Privateers

[Palleon]

Maybe I'm overlooking something, or maybe this was answered before, I haven't had time to go through these threads in detail. But every single one of my coastal cities insist on autobuilding privateers every single time they get the chance, which is a little ridiculous, because I have yet to find a good use for them, especially when theres battleships and such around, maybe I'm too much of a noob to find their use, but in any case, can you do anything like in SMAC where you can make a unit obsolete and not let it be built anymore?

[Lucilla]

Not that i know of. If you find out how to tell the governor not to build Privateers, I'd be really interested.
Even if I don't let the goverenor decide without asking me, it's still annoying to always have to say "no, build something else".

[zulu9812]

You could set Privateers to upgrade to a more modern unit, like Destroyer

[zulu9812]

if privateers upgrade to destroyers, and you have the resources for destroyers, then privateers won't show in the build queue. You can change the upgrade paths in civedit.

[Lucilla]

Excellent tip, thanks

[The Pioneer]

The same goes for all other absolute units. Longbowman and Swordsman, for example, you can allow them upgrade to Rifleman!!!

[Ethelred]

Don't let the governors build units. That is a recipe for problems. If you insist on this you are just going to continue haveing them. The AI does not know what you want to do long term.

You can set the coastal cities to not build naval units at all. Me I recommend setting it NEVER BUILD any units at all. No workers, no settlers, no attack units, no defense unit, NOTHING.

Of course I don't play on HUGE maps. The game becomes tedious with too many cities.

[Lucilla]

Originally posted by zulu9812
if privateers upgrade to destroyers, and you have the resources for destroyers, then privateers won't show in the build queue. You can change the upgrade paths in civedit.

Hmm, I changed swordsman to be upgradable to musketman. Although I have salpeter, a barrack in every city (Sun Tzu) and can upgrade my pikemen to musketmen, I can't upgrade any of the swordsmen.
Is that a bug or do I just not have enough money to do a single upgrade? I currently have 191 gold cash. Is there a way to calculate the costs for the upgrade?

[Kramerman]

Did you also x the "upgrade unit" flag under unit special actions (where load, bombard, paradrop, and all that other stuff is at)or did you just tell what the swordsman would upgrade to? Im pretty sure in order to upgrade a unit you need this flag marked, or you may be able to try pressing shift f to upgrade all the units without having to use the upgrade button.

It is usaully like 20 - 40 gold to upgrade each unit, but a menu should pop up and tell you if you dont have enough money, otherwise its possible that you just need to hit that flag .

if thats not it, then im all out of ideas.

[Lucilla]

Thanks, Kramerman!

Yes, that's it. I didn't see this checkbox, so no wonder it doesn't work.

[Kramerman]

A note on privateers:

I downloaded a cool submarine someone did, I wish Id remember his name, I hate not giving him credit. Anyway I made it into the U-boat, a hidden nationality unit that comes out when subs come out. I made it almost as powerful, but not quite. But the point is that it seems like a good idea (i haven't gotten far enough in the game to test it, because of some stupid technical resource problem Im having) as an upgrade to the privateer, though not really historically accurate or anything. It makes sense though, considering that a single submarine can be very effective against surface ships if they have a crafty commander. And they are much cheaper, maybe even cheap enough to get in the hands of a wealthy bandit or adventurer, at least more conceivablely than a modern warship is. Thats my rationalization for the idea.

Kman

[Kramerman]

Oh cool!

I actually helped someone out.
After taking so, so much from the forum....

Kman