Delete, Upgrade, Ignore?

[Padmewan]

A lot of people in this forum seem to feel that upgrading units is a waste of gold, except when promotions are at stake. I recently realized, however, that at each major technology shift there is a lot more disadvantage to upgrading than deleting and rebuilding, especially if your unit IS promoted.

A maceman upgraded to rifleman (right?) with the Shock promotion will not only be usefull against gunpowder and later troups, it will take him longer to promote to the next level than if you just built a rifleman from scratch. That's because each additional promotion takes more and more XP to get.

I suppose you could NOT upgrade that maceman and keep him around to deal with opponent's antequated troops, or upgrade him and do the same (but reap less XP). Also, those XP could instead towards a unit that WILL have relevant promotions now and in the future.

Also, unless you are busting your budget with units there's no point in deleting antequated troops with antequated promotions, but at the margins, it can make a difference.

In Civ3 at some point I'd have enough military that come upgrade time I'd look around for the "Regular" units and disband them. But there was also more incentive to disband in Civ3 when the units would generate shields.

A lot of this is conjectural as I tend to be a peaceful player. Anyone find that real experience diverges from this theory?

 

[Cerryl]

If i've got the gold, I upgrade. I'm not much for having more than a couple of hundred coins in thebank, if they're not spent, they're wasted.

On the subject of coins, I think the Great Merchant is a bit too easy to get lots of coins with.

 

[mrjepson]

Upgrading is usefull for units as it allows your cities to build more usefull items. The price of a turn or two off researching to upgrade all of your units is pretty negligable as all of your units are then upgraded instead of waiting for the new ones to be produced. Keeping your units upgraded is a great way to keep the AI off your back as it keep your military score high (as opposed to upgrading when you need it).

I for one would rather be building buildings or offensive units than replacing my old defensive units. This is most apparent when you achive tanks and bombers as you need to pump them out because nothing upgrades to tanks and bombers. You don't want to waste a turn on building infantry or helicopters when a couple thousand gold could do it for you.

 

[Vizzini]

Depending upon your civ and the financial condition you're in upgrading makes a lot of sense, not because of the cost certainly, but because of the flexibility it provides. (And the speed of course - it's a lot faster to upgrade a unit to a Gunship than it is to build that Gunship)

If I'm in the financial position of being able to afford leaving those old units around I will, primarily because in Civ IV you can pick-n-choose what your units upgrade to where-as before it was hard-coded. X upgrades to Y and that was it. In Civ IV "X" can upgrade to a whole range of different unit types. More importantly you can move and upgrade units on the same turn, provided you do the move before the upgrade. Get attacked outta the blue with not enough good defenders? Rush a buncha "old" units to the city and upgrade them to the most appropriate defender type in the same turn... that kinda flexibility is worth the added cost of keeping them around IMO.

 

[UberCivver]

"A maceman upgraded to rifleman (right?) with the Shock promotion will not only be usefull against gunpowder and later troups, it will take him longer to promote to the next level than if you just built a rifleman from scratch. That's because each additional promotion takes more and more XP to get."

I believe that the shock upgrade is a free promotion, as with any other unit. For instance, if you build a marine with a barraks in your city, you still get a free upgrade as his experience starts at 0 and gets promoted when it reaches 2. Therefore, I think it is even better to upgrade a unit that has a free promotion than one who does not.
-UberCivver

 

[Elerion]

If I'm in the financial position of being able to afford leaving those old units around I will, primarily because in Civ IV you can pick-n-choose what your units upgrade to where-as before it was hard-coded. X upgrades to Y and that was it. In Civ IV "X" can upgrade to a whole range of different unit types. More importantly you can move and upgrade units on the same turn, provided you do the move before the upgrade. Get attacked outta the blue with not enough good defenders? Rush a buncha "old" units to the city and upgrade them to the most appropriate defender type in the same turn... that kinda flexibility is worth the added cost of keeping them around IMO.

Unless my memory is failing me, you can't upgrade a unit if you have spent all his movement points. You have to leave a fragment of a movement point, or the upgrade button disappears. No time to log on and check atm

 

[Astax]

I find upgrading useful. And if the promotions wont suit you, then don't promote and keep the xp then upgrade and promote... Plus with maceman you can promote combat instead, wont be as good as shock but combat promotion is useful for rifleman. My mainstay is combat 3 and healing while moving. Pretty good stuff.

 

[Padmewan]

People are missing my (perhaps minor) point, perhaps because of a typo:

"A maceman upgraded to rifleman (right?) with the Shock promotion will not only be usefull against gunpowder and later troups, it will take him longer to promote to the next level than if you just built a rifleman from scratch. That's because each additional promotion takes more and more XP to get."

I believe that the shock upgrade is a free promotion, as with any other unit...
-UberCivver

I screwed up in the sentence you're quoting: the Shock promotion will be USELESS against gunpowder. The point is that at major technology shifts, not only the unit but ALSO their promotions become outdated, and more relevant promotions become harder to acquire.

Some implications: just prior to a major tech shift (there are two: the era of gunpowder and the era of mechanized warfare), unless you're engaged in hot war do NOT spend your promotions right away, or spend them on generic promotions that will carry over (e.g. +10% strength). Of course, you probably aren't building units just before a major tech shift anyway.

Second, think twice about upgrading a maceman with shock, esp. if he has only 10 XP which would be easily replicated by civics + barracks.

