How do you finance your upgrades?

[loffenx]

Something I've been pondering lately, how do people generally prioritize and finance upgrading their units? Do you keep some sort of average budget-surplus, or move to 0% research whenever the need arises?

And how many units do you cater through the upgrading process? I've recently been focusing on groups of four of different sorts, ie. four recon, four archers, four melee etc., but I still haven't got any real feel for what is apropriate.

 

[[to_xp]Gekko]

I hate to have outdated troops, so I just drop science to 0% until I updated them all. sure, it does get expensive if I had built a lot of warriors, but that's worth it cuz after you get a huge, up to date army you have little to fear from your neighbours. :evil laugh:

 

[JonathanStrange]

I upgrade very few units; virtually always veterans with plenty of promotions. Your idea of concentrating on upgrading according to category is interesting.

Finance-wise, I don't do anything special as I don't regard upgrading too important except in cases like adepts to mages, or fauns to satyrs. Usually I have enough to do that without doing anything special; if I have to skimp on science then I'm probably in trouble.

 

[Nefelia]

I upgrade only when necessary: i.e. should a stack of doom show up on my Western frontier, I would find myself upgrading the nearest city's defenders.

The exception would be, of course, highly promoted units, which will see more frequent upgrades.

 

[WarKirby]

I keep 2-3 warriors in every city, and upgrade them if scary enemies come near.

Other than that, I generally upgrade every unit of lv4 or higher, unless I have a stupid economy and money to burn, then I just upgrade everything

 

[sparker]

Outside of war or buildup to war, I don't put upgrading at a terribly high priority. I will run an economy at +15g a turn or so and upgrade a unit every few turns. These will generally be very the experienced units at my borders. By the time "every few turns" isn't enough to keep up militarily, I can usually produce enough brand-spankin new units to compensate for my lagging upgrades (and since I'll usually have a city dedicated to military production, it doesn't have anything better to do).

In these peacetime situations, I'll generally leave units that are safely within my border to rot, and keep only 200-300g on hand for any emergency upgrades in the event someone declares at me. (Almost always that seems to go to naval units, now that I think about it)

Again, that assumes that I'm not at war or preparing for war. Otherwise, upgrades become a much higher priority.

There's a notable exception however. With Mahala / Doviello, upgrading units on the front is THE most important thing I can do with my gold in war or peace, so I'll usually run at 100% to gold and pillage / devote cities to gold production if that isn't enough. If Mahala is running Slavery, this is doubly true since I can convert my newly enslaved Workers to Melee units.

CAVEAT: I'm not very good at FfH.

 

[Monkeyfinger]

I put gold to 100% as soon as I get a tech that lets me do upgrades and keep it there till my entire army's updated.

This is what you should always do for Ingenious leaders. For everyone else, I only do that out of a weird sense of completionism, and JonathanStrange's method is probably objectively better.

 

[Dragoon1]

I do like Monkeyfinger but I only gather the gold I do not spent it. Once spent it can't be used for something else, but having an outdated forces leads to defeat. So gather the gold but update only on a need to basis. That way I got a cache to spent for emergency or research rushing but I prioritize rebuilding my gold reserve after that. Don't want get caught with my pants down.

 

[isthmus]

i always upgrade my spellcasters and highly promoted units as soon as possible.

other than this, i tend to only upgrade my troops who are on the frontline, ie those in my stack of doom or city defenders in vulnerable positions. if i get a surprise attack from the AI (ie when i'm not paying attention, I usually spot the enemy stack nearing the borders) then it's a drop to research 0% and scramble to upgrade those out of date warriors

i hate having my net gold in the red for too long so my gold usually builds up during the whole game once i've stabilised my economy after the initial expansion. i usually rely on religious shrine gold or RoK gold to keep my cash up

 

[loffenx]

I tried to math some sort of sense into my upgrading while playing yesterday, anyone knows if there is any specific pattern to the costs of upgrading? I was thinking that maybe producing Wealth or Science instead of new units would "finance" (compensate lower tech-rate etc) upgrades, but that did not seem to be the case, atleast not in that particular game. Any thoughts on this?

 

[Emptiness]

The cost of an upgrade is based on the difference in cost between the unit and the unit to which it is being upgraded.

I believe the formula is (2 x ([new ] - [current ]) + 5) .

 

[readercolin]

that formula is correct, unless you have ingeneous trait, in which case it is [1x(new-current) + 5]

For myself, I always upgrade my high xp units (generally, 10xp or more). Otherwise, I generally leave the other units alone, gradually building units to replace them, then decomissioning them once I have their replacement is in place.

As for using wealth, wealth turns 1/2 the hammers produced and turn it into gold. On the other hand, you could instead take a square off a hammer square and put it into a merchant specialist. This would be a significantly better use, as the straight hammer to gold change is a bit... weak. Now if you are khazid with the 90% hammer boost along with arete, and money changer/tax collector (or whatever that is called), wealth can be strong, but usually it is better to just use a merchant specialist.

-Colin

 

[odalrick]

that formula is correct, unless you have ingeneous trait, in which case it is [1x(new-current) + 5]

I may be splitting hairs here but I'm fairly certain the formula is .5*[2x(new-current) + 5], id est the flat price is halved too. I'n my last game as ingenious Warriors cost 38 to upgrade to Axemen.

 

[slowcar]

depending on state form and veteran promotions. warriors that have reached shock2+march (my early target) are always promoted. otherwise i often have education and an aggressive leader, maybe form of the titan, i fodder new axes and keep the survivors without spending extra gold.

gold-wise i keep above 100g but burn the rest on science. always good to keep a bit in case an event comes around (purchase GP etc)

 

[popejubal]

I upgrade very few units; virtually always veterans with plenty of promotions. Your idea of concentrating on upgrading according to category is interesting.

Finance-wise, I don't do anything special as I don't regard upgrading too important except in cases like adepts to mages, or fauns to satyrs. Usually I have enough to do that without doing anything special; if I have to skimp on science then I'm probably in trouble.

I do this as well unless I have a cluster of cities in an area that needs significantly more military than those cities' hammers can provide. In that case, when I don't have Slavery, I'll build Warriors and turn them into Archers or Axemen rather than trying to build the Archers/Axemen directly. It's not a comfortable situation to be in and I regret needing to do this, but sometimes it's the difference between being able to keep an isolated but strategic arm of your empire vs. losing it to barbarians or an annoying neighbor.

 

[Caradoc]

To me, a lot depends on what capabilities the upgrade buys. If it is just a point of strength, then I'll hold off. But if the unit really improves, like Fawn>Satyr, then it's a priority.

 

[popejubal]

To me, a lot depends on what capabilities the upgrade buys. If it is just a point of strength, then I'll hold off. But if the unit really improves, like Fawn>Satyr, then it's a priority.

Also, what are you going to do with the upgrade?

IF there are still a bunch of animals around somehow, then Fawn>Satyr is great. If you're never going to see another Animal again ever and everyone is spamming Arquebuses, then Fawn>Satyr doesn't matter so much.

I try very hard to not upgrade a unit unless I'm going to send it into combat very soon. Otherwise, why did I spend that money?

 

[loffenx]

Hmm anyone know if the AI takes the strength of your units into account when deciding wether to attack or not, or just the numbers you have?

 

[JonathanStrange]

In earlier versions, I'd just disband outdated units, send them on hopeless missions, or:
"Brave warrior Oolak, now in your twilight years, in honor of your years of faithful service to the tribe, we the Chiefs, have decided to let you run for it."

 

[Landmonitor]

I finance my upgrades with gold that I generate from tiles or specialists.