How do you modernize your military?

[Dark Myrmidon]

This came up in a game recently... I had a decent offensive army of Axemen, Swordsmen, Keshiks (Playing as Genghis) and Catapults, not to mention my defensive Archers/Axemen, and my fogbusting Archers and Chariots.

The offensive army was built up from the one that eliminated Churchill early in the game. Only Asoka and I were left on our continent alive. I decided to wait until I had outside contact. I found it in Isabella, who seemed to take a liking to me for once. After some trades, BAM, I've got Feudalism, Machinery, Civil Service, Theocracy and I was on the verge of Engineering. In short, I rendered my army obsolete.

What's the most efficient way to bring it up to date? Drop research for cash, and upgrade them all? Wait for god knows how many turns to build new units? Slowly phase the old units out?

On a side note, would it have been better to disband the majority of my offensive army/convert it to defense while I was improving my empire peacefully? In retrospect it was a LONG time before I attacked Asoka, and the maintenance was a drag... Perhaps if I started rearmament about when I found myself with new techs, I would have avoided all these problems...

 

[Mind_worm]

If you want go to war with ASOKA asap (and if you have maces and he doesnt have longbowmen, then gogoggo) then why wouldnt you drop your research to upgrade?

If on the other hand there are other factors keeping you from war, you can do it slowly (slowly upgrade uniots with promotions and delete the ones w/ little promotions, while building more units)

 

[Toshiro126]

In future games, you may want to focus on getting one or two Merchant Great People and sent them on trade missions. The few thousand gold you get will help you upgrade quite a few units.

Realize this doesn't help because you want a more immediate solution, but it's something to keep in mind for future games....

 

[Dark Myrmidon]

I suppose it makes sense. I'm just looking for general approaches to keeping my army up to date and a little general military advice, the game doesn't matter too much to me. Truth be told, I don't usually finish my games because I get frustrated with how it progresses... so I don't even get Longbowmen usually.

 

[Toshiro126]

do you mean you're frustrated by how you play or by how the game works?

 

[Betafor]

Truth be told, I don't usually finish my games because I get frustrated with how it progresses... so I don't even get Longbowmen usually.

OMG i have the exact same problem.

 

[Dark Myrmidon]

Usually by how I play. I used to play Alexander all the time, and I switched to Genghis because Agg/Imp interests me. With both leaders, I feel like I expand too slowly and am to slow to get an attack force up. I'm adapting and improving though, this game came off well for me.

The topic isn't about that issue though, it's about the best way to modernize your army.

 

[snipafist]

It's a cop-out but my answer is: it depends. If you've got a production advantage, then it's best to keep cranking out hammers until you've replaced your old units (while paying to upgrade only the really good highly experienced old units, should you have any). If you've got a gold advantage, then it would be best to tank your research for a couple turns to upgrade them all that way. Obviously, a player with lots of hills and the like saves more game effort by just replacing them, as his economy isn't stellar but he has a production advantage, while a player situated smack dab in the middle of a bunch of grasslands and flood plains loaded with cottages would be better off upgrading them, as production doesn't come easily in such places.

On your other problem: I advise not wasting time on extraneous things, especially in the early game. Don't build happiness buildings if your citizens are going to be happy for the near future. Don't build commerce-effecting buildings that take a long time in cities with relatively undeveloped commercial abilities. Spending 16 turns on a library that will generate one extra beaker is a waste of an awful lot. This is the one change in my playstyle that's really helped me out in the early game. Analyze what needs building and what can wait (lots more than you might initially believe can just wait). Use all your otherwise-wasted time on unit production (workers and settlers especially) to develop your cities' potential and to safeguard those cities.

 

[dalessi12]

When upgrading from axes/swords to macemen, I usually will turn the science slider down.

After that, I usually sell a non-military tech to all of the AIs on the same turn. If making the mace to riflemen upgrade (and triremes to frigates, etc) I would sell Liberalism for example, or Printing Press. If making the riflemen to infantry, then Medicine or Physics. This of course assumes there is sufficient gold to be had. If I see a few AI with 1500-2000 gold (first switch), or 2000-4000 (second switch), I will pull the trigger. Once I trade to all the AI with decent gold (on the same turn), I will then trade this tech to the AI with very little to no gold, but I will ask for them to declare war on someone instead (usually the AI that I am targeting with my newly upgraded troops).

Obviously this strategy takes a tech lead of some kind (though not a drastic one), and should only be done if you are contemplating a war in the very near future.

