

.

This is true and this is in fact something the A.I DOES exploit against the human!!

I remember one particular game were A.I Elisabeth had gathered a SOD of 20+ cannons, 30+ Knights and 30+ random melee units and parked them outside my city.

I had around the same force in my city.
Then suddenly one turn the A.I upgraded all of the cannons to Artilleries, all knights to Cavalries and all the melee units into Riflemen. Now how to
counter THAT?

I had the techologyto upgrade...but the upgrade cost would have been something like 20.000 gold (or some 10 Great merchants) .
Just insane and unreasonable. A better balanced upgrade system would indeed be needed.