What's the trick to upgrading?

[Velociryx]

Only thing I would do differently, would be that, those guys Blake mentions who have outdated promotions? (cover, when the world doesn't use archers any more)...those are the guys I'd rotate into my safe interior, leave them in whatever configuration they're in (probably warriors, spears, or axes), and pull something more relevant out of those cities and to the front...mostly cos I HATE disbanding troops.

Troops, IMO, are always useful for something, but again, your mileage may vary.

-=Vel=-

[wodan11]

Originally posted by Velociryx As I read the initial question, I didn't "get" that we were necessarily talking about an army only the size up to the "no maint" limits...since it's pretty easy to exceed those limits most of the time, I did not realize this was a constraint (I'm not sure it would alter my thinking much in any case).

Uhm, you're the one who brought unit maintenance thresholds into it, where you said, "You get X free troops. After that, you pay money for each one." and the talk about hurting your economy because you've overbuilt troops.

In any event, it's a valid criterion. There's no reason to disband if you aren't paying mainteance. So, the choices are reduced down to upgrade or build new.

Disband becomes a valid choice when you are past that point, and you have to decide whether to disband some, stop building new (and upgrade old), suck it up and pay the maint, or throw the old troops away on some suicide mission. Or whatever.

for me, is the choice of last resort, as it essentially wastes the hammers spent....if I do ANYTHING else with them, at least I'm getting something for those hammers, right?)

Sure, though there are some ramifications of those decisions, such as diplo penalty for going to war, free XP to the enemy, extra costs for extra troops in enemy territory, war weariness costs to you for your troops dying in enemy territory, etc.

Bottom line I suppose it's YMMV. You can do whatever you want with your own game of course. I supose I'm just saying my experience is different because I put more emphasis on commerce than hammers.

Re: conquest with outdated units....it's been my experience that it's not too hard to take at least one city with an "outdated" division....post construction (which covers 99% of the upgrade situations we're talking about--warrior to spear/axe being the notable exception), with a fistful of cats to do the heavy lifting, warriors and archers can stroll in and take a city with little trouble--granted, you'll not be wanting to pick the city held by scads of modern (and by this I mean, "later era" defenders, not "modern era" defenders) units, but again, the right tool for the job...you'll not naturally gravitate toward sending your older troops to such a city in any case, right?)

Sure. However, that has costs too... you have to send in x2 cats and x2 units (because they're outdated). So you pay more unit supply, and also you suffer war weariness because some of those outdated troops are going to die (even with the cats).

AI's can't resist undefended workers, so in battle, that means that you can arrange to know when and where enemy troops will be.

Wouldn't that cost war weariness? Is it worth it to catch one or two AI units? Also seems like this contradicts your goal of preserving hammers no matter the cost?

Personally I don't usually disband workers until after railroads.

Wodan

[Velociryx]

Uhm, you're the one who brought unit maintenance thresholds into it, where you said, "You get X free troops. After that, you pay money for each one." and the talk about hurting your economy because you've overbuilt troops.

In any event, it's a valid criterion. There's no reason to disband if you aren't paying mainteance. So, the choices are reduced down to upgrade or build new.

Disband becomes a valid choice when you are past that point, and you have to decide whether to disband some, stop building new (and upgrade old), suck it up and pay the maint, or throw the old troops away on some suicide mission. Or whatever.

Eh? I'm not sure I'm following you here...your first post, you said: To me, upgrading is useful in only limited situations:
-- emergencies (of course)
-- speed (it's faster to upgrade than to build anew, and the longer you wait, the less time before your opponent gets new techs or, if you're already at war, whips or builds countering forces)
-- to preserve upgradeable promotions (e.g., Berserk amphibious)

In other situations, to me it's generally preferable to build new and disband the old.

Perhaps I misinterpreted what you meant here, but on reading it, I get:

* I only find upgrading useful in situations a and b, and in other situations (not a or b), I prefer to build new and disband.

And this is the point upon which we chiefly differ. If you want to disband your troops, I'm definitely not telling you that you can't, and it's perfectly okay that we disagree... I'm just stating my reasons for not liking the disbanding option. I'm totally cool with the idea that not everyone's gonna agree with me.

Sure, though there are some ramifications of those decisions, such as diplo penalty for going to war, free XP to the enemy, extra costs for extra troops in enemy territory, war weariness costs to you for your troops dying in enemy territory, etc.

