Elite Panzers or Veteran Modern Armor

[dac]

I have about 21 Elite Panzers, and 14 Veteran Modern Armor. I only have about 1500 gold, and my core cities have factories and Hoover Dam. Two cities can kick out a Modern Armor in 2 turns, 4 others take 3 turns. Should I spend the money upgrading my Panzers, knocking them down to Veteran status, or should I keep them around for their Elite leader generating capability?

[Arrian]

What are you against? Are you fighting vs. Infantry, or Mech Infantry. Or are you not fighting at all?

I would say that unless you're up against Mech Infantry, don't upgrade them.

-Arrian

[dac]

Well, I'm anticipating a fight against the Zulus if they don't keep their swarms of Ironclads out of my territorial waters. They don't have Mech Inf yet, but they are only a tech or two away, since I know they have Radio. It all depends on how they are walking up the tree.

I think I agree, Panzers can take on about anything short of Mech Inf, they even stand a decent chance against Modern Armor, as long as the Panzers are attacking and not defending.

[Travathian]

Dont upgrade them. Use them to finish off damaged units or to attack weaker units that are sure wins, this will greatly increase the chances for a GL. Use your cities to kick out some more modern armor. Also crank out some Mech Infantry and radar artilery of your own for a balanced offense.

[Ethelred]

Keep the Panzers. At least untill you have to fight someone with a lot of Mechanized Infantry.

Even against the mechs you may be able to attack them successfully if you do a lot of bombarding. It would be worth it to risk losing them against highly damaged Mechs especially if you have built the Heroic Epic. Treat them as specialists. Special Great Leader generator troops rather than as tools for conquest.

[AJ Corp. The FAIR]

No reason to not upgrade, man!

Always upgrade!!
If you're fighting a long war there will be many opportunities for promotions --> so your vets will become elites rather quickly after upgrade, whilst representing the best available allround unit.

Anyway, definitely in later gaming, leaders aren't that important anymore: normally you've already built the major wonders you've wanted and you'll probably be able to produce leaders by yourself (Military Academy)... On top, in later gaming, more leaders seem to appear in comparison to earlier game phases.

Why will you take the risk losing some of your panzers by the time the AI discovers mech. inf.? Upgrade, man!

What's wrong with an upgraded unit that represents a major improvement to the previous one? Vets instead of elites?

So what, who cares about this? They WILL become elites pretty fast..!

So I go against some of you, guys, but my money is definitely on modern armor! I'll spank your tiny Panzers though ..!

AJ

[Hurricane]

I would say keep the Panzers, especially if you have a lot of artillery around. But as AJ says, it is easy to get them back to elite if you decide to upgrade. Since modern armor (Panzers too, of course) have 3 moves, you can easily fight two battles during one turn, which always means your unit will get upgraded back to elite. On the other hand, the AI usually has lots of Riflemen, Cavlary and similar obsolete units hanging around, so I´d say it´s only a money thing.

[Travathian]

Anyway, definitely in later gaming, leaders aren't that important anymore: normally you've already built the major wonders you've wanted and you'll probably be able to produce leaders by yourself

Nope, sorry, you CANT build leaders, you can build armies though. GL are still nice in the later portions of the game to spead up the production of SS parts or ICBMs. Or if you decide to keep all of the cities you conquer, you can always relocate your palace for free.

I still say keep the Pnazers to pick off the weak and defenseless unless you're in dire need of the extra offense afforded by upgrading them.

[Pius Popprasch]

Keep the Panzers! Leaders are nice to have.

[Grey Knight]

The real answer is to be found from the combat calculator. The elite tanks have an extra HP (at 5) versus the veteran MA's would have, so they will do better than 16/24 in a fight relative to the MA. So, where do the numbers go? I ran two sets of elite tank vs vet MAs - one against vet Infantry (def 10), and one against vet Mech Inf (def 18). Both were fortified, on grassland, and in a town for a 135% bonus to defense. So, the win percentages are:

Enemy Tank MA
Infantry 42% 51%
Mech Inf 15% 22%

So if you're fighting infantry, the MA will only win 21% more often, however when fighting mech inf the MA will win 47% more often. Since you already have panzers the 3 movement of MA isn't that big a deal, but you said MI is coming fast, so I'd upgrade!

Cheers,
Shawn

[Thrawn05]

I've been looking at this thread on the main forum for a while, and since it's still up top let me chim in (is that a good thing? )

I say why not both?

I play as Rome a lot, and when I need a friend I turn to Germany (That's the only civ that I suck up to). When I get a MPP with them, and they get their panzers, I say, let me drag you into a war with someone I hate. This works 70% of the time for me (the other times are when one of us are loosing units left and right).

A couple of times I was in the modern age and I had Modern Armor. I went to war as usual with Germany by my side. Let me tell you we both sweeped that Pangea so hard there was nothing except the two of us. THe combination of the two seems deadly IMHO.

[rpodos]

Use the Panzers for damaged / weak units. In the process, hopefully having generated some GLs, a number of the Panzers will be damaged down to 1-2 hitpoints. Upgrade those for instant healing.

R

[ledj]

I would upgrade at least half of the elite panzers to veteran modern armor, because the defence value.