Unit upgrade?

[mslama]

I saw note about unit upgrading. Is it working in all mods?
The most important question: How to upgrade?

[Martin Gühmann]

As far as I know the unit upgrader is on in Cradle and GoodMod for MedPack2 v.2.1. In MedPack2 v.2.1 it can be added by a small modification of a text file. For the default game the unit upgrader needs some bigger modifications. Unfortunatly my modding time is too limited to convert it to the original game, therefore it is only in the MedPack2 setup of GoodMod not in the CityMod2 and Apolyton setups of GoodMod.

How to upgrade? That shouldn't be too difficuilt, once you discovered the right advance you get a message window that ask you to upgrade all your units that went obsolete by this advance. If you have enough gold than you can upgrade all of the obsolete units. If you don't have enough money than you can only do a partial upgrade, unfortunatly you can't upgrade units later. Note in order to raise the difficuilt level the AI upgrades for free.

-Martin

[Hermann the Lombard]

Note that there were bugs in the updater slic if you traded for the enabling advance. Peter Triggs kindly posted the fixed slc files; I forget in which thread. This was true in both Cradle 1.2 and Cradle 1.3, and he posted both fixes.

Edit: it was the "Cradle Questions & Bugs" thread over in the "mods" forum. I'll try to insert the link:

Cradle Questions & Bugs

[centrifuge]

Originally posted by Martin Gühmann
As far as I know the unit upgrader is on in Cradle and GoodMod for MedPack2 v.2.1.

It's also a part of Dale's WAW mod

Originally posted by Martin Gühmann once you discovered the right advance you get a message window that ask you to upgrade all your units that went obsolete by this advance. If you have enough gold than you can upgrade all of the obsolete units.

Do any of you SLIC studs, know if something could be written to give the option of upgrading when you decide to (after the advance is discovered of course) rather than just the one time immediately after the discovery of the advance?

[child of Thor]

nice idea centrifuge,
Do it when you are ready and can afford it - but maybe it makes it too easy for the player or maybe it will be hard to make the AI do it too? But i would like to be able choose it for myself when i wanted(needed!).

[hexagonian]

Initially, I liked the idea that a player had to carefully plan ahead to have the gold for his upgrades - the problem is that if you miss an upgrade sequence, you are effectively screwed. - and the AI never misses it.

I'm not sure it is possible to do this though, even via slic, because there would have to be an ongoing button/menu that would allow you to do this on any turn. However, I believe that the upgrade option can be repeated several times in the SLIC file, based on different advances.

So, for instance, Spearman would upgrade to Hoplites at both Bronze Working and Barracks. The thing you would have to do is make sure that the second upgrade comes on an advance that requires the initial enable advance too.

[Martin Gühmann]

Basically it is no problem to rewite the code in the way that you can upgrade everytime you discover an advance, like in Civ2 if you have Leonardo's Workshop.

It is just a condition: If player X has advance Y than player X can upgrade all is units of type Z to type W if he has enough gold.
If someone has the time and knows enough slic than he can do it.

-Martin

[Peter Triggs]

Originally posted by child of Thor

but maybe it makes it too easy for the player

That's my thinking too. But since this keeps getting requested I'll have a look at it.

The thing is, I don't think I ever build old units; I always build the best (usually=the most costly) units I can. Is this the same for everyone? If the old units are available to build and you can update them at your next advance, isn't that going to make things too easy?

[Martin Gühmann]

I build cheap units, therefore the time when to upgrade is not the enabling advance of the modern unit but the obsolete advance of the old unit.

-Martin

[hexagonian]

Actually, I will build the cheapest unit available that can be upgraded as I get close to the enable advance for upgrading - provided that I have the gold in my funds.

Overall, I tend to favor how the setup is now, as it does force a player to think ahead.

[child of Thor]

I always have no money , so i guess it doesn't effect me much - i for the most part buy cheap and rely on tatics to win against better units(terrain advantage/numbers).
The intial idea to choose when you upgrade seems nice and player friendly, maybe it could be used in the lower difficulty settings(i.e Hard and below?). I'm 50/50 on this really and untill i actually try it out i'm not sure if it will be a good thing or not - sounds good though. The more player custimisation(Non-Slicing) that can be bought to CTP2 the better i think.

[Locutus]

Being able to upgrade often would definitely make the game much easier, but it wouldn't be bad to have it as an option (two different versions of the SLIC file, let the player choose which one he wants to use). I also like CoT's idea of only having this for the lower difficulty levels...

[centrifuge]

In the current upgrade script, how was the monetary value determined? Meaning was it created to be the cost of rush buying a unit that already has the production shields of a disbanded non-upgraded unit? (did that make sense?) If this is the case, than the ability to upgrade at will would not be any more of an advantage.

[centrifuge]

I'm assuming that what I just stated above isn't true, simply because from my experience the price of an upgrade is far to low.

[Hermann the Lombard]

Originally posted by hexagonian However, I believe that the upgrade option can be repeated several times in the SLIC file, based on different advances.
So, for instance, Spearman would upgrade to Hoplites at both Bronze Working and Barracks. The thing you would have to do is make sure that the second upgrade comes on an advance that requires the initial enable advance too.

I like this idea. Yes, fortune would favor those who plan ahead, but if you screw it up (OK, if *I* screw it up) then you have one more shot to recover, and so you have a bit of time to accumulate some gold.

I don't like Martin's idea of potential upgrade on every advance; it would slow things down having to check every time for eligible units.

Do I buy cheap units to upgrade? Well, usually I buy the best available, with two exceptions: martial law garrison duty in quiet regions, and when I know the cheap units are about to upgrade (archers, for example, when composite bowmen are available).