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I don't know if this has been posted yet, but here is a quick tutorial on how to make upgrade paths that don't break down because of unique/flavor units, for anyone that might be wondering:
Since you can't have a unit upgrade to more than 1 unit (for example, the Warrior can't upgrade to the Swordsman, the Immortal, and the Legionary - if you just set the Warrior to upgrade to Swordsman, you would not be able to upgrade Warriors if you were Roman or Persian), the upgrade paths have to be played with a little. Basically, the way this works is the old unit upgrades to the new generic one, and the new unit in turn upgrades to the unique unit. Because the Romans or the Persians wouldn't have the generic Swordsman, the Warrior upgrade would skip that step and upgrade it right to either a Legionary or an Immortal, depending on the civ. Here is the actual upgrade path:
Warrior->Swordsman->Legionary->Immortal.
So, if you were Persian and decided to upgrade a Warrior, it would skip Swordsman, Legionary, and upgrade to Immortal. If the Immortal itself was upgradeable to something, all 3 swordsman units would be upgradeable to that same unit. A good example to illustrate this is the Knight:
(Horseman/Mounted Warrior)->Knight->Rider->Samurai->War Elephant->Cavalry
The Knight doesn't upgrade to Cavalry directly, because that wouldn't allow the Chinese, the Japanese, and the Indians to upgrade Horsemen to their UUs (Horsemen are listed as upgrade to Mounted Warrior, which in turn upgrade to Knight). The Knight upgrades to Rider, which upgrades to Samurai, which upgrades to War Elephant. In order to make all the 4 knight units upgradeable to Cavalry, this upgrade step is set in the War Elephant unit.
So, all units that occupy the same spot on the upgrade path have to upgrade to each other. The first unit in the chain is the one the older unit upgrades to, and the last unit in the chain points to the newer unit all units upgrade to.
Hope that helps anyone that was confused by upgrading in civ3
Since you can't have a unit upgrade to more than 1 unit (for example, the Warrior can't upgrade to the Swordsman, the Immortal, and the Legionary - if you just set the Warrior to upgrade to Swordsman, you would not be able to upgrade Warriors if you were Roman or Persian), the upgrade paths have to be played with a little. Basically, the way this works is the old unit upgrades to the new generic one, and the new unit in turn upgrades to the unique unit. Because the Romans or the Persians wouldn't have the generic Swordsman, the Warrior upgrade would skip that step and upgrade it right to either a Legionary or an Immortal, depending on the civ. Here is the actual upgrade path:
Warrior->Swordsman->Legionary->Immortal.
So, if you were Persian and decided to upgrade a Warrior, it would skip Swordsman, Legionary, and upgrade to Immortal. If the Immortal itself was upgradeable to something, all 3 swordsman units would be upgradeable to that same unit. A good example to illustrate this is the Knight:
(Horseman/Mounted Warrior)->Knight->Rider->Samurai->War Elephant->Cavalry
The Knight doesn't upgrade to Cavalry directly, because that wouldn't allow the Chinese, the Japanese, and the Indians to upgrade Horsemen to their UUs (Horsemen are listed as upgrade to Mounted Warrior, which in turn upgrade to Knight). The Knight upgrades to Rider, which upgrades to Samurai, which upgrades to War Elephant. In order to make all the 4 knight units upgradeable to Cavalry, this upgrade step is set in the War Elephant unit.
So, all units that occupy the same spot on the upgrade path have to upgrade to each other. The first unit in the chain is the one the older unit upgrades to, and the last unit in the chain points to the newer unit all units upgrade to.
Hope that helps anyone that was confused by upgrading in civ3