Swordsmen should upgrade to Knights

[Optimizer]

Many people complain about that Swordsmen (and Legions/Immortals) stay in the game too long, and that there is no natural offensive unit that they can upgrade to.

My solution is to upgrade them to Knights. They don't lose anything by upgrading to Knights.

[N. Machiavelli]

What I did was increase the defense of Longbowmen by 1 and have swordsmen upgrade to that. Longbowmen then upgrade to Riflemen and so on.

Swordsmen will likely upgrade to Medieval infantry in PtW.

[WarpStorm]

In PTW, swordsmen will upgrade to Medieval Infantry. Medieval Infantry and Longbowmen upgrade to Guerilla.

The problem with upgrading to riflemen is that AI will do it. This isn't bad but they will carry the offensive units flag around. This is bad. In the late game they will ugrade these units to Mech Infantry and attack with them rather than building Modern Armor, because they think they have enough offensive units. I've seen it happen a few times in my mod before I realized what was happening. BTW, the Guerilla is flagged as an offensive unit.

[Level]

The AI flag is randomly set to any avalible when the unit is created/upgraded (may have been fixed in a patch).

[WarpStorm]

That would be good. I remember when I modded riflemen into the upgrade path for all middle ages foot units, and in the late game the AI kept attacking me with stacks of infantry and mech infantry even though they knew how to build tanks and later modern armor.

[Cyclotron]

I can't imagine being able to upgrade from warriors to knights as being fair. I let them upgrade to riflemen, the next best base defense unit.

[Hurricane]

I actually think it's good that some units just become obsolete. By letting every unit in the game be upgradable from beginning to end, you totally ruin the idea of having to rebuild your army after a big breakthrough in weapons technology.

I think Civ3 models this pretty good, since it lets defensive units be upgradable all the way, but not offensive. When a new strong defensive unit becomes available (this mostly concerns the later defensive units Riflemen, Infantry and Mech Inf), offensive wars become very hard until you have got new attacking units. By allowing Longbowmen to upgrade to Marines or Cavalry to Tanks you totally lose this idea.

Allowing Swordsmen to upgrade to Longbowmen might, however, by perfectly ok, since Longbowmen are pretty crappy as they are now.

[Cyclotron]

Originally posted by Hurricane
Allowing Swordsmen to upgrade to Longbowmen might, however, by perfectly ok, since Longbowmen are pretty crappy as they are now.

One of the principles of upgrading in Civ3 is that, except for resources requirements, upgrades are in no way worse than the units they upgrade from. Thus, replacing a 3/2/1 with a 4/1/1 was not included because it replaces a 2 defense unit with a 1 defense unit. If I use legions or swordsmen for defense, I would purposefully not want to upgrade my troops to an inferior unit. The reason I place the upgrade of swords at riflemen is that they are the first unit on the tech tree, besides cavalry (which are disqualified for being a different type of unit altogether), that is not worse in some respect than swordsmen.

[wervdon]

Swordsman to knight has some merit based on the logical sense that the difference in a sword wielding maniac and a knight is basically the horse and some extra armor

But, I dont really like the idea of giving warriors an upgrade path to calvary either....though it is logical. I sort of agree Hurricane that armies should basically go obsolete at some point. I might be ok with it if upgrading reduced experience levels back to regular (representing the need to retrain, since combat on a horse is vastly different to combat on the ground, same with a gun, etc.) But losing the elites would tick most people off So its probally best like it is :P

[Akaoz]

Originally posted by WarpStorm
The problem with upgrading to riflemen is that AI will do it. This isn't bad but they will carry the offensive units flag around. This is bad. In the late game they will ugrade these units to Mech Infantry and attack with them rather than building Modern Armor, because they think they have enough offensive units. I've seen it happen a few times in my mod before I realized what was happening. BTW, the Guerilla is flagged as an offensive unit.

That’s no good!

I modded my game quite a lot and I have to chains that change roles:

horseman-knight-cavalry-mech inf

(Goes from offense to defense.)

warrior-swordsman-rifleman-infantry-modern infantry

(Goes from offense to defense.)

You mean to tell me that the AI doesn't update the offense/defense flags when upgrading?

So that if you upgrade say knights to a 1/10/1 unit and flag it as defensive, the AI will go to war with it as an assault unit?

-Alech

[Akaoz]

Originally posted by wervdon
I might be ok with it if upgrading reduced experience levels back to regular (representing the need to retrain, since combat on a horse is vastly different to combat on the ground, same with a gun, etc.) But losing the elites would tick most people off So its probally best like it is :P

You do loose Elites when upgrading now. Elites go to Veteran, Veteran stay the same and so do Regulars.

-Alech

[GodKing]

I usually have them upgrade to marines, as that is the next (only) infantry that is offensive.....

PtW.... I want it now!!!!

[GhengisFarbâ„¢]

I have swordsmen upgrade to musketmen cause that what happened in real life. Musketeers were just swordsmen with crude gunpowder weapons.

[player1]

Originally posted by WarpStorm
That would be good. I remember when I modded riflemen into the upgrade path for all middle ages foot units, and in the late game the AI kept attacking me with stacks of infantry and mech infantry even though they knew how to build tanks and later modern armor.

As far as I know, that was probelm with 1.21f patch.
And it is fixed.

I haven't seen any big probelms in my OWN mod later.

But, just to be sure, I unflagged Offense flag for Mech. Inf (Soren said that upgrading offesnse unit to "defense flag only" unit will change units strategy to defense) and give Riflemen and Infantry offense of 5 and 8.

P.S.
By the way, It's better for AI to attack you with Infantry then with suicidal Longbowmen (which is also offnseive).
Both units take offense space, for more modern offense units anyway.

[player1]

In my MOD:

Swordsmen 3/2/1/cost 30, upgrades to Rilfemen
Longbowmen 4/1/1/cost 30, upgrades to Rilfemen
Musketmen 3/4/1/cost 50, upgrades to Rilfemen
Riflemen 5/6/1/cost 70, upgrades to Infantry
Infantry 8/10/1/cost 90, upgrades to Mech. Inf.