Unit upgrade paths - a nightmare

S

Santa Maria

Warlord
Joined
Aug 31, 2011
Messages
135
I really hope this gets fixed - I had horses early so I built about 6 ChariotA and I found it cool. Then they got promoted and then -> got upgraded to knights and lost all of ther great promotions. It kind of makes the ChariotA a bad unit, which is bad.
They really should upgrade to Xbows.
The same problem with HorseA - I got an uber army of about 6 logistics HA and if they upgraded to Xbows I would maintain an Army, but I just got 6 standard Knights. The same with Keshiks (they should upgrade to gatlings).

So I think, what if Ranged units always upgrade to Ranged and Melee to Melee, siege to siege and so on.

So what do you think about this?
 
I don't see why they can't just make the promotions shared between ranged/melee.

Rough I for Melee should be the same promotion as Rough I for Ranged, why do they need to be different? Blitz = Logistics, etc. Only problem is +1 Range but it just wouldn't apply for Melees.

Only difference in the trees AFAIK is Ranged get March after Rough/Open II and Melee need Rough/Open III, but getting March sooner is fine, would make Melee units a bit less useless.
 
Alzadar said:
I don't see why they can't just make the promotions shared between ranged/melee.

Rough I for Melee should be the same promotion as Rough I for Ranged, why do they need to be different? Blitz = Logistics, etc. Only problem is +1 Range but it just wouldn't apply for Melees.

Only difference in the trees AFAIK is Ranged get March after Rough/Open II and Melee need Rough/Open III, but getting March sooner is fine, would make Melee units a bit less useless.
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...actually Melee units with Range would be super cool. The promotion equivalent would probably be called Surge, where the units just charge right past any obstacles and go for the farther target.

...how has this not been a unique unit yet? o.o

Anyway yeah, upgrade paths are still a mess. There should be a dedicated ranged mounted line, I've talked about making the Huns' Horse Archer a generic unit and giving them a Treasury UB in its place that gets 1 GPT (and Tourism once Archaeology is researched) for each city razed. So Chariot Archers would be the ancient ranged mounted unit, Horse Archers Classical, then a potential Mounted Crossbow unit for Medieval, Cuirassiers for Renaissance (incidentally Lancers should be a Knight upgrade), Dragoons or Carabiniers for Industrial, and Light Tanks and Artillery Tanks for Modern and beyond, that era I don't have precisely worked out.
 
A tip about chariot archers: if you pick rough I & II (same thing with open terrain) your XP doesn't change, so even upgraded to knights, your next promotion will be march.
 
Melee units are supposed to be hand-to-hand fighters, not ranged units. "Ranged Melee" is about as contradictory as "Dark Light" or "Beautiful Ugly".
 
MerchantCo said:
Melee units are supposed to be hand-to-hand fighters, not ranged units. "Ranged Melee" is about as contradictory as "Dark Light" or "Beautiful Ugly".
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I know but I meant a unit that could engage in a melee attack with units two tiles away. Like, the image would be that of your warriors charging into an open plain, attacking the enemy from that tile, and then retreating back quickly.

It'd be one hell of an archer counter if it was early-game.
 
Gyra Solune said:
It'd be one hell of an archer counter if it was early-game.
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It's more or less the purpose of the Horseman (and mounted units in general)
 
Knights are a bit sucky, but cavalry are very nice.

I agree they should upgrade in a more sensible path, it's weird they go from range to melee. I mean cavalry in the 21st century is a bunch of tanks, since when are tanks melee?
 
Gyra Solune said:
I know but I meant a unit that could engage in a melee attack with units two tiles away. Like, the image would be that of your warriors charging into an open plain, attacking the enemy from that tile, and then retreating back quickly.

It'd be one hell of an archer counter if it was early-game.
Click to expand...

That's basically how Mounted works since they can move back after attacking.
 
Known bug, the combat calculator shows the effect of the useless promotion but it doesn't actually factor into real combat. And ffs, is it such a "nightmare" to never build useless chariot archers? The only time to build them is as Mongolia or Arabia
 
Magma_Dragoon said:
Known bug, the combat calculator shows the effect of the useless promotion but it doesn't actually factor into real combat. And ffs, is it such a "nightmare" to never build useless chariot archers? The only time to build them is as Mongolia or Arabia
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why useless? come earlier than CBs, cheaper, almost as strong and have 4 moves, good enough for me..
 
As long as they remain chariot archers, OK. When upgraded to Knights, their ranged promotions are disregarded in combat results. What makes CAs so compelling for Mongolia and Arabia is that they upgrade to ranged units, so CA ranged promotions are well worth the investment.
 
They are really strong for early attacks, even if they aren't that useful later on.
 
killmeplease said:
why useless? come earlier than CBs, cheaper, almost as strong and have 4 moves, good enough for me..
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Those are all good points (but note that the move is severely terrain dependent). The downside is that CA takes a while before they can be upgraded (even heavily promoted, they will be underpowered for a long stretch of turns) and at that point most (not all) of their promotions go to waste (since they change from ranged to melee). By comparison, the archer line is less cost effective in the short term (but not by too much), but there are several increments (so their combat strength stays relevant) and the upgrade path is very good (so their promotions continuously stack). On balance, the characterization of “useless” seems fair to me!

Soronery said:
They are really strong for early attacks, even if they aren't that useful later on.
Click to expand...

Agreed, but without a UU in the mix, it just does not seem worth it.
 
beetle said:
Agreed, but without a UU in the mix, it just does not seem worth it.
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They are situational.
1. They are on the tech path to CB
2. You don't need to spend gold to upgrade them early on (archer->CB)
3. They cost less hammers and move faster than CB.
Usually if you are doing an early rush you are going to take some casualties anyway. A 3/3 mix can be pretty effective. 3 CB 3 Chariot archers. When your chariot archers take damage just use the instant heal promotion since they are expendable. If you need to train more troops then getting some additional Chariots may sometimes be the better option due to their movement speed. They have a pretty specific role and their usage window isn't that big but I've made good use of them before.

I'd like to see knights get some sort of boost because they seem kind of weak but I think that if you allow CA promotions to carry over they will be too strong.
 
Those are all good points Soronery, thanks for the explanation. I particularly struggle with the gold cost to upgrade archers to CB, especially since the timing is that it competes with rushing a library.
 
There should be a mounted ranged line, which would solve all of this silliness and de-break Mongolia's ability to slaughter anyone who does not have aircraft.
 
Yes, I agree that - though the upgrade paths for units has improved dramatically over the course of the game - the ranged horse units upgrading into melee units is still a mess.
 
Gyra Solune said:
...actually Melee units with Range would be super cool...

...how has this not been a unique unit yet? o.o
Click to expand...
:confused: Zulu Impis? Yeah, it could have a better strength, but such a thing does in fact exist.
 
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