 

[pigswill]

You could start by deleting all your weaker units (anything below 5xp/level3); theocracy and barracks means you get to replace them with brand new shiny level 3 units. Upgrade all your decent units, starting with level4 and above.
If you're planning on waiting a while before your next war then delete weak units at once and wait until you're ready for war to upgrade good units (and it may be worth turning research to 0 for a few turns to do this) and build new ones.
If you are planning to wipe out asoka then you could try selling him non-military techs just before declaring on him and use the cash to upgrade.

 

[CivDude86]

Play on marathon, problem solved.

 

[Tennyson]

I take units that are promoted above level 3 and make them an expeditionary force. They get upgraded via cash.

After the expeditionary force is upgraded, I build new units to defend important sites, and put the old units on unimportant cities. If the unimportant city is threatened and I can't bring backup I can always upgrade those units via cash.

 

[Stolen Rutters]

I tend to upgrade only the units that I need to. There is usually enough production in most games to just build a new army and relegate old units to sentry duty in cities that aren't on the front. As the previous poster mentions, you can always upgrade them later.

 

[Proteus]

I normally use a mixed approach.
Units with more than 12 XP rarely get upgraded (as it would mean loosing too much XP due to the upgrade; if I only loose 1-2 XP it´s still O.K., but if it´s more I rather decide not to upgrade them) and I also don´t upgrade units which don´t have any additional XP gained through combat (for example garrison units) unless it is really necessary (for example because an enemy army approaches the city).

Therefore, my garrison units normally get replaced by new produced units (which, even if you "just" accumulate the hammers for 1-2 turns of production and then pay for the remaining hammers in gold is cheaper than upgrading them) with the old units either getting disbanded or used as cannon fodder.
Same goes for my inexperienced expeditionary forces.
For very experienced expeditionary troops (i.e. those which would loose to much XP due to upgrade) it depends on the circumstances. If they have promotions that still could get useful during later times, aren´t too antique to be of use and don´t have too much XP left till they get the next promotion, I´ll keep them with the regular forces, protect them and use them to gain additional XP (i.e. by fighting already damaged enemy units) until they have enough XP to gain the next promotion and only then I´ll upgrade them.
Too experienced Units with promotions that aren´t useful anymore (for example promotions against melee or archery units in gunpowder times) rather get uses as cannon fodder or in risky assignments (for example being sent out to raid sources of enemy strategic resources in the enemy hinterland)

 

[Xanxir]

If I've got enough production, which is usually the case for my games, I'll only upgrade the most experienced units. Then, create what will eventually be my replacement army. When I declare war, I send in the old army to pillage, draw enemy out of cities, and hopefully create a ***** in their armor by wounding their units. Then, my new army comes into mop up and start the real war.

I like to give my military units a nice honorable death on the battlefield rather than have them suffer the embarassing defeat of my disbanding them. Besides, it makes me feel that the hammers I originally put into the units aren't wasted when I decide it is not worth upgrading.

 

[Holbek]

A mix of all the above, I'd say.
Some good points have already been made.
What I do:

Begin building new units (maces, etc.) with my production cities, and upgrading a few of my old ones.
I upgrade those that have 10/11 XP. I do not upgrade those that have 9, or 15/16. I then attack with my existing army.
I use my level 1-2 OLD units to soften the defenders. Then I use my newly upgraded level 3-5 maces to take out the tough defenders, and make sure that my "almost-promoted units" takes out the last weakened defenders.
When my "almost-promoted units" get to level 3-4, I upgrade them with the gold from the captured cities.

I NEVER delete.

Voila - a specialized army where you've spend only a little gold upgrading your highest promoted units, getting the most out of your old units, while producing new units.

 

[Naismith]

I almost never delete units. If I'm ahead in tech, I may drop research for cash to upgrade. As another poster mentioned, I find myself using a great merchant to upgrade in most games. But generally, I use the proceeds of taking cities to upgrade my best units, and don't bother upgrading the rest. They end up as garrison troops for cities away from the front lines.

But how do you take cities without first upgrading, you ask? Simple - upgrade a couple of your best units. That's all you need when your stack is at least 50% cats anyway. By the time your cats are done, you can take cities with warriors (ok, slight exaggeration).

