Buying military units from other civilisations...

[Urban Ranger]

The thing is Provost the Aztecs won't know anything about the bombers. They won't know how to fly them, they won't have any place to land them, and they can't maintain them.

So there must be a cap on how much more advanced a tech a civ can buy. I'd say at most one epoch apart.

[Kestrel]

I suppose this could also apply to the new 'unique units' coming out. The Americans handing over MIGs for a price would certainly make for an interesting game, and may prove a further complexity to attend to diplomatically.

I agree.

This idea (if implemented correctly) certainly has the potential to balance many of the annoyances that will be broght on by the new "unique units" option.

How many countries in the world today actually manufacture their own high-tech fighters / bombers from scratch and how many purchase them from allies (whether Migs or F-16s or whatever).

If I am playing as an ally of the U.S. then I want to think that they will sell me the most advanced weaponry even if I can't get the tech. off them to build it myself.

This would also add a nice twist to the diplomacy, you would tend to want to stay friends with your weapons suppliers.

[Asesino_Virtual]

Yeah yeah, buy/sell units, to be advanced or not to be advanced...
but remember this, in CIVII if u gifted 3-5 units to an AI civ, it eventually will discover its secrets and gain the tech to produce those units.

[Jason Beaudoin]

Maybe you can request military units during negotiations with other CIVs? Maybe this is already possible. Perhaps you can demand units in return for certain goods.

[Crouchback]

I doubt even the AI will sell stealth bombers to an iron age tribe, unless it is really very stupid indeed, and the tribe won't be able to afford such an extravagance. But IMHO buying/exchanging civ specific units might be very useful in rounding out the offensive/defensive elements of an army.

Of course there is another way of playing this game. In SMAC I used to give an increasingly hostile neighbor hundreds of crappy outmoded units in a single turn, making the recipient like me and yet ruining their economy with the escalating military costs.

David