I've heard this question posed before- can you add a unit to the game that you can upgrade one unit to, but can't actually be built. Well, I think I've found the solution, which is albeit a little ham-fisted:

Give the new unit a build cost in population that means no civ will be able to build it throughout the game (e.g. 40). This means that it will appear in the build list, but I don't think the AI is so dumb that it will attempt to build something that it cannot ever complete (It doesn't try to build settlers in size >3 cities to my knowledge). The only other worry is that human players might try and build it themselves, but they can be warned ahead of time at least and the 'pedia can warn them as well.

Anyone up for tesing the viability of this method?

Easier would be setting the unit to "King" then it can't be built, but other units can be upgraded. The only problem is, you can't use this in regicide games...

Oh I didn't know that was an option too. The game doesn't go mental when you lose a king-flagged unit and destroy your entire civ does it?

Oh I didn't know that was an option too. The game doesn't go mental when you lose a king-flagged unit and destroy your entire civ does it?

HOPEFULLY only if you have the scenario flagged for "Regicide" victory.

-Oz

HOPEFULLY only if you have the scenario flagged for "Regicide" victory.

-Oz

I tested it, thats why I said you can't use it with regicide mode

But it works then in a normal epic game ??

I tested it, thats why I said you can't use it with regicide mode

Ah, excellent -- thank you :)

-Oz

Oh, so that's how the Japanese Conquest works then, it has all these King Units, and since it's a regicide game, kill the King and the whole civ falls... but if you edit it and remove the regicide aspect then you can still upgrade your Daimyo, and if he gets killed you're okay. I see...

Question though... is it possible to have a non-buildable unit be upgradable to without having the buildable predecessor removed?

For example, I was thinking of adding a feature that allowed the Japanese to build the Zero, but then allowing them to "upgrade" the Zero to a one-shot Kamikaze bomber but still allow them to build regular Zeros. Is this possible?

I like this concept- having to upgrade units sort of simulates the cost and time to train rough recruits into better soldiers

As you can't build the kamikaze, I think you still would be able to build that Zero, but thats just guessed. You would have to test it...

As you can't build the kamikaze, I think you still would be able to build that Zero, but thats just guessed. You would have to test it...
Please do :) could someone make a small tutorial of this once all details are out ??

I tested the regicide theory, and it yielded some, erm, interesting results. First of all, the upgrading works fine, you can upgrade unit x -> king y and then to king z (Although it'd be x -> z if you had z's tech, obviously). But the big downer on this, is that as far as the AI is concerned, every king unit is THE King, and I don't mean they swivel their hips and sing old songs, I mean the AI thinks that every such unit is its king unit. The upgraded unit for AI players is named as their actual King unit regardless of what the unit really is, and the AI holes up its King units inside its cities and does absolutely nothing with them, and they're last to be attacked. I didn't check if killing a king unit actually ends up wiping out the entire civ, but regardless, using the king flag for upgrades is useless if you want the AI to use them as well.

Ho wells.

Thank you- damn, so it won't work in the end...

I tested the regicide theory, and it yielded some, erm, interesting results. First of all, the upgrading works fine, you can upgrade unit x -> king y and then to king z (Although it'd be x -> z if you had z's tech, obviously). But the big downer on this, is that as far as the AI is concerned, every king unit is THE King, and I don't mean they swivel their hips and sing old songs, I mean the AI thinks that every such unit is its king unit. The upgraded unit for AI players is named as their actual King unit regardless of what the unit really is, and the AI holes up its King units inside its cities and does absolutely nothing with them, and they're last to be attacked. I didn't check if killing a king unit actually ends up wiping out the entire civ, but regardless, using the king flag for upgrades is useless if you want the AI to use them as well.

Ho wells.

This is probably a dumb question, but you flagged the unit for AI offensive strategy, right?

And did you have the "King" strategy checked? ;)

This is probably a dumb question, but you flagged the unit for AI offensive strategy, right?

The unit flags were exactly as they were for the units I tested it with- but I did not really consider the impact of the King units and the King strategies- so I shall delete the basic King unit and see if the AI still treats the pseudoking units as kings.

...and hooray, we've cracked it! Put the civ's king unit to none, and it will use the upgraded pseudoking unit in exactly the same fashion it uses any other unit. In addition, you can still buld the inferior unit and keep upgrading them if you have the money (And the AI makes extensive use of the upgrades itself).

Put the civ's king unit to none, ...

to none ? no civilization or how ?? :confused:

On the Civilisations tab of the editor there's an option for the King unit, e.g. it will have "King Unit: Caesar" for Rome. Change it to none with the drop-down menu is all.

got it :) (ramdala10lettermandala)

But if the "pseudoking" is flaged to none CIV, than it should be killed even in a regicide without causing the owning CIV to be a smear in the history books?

my guess is that this would not work in regicide at all...

But if the "pseudoking" is flaged to none CIV, than it should be killed even in a regicide without causing the owning CIV to be a smear in the history books?

Perhaps, but this has such little value that it's not even worth checking. I mean, if you're right, then you would have a regicide mode that is exactly the same as the regular game! :lol:

You can't upgrade a unit to another unit that this civilization is not flagged for, can you?

No, but you can upgrade through it.

I've discovered a bug/ feature that may mean this isn't suitable for general use. Whenever you get a technology, the game cycles through all your cities and upgrades production to whatever new units might be available, e.g. in the normal game, if you develop gunpowder and have saltpeter then all pikeman production will be upgraded to musketman. But when it does this, it seems to ignore if a unit is a king, and upgrades all production to the newest unit. Using the same example, that means that if you make the musketman a king unit, then when you develop gunpowder all pikeman production will be upgraded to musketman- even though you shouldn't be able to build it. But it doesn't just upgrade it when you develop gunpowder (or whatever), it upgrades it every single time you receive any technology!

So in your scenario if you used this, then every time the Japanese get a new tech all Zero production would be upgraded to Kamaikazes. You could probably excuse this as saying that each scientific breakthrough allows the special unit to be produced, and it would still limit the unit to some extent, but if techs are being discoevered faster than your cities produce Zeros, then you'll only get kamikazes built (although you can manually change it back to the "inferior" unit)...

OUCH! Another brillant idea shot down by an inflexiable editor!
Also, another issue is that King units automitically are given the name of the civ's leader. So your Kamakazies would be called 'Emperor Hirihito' Or whatever.

A kind of a roundabout way of doing it... interesting.

Another, much more difficult, possibility is to select upgrade-path units which the AI can build but WON'T (see the by-now-probably-infamous thread on what the AI seems to build for ideas). This means constructing a force pool, at every turn, where there are units the AI prefers to build to the upgrade path units; even so, expect one to be made randomly every so often.

-Oz

Actually, in theory, a city surrounded entirely by irrigated flood plains with wheat can attain a population of 71.

Goldflash- edit: if you're referring to the kamikazes (or whatever) produced after production is automatically upgraded when you get a new tech, you're right, they would be named after the King unit. Darn it!

Oz- uhh, that's complex sounding :O