Bottom line I suppose it's YMMV. You can do whatever you want with your own game of course. I supose I'm just saying my experience is different because I put more emphasis on commerce than hammers.

Absolutely correct, but (and again, this is just IMO), those ramifications are almost never--I'll say "almost" to leave an escape clause, even if, in my experience, I've not yet run across it) more painful than simply tossing scores, if not hundreds of hammers out the window (this is the very antithesis of turn advantage to me, which is why I'm arguing to do something...anything with those old troops other than disband...h3ll...even gifting them to a vassal would be better (in fact...now that I think on it, that's not half bad!)

Sure. However, that has costs too... you have to send in x2 cats and x2 units (because they're outdated). So you pay more unit supply, and also you suffer war weariness because some of those outdated troops are going to die (even with the cats).

Right..but these were the guys you were fixin' to disband anyway...so what does it matter that more of them die?

Wouldn't that cost war weariness? Is it worth it to catch one or two AI units? Also seems like this contradicts your goal of preserving hammers no matter the cost?

Personally I don't usually disband workers until after railroads.

Yep...we're on the same page there....in post #21: Oh, I don't always disband them...I have other nefarious uses for them in general, but I HAVE disbanded them before, mostly to shave a smidge on maintenance costs (by the time you finish your rail line, you have to ask yourself what you're gaining by keeping 40-odd workers hovering around (this, including captures from other empires, etc).

so we're more or less on the same page there.

Regarding the war weariness issue....that depends on your goals, I suppose.

The important thing, when using workers as bait is to cover all the bases you can, so as to minimize the chance that they'll actually GET caught--on the thinking that the best bait is the sort you can re-use-- (but of course, sooner or later, you'll miss something and they will, so you must be willing to place your bets and eat the loss when you inevitably miss something). Nonetheless, you can lure fistfuls, and even dozens of units to their deaths in this way, making it a fairly cost effective way to bleed your enemy and gain highly predictable battlegrounds.

Again, it's all in how you structure your game, so your mileage may vary.

-=Vel=-

[JeebusGreen]

To the original post - the other thing that needs to qualify for unit upgrades is that the unit must have at least 1 move left to upgrade. This one's got me a few times in the puzzle department, as I think that if the unit is out of movement points, it doesn't even show a greyed-out button to upgrade for it, it just makes it appear as though it's not possible.

And to the side-tangent...

I love how I can be the greatest military power in game, with a large standing army of elite infantry - and discover I still have my original warrior or an axeman guarding the capital deep in the heart of my empire

[#07]

I agree with snoopy about having science at 0% for a few turns, depending of course on your strategy and circumstances. Like for example when you need to cut someone down who is large and modern, advanced flight can really make a world of difference if they don't have it.

Instant jet fighters and choppers, especially when you can upgrade you're highly trained fighters and cavs with that extra cash you've just saved, can win you the war. Quickly.

[Yosho]

(shrug) In general, I find it easier to make commerce then hammers, I think hammers are more important, and I like having a lot of buildings in a lot of places, so I'm generally willing to spend money to upgrade in order to allow me to use my hammers to build buildings instead.

[Brommer]

Originally posted by wodan11

Personally I don't usually disband workers until after railroads.

Wodan

From my experience, workers don't cost upkeep, so why disband them at all? Or does it depend on difficulty? I just tested this and disbanded 15 workers on a monarch game, and upkeep didn't change. Disbanding 15 regular units reduced upkeep. And in the case of nuclear attacks usually one needs every available worker for cleaning up, so I never disband them.

[wodan11]

Originally posted by Velociryx
If you want to disband your troops, I'm definitely not telling you that you can't, and it's perfectly okay that we disagree...

Yep, I got that.

I'm just stating my reasons for not liking the disbanding option. I'm totally cool with the idea that not everyone's gonna agree with me.

I definitely feel the same way. I was just stating my reasons for liking the disband option, as well as pointing out some factors why. (It's possible you didn't take them into account.) If you already took those factors into consideration, and we just have a different opinion, that's totally cool by me... as I said, you just value hammers more than commerce, while I'm the other way around. It's a subjective thing and there's no wrong answer.