Finally, in response to UberCivver: I think that free upgrade applies only to Aggressive civs (which I haven't tried yet) and is perhaps another advantage to that trait, at least in the early-mid game: the "free" promotion means that other promotions can be picked up more easily than a unit created by a non-aggressive civ. e.g. a swordsman with 8 XP coming out the barracks starts with 3 promotions and is 2 XP and 12 XP (?) away from having 4 and 5 promotions, respectively; for a non-aggressive civ to get 5 promotions (which is required to build one of the National Wonders, I forget which) you need to have 22 XP!

(Please correct my math or misconceptions!!!)

 

[Steelsmith]

I will always upgrade a unit rather than disband it and build new, regardless of what promotions it does or doesn't have. In terms of numerical efficiency, the argument could probably be made that a newly built unit might have some advantages over an upgraded unit. But when I want to go to war, I want the most powerful military I can, with the minimum hit to my city production. If that means a warrior who is especially skilled against archers, suddenly becomes a machine gunner, so be it.

 

[mrlaze]

I have been staying away from promotions that become obsolete, i.e. 'vs. melee', 'vs, archer', etc. I try to got for the 'combat' strength, 'city attack' or 'city defense' and 'vs. gunpowder".

Thus upgrading and keeping past earned XP in the game.

I am not much of a war monger though.

 

[Carboni]

Upgrades are essential because superior units deter threats and essential for survival. It's like a super-promotion.

The decision whether or not to upgrade a matter of spending gold, and by extention, your commerce. What you save in production, you pay for with your economy. So upgrading your units depends where you want to spend it. If you're overextended and trying to catch your breath, upgrades are not the way to go.

I spend gold primarily on three priorities.
1. Keeping my empire afloat.
2. Upgrades
3. Technology (by buying tech or deficit spending)

 

[Zhahz]

I screwed up in the sentence you're quoting: the Shock promotion will be USELESS against gunpowder. The point is that at major technology shifts, not only the unit but ALSO their promotions become outdated, and more relevant promotions become harder to acquire.

It's all situational but because of this I will usually make a variety of unit promotion packages if I build a bunch of the same units. Some will be specialists for that time period and will likely be deleted at some point or sit unupgraded as reserves for ages. Some will be generalists that will be good forever. Some will be specialists that are forward compatible, like units with medic promotions.

I'm also sometimes sloppy and build units where I have no barracks and then there's some of your earliest units who never got any promotions. I could easily still have my very first warriors in 2000AD.

One thing that's a common theme for me is that I hardly ever have the gold to upgrade regularly, it's usually more about need or major gold infusions via tech selling or a great merchant.

Ideally I try to avoid deleting units and keep them around just in case because you never know when you might suddenly need ANY kind of unit to throw into a fight.

So I do a little of each of delete, upgrade, and ignore - it just depends.

 

[spa]

I tend to use my experience on generic promotions so it's usually not a problem for me when I upgrade (I do use the + against mounted units though as they're the mainstay of many attacks in the early going). Even with that though, for me, the cost of upgrades is still a bargain. I would rather spend gold, even if it means turning science off for a turn, instead of making cities stop building improvements or new units just to replace old ones. In the mid-game, when the tech rate really starts picking up, I find if I don't upgrade, I would never fight because my army would be obsolete as soon as it was ready to go. Upgrading may cost a few bucks but it's a bargain when you factor in the turns to replace in my opinion.

 

[Arkanin]

i've got the gold, I upgrade. I'm not much for having more than a couple of hundred coins in thebank, if they're not spent, they're wasted.

On the subject of coins, I think the Great Merchant is a bit too easy to get lots of coins with.

This is just my opinion, but if you find yourself at 100% research and still not spending money, it's time to expand rather than spend that precious money on extremely expensive upgrades

 

[Padmewan]

Oop, I think I take back what I said about the free upgrade for Aggressive civ's. You need a unit of "Level 4" or "Level 5" XP to build Heroic Epic and West Point, respectively, not 4 / 5 promotions. After all, some units automatically get promotions... So much for that theory.

 

[anton_z1]

Offer your obsolete units as a GIFT to another civ. you will be happy and your friend will be happy.

 

[Heroes]

The cost of upgrade is 25 + 3*(difference in hammers) gold. So you pay more gold if you do warrior -> axeman -> maceman -> rifleman instead of warrior -> rifleman. I guess a rule of thumb is to upgrade when you pass 2 tech levels, e.g. warrior -> maceman. You can have 2 groups of armies, one with tech level X and the other with X+1. You fight a war using the X+1 group, let the X group guard your home and quell unhappiness, then upgrade X to X+2, fight another war, and let the X+1 group stay at home, and so on.

 

[Vizzini]

This is just my opinion, but if you find yourself at 100% research and still not spending money, it's time to expand rather than spend that precious money on extremely expensive upgrades

Done properly upgrading is a kind of expansion - since I prefer to expand by letting my opponent build all my new cities.

 

[Padmewan]

I'm totally wrong!!! When you upgrade a unit, that unit keeps all its promotions but gets knocked down to 10 XP. So it will take another 10XP to get to level 4, and prior promotions don't interfere with the ability to get new ones (unless all of the promotions are outdated and you can build 8 or even 10 XP troops straight out of the barracks).

The only promotions that really get outdated are the unit class-specific ones (melee, gunpowder, etc.). First strike, woodsmen, hillsman (?), all remain useful -- hills more than forests thanks to all the chopping that goes on.

Anyway, this changes my analysis 95%!

 

[FuriousJorje]

Is there any benefit to deleting?

If you don't recoup any gold when you delete a unit, then why ever delete? At worst, it's one more turn an attacker has to use up before they take your city.