papercliptrail
Chieftain
- Joined
- Jan 9, 2026
- Messages
- 56
Motivation:
It seems there's a consensus that the spike in power due to the ability to suddenly upgrade your army the turn after you unlock a tech is too difficult to deal with. The other proposals attempt to deal with this by trying to limit the number of units you can upgrade at a time. It seems to me that if the root problem is the sudden spike in power, then we should smooth out the spike.
Proposal:
Upgrading gives the unit a promotion for 3 turns (scaling with game speed) and no longer causes the unit to end its turn.
The promotion gives the unit [(upgraded unit CS - current unit CS)/4 * (4-turns left)] bonus CS.
If the unit begins its turn outside own territory (or friendly territory with Exploitation), add 1 to turns left
Once the promotion wears off, the unit gets upgraded
After upgrading, the unit gets a malus for 4 turns (scaling with game speed)
The malus reduces the CS of the unit by [(new unit CS - old unit CS)/4 * turns left]
If the unit begins its turn outside own territory (or friendly territory with Exploitation), add 1 to turns left
Example:
Turn 0: Upgrade the Horseman (13 CS) to Knight (24 CS), so the difference is 11. The malus reduces CS by 11.
Turn 1: Malus reduces CS by 8.25 (15.75 CS)
Turn 2: Malus reduces CS by 5.5 (18.5 CS), Knight moves out of upgradable territory
Turn 3: No change, Horseman moves back into upgradeable territory
Turn 4: Malus reduces CS by 2.75 (21.25 CS)
Turn 5: Malus runs out and disappears
It's possible to embark the unit and not trigger the timer penalty. This is in case you have more units than land
3 turns because that's about how many turns you have to prepare after noticing someone's preparing to attack you
Counterproposal to:
It seems there's a consensus that the spike in power due to the ability to suddenly upgrade your army the turn after you unlock a tech is too difficult to deal with. The other proposals attempt to deal with this by trying to limit the number of units you can upgrade at a time. It seems to me that if the root problem is the sudden spike in power, then we should smooth out the spike.
Proposal:
The promotion gives the unit [(upgraded unit CS - current unit CS)/4 * (4-turns left)] bonus CS.
If the unit begins its turn outside own territory (or friendly territory with Exploitation), add 1 to turns left
Once the promotion wears off, the unit gets upgraded
After upgrading, the unit gets a malus for 4 turns (scaling with game speed)
The malus reduces the CS of the unit by [(new unit CS - old unit CS)/4 * turns left]
If the unit begins its turn outside own territory (or friendly territory with Exploitation), add 1 to turns left
Example:
Turn 0: Upgrade the Horseman (13 CS) to Knight (24 CS), so the difference is 11. The malus reduces CS by 11.
Turn 1: Malus reduces CS by 8.25 (15.75 CS)
Turn 2: Malus reduces CS by 5.5 (18.5 CS), Knight moves out of upgradable territory
Turn 3: No change, Horseman moves back into upgradeable territory
Turn 4: Malus reduces CS by 2.75 (21.25 CS)
Turn 5: Malus runs out and disappears
It's possible to embark the unit and not trigger the timer penalty. This is in case you have more units than land
3 turns because that's about how many turns you have to prepare after noticing someone's preparing to attack you
Counterproposal to:
Last edited:
CS Horesemen, and now I'll have to be moving my mouse over each unit trying to identify how strong it is. The same thing with keeping track of my own units. Though I acknowledge this issue already exists to some extent with checking unit promotions, but not to the same extent.
