Upgrading ... again

First of all I want to say that I am very disapointed of the previous voting results.

So here we stand ...

We want to upgrade archer to longbow. The cost is 95 gold.
Our city produces 10 hammers per turn.

We produce wealth for almost 10 turns.

In that time we could produce 2 fresh longbows ...

Is it fair?

I am really mad and I do not understand why any patch solved this issue yet. However I saw that results defended current upgrading cost. So the question for people who voted: "Upgrading should not be changed." ... What is your strategy in that case? Do you prioritize commerce, not hammers?

Well ... I played some open games on this forum and I was not behind with commerce. There are writeups, you can check it. So tell me why I am angry on current upgrading system?. Not mentioning about the fact that upgraded unit is left with only 10 exp.

edit: And insane fact is that being lame in tactics is useful, cause you lose plenty units but it does not matter. Your units do not have more than 10 exp. If you are good at tactics your units have enormous experience and upgrading hurts. So I guess being good must be punished :[

yeah upgrading is very strange and is bascailly never doable in the early game, while in the lategame it cost bascailly nothing. One advantage is that it doesnt make it so easy to turn commerce directly into hammers through upgrading. I dont see why this shouldnt be doable though. Upgrading should be fixed so its equal to hammer cost or something(35 gold from warrior ot axeman for example).

hm... ...don´t know if cheaper upgrades would be better... ...my overall strat right now already relies heavily in upgrading... ...building chariots or harchers, generating 2 GM... ...upgrading about 20 of them to cavallry

In most cases, my building capacity would allow to whip/build even more cheap units. If upgrading would be cheaper, I would even have more cavallry in the end

I´m winning wars already very easy with the actual uprading (cost) system up to high levels... ...if upgrading would be even cheaper... ...poor AI´s

It's not too instructive to compare the number of turns it costs to build a unit with the amount of money you'd get by "building" wealth. Using hammers for wealth is meant to be incredibly inefficient, so it is not meant to give you a good return (unless maybe you've got a city with wall street/bank/marketplace/grocer all set up. You're supposed to be making your money from commerce/specialists/shrines/taking it from somebody else.

As for the "unfairness" of the upgrade cost - Dude, it's a game. If you don't like it, mess with the code or get another game. You're actually lucky you get to upgrade at all. I mean, taking a bunch of guys that are veteran archers and paying something to turn them into just as experienced machine gunners - that's a pretty sweet deal.

The first poll didn't give you the result you wanted so now you're running another one?

Or is it that the feedback wasn't enough for a significant sample?

svv said:

It's not too instructive to compare the number of turns it costs to build a unit with the amount of money you'd get by "building" wealth. Using hammers for wealth is meant to be incredibly inefficient, so it is not meant to give you a good return (unless maybe you've got a city with wall street/bank/marketplace/grocer all set up. You're supposed to be making your money from commerce/specialists/shrines/taking it from somebody else.

As for the "unfairness" of the upgrade cost - Dude, it's a game. If you don't like it, mess with the code or get another game. You're actually lucky you get to upgrade at all. I mean, taking a bunch of guys that are veteran archers and paying something to turn them into just as experienced machine gunners - that's a pretty sweet deal.

Click to expand...

Good point about specialists dude

@pigswill ... your sentence is just trashy . No comments. That's all you can do?

@svv: However specials are not better. 3 gold points is nothing. You can work this time a mine (4 gold).

btw. Win on Deity with these numbers and you are the man. On deity stronger military is needed and it means more money for upgrading.

I think one of the reasons that upgrading is so expensive is that it INSTANTLY produces higher level units. When you build 2 longbows that takes time.

I'm not really sure if this justifies the high cost though.

@Giaur, stop saying dude.

The formula for upgrading units is (difference in hammers * 3) + 20 gold. As wealth converts hammer to commerce in a 1:1 ratio, your far worse off. At the moment, its only worthwhile to upgrade very experienced units, or ones with promotions which would other wise be unatainable. Having a dozen CR3 redcoats is very ... interesting. The units that I can't afford to upgrade are either used for happiness during HR, or are used as canon fodder.

I agree with you that its kind of stupid though. I would rather be able to keep my entire army, but if you make upgrading any cheaper, it will actualy become more profitable that gold rushing, which is stupid. I would quite like to see a system where you can reinvest the hammers to build a new unit. Say you want a longbowman, and at the moment you have an archer. You would begin to build a longbowman, as per normal, and then you would move the archer to that city and 'upgrade' the unit. This would destroy the archer, 75% of its hammer cost would be added to the longbowman, and when the longbowman is finished, its has all the promotions of the archer. That way, upgrading would be like building a unit from scratch, but a lot faster and without loosing promotions.

