Is there any point to obsolescence?

[Ryika]

I think obsolescence is a good thing in general. It unclutters the lists, which is already more than enough reason for it to exist.

In my opinion the real problem is not obsolescence, but rather the way strategic resources are handled, and that the devs just haven't found a way of allowing players to transition between units with different resource requirements. I think finding a solution for that problem creates a much better gameplay experience than just having lists full of units that you don't reaaaally want to construct.

One way of doing that would be to remove any resource requirements from units, but instead give them bonus-strength when the resource they require is available. Make it so the new unit without having the resources they require is still a bit stronger than the old unit with resources available (and factor in cost-increase) and make resources be a big enough increase so players are encouraged to get the unit types they have resources for (within the most modern units available to them), and then you should have no reason to ever construct outdated units.

 

[KrikkitTwo]

I don't think tying resources to unit strength is good. In Civ V you could give someone strat resources, and if they declared war on you, their units would be weak...no risk.

Civ6 ties it to unit production (and apparently healing) I think that is good.
So just extend it...0 resource=upgrading is 5x as expensive, and the unit can be built at an encampment for 5x the cost.

 

[Ryika]

That doesn't solve the issue of outdated units being something you'd want to build. I would certainly prefer a weaker unit over a unit that is 5 times more expensive than it should be and requires an encampment.

/edit:
And I actually think the Resource Trading is not an issue at all, because again, the next tier of units WITHOUT resources should still be somewhat stronger than the last tier of units WITH resources.

 

[TruthfulCake]

The main point of obsoleting is to avoid the situation where humans would get cheaper than they should.
We have the famous Civ III Warrior -> Swordsman situation where in that game if you didn't have Iron you could still build warriors. So humans would on purpose disconnect their iron, then build cheap warriors with hammers and then reconnect the Iron to upgrade them.

I don't think you can reproduce that in Civ VI anyway, as you can no longer pillage your own tiles. Not that I think it should be necessary to lose iron for a civ to build warriors.

I might not be familiar with how the exploit works, but I don't really see how it cannot be fixed with tweaking certain numbers. Say, if a warrior costs you 160 gold (40 cogs), and a musketman 960 (240 cogs), Building a warrior takes 1/6 as long as making a musketman. And since a musketman is much better than 6 warriors by the era the former is available, I see no problem if a civ can make warriors in renaissance.

Now, in order to make upgrades non-exploitable, to upgrade the warrior to a musketman, make it require more than the differential between the two units' price. The musketman costs 800 more gold than the warrior, so you can make the upgrade cost 880 (110%). Thus it costs you less to buy a musketman right away compared to buying a warrior and then upgrading it. Moreover, the opportunity cost (you use up one extra turn to just upgrade) makes the latter a very unappealing option.

Under this model, the only reasons people would build older units would be: a. if the newest unit isn't readily available for them due to lack of resources, or b. if they absolutely want to grab an old unique for their special properties. I think it is very fair.

And yes, I think upgrades costing much more than buying the unit itself makes sense. If you make a tank unit, all you are paying for the personnel and the vehicle. If you make a knight and upgrade it into a tank, you are paying for a person who is adept with horseback fighting, the horse itself, and then for retraining the person into operating a tank, discarding the horse, and building the new vehicle. In no way should the latter cost less than the former.

Besides, upgrading keeps your existing unit promotions. I don't see why it should be a cheaper option compared to disbanding and making new units. In real life, you would have to train or buy new units anyway because your old units aren't immortal. In civ, you get to keep that 3000-year-old archer. I'd say that's bonus enough as it is.

You want people to have armies of the most updated units.
-immersion (why builder/trader/settler graphics update)
-you want any choices to be significant (warriors just clutter the info era build list)

On the first point, I think that as long as your units can survive for thousands of years, it is inevitable to break that immersion. Right now it is perfectly possible to have an atomic era archer anyway. Besides, horses were still used back when tanks had already been invented, so using old units is not necessarily historically incorrect.

On the second point, I propose that we hide the old units by default, and allow the players to unhide them by ticking a checkbox. Like "show obsolete units". This would solve the clutter - you still get a default list of one newest unit per class unless you go out of your way to find your spearman.