Absolutely correct, but (and again, this is just IMO), those ramifications are almost never--I'll say "almost" to leave an escape clause, even if, in my experience, I've not yet run across it) more painful

The thing is... those ramifications are "hidden". You have to look for it or look in the F2 screen and do math to figure out what's going on. Or, it's not told to you, period. How much is it worth to delay WW? Once WW hits, can we definitively use hindsight and say, "if only I hadn't tossed all those old axes to take York." For a protracted war, WW can have a huge effect on your production and commerce.

than simply tossing scores, if not hundreds of hammers out the window (this is the very antithesis of turn advantage to me, which is why I'm arguing to do something...anything with those old troops other than disband...h3ll...even gifting them to a vassal would be better (in fact...now that I think on it, that's not half bad!)

I used to do that all the time, or give them to an AI that I knew would use them against a common enemy. Haven't done it much lately... don't know why. Interesting.

Wodan

[wodan11]

Originally posted by Brommer


From my experience, workers don't cost upkeep, so why disband them at all? Or does it depend on difficulty? I just tested this and disbanded 15 workers on a monarch game, and upkeep didn't change. Disbanding 15 regular units reduced upkeep. And in the case of nuclear attacks usually one needs every available worker for cleaning up, so I never disband them.

I thought they did cost upkeep. I could swear I've disbanded some and seen upkeep costs change.

I hardly ever get to the point of nukes. If I'm playing a long-range game then I end up building more infrastructure (the AI does not even come close to being able to match a human's ability to specialize cities and build effective infrastructure) and outstrip the AI technologically so I get to the space race before nukes become an option.

Wodan

[Jaybe]

With disbanding workers and it saving you gold, your mileage definitely WILL vary. You are allowed so many free workers, depending on your aggregate city sizes.

Since you are not told in the F2 how many free workers you are entitled, terminating a half dozen of them might or might not save you anything (other than their being an eyesore, or not having them handy when you need them).

[Brommer]

Very interesting. I didn't find anything like this in the Civilopedia or manual. I'm not sure what you mean by "aggregate city size". Is it the sum over all city sizes? That would be quite a lot of free workers.

[snoopy369]

Workers cost some upkeep - there is 'unit upkeep' and 'mil unit upkeep', they are separate line items. They however don't cost all that much generally, so it's rare for it to be useful to disband them. However, if you don't go a'conquering much, it may be more beneficial to dump them.

[Yaga]

I appear to be in the minority, in that I upgrade most everyone and everything* as soon as the opportunity presents itself.

This is of course wildly expensive, but as it's fairly easy to amass ~5,000-10,000 gold between civ-wide upgrades, its not overly detrimental to me to do so.

The easiest way to get the mad-phat cash necessary for upgrades is to
a) found a religion
b) build Stonehenge and Oracle
c) Hope you get a Great Prophet, (#&^@ Palace generates Spy GPPs? WTF BTS) and then build your Holy Shrine
d) Convert the world to your religion of choice
e) bee-line to writing via priesthood and use the Oracle bump to get Alphabet first (Or Theology, if you have a good science output; nice early Diplomatic win in the making if you've done well on items a - d)
f) Trade to get everything you can, tech wise, but don't trade Alphabet, EVAR
f) bee-line to Currency
g) Sell off all those yummy techs you got, but don't sell Currency
h) bee-line to Feudalism
i) You should now have 3-5k, easy, enough to upgrade all your archers to longbowmen, while still running 80/10 or better.
j) Repeat

* The one caveat to this is upgrading naval units from wood > oil. This is usually not cost effective, and only really useful if I get combustion in the middle of a war where the added bang is worth the big bucks.

[rah]

Originally posted by Yaga

* The one caveat to this is upgrading naval units from wood > oil. This is usually not cost effective, and only really useful if I get combustion in the middle of a war where the added bang is worth the big bucks.

Generally I agree unless you get caught with your pants down.

EXCEPT for privateers. I'll take a handfull out to get experience points and they start with visability. I'll convert 5 or so that have 4-6 promotions. Those are usually worth it if you have the money lying around.

[Jaybe]

Originally posted by Brommer
Very interesting. I didn't find anything like this in the Civilopedia or manual. I'm not sure what you mean by "aggregate city size". Is it the sum over all city sizes? That would be quite a lot of free workers.

Yes, I meant the sum of all city sizes. However, your number of free workers is NOT equal to that; there is some arcane formula involved.

Addendum: Computer software is (almost) NEVER well documented. This especially applies to complex computer GAMES such as civ. Besides, where would the mystery be if everything was written down?