Reduce Evolving gold cost

When an unit is in a city, and you have the ressources you need, you can evolve an existant unit in the higher level of this unit, if you have the corresponding technology.

You need to pay gold for this evolving.

But this gold cost is extremly too high, you can't afford this evolution, only to give some power points to an existant unit.
(I never did it, but do you preserve experience and experience level of the unit, when evolving?)

Reduce this gold cost, from ~100, to 50, or even lower.

You must run close to the mark on funds; I usually have plenty for that sort of thing....

I don't understand your reply.

Increase your tax revenue by cutting science and culture funding. This will allow a nice increase in your treasury, and after a few turns you should be able to upgrade your men.

... and you won't be able to make science, the science progress is currently slow, we can't afford extremly expensive things only to upgrade some points of power ...
The cost is too high for what you get.
100 gold for a simple evolution is too high.

100 gold?
Upgrades often cost 500 gold. I think that upgrades should remain about the same cost so that by the later game you're more able to afford it, rather than being scaled. I think someone said that it's scaled to production costs.

Perhaps upgrades should cost initially very little but be scaled up for each person who doesn't have the technology for the upgrade. In this way it would be easy to upgrade to your enemy's level, but your 'new super-tech' would cost a fair amount of money to use on existing units.

Units with promotions retain their promotions thru upgrades. Yes, upgrading is expensive, but I've actually found it an interesting trick because I can make a bunch of weak units then upgrade them quickly, rather than spend the longer time it would take to build them from scratch. (Depending upon game speed, this technique could save 3-5 turns, especially if you don't have a civic that allows you to rush-build). Of course, you gotta have the treasury to do it.

I've read about one trick - giving units promotions that aren't available after they've been upgraded. Cavalry, for example, allows the water-assault promotion, but gunships (Cavalry's upgrade) doesn't. So, with this trick, you could make gunships that can attack from your transports. I've not done this, but I have read about it.

- Sligo

Lol, Sligo, I do the same. Build myself a huge army of macemen/crossbowmen and headed straight for Rifling. Upgraded every single unit (including axemen and archers) to Redcoats, and then researched Construction (no tech trading)for catapults. Poor Monty never knew what hit him as I mowed him off my continent and into oblivion.

Not one single casualty.

Danicela, keeping the slider at the maximum sustainable science percentage is a strategis choice, not a necessity. As Sligo said, you can choose to get to a military tech sooner, and start building them asap, or you can take a little more time to get there, but be able to convert all/some of your troops immediately instead of building them from scratch.

The first option is better for science, the second lets you focus construction on buildings/wonders.

100 gold?
Upgrades often cost 500 gold

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Maybe, i was talking for units around clubmen ...

Perhaps upgrades should cost initially very little but be scaled up for each person who doesn't have the technology for the upgrade. In this way it would be easy to upgrade to your enemy's level, but your 'new super-tech' would cost a fair amount of money to use on existing units.

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You want to be able to upgrade to an unit that you haven't the tech for?

Like making gun men at stone age ?

No, the tech must be a pre-requirisite to upgrading, this is normal.

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At the beginning and even after, you gain only a low income of gold each turn, and if you don't put 100% in science, you'll need 30 turns for everything....
You need like 150 science units to make a basic research ...
But you need like 100 to make a sh*tty upgrade !

I am still sure that upgrading costs are too high.

I've seen on a poll about this subject that most of the people prefered to reduce the upgrading gold cost because this is too high.

http://forums.civfanatics.com/showthread.php?t=161823

Although this can be costly its probably quite realistic. Many countries have had the problem of having to spend a fortune upgrading their armies, going to the point of bankruptcy in some cases

Uh? Maybe.. even if I didn't hear of that.
But on a Balance point of view,
The upgrading is too high.

I disagree, Danicela. A dozen turns with less research spending or cashing in a Great Merchant will usually allow me to do a bulk upgrade. There should be no "Easy Button" options. Everything should be a tough trade off.

Heh, try upgrading catapults to cannon. And why should it be cheap? Catapults and cannon have almost nothing in common except their function, so it shouldn't be cheap to such an upgrade.

Danicela said:

... and you won't be able to make science, the science progress is currently slow, we can't afford extremly expensive things only to upgrade some points of power ...

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Exactly. You can't have everything. Being a good leader is partially about making good decisions. A good strategy game presents you with the opportunity to make lots of decisions. Military units don't just magically upgrade - it takes cash (at least that's how it's represented in the game - in reality units wouldn't last 100's of years - you'd have to replace them entirely with painful frequency - but how much fun would that be...). If you want cash to do upgrades, you have to balance and/or sacrifice. Reduce science, go to war and pillage/take cities, or create a great merchant and send him on a mission. Ie, you have to make decisions. It's a good thing!