 

[KrikkitTwo]

That doesn't solve the issue of outdated units being something you'd want to build. I would certainly prefer a weaker unit over a unit that is 5 times more expensive than it should be and requires an encampment.

/edit:
And I actually think the Resource Trading is not an issue at all, because again, the next tier of units WITHOUT resources should still be somewhat stronger than the last tier of units WITH resources.

That makes sense...perhaps
Resource2+...unit can be built anywhere
Resource 1...unit only built in encampment/harbor
Resourse 0...as above -10 str, -10 unit healing (not out of friendly territory)...or maybe flat -15 str

 

[elitetroops]

The main point of obsoleting is to avoid the situation where humans would get cheaper than they should.
We have the famous Civ III Warrior -> Swordsman situation where in that game if you didn't have Iron you could still build warriors. So humans would on purpose disconnect their iron, then build cheap warriors with hammers and then reconnect the Iron to upgrade them.

That should rather be fixed by making it so that it isn't cheaper to build the earlier unit and upgrade it than to build/buy the new unit.

Edit: didn't see second page of this thread before posting, seems this was already covered.

 

[RegentBob]

I don't think you can reproduce that in Civ VI anyway, as you can no longer pillage your own tiles. Not that I think it should be necessary to lose iron for a civ to build warriors.

I disagree. Players should be allowed to pillage certain resources, just as they are in real life. Just consider the Russians' "scorched earth" tactic or the Kuwaiti oil fires set by the Iraqi troops in 1991.

I might not be familiar with how the exploit works, but I don't really see how it cannot be fixed with tweaking certain numbers.

And I argue that the Swiss train all able-bodied males for military service and the Israelis train almost all men and women, however the majority of their citizens are not part of a standing army. Call it an exploit, but keeping "cheap" and under-prepared units on standby, so that they can quickly be upgraded and prepared for battle sounds like a reasonable concept to me.

Civ has no real answer to the U.S.' National Guard and Reserves, but in times of war those units are called away from their civilian lives back to meaningful duty in the military. If the Civ franchise wants so badly to reduce the necessity of warfare to win the game, then it should not force us to keep large standing armies solely to deter the AI-idiots from attacking.


Now, back to what I see is the key point in this thread. Players facing a situation where they cannot build the latest unit due to a lack of key resources is no big deal and has many historical precedents. However, making the older unit unavailable and "obsolete" is just ridiculous and it forces players back into a very risky situation where war is the only realistic option. Whoever is responsible made a dumb move that should be corrected.

Now, the real question is: has anyone modded a fix for this yet?

 

[UWHabs]

The only flaw right now is that if you don't have the resource for the new unit, you should still be able to build the old one. But otherwise, I have no problem with making sure that you only have 1 of each class available at any point in time. Otherwise you could also "cheat" by, say, using the policy to give you +100% production of classical cavalry (ie. horsemen), build a bunch really cheaply, and then switch to the 50% upgrade discount, and suddenly you have a massive army of knights with effectively a "double discount". I mean, you can still do that now if you pre-build, but at least then you're paying maintenance costs while you wait.

And yeah, I do also agree that the cost to build + upgrade should be higher than the cost to upgrade, however it would also be nice if you could also send a unit back to an encampment and essentially spend a few turns to "retrain" him to the new unit, effectively paying the upgrade cost but in hammers.

 

[Takfloyd]

Obsolescence is good. The execution in this game is not.

I'm sure we'll see this change pretty soon so that you can still build the old unit if you lack a strategic resource.

If units didn't go obsolete, people would just spam cheap units you can build each turn and overwhelm more advanced opponents. Nobody wants that.

 

[TruthfulCake]

If units didn't go obsolete, people would just spam cheap units you can build each turn and overwhelm more advanced opponents. Nobody wants that.

Is that such a huge problem, though, if the units they spam are underpowered? If it is, one can also make the units' costs scale based on the degree of obsolescence, making them less spammable without blocking their production.

 

[leon_daking]

i actually think it helps give the early game unique units more character. you might have a great chariot archer version, but at some point in your civs development its time to get with the program. a big part of civ is flavor and for that you really don't want renaissance cultures training people to fight with sticks.