How to modernize an army?

[Brother Vicar]

So, my army of Swordsman is the dominant force on the battlefield. Then all of a sudden, I hit the medieval age. Macemen, Pikemen and Longbowmen are all open to me. What do I do to get my army up to speed?

That's a hypothetical situation, but this is always a problem for me. I can't decide how to respond to this. Should I just rebuild every unit and delete the old ones, or should I set the sliders to zero and use cash, or do I leave my cities guarded by archers well into the gunpowder age?

How do you go about modernizing your army?

 

[AThousandYoung]

Lower the slider just a little bit so you can slowly build up funds for this problem.

 

[svv]

Part of this depends on civics. If you're in hereditary rule, you have a use for a lot of obsolete units. Even if you're not, you need at least one in every city.

Some, of course, should be upgraded. I generally make sure to upgrade the highly promoted ones - which for me usually means City Raider 3.

 

[lilnev]

Early on, it's too expensive to upgrade random troops. Just build new ones. The exception is units with high CR promotions. Nothing gets CR after maces until tanks, so you want to cultivate some CR3 units while you can to use as grens or rifles, and then as infantry. If I have CR3 swordsmen/axemen, I probably won't upgrade them to maces and won't fight with them. Garrison them in an interior city until the day they can pick up a gun, and groom some more maces in the meantime. I might make a few exceptions so that I can crack that one strong defender who would otherwise soak up three or four attackers. If I have swords or axes that are close to CR3, but not quite there, I'll bring them along with the stack and give them 96-98% fights against damaged enemies, for an easy 2 XPs. Low XP swords are treated like other random units (spears, archers, horses, etc.) -- find some use for them if possible, but don't spring for the high upgrade costs.

Always exceptions for emergency defence, of course (archer -> longbow, for example).

peace,
lilnev

 

[DaveMcW]

It's worth upgrading your veterans if they have better promotions than your new units start with.

Keep your old units around if you are in Monarchy, they give +1 happiness in cities.

 

[ohjames]

Use your old units to swarm enemy territory and pillage; being out of date may keep them from taking cities, but not from burning cottages.

Once you've pillaged to your satisfaction, declare peace, bring the troops home, and spend your pillage money upgrading them. Then send them to another border and capture someone else's un-pillaged, improved land.

 

[Phrederick]

Gift all the junk to your vassal and let them upgrade cheaply

In all seriousness, upgrade the highly promoted ones, and use the rest as cannon fodder, or military police. Just be wary about throwing them all to the wolves, it can net some pretty high war weariness.

 

[silver 2039]

I upgrade all my defensive units, and a core of offensive units who are promoted. Then I just build new modern soldiers.

The remaining obselte units, I garrison in cities for extra defense or police work, or I use them as reserves if I need them

 

[RERomine]

I would maintain enough of a cash surplus so you can hot spot upgrade. Since you can't upgrade everything at once, it helps to have enough cash on hand to upgrade defenders in a certain location in case the AI declares war and commits itself to an attack in that location. Otherwise, I agree with the suggestions others have made.