[DLL] (7-NS) Unit upgrades damages unit to 1 HP

[Stalker0]

Proposal: When upgrading a Major Civ Unit (not a CS or barbarian unit), that units current HP is set to 1.

Example: An archer at 32 hp upgrades into an Composite Bowman. The CBow will have 1 hp, and then will heal as normal from there.

Rationale: Upgrading your units is a powerful effect that gives players with a military science lead a strong ability to dominate their foes right after a big discovery.

This idea first spreads out the impact of an upgrade, requiring several turns of healing before the unit is serviceable again, which delays the impact of a new military technology and encourages building new units along with upgrading. Further, this prevents a unit on the frontline from suddenly upgrading and leaping ahead in strength. Now upgrades require more tactical planning, as you need to cycle out troops from the front to upgrade them out of danger.

However, the overall "cost" of upgrades remains the same, as they can be quite expensive already for a large army.

 

[ma_kuh]

Any changes to AI, specifically if trying to upgrade units during a siege of their city?

 

[Tekamthi]

I think 50% hp would be sufficient. Or at the very least 33% so the full red portion of the bar is filled in. 1 hp signifies to me that they're reduced to their final couple dozen or so personnel

 

[Rekk]

After my initial proposal of 1hp, I cooled down and suggested instead that it reduced health by 75 hp (minimum 1), allowing some policy (eg imperialism) to change the reduction to 60.

 

[Stalker0]

I am sure there may be some debates on what the exact hp threshold should be, so likely a few counterproposals of different thresholds make sense.

 

[Tekamthi]

Maybe should just cut current HP in half. 100 hp unit upgrades to 50, 10 hp unit upgrades to 5.

In some ways you could say OP is backhanded buff to upgrading almost dead units. they all gonna upgrade to 1 hp anyway, why do the healthier ones first?

 

[Rekk]

In some ways you could say OP is backhanded buff to upgrading almost dead units. they all gonna upgrade to 1 hp anyway, why do the healthier ones first?

That's fine?

 

[L. Vern]

I don't like this idea for several reasons

1) It doesn't make sense in relation to purchased units. You're telling me that giving a new kind of weapon to a battle hardened, experienced unit of soldiers will result them in being so weak that a slight gust of wind will knock them over, but give the same weapons to hastily levied recruits and they will be orders of magnitude stronger? At most their HP should be set to currHP * currCS / newCS
2) There's already significant restrictions and costs to upgrading, I personally think even taking up the whole turn is a very signficant drawback in later eras
3) You should get a major power spike if you research new weaponry before your opponents and bank enough gold to upgrade your army. Timing pushes are staple in strategy games and make for interesting planning and strategy.

Also this will basically result in medics becoming way stronger due to their use in... helping in training exercises? Very strange and un-intuitive interaction there, and AI will have to be taught to keep medics near groups of units being upgraded.
If the immediate upgrade of units on the front line is what's considered oppressive, why not something like a "conversion training" debuff that gives -X% CS for a few turns?

 

[Rekk]

Also this will basically result in medics becoming way stronger due to their use in... helping in training exercises?

Medics are already very good at resurrecting soldiers from the dead / acting as recruitment officers.

Very strange and un-intuitive interaction there, and AI will have to be taught to keep medics near groups of units being upgraded.

The AI already knows to put medics near damaged units.

If the immediate upgrade of units on the front line is what's considered oppressive, why not something like a "conversion training" debuff that gives -X% CS for a few turns?

You're worried about the AI not knowing how to heal units, but not about AI that suddenly has units at full health but low CS?

 

[Stalker0]

You're telling me that giving a new kind of weapon to a battle hardened, experienced unit of soldiers will result them in being so weak that a slight gust of wind will knock them over, but give the same weapons to hastily levied recruits and they will be orders of magnitude stronger? At most their HP should be set to currHP * currCS / newCS

...
Also this will basically result in medics becoming way stronger due to their use in... helping in training exercises? Very strange and un-intuitive interaction there, and AI will have to be taught to keep medics near groups of units being upgraded.

At the end of the day, Civ 5's combat abstractions are still at play here. Lets be honest, unit damage and healing does NOT make sense, never has.

I have a group of archers at 1 hp in the middle of enemy territory and gets healed up. I mean what does that mean, the archers made their own bows....and captured a bunch of people to serve in their unit? Or horseman, what I just rounded up a crew of new horse? Medics right now speed up the healing of planes and tanks as much as men....what they are engineers now?


I can respect that people might not like the gameplay impact of this, and that's fine. But in terms of thematics, it makes as much sense as anything else around healing does to me. The unit is down to 1 hp because its men are being swapped out and trained on the new weapons, getting equipped. Whereas newly built or bought units start out with the new stuff so there is no swap out. Medics speed that up for the same reason they can repair planes....just because. Hell I know people were kind of joking above but the idea that the medic is in fact a military recruiter makes as much sense as anything else in terms of healing.

 

[L. Vern]

The unit is down to 1 hp because its men are being swapped out and trained on the new weapons, getting equipped. Whereas newly built or bought units start out with the new stuff so there is no swap out.