Example: You have 10 axemen, 6 keshiks, 4 swords, and a handful of archers. You have (or should have) at least 10 cats. Scrape enough money together to upgrade either 2 swords or axes, whoever has the best promotions. Put together a stack of 10 cats, your two newly promoted macemen, 6 axes/swords, and an archer. Take a city. Promote another unit or two. Garrison any cities not on your border with weaker units. Rinse and repeat. Be sure to build more cats.

 

[bassist2119]

A few points that haven't been made yet.
1.) I'll usually only upgrade the top fourth of my force XP-wise. Proteus makes a good point that high XP units lose alot, but I find that increasing their survivability outweighs losing some XP that the new superunit will get back.
2.) Drop the research slider before getting a tech that will require mass upgrading to get the cash to do so.
3.) To keep finances within reason, the bottom 3/4 units suicide against a city to weaken defenders. Sometimes they actually win, too! This is particularly the case when opting for Paper and it's subsequent techs at the expense of Construction.

 

[CivDude86]

Am I the only that gift aways the cost more than its worth to upgrade units?

 

[UncleJJ]

I use lots of different techniques depending on the circumstances and what civics I'm running. I don't often use up old units in suicide attacks as other people have said here. That increases War Weariness and that can create a lot of problems that will cost beakers / gold to solve if the culture slider has to be raised. What you save in using up "wasted hammers" one way you can easily lose on beakers / gold so unless they stand a good chance of winning / damaging the target I just delete to save on WW.

Old units have a good use increasing happiness under HR but if I change to Representation, Police State or US it is unlikely I'll ever switch back so I then go through my army and weed out the weak ones to save upkeep costs.

One reason not mentioned so far to either upgrade your troops or to delete old ones and build newer versions is to increase your power on the power curve. Your power is one of the main things the AI uses in deciding whether to attack you or not and for other diplomatic decisions. As you can see from the list below that old warrior hiding in your capital is not adding much power (measured in soldiers) compared to the brand new Infantry you replace it with (same upkeep cost but worth 16 times as much on the power curve)
see The inner workings of the Demo screen explained

1000 soldiers – Warrior, Quechua
2000 soldiers – Axeman, Spearman, Archer, Chariot, Galley
3000 soldiers – Swordsman, Phalanx, Skimisher, War Chariot, Immortal, Horse Archer, Catapult, Caravel
4000 soldiers – Jaguar, Praetorian, Maceman, Pikeman, Longbowman, Crossbowman, Keshik, War Elephant, Galleon
5000 soldiers – Samurai, Cho-Ko-Nu,
6000 soldiers – Musketman, Knight, Frigate, Ironclad, Transport,
8000 soldiers – Musketeer, Camel Archer, Conquistador, Cannon, Destroyer, Submarine
10000 soldiers – Rifleman, Grenadier, Machine Gun, Carrier
12000 soldiers – Redcoat, Cavalry, Battleship
15000 soldiers – Cossack, Fighter, Jet Fighter, Bomber
16000 soldiers – Infantry
18000 soldiers – Marine
20000 soldiers – SAM Infantry, Gunship, Artillery, Stealth Bomber
22000 soldiers – Navy SEAL
25000 soldiers – Tank
30000 soldiers – Panzer, Mechanized Infantry
40000 soldiers – Modern Armor, ICBM

So one of the reasons I upgrade is to bluff the AI into thinking I have a lot more power. Power comparisons do not take account of promotions so level 1 Infantry is worth 16000 while a level 5 Rifleman (with CR 3) is only 10000 despite being a better troop. Obviously that Rifleman should be upgraded as soon as he reaches the right point.

Some units are just too expensive to upgrade and the benefit is not worth it. My Galleons and Frigates almost never get upgraded and I find it amusing to have a small squadron of them sailing around with my destroyers and transports usually protected by a battleship. They are still usefull at transporting and bombarding so why upgrade and why delete even if they are a bit slower and carry less?

Like others here I upgrade a few of the troops that have been with me the whole game like axemen (with CR promotions) to macemen (with CR3) to grenadiers and eventually to infantry. But a lot of the less successful ones (with CR2) just get allocated to garrison duty and not upgraded. My army usually expands a lot when I get to Assembly lines with infantry being the core troop and I like the combat+ pinch promotions (as a minimum) for them to attack initially and then later as support / garrison troops. They beat any older troops and with collateral damage beat AI infantry. That expansion usually means that I only upgrade maybe 8 of the 40 infantry I end up with and the rest is built under Vassalage and Theocracy.

So it is complicated and there is no simple answer, upgrade some, build some new and delete some old.