Do you upgrade your obsolete units?

Do you upgrade your obsolete units?


  • Total voters
    217

hoopsnerd

Prince
Joined
Aug 2, 2007
Messages
565
Location
Civ4
I guess I'm just simply wondering whether or not people upgrade obsolete units or not. I thought everyone did --

Edit: i didnt articulate what "everyone else" does in another post well enough :).

To further clarify what I do, I usually upgrade units as I go through the game gradually, or if I forget or have a lot of veteran obsolete units I will enter what I like to call "Upgrade Anarchy" where I set my science slider to 20% for 3-4 turns while I made a huge bankroll to upgrade all my troops. Usually I only do this to upgrade 10 veteran cats/trebs to cannons right before a war or something like that.
 
If they're experienced, I generally upgrade them. If they're obsolete but standing garrison duty, I let them be but keep enough cash to do emergency upgrades if needed.

But if they're nothing special (eg. some leftover 3XP axes when I can build 5XP maces by running vassallage) I won't upgrade.
 
I guess I'm just simply wondering whether or not people upgrade obsolete units or not. I thought everyone did -- but after reading in another thread it seems that everyone except me would rather gift their units to the AI to be slaughtered than upgrade them themselves.

That is a mischaracterization of that thread, given that many of us stated that we could see ourselves gifting crap to AIs (especially galleys and triremes which die immediately from our privateers) for xps/GG points, but some of us also stated that gifting to vassals for their discount bonuses is another use for obsolete units, or stationing them in relatively safe core cities while the new stuff forms a ring around the core cities. I tend to do the latter and stock a ton of units in my borders once every core city has a warrior or archer in it. Just to deter AI DoW's on me since the AI only cares about raw power rating, so it probably thinks something like 3 crossbowmen is just as tough as 1 Infantry. When I DoW, those ancient units move up and start garrisoning the relatively safe cities while my frontline soldiers keep pushing and capturing cities.
 
Upgrading en masse makes the most sesne to me when I would rather have my cities building something other than units, and I can spare some cash. That happens sometimes in a peaceful sort of game, especially if it is late in the game and I need better units but not necessarily *more* units.

But for me at least I find it is more common to be in a situation where I want as much money going into science as possible, and I have cities that are production-oriented that can be devoted to steadily building new units as time goes by to replace the outdated ones.
 
That is a mischaracterization of that thread, given that many of us stated that we could see ourselves gifting crap to AIs (especially galleys and triremes which die immediately from our privateers) for xps/GG points, but some of us also stated that gifting to vassals for their discount bonuses is another use for obsolete units, or stationing them in relatively safe core cities while the new stuff forms a ring around the core cities. I tend to do the latter and stock a ton of units in my borders once every core city has a warrior or archer in it. Just to deter AI DoW's on me since the AI only cares about raw power rating, so it probably thinks something like 3 crossbowmen is just as tough as 1 Infantry. When I DoW, those ancient units move up and start garrisoning the relatively safe cities while my frontline soldiers keep pushing and capturing cities.

I guess I should have added a 6th poll option for "they garrison cities not in danger." I apologize if I mischaracterized the other thread, im just simply trying to gather information to improve my own strategy. I was shocked that you and many others don't upgrade units and am suspecting its a bad habit of mine left over from civ3 and leonardo's workshop.
 
I guess I should have added a 6th poll option for "they garrison cities not in danger." I apologize if I mischaracterized the other thread, im just simply trying to gather information to improve my own strategy. I was shocked that you and many others don't upgrade units and am suspecting its a bad habit of mine left over from civ3 and leonardo's workshop.

I never played civ3 but was fond of Civ2's Leo's Wkshop....

Anyway, you pay the same maintenance either way for a warrior or a Modern Armor, right? And your citizens apparently feel just as protected by either, right? So why bother protecting the safe cities with anything more than your worst troops? You said you wanted realism though--so maybe that's reason enough to plant reasonably powerful troops in core cities! :goodjob:

By the way I play a lot of Risk so this usage of crappy units is probably an effect of the Risk-like "if it's safe, use the minimum of armies to keep the territory" strategy.
 
I tend to ignore them, but when Kahn or some other Aggro AI starts knocking, I go into "oh, crapit, build! build! build! bu---upgrade! upgrade! now!"

