Civ 5 Promotion Costs

How do promotion costs escalate in XP points?

Is it reasonable to plan for more than 5 promotions for units at Immortal level?

Easily. Difficulty doesn't matter, you're not supposed to let any unit die at any diff. level, especially not those that already accumulated a good chunk of xp.

Melee units of course have the problem that they need to heal after attacks and die more easily if the enemy has units too, while Ships and Aircrafts usually can attack every turn quite safely. And twice per turn with Logistics to keep the promotions rolling. For that reason March is usually much better than Blitz.

Tip: You'll level up faster by taking the "Air Repair" (Aircrafts) and "Range" (Ships) promotions before Logistics, due to being able to fire every turn without having to heal in between.

It's not uncommon to have Ships/Planes/Keshiks^^ with level 8/9/10/11 at the end of the game.

I should think that a single city with Heroic Epic, Brandenburg Gate, and Barracks / Armory / etc. should be able to crank out at least a 4th level promoted unit (including Epic's Morale as one of the promotions), if not 5th level, right out of the gate, no matter the difficulty. (Never done this myself, but now that you've given me the idea, going to try it )

Follow-up question, then, for anyone who knows: If you had the above setup, and popped out a level 4 unit... would the Combat XP requirement for the next level increase according to the unit's "level?" (If it does at all.) Or does the game see it as a "new" unit with no XP requirement difference from a new level 0?
I'll test it out, but just curious in the meantime...

Barracks etc XP is just normal XP. So they start at lvl 2 or 3 for e.g. and the next level takes more xp. I'm not sure about the points per level....

10/30/60/120/180?...

You can get:
+15 xp Barracks
+15 xp Armory
+15 xp Military Academy
+15 xp Brandenburg Gate
+15 xp Total War (Autocracy SP)

(+15% combat strength Heroic Epic)
(50% more Experience from combat - Military Tradition (Honor SP))
Some unique units also level up faster than normal units (for e.g. Keshiks).

So you can get a city to produce units with 75 xp, making them start at lvl 3 (60 xp would be enough for that). Note that some units start with certain promotions while still being lvl 1. However for these +45 xp from Rax/Armory/Military Academy is enough to make them reach for e.g. Drill/Shock/Siege I+II+III, so they can already get a "high level promotion" like Logistics/Air Repair/March with the next promotion (or right of the bat with the Brandenburg Gate or Total War SP). We're talking about Samurais, Minutemen and B-17 Bombers here (oh look... two American units...).

Thanks, Fei, saved me some work

I agree with Fei's first post that units should be preserved under all circumstances. Only when you really care about your troops do you force yourself to plan campaigns seriously and not with suicidal missions.

180XP is equivalent to 36 battles won... is that right?

casusbelli said:

180XP is equivalent to 36 battles won... is that right?

Click to expand...

Ranged attacks give less XP than melee attacks. Attacking a city gives more XP than attacking a unit... and then there's also Military Tradition (Honor SP). Plus: Defending also gives XP (less than attacking). So you really can't say that

casusbelli said:

180XP is equivalent to 36 battles won... is that right?

Click to expand...

I reckon the best case for 180 experience (assuming no experience to start with) is 26 battles survived, assuming the experience (7 xp) of a melee unit with the Military Tradition social policy initiating and surviving assaults on enemy city is the amount of experience gained for each combat action.

26 unique circumstances where the same unit in the same game survives an assault on an enemy city? Yikes. I'll stick with experience from military buildings and getting experience from being shot by enemy ranged units, thank you very much.

Speaking on this. I was wondering on the upkeep for xp units. The more xp they get, does the upkeep go up?

The promotion costs always go up by 10. First at 10xp. Second one is 20xp later. Then 30xp after that one. Or 10 - 30 - 60 - 100 - 150 - 210 - 280 - etc.

If you play on marathon, you can have insanely promoted units (especially ranged).