Non-trashy comment on upgrades.

One reason for upgrading is that if you've accumulated cash you can double or treble the power of your units instantly (useful if you're planning an invasion or even an AI stack arrives outside your city protected by a CG2 archer (instant CG2 rifle without whipping)).

Another reason is giving units promotions they wouldn't have 'naturally', CR infantry being the obvious example.

These are potentially powerful options. Maybe the reason for the current upgrade cost (25 + 2*hammer difference iirc) is to balance these out.

Lord Olleus: If you convince me, dude. By far you brought no reasonable args ...

Take my apologies for calling you "Dude". The link for you, there is exactly what you are saying about.

http://forums.civfanatics.com/showthread.php?t=213295

edit:
pigswill: 20 + 3*hammer unfortunately.

@Snaaty: I upgrade permanently too, cause game is inbalanced here and there. But that does not change anything. The problem is - YOU HAVE TO UPGRADE UNITS. World is simple when you are peaceful builder (I believe it's word about you). But for a warmonger upgrading is expensive (it's word about me).

Warmonger (warmgonger or whatever):
Building 2 axes automatically means that you won't build marketplace in that time. And it strikes your economy. In the long run it means you have to fight with numbers. If you are a good player (as I am), you can avoid these problems. But if you are a good player (as I am) you lose few units and many units are waiting for upgrading. So what shall I do then ... Disband? Skills should be helpful ... but it's only vicious circle.

@ Giaur:

Well, in that point you are right... ...I´m a peacfull builder at heart... ...but usually I do one war almost every game which involves upgrading:

...chariots/harchers to cavallry...

I think it´s OK concerning the costs, because at lower costs it would simply be too easy

...

The rear occasions I went for domination (at least in vanilla, in warlords I never finished a domination attemt so far (not even on emperor... ...always was to lazy to do a huge endgame-battle)... ...perhaps I manage to finish my actuall game (where I´m trying domination again) I did a second big wave of upgrading:

...tanks to moder armors...

again the costs are OK, when upgrading would be cheaper, then it would be again gamebreaking

...

When you are a warmonger who is constantly in a war, things might be different... ...but then again it´s just fair/OK/realistic to have some old units running around (and only upgrade the best units), because you will burn enough gold for warfare and upkeeping

P.S.:

Just checked your link, the upgrade old units for hammers in cities with barracks seems great/realistic/fair

Giaur:It sounds like you play a warmongering style succesfully so for instance you'll have yourself a dozen CR3+ axes, when maces become available your axes become obselete, if you could upgrade axes to maces cheaply then you could continue warmongering quickly and win the game earlier. Therefore current upgrade costs slow your game down.
Maybe its a builder/warmonger balance issue?

Snaaty the mid and lategame upgrades are not that bad... its the early game thats the problem. You will never ever upgrade any ancient or medival units cause it is just not worth it...

Lord Olleus said:

The formula for upgrading units is (difference in hammers * 3) + 20 gold. As wealth converts hammer to commerce in a 1:1 ratio, your far worse off. At the moment, its only worthwhile to upgrade very experienced units, or ones with promotions which would other wise be unatainable.

Click to expand...

...or when you hit a major technological breakthrough (i.e. Modern Armor) very late in the game when you are ready to head into a major conquest phase. Just run 0% science and 0, 10 or 20 percent culture for a couple of turns and all of the armor units that you still have from previous wars now have their attacking power more than doubled.

So, for just two turns of 0 research, you can crush an AI empire. I'd say that's a fair price. If upgrading were equal in cost to hammer difference, that would be just sick. We'd be doing stupid things like pillaging our own copper mines and then pushing out as many warriors as humanly possible immediately before hooking up the copper again and mass upgrading for cheesy wins in the rediculously-early game.

Remember that gold comes from your entire empire. Hammers come from individual cities. Being able to turn an entire empire's commerce directly toward military might is inappropriately powerful

I've always thought of managing my economy to pay for upgrades as part of the overall strategy involved in playing. Yes, upgrading can be expensive, but having an army full of promoted cutting edge units the turn after you discover a new tech is worth the price, especially if you have a military tech advantage.

Sending a great merchant on a trade mission can help quite a bit, as can lowering the tech slider for a few turns. I usually try to put aside an "Oh s*%t" fund to upgrade defenders ahead of an unexpected attack and then only spend to upgrade those units that truly need it.

I am not talking about ridiculous change like 1gold -> 1 hammer. I am talking about lowering the price a bit (15-25%). I won't be upset if lower upgrading cost will be bound with the trait too ...

edit: I could mod the game, but it would be quite uncomfortable for me, especially I am playing few SG's.