upgrade units?

[Supr49er]

Originally posted by Tattila the Hun
How do obsolete promotions affect the calculations? Say, shock and cover, against melee and archers, and everyone has gunpowder or above.

That is a drawback. You need shock and cover promotions early. Unless I get these units to 10XP, I won't upgrade them.

I have at least two cities dedicated to unit production, and these put out units with 10+ XP.

[Blaupanzer]

I failed to recognize the "ism" in that remark. Never Mind!

[Jaybe]

Concerning the original topic:

Obsolete units I use as reserves, to be upgraded in an urgency, or
as internal-city garrisons for happiness under HR, or as the local constabulary.

The reserves are generally the high-experience units. The low-experience excess city garrisons are susceptible to deletion. Reserve units will require gold reserves to upgrade -- so have some!

[Blaupanzer]

I send high-experience, obsolete units to one city (capitol or a couple of border cities) where they can wait to be upgraded until I need them. When I hit unts three generations away, I decide if they will ever be worth the upgrade price; the answer usually being no. (I mean who upgrades archers or axemen to infantry, let alone riflemen/grenadiers?) If the answer is no, i.e., I'm not making money hand over fist, then I delete them, as they cost money simply to maintain.

[Theben]

An axeman with CR III is worth the upgrade IMHO.

[snoopy369]

Originally posted by wodan11

The only function of hammers is to get you more beakers.

The only function of beakers is to get you more hammers.

They're sort of ... interchangeable. Both accomplish the goal of making your empire bigger... knowing which to do at any one time is what is important. Hence why this is a strategy game, and not a click-fest.

[Jaybe]

Originally posted by snoopy369
The only function of beakers is to get you more hammers.

Actually, the beaker function is to get you more things to spend hammers ON ... including things that increase your hammers you can spend (e.g., factories). With notable exceptions of extra hammer for watermills, etc., and mines/quarries with railroads.

Overall, the beakers are diluting your hammers over a greater variety of items.

[Blaupanzer]

Unless you set your city to produce "science," in which case the hammers translate directly to beakers. I had questioned the base maxim in the "ism" earlier, as hammers also produce military units, which when used defensively, protect beakers in some abstract way, but do not "produce" beakers.

I didn't mean for my question to sound insulting, although I see in review it does look a little snide. I am curious as to the implementing philosophy behind translating all hammers/commerce to beakers. What does that imply in terms of what gets built and what doesn't in each city, etc.? Could you elaborate a bit, wodan? Or have you already done so in a thread I don't readily see? Thanks.

[eris]

The only function of hammers is to make more soldiers.
The only function of beakers is to give the soldiers pointier sticks.
The only function of commerce is to pay the upkeep for all those soldiers.

The rest is just details about little things like health, happiness, and avoiding economic collapse.

Now, if I could only play that ruthlessly, I would probably be a better player.

[Blaupanzer]

But you would be playing a wargame, eris. There are much better wargames than any of the Civs. But I have never played any game more intrigueing than Civ for the multiplicity of options depending on geography, leader and civ characteristics, and the orientation of your neighbors. So no relentless warmongering for me, unless I play Montezuma, Shaka, Ghengiz Khan, Boudica, Tokugawa, undsoweiter. Now that I think about it, quite a few of the leaders in the set were known almost exclusively for their warmaking capability. Hmmm.

[wodan11]

Originally posted by Blaupanzer
Could you elaborate a bit, wodan?

Sure, I guess, though realize that this topic is so wide open that we could talk about any of a number of different things.

Going back to the original, the way I read it is that the assertion is thusly: upgrading units is a good idea in many situations because hammers are often more valuable than gold (=commerce =beakers) in terms of what do you NOT want to spend to have a good military (whether needed for defense or offense).

First off, let's get this out of the way: gold = commerce = beakers for purpose of this discussion. Object now or forever hold your peace.

Secondly, let's assume that the main choice here is build new units and retire the old ones to garrison duty (and disband the oldest if needed), or upgrade using gold.

Thirdly, let's leave emergencies aside. Obviously, if you're invaded, rush-upgrades are not only a good idea, they might be your only idea. You might not be running slavery or nationalism, and might not be spiritual. And, even if you're doing one or more of those things, you might need to do them AND upgrade. Depends on the strength of the invasion, and also how much you let your military lapse.

And so. The question is build new, or upgrade. Spend X hammers, or Y gold.

The biggest variable here is whether the player is specializing or not. Many players that I have seen on here say they build generalist cities. For example, every commerce city makes all commerce buildings, every military city makes all the military buildings, and so on. They don't really do gold specialist cities (which leave off building university etc), or science specialist cities (which leave off building bank etc). Of course, if running a CE, then the slider determines a lot: all commerce cities might be able to omit banks, for example, if the slider is at 90% or 100%.

My point? What to do with those cities when they have nothing to build? The choices would seem to be:
1) make a building that is of minor benefit
2) make a unit
3) produce gold/science

#1 is a poor investment, so let's discount it
#2 is the question
#3 directly makes X=Y, and thus the city basically makes commerce-equivalent of the same number of hammers. But hammers are low, because this is a commerce or specialist city. So, gold/science benefit is very low. But the question is the upgrade cost. Spend 200 gold to upgrade or 100 hammers to build new? In this case, spend the hammers (which is #2).

If the player has one or more military cities, then this whole question will probably never come up.

If the player has one or more production cities, then perhaps this will come up, because those cities are busy making wonders, if nothing else. Personally, I would make the wonders, and let other cities make the units (even commerce cities, see above for rationale).

I don't know if that answered the question, but there should be enough rambling up there to see if we are going anywhere.

[Blaupanzer]

So, wodan, you are saying that hammers in the postulated condition are a major consideration in setting the commerce/science (/the other rates, if necessary) rates. Designating those rates in order to produce surplus gold (for upgrades primarily) is not particularly wise as this reduces beaker input. "Let the beakers tell you what to build, then do that" is a wiser course than building up money for upgrades while falling behind a bit in science.

If that's a fair restating of what you said above, then I agree with you for the most part. You can generate a pretty good commerce level even with a high science rate by trading resources for gold and using a few merchant specialists. Maintenance costs can get pesky when you begin conquering cities just to get more surplus resources, but the science keeps going up.

[smbakeresq]

I for one almost always upgrade. Once you delete a unit the hammers are gone forever.

If you rebuild, you must also move the unit to where you need it. Most of the cities that can build good units tend to be in the middle of my empire, I leave one just building units most of the time, whereas most of the troops are needed at the edges. To me, it just isnt worth it to rebuild, its easier to bottom out the slider for a few turns then just spend the money.

[wodan11]

Blaupanzer, I need to think about that for a bit. Been a long day.

Smbakeresq, is it "not worth it" or "easier"? I think you're mixing up your arguments.

[Jaybe]

wodan, as you said, you've had a long day.
Smbakeresq was saying it was not worth it to do one thing, and ALSO easier to the the alternative. Whether or not it is good argumentive form, it DID make perfect sense (if you haven't had a long day/week).

Have a revitalizing weekend.