(Your upgraded units do retain promotions and some experience, and you can sometimes upgrade to a unit and retain promotions that the upgraded unit cannot get, for ex, upgrade a city raider III axeman to a rifleman)

Side note, it WOULD be nice if some wonder, tech or civic choice would slightly reduce upgrade costs (maybe a 10-20% reduction). Perhaps in the expansion...

A dozen turns with less research spending or cashing in a Great Merchant will usually allow me to do a bulk upgrade.

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More than a dozen.
And do you think that a "dozen" of turns are something interesting to give 1 or 2 power points more to an existant unit ?
The cost of this thing for what you get is insanely too high.

There should be no "Easy Button" options. Everything should be a tough trade off.

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Lol.
There is a difference between "easy" and "normal" and "crazely high".
The current cost is "crazely high" for what you get.
I'm requesting something "normal" and balanced, and not something overpowered and "easy".
But now upgrading is underpowered by its insane cost.
If you think that I'm someone who likes easiness, you are wrong, I like when the things are hard, but I don't like when they are too high, they must have a good medium.

Heh, try upgrading catapults to cannon. And why should it be cheap? Catapults and cannon have almost nothing in common except their function, so it shouldn't be cheap to such an upgrade.

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Ok.. but how much is it hard to replace a sword by a mace ?
For this thing, we must disconsider realism, we can't set a huge cost for something that doesn't worth it.
Hundreds of gold are a too big sum for 2 points of power.

Exactly. You can't have everything. Being a good leader is partially about making good decisions. A good strategy game presents you with the opportunity to make lots of decisions. Military units don't just magically upgrade - it takes cash (at least that's how it's represented in the game - in reality units wouldn't last 100's of years - you'd have to replace them entirely with painful frequency - but how much fun would that be...). If you want cash to do upgrades, you have to balance and/or sacrifice. Reduce science, go to war and pillage/take cities, or create a great merchant and send him on a mission. Ie, you have to make decisions. It's a good thing!

(Your upgraded units do retain promotions and some experience, and you can sometimes upgrade to a unit and retain promotions that the upgraded unit cannot get, for ex, upgrade a city raider III axeman to a rifleman)

Side note, it WOULD be nice if some wonder, tech or civic choice would slightly reduce upgrade costs (maybe a 10-20% reduction). Perhaps in the expansion...

Click to expand...

Stop with this type of reflexion please...
Replacing swords by maces is not expensive, for exemple.
We must not consider realism for it, but the game in itself, the thing is simple :
-Upgrading gives you poor advantages for a so big cost, the gold you give and the gold you need to gather to do it is too high, you don't realize the discrepancy between what you get and how much do you pay.

This might be a little off topic, but upgrading units would be better if some inherent advantages of the old unit stayed. So, if I upgraded my swordsman, it would be nice if his +10% city attack stayed with the unit. True, many later units never need advancements from earlier generations (like Macemen's +50% vs. melee) but perhaps it could turn into some extra experience once you upgrade out of a world of melee (i.e. into gunpowder).

Lately, I have found myself with enough money to upgrade. To run a decent economy (and no, not just the Financial Trait with cottage spamming) it takes time and practice. Try to always run at a surplus instead of a deficit. I used to always make that mistake, and extra money always comes in handy.

The high upgrade cost is not about to piss the human, but to help AI, as this cost is halved by 10 for it. The result is that it piss the human still

A 10 seconds modding issue. The prize for upgrades can be find in GlobalDefines file.

The high upgrade cost is not about to piss the human, but to help AI

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This is stupid, the costs have to be balanced for all, and this cost is too high.

as this cost is halved by 10 for it.

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WTH is that ?
This is false : All have the same things, as you take the normal difficulty level, all have the same things, the cost don't vary from a player to another...
It is normal that the cost is balanced to all players...

The result is that it piss the human still

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What is the point ? What you say is illogical.

A 10 seconds modding issue. The prize for upgrades can be find in GlobalDefines file.

Click to expand...

I don't have to mod anything, this is an unbalance problem that needs to be corrected by the developpers, to make a real official balanced game.
This is absolutely not something that each one have to do, because it's not a problem for only one, see the poll about that and see the absolute truth and you'll understand that this problem has to be corrected by developpers.
Not by particulars.

Actually, I recall reading somewhere that the AI gets a discount on upgrades to reduce the amount of obsolete units it fields (remember how in previous Civs you could always find a few ceremonial spearmen in the capital, taking down your tanks?). I'm not sure what the discount is, but Salamandre is apparently claiming that the cost is reduced by a factor of ten.

Plz delete - double post