disbanding units

[volkanbadem]

(playing in noble).
what do you do with your primitive battle units like bowmen and warriors when they are really very old? i have really lot's of them, and most of them are without any promotions.since i haven't done any war and some of my cities have never seen barbarian attack they were useless.now i have much better technological units with muskets.
as you know unit costs is a problem.what should i do with these old units?should i use them as suicide bombers?although i have better units, i attacked barbarian cities with all of my primitive units,and most of them have died of course.
do you have a better idea for these troops ?
i am not a warmonger but i just want to assure that nobody will like to attack me.since i don't have mounted units i use lot's of them to protect my resources against barbarians though i still have too much.

 

[Lord_Zath]

Use them as sentries on your borders?

Upgrade them?

Use them during war as pillagers?

I would recommend against suicide bombing - all you do is give the AI more experience points.

 

[KMadCandy]

often my core cities don't ever get attacked, or if it looks like they might, i have plenty of warning to pull slavery/nationhood/move troops on railroads tricks to defend them in time. so i keep the old guys around as the defenders there, i figure it's an honor for them *giggle*. works best on large enough maps that you do in fact have plenty of other cities surrounding these core cities, geography works out so that there's no danger of ocean landings, etc. but it can be handy in letting you use your hammers to build modern units to send off to war and not have to disband the old guys.

if i didn't have/want to spend money to upgrade them (which is often), i'd disband them rather than let the AI pretty much disband them for me and earn guaranteed exp off them.

 

[Neoclast]

I tend to start putting warriors on "Explore" duty once I no longer need them (If they were never upgraded). This helps keep your maps up to date and helps your trade routes by finding all the new cities that your friendly AIs have built.

I will also use them as suicide units when attacking, but as pointed out with the giving exp to the defender, I only do so when I have enough regular units to finish the job then.

If you have a vassal state you can gift them to them since they get the cheap upgrade pricing. This can help a decimated Vassal be somewhat useful during wartime.

 

[Bushface]

Old units make good garrisons for your core cities - those that ought never to be attacked - where they serve to stop citizens being unhappy and demanding military protection, and add extra happiness if you're running Hereditary Rule. Upgrading is expensive, although I do use it when I can train Macemen, give them City Raider promotions, and upgrade them to Riflemen who can then attack my enemies' walled cities with good chances of success. This of course wouldn't be necessary if it were possible to give Riflemen the City Raider promotions direct from training.

 

[Meester_henk]

In last game I donated one warrior unit to Zulus. But relationship between our countries became worse after few decades and Zulus declared war on my Koreans.

It was funny to see my warrior unit supporting their attacking riflemen and grenadiers.

Especially in great plains style maps there are rear area cities that only need one military unit to keep citizens happy. When I won space race there was still archers defending space ship building cities.

 

[weasel77066]

This is my biggest problem. When to disband, what to upgrade??? Ive drug my economy to a halt by keepin em but can never pinpoint the time to start revamping the military.
In my current game, I struggled through the start, into the middle and come out at third or fourth tech. I examined everything and cut ALL military that wasnt essential. BOOM--- economy is back in place, powere went down some but still OK cause Im replacing with modern units. I reckon after infantry I'll have to do it again. Unfotunatley I always wait too long and finance suffers... (I was never accused of being smart--- or sober)

 

[MikeH]

Upgrading in Civ 4 is expensove, so I normally only upgrade those units with 2 or more promotions. If I have a financial drisis I'll disband those with no promotions. If i have an area with a lot of unusblle ice on the border I station a couple there to stop barbs spawning. In one recent game, just before I launched my spaceship I glanced at my icy southern coast and stabing there was my starting scout, 6000 years old and looking a bit cold, but still faithfully serving his emperor .

 

[weasel77066]

Upgrading in Civ 4 is expensove, so I normally only upgrade those units with 2 or more promotions. If I have a financial drisis I'll disband those with no promotions. If i have an area with a lot of unusblle ice on the border I station a couple there to stop barbs spawning. In one recent game, just before I launched my spaceship I glanced at my icy southern coast and stabing there was my starting scout, 6000 years old and looking a bit cold, but still faithfully serving his emperor .

Holy crap. Youre worse than me. I hate disbanding,,, especially a unit that is sentimental and still serving the king I have a big problem with ships getting "lost" and forgotten. then when nukes are flying I find a freaking gally somewhere.

 

[axident]

Even an ancient Warrior unit is effective for keeping the (gullible?) citizenry from crying foul about not having military protection. Yeah, my Warriors will protect you from enemy tanks, no problem, yes sirree!

Upgrading is expensive.

Making up-to-date units is expensive in that you could have used those hammers as beakers. But not so expensive if you plan to use those units to seize someone's land.

Personally, I am awkward with middle-era wars; I only really fight ancient wars for land-grabbing purposes, and then late-game wars for Domination victory purposes, or to stop someone from launching a spaceship. So for the middle period my military production slows to a trickle, but it's not a problem if I have a Defensive Pact with someone with a big stick. The moment it looks like someone will attack me, though, I start upgrading units and making more up-to-date stuff, like when Monty demanded tribute, I refused, and I did the trick to see if he was going to DoW me (ask him to DoW someone else and he replies that he has enough on his hands even though he's not in a war yet = he's planning to attack YOU).

 

[Lord_Zath]

interesting way to get info.

I usually find myself unprepared for later tech wars because I focus more on building and teching up. So I typically reduce science slider to 10% when war is declared and start upgrading units on the border cities. I usually lose one city doing this, but stave off the advance after. One game I was Germany, had just gotten Panzers, and was suddenly at war with two AI's.

I didn't stop until I wiped the continent of both of them. Panzers vs archers and riflemen = fun times.

 

[weasel77066]

Usually Im forced to sell a backwards tech across the board for cash. I jsut sold divine right to everyone that didnt have it.. filled my map in, and got 300-900 gold from each of six civs.. that was enough to upgrade what I wanted to keep, then disband what I didnt want to pay for (troops with no xp, or really old ones that would cost too much) My troop count went down but my power went up. Then I got lucky and spawned a great merchant.. cashed it out for 5600 gold and will use it for rifles. Just dont like holding so much cash, cause then other civs decide they want it..