Do you upgrade your obsolete units?

[Stylesrj]

If I get enough cash lying about, I'll upgrade my defences and assault units. If not, I'll usually draft up a more advanced unit and disband the older ones. I'll only draft up Mech infantry and Infantry for defence in emergencies.
Of course in most games, I'm usually in the red, so my main defences seem to be riflemen and mixes of infantry and Mech infantry

Other than that, 75% of my assault forces are conscripts and all the enemy has are longbows and maces.

 

[Soneji]

I'd still like to know regarding the finances of upgrading as opposed to deleting and building afresh....

?

 

[Monkeyfinger]

Axident's comment about the AI getting big discounts on unit upgrades is a vanilla/warlords thing, in BtS the discount is really small.

 

[CivDude86]

I wouldn't call half off really small, its just smaller.

 

[Eikka]

If i warmonger, i upgrade them ASAP.
If i dont warmonger (so much) i usually upgrade 3/4 of my troops (the border troops.)

 

[kniteowl]

Depending on how I play... I like to keep a huge cash reserve and never upgrade my units with the exception of CR Mace => Grenadiers.

Why? Well I'm kinda asking the AI to Declare war on me so I can take their cities without the diplomatic penalty. Of course I keep an average Obsolete army there.

If I'm going for domination then obviously I'll upgrade ASAP, it pretty easy to find the gold since you're capturing cities left right and centre which give you gold.

 

[Inky]

I generally wait for an emergency, with just a few units on the border worth upgrading beforehand. If you can generate the gold needed to upgrade when you need to fight, you may as well leave the units unupgraded.

If you don't upgrade, the AI thinks you are weaker. So if you have a large treasury and lots of obsolete units, this can invite an attack. Which turns around quickly when your archers all turn into infantry overnight, with all their promotions.

City Raider units I'll always upgrade to grenadiers or later gunpowder units if I need to fight. You can't make them later on. I'll even churn out a lot of CR macemen just to stock up, planning to upgrade them later. Viking Berzerkers are a strong example of a unit which is born to be upgraded -- CR and amphibious rocks.

A lot of early units with special promotions are worth upgrading like this.

OTOH, those obsolete units which are only good for "police duty" -- reducing unhappiness in safe cities -- don't need upgrading. A no-experience warrior can still do this job as well as any modern unit, and you needn't waste resources building a new unit to do this job. It will never get attacked, so why worry about how powerful it is?


As for economics, it all depends on whether you have the gold or not. Building a new unit is a better deal than building wealth in order to generate gold to upgrade. It also comes out ahead of stealing from your science for many turns in order to modernize. But a handful of turns is all it usually takes to make enough gold to upgrade, and you can do that while making new units too. Best of both worlds, really.

The older units which aren't upgraded yet can do garrison duty in safe places until you need them and have the gold to use them. If you're making money during a war, why not upgrade?

 

[Warspite2]

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.

When I know I will be getting a more advanced version of a unit, I will plan ahead and get some money rolling in. Try a healthy +100 or more per turn. Then when I get the tech, hopefully I have enough money so I can upgrade all of my units. Alot of times, I will dispand old units if I can't afford to upgrade them. If a unit is costing me money I want it to be the best I have available. So I eventually get rid of long bows and replace them with rilfemen instead of paying to keep those long bows around.

 

[TravellingHat]

Well, my usual strategy is much as has been mentioned. When my wars go to plan, I hit a neighbour hard with the most advanced troops in the known world, take their best cities, and quickly force them to capitulate. Of course, it doesn't always go to plan (those damned samurai just don't give up!)

In the early (ancient/classical/medieval) days, I'm very unlikely to upgrade unless I have a very well promoted unit, as the advent of vassalage and theocrasy more often than not mean I can build new ready-promoted units, and my economy can't sustain the expense.

Moving from medieval to rennaisance I do start to upgrade, particualry to retain my city raiders (which from previous posts is pretty much standard practise) and when I have a great UU with free promotions. My current Viking game is a good example. I had an army of beserkers, mostly CR3, which I upgraded to grenadiers, and before they went obsolete I would commonly recruit a new beserker, promote them to CR2 and immediately upgrade to a grenadier before shipping them off to the front. Those best-of-both-worlds times (when you can still recruit an excellent unit and have it head off state-of-the-art) are real opportunities to shine. I recruited a surplus of beserkers, purely as a reserve against future losses.

With garrisons, I do want the best I can get, even in "safe" cities (now I'm no Sun Tsu, so safe is a fairly nebulous term to me!). These upgrades I'll do in waves, though. I'll turn off research for a big cash injection, and upgrade the garrisons of outer and isolated cities first (typically longbows/muskets to rifles). I'll then work my way toward the centre of the empire, but if I'm falling behind too much in tech, I'll stop until my science is back on an even keel, then have a few bursts of upgrading.

A GM's trade mission is always welcome at times like this, so upgrading needn't be at the expense of research.

I often play financial leaders (currently Ragnar), mostly to cover my woeful budgeting inadequacies, so a few turns without research can net a lot of cash.

 

[Öjevind Lång]

I generally wait for an emergency, with just a few units on the border worth upgrading beforehand. If you can generate the gold needed to upgrade when you need to fight, you may as well leave the units unupgraded.

If you don't upgrade, the AI thinks you are weaker. So if you have a large treasury and lots of obsolete units, this can invite an attack. Which turns around quickly when your archers all turn into infantry overnight, with all their promotions.

By the same token, if you are a peacenik, upgrading as many units as possible is a good deterrent against invasions. I generally draw the line at completely unrpomoted units, except if I need lots of troops in a hurry - if I do get invaded, for example.

 

[Colee]

Somewhere on this forum is the exact formula for how unit upgrade costs are determined. Now I can't remember the exact formula, but it is something like this:

(difference in hammer cost between obsolete and current unit) x 3 + a constant amount of gold

Which leads to the important conclusion that it will actually save you some money if you skip one or more upgrade levels.

 

[MrCynical]

With the advent of corporations I tend to end up so inundated with gold in the later stages that I always upgrade. Earlier on I tend to restrict it to upgrading in specific areas when I need a good defender in a hurry.

 

[Permanganate]

Generally, I don't upgrade units. Then a large AI SoD rolls in, and I think AIEEEE upgrade upgrade upgrade, reducing my science slider for long enough to pay for it.

 

[Oddible]

This poll is phrased ridiculously. I would pick the 'Sometimes' option except that it says 'if you have too much money'.

I upgrade my units that have significant promotions, that's pretty much it - I disband anything else unless there is an emergency.

 

[BriGuy20]

I usually upgrade as many of the units as I can since im a Financial goldwhore.