By this logic units bought with gold should also come out with 1 HP then. Equipping and training fresh recuits with newly bought weapons will NEVER result in a more combat effective force than equipping and training a cohesive, operational military unit with newly bought weapons.

 

[L. Vern]

Medics are already very good at resurrecting soldiers from the dead / acting as recruitment officers.


The AI already knows to put medics near damaged units.


You're worried about the AI not knowing how to heal units, but not about AI that suddenly has units at full health but low CS?

Medic logic aside, knowing how to put medics near damaged units and preemptively putting medics near a group of units to be upgraded are not the same thing. And while I'm less worried about the AI upgrading a unit on the frontline and getting -CS on the order of being near a gatling gun or losing a great general buff than upgrading a unit on the frontline and instantly dying from having no HP, I'm confident any such scenarios can be accounted for in the AI logic. I just don't see the need for introducing these problems in the first place, upgrades work fine as they are now

 

[hokath]

I get the idea but it doesn't feel right to me.

Best I could see would be that new HP = old HP * old strength/new strength
Is it worth making such a change? Not sure, erring on no.

 

[Stalker0]

By this logic units bought with gold should also come out with 1 HP then. Equipping and training fresh recuits with newly bought weapons will NEVER result in a more combat effective force than equipping and training a cohesive, operational military unit with newly bought weapons.

"damn, that new regiment got trained up in just a few months, they are going to suck".

"completely agree Bob....oh, here's your gun btw".
"Gun....I am a master swordsman, what the heck is this thing?"
"That's your gun, your a tercio now! Time to go back on the battlefield!"
"But I've never even loosed with this thing before!"
"Hey Bob, its actually fired, we don't loose a gun. You'll be fine, I mean those new recruits had a few months of training but they still suck, your a veteran, I am sure you will destroy them in effectiveness on day 1. Good luck!"


Lets be honest, it doesn't make sense that a unit can be upgraded with radically new weaponry completely different from what they have used before, and still maintain all of their XP. But they do, because its a game! I mean hell, the idea that these units are "immortal" and serve for hundreds of years building up all that experience makes 0 sense. But we like it, so we allow it, because its a game!

 

[AndreyK]

I also think that upgrades now are expensive enough. This will be very complicated and will lead to grealy increased micro to move your units around.

 

[L. Vern]

"damn, that new regiment got trained up in just a few months, they are going to suck".

"completely agree Bob....oh, here's your gun btw".
"Gun....I am a master swordsman, what the heck is this thing?"
"That's your gun, your a tercio now! Time to go back on the battlefield!"
"But I've never even loosed with this thing before!"
"Hey Bob, its actually fired, we don't loose a gun. You'll be fine, I mean those new recruits had a few months of training but they still suck, your a veteran, I am sure you will destroy them in effectiveness on day 1. Good luck!"


Lets be honest, it doesn't make sense that a unit can be upgraded with radically new weaponry completely different from what they have used before, and still maintain all of their XP. But they do, because its a game!

Upgrading and purchasing with gold both make it so the unit can't take actions until the next turn, so they would both be getting the same duration of instruction and practice on the new weapons. Except the existing military unit doesn't have to also bring up fresh recruits to an existing level of military organizational knowledge, doesn't have to do basic training, and will actually get way more experience on the new weapons from this and from existing institutional knowledge and experience on how to effectively train their soldiers.

"But I've never even loosed with this thing before!"

Perhaps you are misinformed about how equipment acquisition goes in militaries, but I can assure you in general militaries do, in fact, provide training to their soldiers on the equipment they will be expected to use in combat...

And sure, maybe maintaining all the XP isn't quite realistic and is more for the sake of fun, but even that is somewhat grounded in reality - a military unit is more than men and equipment, it's a collection of organizational knowledge and experience in maintaining discipline, effective training, morale, logistics and other operational topics, and motivation (and having connections for better funding and recruits/officers attraction doesn't hurt either). Even when the equipment changes drastically, like cavalry divisions going from riding horses to various kinds of armored vehicles, you'll find many instances of the top performing units remain unchanged in a country for hundreds of years.

 

[azum4roll]

Something that needs to be considered:

How will you/the AI hide your 1HP units from siege/plane/missile snipes? You won't want to waste your gold and the (formerly healthy) unit for nothing.

 

[Tekamthi]

Something that needs to be considered:

How will you/the AI hide your 1HP units from siege/plane/missile snipes? You won't want to waste your gold and the (formerly healthy) unit for nothing.

good point -- the more I'm reading of people's responses here, the less I am in favor of doing an HP deduction.

Maybe temp debuff that results in them having combat strength somewhere between old unit and new for x turns; to be specific say -20% CS for ten turns.

 

[CppMaster]

Maybe temp debuff that results in them having combat strength somewhere between old unit and new for x turns; to be specific say -20% CS for ten turns.

Yep, I think this the way

 

[azum4roll]

Or leave it as is. I don't think "upgrading is too easy" to begin with.