Investment in the Future...

[Alvin]

Most of the units you produce can be upgraded to something more powerful than before. But, you have to know which units are actually worth the money to produce, maintain, and upgrade. Here is a list of ranks.(not including C3C)
1.Horseman, knights, cavarly
The best units in the game, with the best attack of their time and the fastest attack.
2.Tanks, MA
Really worth the time to sit and upgrade all of them...Very good attack.
3.Spearman, Pikeman, Musketman, Rifleman, Inftrary(exesue my spelling Oops...) MI
I really suggest you don't upgrade musketman into rifleman because it's a waste of money(dosen't really matter because cavarly will kill both of so easily...)But they're the best defenders and should be used to guard cities and important resources.
4.Swordsman, Medievial I, Gurreallia
Worst investment in land forces, it becomes worthless after swordsman, it becomes a waste of money.
5.Galley, Caravl, Galleons, Transports
What can I say, they're pretty useful but dosen't have to upgraded lik galley have the same movement as Caraval but can't go through ocean squares.
5.Galley

 

[Tomoyo]

3.Spearman, Pikeman, Musketman, Rifleman, Inftrary(exesue my spelling Oops...) MI
I really suggest you don't upgrade musketman into rifleman because it's a waste of money(dosen't really matter because cavarly will kill both of so easily...)

I suggest that you don't upgrade pikemen to Muskets because it costs too much and you don't get much of a defense boost. Musket-Rifle only costs 20 gold, 30 in C3C, and Cavalry v. Muskets in generally refered to as the most murderous assault after Immortals v. Spears.

 

[vossibeer]

Usually, I'll tend to upgrade nothing, the only exception is knights to cavalry, because it's so cheap.

Because my one and only target is always military conquest, i use older units as police under communism. If there are still older units, i send them into battle. They may succeed or not, I don't care. Sometimes they are all toast , sometimes i see something like a pikemen defeating 4 Siphahi .

 

[fret]

4.Swordsman, Medievial I, Gurreallia
Worst investment in land forces, it becomes worthless after swordsman, it becomes a waste of money.

Where is the warrior?

The warrior-sword upgrade is probably one of the most powerful, this upgrade can allow you to very quickly build a substantial army of swords and, depending on map circumstances, can enable you to wipe out two or three entire civs before they even get a decent footing. This accelerates further your expansion - a very significant early power boost that has ramifications for your opponents for the rest of the game.

 

[Reprisal]

I agree with fret, I've often upgraded my "left over" warriors from the land grab stage to swordsmen and used them as the first wave of attackers against my most hated neighbour. It helps if they're Veteran, but that's not often the case as the city with the barracks at the beginning was churning out Spearmen/Hoplites/Numidian Mercenaries. Alvin was mostly correct about what he said, using Medieval Infantry when you could have used Knights is usually a bad idea unless the difference in shield cost is important. In C3C, however, we must remember that Guerillas upgrade to TOW Infantry, which are quite nice offensive infantry units.

- Rep.

 

[Barker]

I always try to get barracks in my cities EARLY... I will build them before temples in most of my core cities. I can build my veteran defensive forces early in the game, and upgrade them as I get new techs. I typically switch to Monarcy early on, and I build 3 veteran spearmen in each core city as military police. The more spearmen I can build before Feudalism the better IMO.

If you are playing as the Greeks or other civs that get a UU that is a spearman replacement, you can build the cheaper shield unit in unproductive cities, and then upgrade them with cash.

 

[tao]

IMO it all depends on your strategy and on on how good you are at it. My favorite on the war path is to skip chivalry, build Leonardo's and lots of cheap horsemen while researching straight to military tradition. Stop research and make tons of money. Wipe the AIs out, capture any wonders and resources you need. Leonardo's allows upgrading horsemen to cavalry for 50g.

Regarding defenders, it is short-sighted to just look at the base strength.
Example: town on a hill or walled town, defender is fortified:
6 defense if pike
9 defense if musket
12 defense if rifle
Add in a catapult or cannon, and cavalries w attack 6 will have a hard time.

 

[Alvin]

Horsemans are pretty infective against most anything you throw at them(my warrior killed 4 horsemans before he dead)

 

[tao]

Horsemans are pretty infective against most anything you throw at them(my warrior killed 4 horsemans before he dead)

Instead of citing some anecdote, you may want to try the combat calculator.

 

[Tomoyo]

Instead of citing some anecdote, you may want to try the combat calculator.

Or maybe you should assume the warrior was on a barricade across a river in the mountains fortified, and the horsemen were all red lined?

 

[Alvin]

I fortified my warrior at a grassland, all of the horsemans were regular, full health my warrior was regular full health

 

[dresdor]

You know, random probability says that anything can happen once...I mean, I've seen three infantry in a metropolis get killed by three calvary without damaging the calvary at all.

 

[Alvin]

Well, that's just that

 

[Minstrel]

England lost all of it's empire in 300 years
Germany Lost it's empire in 4 years
France lost it's empire in 1 month
America never lost her empire for over 200 years(a new world record for the longest lasting goverment of all time) YEA!!!

What about the Roman, Egyptian, Chinese, and Ottoman Empires to name but a few. Aztecs, Mayans, Incas?

Compared to other civilizations, America is relatively young.

 

[JMK]

A good upgrade path when you play Iroquois is Mounted Warrior -> Cavalry (providing you have not had your Golden Age yet). Cavalry for 30 sheilds and a few Gold!

 

[Alvin]

I only stick to western and moderen civilazation(pardon my spelling)
Knights are way better than mounted warriors because they have 2+ defense and 1+ attack(Who care about the gold, take more cities)

 

[maddman75]

The value of horsemen is that they can retreat from battle, thus over the long run they are IMO more useful than swordsmen. Once a nonmobile unit goes into battle they are either dead or victorious. The horseman can retreat back to your city and fight again in a couple turns.

I always upgrade my units, and I almost always go for Sun Tzu, prebuild if possible. Its so nice not to have to run them to a city with a barracks.

 

[dresdor]

Horsemen had a lot higher value before the latest Civ 3 vanilla patch. Now there's only a small chance they can run.

 

[Tomoyo]

Horsemen had a lot higher value before the latest Civ 3 vanilla patch. Now there's only a small chance they can run.

I wouldn't call it "small". Besides, that extra movement point can also be uses to retreat to a fortified area after making a kill, while swordsmen cannot.

 

[Longasc]

Alvin, please excuse, your ideas always have a grain of truth and good advice, but they are also underdone and not thought to the end.

For instance, think of your Galley example. When you have researched Magnetism, even Galleys can cross oceans safely. Navigation allows sea squares.

Take a look at DaveMcW and Ision, they think their ideas to the end and there is still lots of discussion about their articles. How shall we take your hints / your advice serious if you puke everything in the forum as soon as it comes to your mind? Please take this in the mind of constructive criticism.