(I tend to be ahead in the tech tree, though...>>)
 
Anyway, you pay the same maintenance either way for a warrior or a Modern Armor, right?

Yeah thats exactly one of my reasons for upgrading them. The AI seems to think it has "opportunities" if your power graph is lower, but it's obviously a lot cheaper in the long run to have 1 Tank rather than 20 warriors... More realisticly 1 maceman instead of 4 warriors or 1 longbowman instead of 2 archers... but you see the point.
 
I don't build much, so I tend to upgrade them..But normally slowly.
 
Yeah thats exactly one of my reasons for upgrading them. The AI seems to think it has "opportunities" if your power graph is lower, but it's obviously a lot cheaper in the long run to have 1 Tank rather than 20 warriors... More realisticly 1 maceman instead of 4 warriors or 1 longbowman instead of 2 archers... but you see the point.

Actually yeah, the same maint is a pro for the upgrade-them-all approach, but which costs more hammers, the warrior you already built or the MA?

NOTE: This could change around Flight as you can airlift stuff long distances even from core cities.
 
good point axident, but the hammers are still relative to what point I am at in the game. I guess if I had a particularly strong production economy and a particularily weak commerce economy, then it would be ineffecient to upgrade regardless... I don't think I've ever played that way though, at least not in civ4. I like making money (commerce) so i can convert those raw materials directly into science. Normally it seems more effecient for me to spend the money upgrading a unit than to stop building a university temporarily while I build a more modern military unit.

somehow I find the subtle strategy in civ to be infinately interesting. from now on im going to try and use unit upgrades more situationally and use them rarely if I can easilly produce cutting-edge units with hammers.
 
I most often upgrade at the big technological leaps (longbow-->rifle or rifle-->infantry) if I've got a lot of units, a technology edge on my neighbor, and a craving for blood... I'll drop the science slider for 5-7 turns and mass upgrade. It really depends though on the cities I've got. Some games you get a good production base and can crank troops out, others you have more cash than hammers and need to upgrade.
 
I didn't answer the poll because you didn't include a "yes, but selectively" option. I upgrade just about all that have good promotions, and all that will be part of an attack stack. And I pay close attention to upgrading costs. But in general I think upgrading is a good idea because I really don't want to be paying for useless obsolete units lounging around doing nothing.
 
I upgrade quite rarely, but I do so when I have highly promoted units (City Raider macemen/axes/swords), or when I need a rush for defense.
I will rather disband obsolete warriors than upgrade them, unless they are medic I, in which case I may keep an unpromoted warrior for the whole game.
 
I upgrade the talented ones, and any second-tier units that happen to be in a city that's about to be attacked.
 
I usually upgrade in border cities and upgrade mounted units throughout the game and when I hit certain tech thresholds (basically when I feel I can afford a small lull in discovery), I drop the science slider and mass upgrade.
 
Usually, I have so much commerce production in my empire that the technologies come quicker than the cities can build the buildings that I'd like them to have. So, because I have a relative shortage of hammers, I like to use gold (from commerce) to improve my military instead of hammers. It is important to have a power rating that is comparable to the AI's powerrating if you don't want to be attacked.

I voted the top option which says that I always upgrade my military. That's not entirely true as I will sometimes disband a few of my troops which are extremely inexperienced compared to the troops that I build. But the options didn't allow such a detailed answer.
 
I stockpile units sometimes to use in an assault later. Particularly, I stockpile City Raider promoted macemen when grenadiers are just about to become available. That is the only one I plan. The other upgrades are typically "as needed".
 
I didn't answer the poll simply because I do all of the bottom 4 selections.
For me it really depends on the game. If I have a vassal I'll gift my crappier units, If I don't I'll probably delete them. If I have a lot of commerce and am going for a peaceful-type win I'll drop research to upgrade so I have an up-to-date military, and as far as emergenices go, that's a definate (after a quick round of begging for dosh).
But if I'm playing aggressive AI I usually hang onto anything, even axemen can get reasonable odds against a heavily damaged riflemen or can be used as a suicide unit.
 
I upgrade if I'm fat with gold, or if they're highly promoted units that will carry over into modern times with good upgrades, but most of the time I think its just easier to build new units, promote as needed and then kill/delete the older, obsolete units as they are replaced. I miss getting a few hammers/shields from "retiring" old units like previous version of Civ let you do.
 
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