Idea regarding Unit Upgrades

[Tirerndil]

In the Battle Royal live stream that just ended, the Firaxis Devs spoke about the problem of the AI not upgrading some of their ancient units. The reason they gave is that certain classes of units such as the basic warrior is followed by units that require specific strategic resources to build and so there are certain times when Civs will be unable to upgrade their warriors because of this lack of strategic resources. This is why we see Civs in the Modern era still having warriors/archers/chariots in their military.

So how can this "bottle-necking" at certain places in the military unit upgrade lines be addressed in order to avoid this issue of archaic units sticking around for most of the game? Here is my suggested solution:

1. Detach all strategic resources from basic military units. Essentially all standard military units have no prerequisite strategic resources.

2. Military tech is dispersed so that every era has its own type of unit of each of the different classes (melee/ranged/cavalry/siege/etc.)

3. All preexisting units upgrade automatically once the new technology is researched.

4. Access to strategic resources allows you to build/purchase/upgrade to an superior version of the current era's unit. (ex. Greatswords in place of Medieval Swordsmen or Stealth Fighters in place of Jet Fighters)

This means that every Civ (including the human player) as it progresses through the tech tree will improve its military automatically. This solves the problem of Atomic Era Warriors.

Here are two criticisms to my idea and my responses:

Q1. Isn't receiving free upgrade for all units overpowered?

A1. The Devs say that unit maintenance increases each era in Civ VI so I think this would prevent automatic free upgrades from being overpowered since you are still in fact paying for it, its just spread out over the longer-term as ongoing upkeep. In fact, this automatic upgrade would force weaker Civs to downsize their military as the game progresses due to upkeep cost and they would need to rely on strong allies in the late game.

Q2. Doesn't this automatic upgrade system make domination victories a lot harder since everyone will have a more upgraded military?

A2. This is where point #4 is crucial. Strategic resources unlock far superior versions of the basic units. So a Civ or Human Player that is striving for a domination victory can still achieve this and gain a great military advantage over their rivals but this becomes more strongly tied not only to scientific progress but also to acquiring those strategic resources and having the production/economy to build/buy the advanced units.

Thanks in advance for reading this post. Let me know what you think.

 

[smartcanuck1988]

I like the idea of being able to build any unit, but I don't think adding more types of units is really necessary.

Just make it so that if you acquire a strategic resource, it will add e.g. +5 combat bonus to its respective units, and speed up production of new units by 50%.

You could also make it so that 1 copy of a strategic resource can count as 1 gold for the maintenance of its respective unit. If we want to make the number of copies of a resource matter.

I think this way you still give a very good incentive to acquire strategic resources (battle for resources should still be a key element in the game in my opinion), but if a civ could not connect a certain resource then they're not completely blocked out of upgrading their units. At the same time, you leave much of the existing game system in place without having to create too many additional units.

 

[KrikkitTwo]

I'd probably say it would be simpler to allow upgrades for 2-3x cost if you don't have the resource....(also allow you to build from the encampment/harbor for 2-3x cost if you don't have the resource)

 

[Tirerndil]

I'd probably say it would be simpler to allow upgrades for 2-3x cost if you don't have the resource....(also allow you to build from the encampment/harbor for 2-3x cost if you don't have the resource)

That's not a bad idea and it is simpler than my suggestion. However, it runs the risk of not fixing the original issue of the AI not upgrading because the 2-3x gold cost is prohibitive in a different way and could become just as much of a "bottleneck" as not having the strategic resources.

 

[KrikkitTwo]

That's not a bad idea and it is simpler than my suggestion. However, it runs the risk of not fixing the original issue of the AI not upgrading because the 2-3x gold cost is prohibitive in a different way and could become just as much of a "bottleneck" as not having the strategic resources.

Well except gold is easier for the AI to get than strategic resources (just program the AI to make sure to stay positive on its gpt, and make "upgrade" the highest priority for spend lump sums of gold)

 

[Ryika]

But it's questionable whether that's really good use for that gold. Could have used it for something better, especially if it's designed to be a bad deal (which it has to be if Strategic Resources are meant to have a significant role).

But I honestly don't understand what's so hard about making them disband heavily outdated units that they can't upgrade. Make it a slow process of one every few turns if the overall combat strength is above a certain threshold and over time it modernizes its military automatically. Not optimal either of course, but certainly better than the carpet of old, useless units that they're currently maintaining.