Old units should "strike"

[MoonWolf]

Think of it... You have a job in the army of a might empire. When you are on duty, you go to get your weapon as your fellow soldiers do. But as they have their nice, semi-automatic rifles or even SMG's, you have to pick up your bow still looking as it has done for the past 4000 years. Wouldn't you feel a bit... well, down? And look at Bob, he has a stinger missile!

Shouldn't units that get really old somehow just vanish or go on strike when they are too far behind in the upgrades? How motivated can you be as a 3 archer when your buddies are 20 infantry? I think there should be an absolute end of life for old units when you reach a certain tech level.

[Diadem]

Well upgrading units is unrealistically expensive.

Upgrading soldiers with new equipment is generally a lot cheaper than supporting those soldiers in the first place. A rifle costs a lot less than 1 year of a soldier's wages.

With modern airplanes and tanks it might get slightly different. But certainly until a few decades ago equipment with but a relatively small part of a soldier's cost.

It's higly unrealistic that it costs 1 gold to maintain soldiers, but 200 gold to upgrade them.

And that's why in civ you keep all those all military around. While in the real world you'd have upgraded them ages ago.

[Jaybe]

Countries have often had units that were in a status of low readiness. That's what your obsolete units represent, even if the graphic doesn't show it "properly": a group of people poorly equipped, poorly trained (for combat at least), or both.

Think militia, paramilitary, ceremonial guards. I always like to keep a praetorian guard unit in Rome; it's always visible because a more modern unit is never allowed in the city.

[Blaupanzer]

The individual deciding on the survival of the unfit is you. If units get so obsolete that the $1 support cost is more than they are worth, delete them. The reason they do not fade away is that you keep feeding and housing them. (If you stay in Heriditary Rule all game, as some of the AI do, those obsolete units maintain happiness in the rear while the upgraded units go off to war.)