Automatic unit upgrades or disbandings ?

[Slax]

Originally posted by cyclotron7
As I have said many times, it is strategically unsound to allow any form of in the field instantaneous upgrades. Even if only one unit is upgraded per turn, you can still have cavalry (not to hard to deal with) magically transformed into armor (a killing machine) in the middle of a battle. People would begin to plan their upgrades for maximum surprise value.....

I completely agree. My idea above meant that units could only be upgraded in cities, BUT, units that are not upgraded, where ever they are, will become automatically disbanded when totally obsolete (they are given a long time before this happens).

I propose this because, while it is has always been smart gameplay (as saracen31 mentioned) , is just looks dumb for ancient units to still be around.

[saracen31]

I still disagree - it may look stupid, but the Polish had cavalry in WWII and the British used fishing boats at Dunkirk. Did they have the technology for more? Yeah, but those old units came in handy (at least for the British ) and could come in handy for you in a game of Civ. Use em as cannon-fodder for barbarians, use em as sentries along a coast.

Let me decide when to get rid of my obsolete units. I don't have a major problem with obsolete units eventually being disbanded, but I'd prefer to make the decision myself.

[Skanky Burns]

Id agree with Saracen. I would prefer to keep my options open regarding my units. If i *really* wanted a bunch of spear-weilding guys wandering around my kingdom and im happy to keep paying their wages each month, then i *should* be allowed to keep a bunch of guys walking around weilding spears However, upgrading them should only be allowed inside a city (or maybe colony), and could prove interesting regarding resources. But i want any upgrading and/or disbanding to be MY and ONLY MY decision

[Urban Ranger]

I don't think the program should go ahead doing things without the player's consent. Especially disbanding. A lot of cities can be left undefended if that's the case.

I like SMAC's system where a player can pay to upgrade units at a fraction of the cost of building from scratch.

[aaglo]

Originally posted by Urban Ranger
I like SMAC's system where a player can pay to upgrade units at a fraction of the cost of building from scratch.

Yes, in SMAC this item is well taken care of. Having never played Civ2 (shame on me ) I don't know how the Leo's Workshop wonder works, I don't know if my following suggestion is useful at all: what if Leo's WS would function like the Nanofactory Secret Project in SMAC; halves the cost of upgrading units, and allows the unit to heal completely in one turn (regardless of the unit's location).

[Grim Legacy]

I think auto-upgrading would be way too strong an ability to have for free. Just do some research and voila: boombastic units everywhere.

I propose that there should be a cost in time and expenses, like others mentioned, but also a drawback: upgraded units should be weak versions of newly built units.

Militarism is too easy already anyway.

[tishco]

what about an upgrade thing like smac but in a city its a fraction to do so but more or the same as building in the battlefield

[seer_98]

Lesser upgrades

We want upgrades that won't bias combat in the field, still have units a little out of date, but don't have ancient units in the modern era.

How about this. If any unit is more than two upgrades behind it gets a single upgrade to still be slightly outdated.

E.g. When you discover musketeer, all phalanxes get upgraded to pikemen. Or when you discover crusaders, horsemen get upgraded to knights. This could happen for free, but won't greatly affect front line troops, which should not be this outdated.

[saracen31]

Originally posted by seer_98

How about this. If any unit is more than two upgrades behind it gets a single upgrade to still be slightly outdated.

I don't have a problem with that - although I don't know why it's necessary. The only reason I can see is for purely aesthetic reasons.

[Cyclotron]

Upgrading, in the sense of a unit "converting to another unit," is silly in general.

Guys, we already have an upgrade feature in Civ2: It's called disbanding the unit and building a new one. You disband a cavalry for half its value in shields, and then spend the rest of the cost of the armor (or whatever unit you are building) and voila, a cavalry to an armor.

This is the best method because it is simple (no weakened versions of units or "proto-units") it is realistic (You can't upgrade a horeseman to a chariot, you just have to transfer whatever materials you have and build a chariot) and it does not take the enemy by surprise. Why invent some new system for a process that Civ2 already covers?

[SerapisIV]

The SMAC system was a vast improvement over Civ2's disband and build system. Though it was overpowered. Upgrading an army a continent away from your cities is pure fantasy even for a game like Civilization. It should be limited to upgrading only in cities.

[Cyclotron]

Would you mind explaining to me how the SMAC system works, and how is it fundamentally any different from CIv2 disbanding?

[SerapisIV]

You don't disband units. You simply pay money per unit to convert your old unit to a newer unit. You also are only allowed to stay within the same category as the old unit, offensive vs. defensive, infantry versus tanks, etc. It's a much more reasonable solution then Civ2. Civ2's is a royal pain in the ass without Leo's and Civ should not give up on successful and realistic improvements of SMAC (upgrading is independent of the sci-fi element of SMAC, unlike Social Engineering choices)

[Provost Harrison]

I would like to see the SMAC based system where you can pay to upgrade your units to newer versions. It would be too much micromanagement to mess around searching for old units and taking them in to be disbanded and replaced. And there is no point in losing the experience accrued by your men. Perhaps one thing they should make sure of is that units can only be upgraded in cities, although this may cause too much complication (units holding overseas colonies, for example)

[SerapisIV]

Across the seas colonies are useless without a city with a harbor to connect to your empire, so upgrading such units on defense still poses no problem, there must be a friendly city nearby.