Late game unit production

[carlisimo]

I'm actually enjoying the game quite a bit, and finding the late game better than the Civ 4 million unit slog-fest, except for one thing: training modern-era units takes forever!

Starting with musketmen perhaps, it feels like you can tech up to the next unit faster than it takes to train one. They have no shelf life.

After mechanized infantry, it feels like production times are too long in anything but a specialized city (20-30 turns) and you might as well not bother. I've got my workshops, forges, mines... so how do you resist an opponent with approximately equal points but a large military?

 

[jaycuhbbb]

At that point in the game it should be easier to just gold rush units. You say you have forges, workshops, etc but they are a waste on maintenance imo. I rarely ever slow build military units except in the early game.

 

[aimlessgun]

Lategame unit production is a matter of rushbuying, golden age production, and upgrades. It feels weird if you compare it to previous Civs, but that's the method in this one. If you get a decent production city (like 75+ hammers) building units is not that slow either, really.

 

[Mongolia Jones]

You can also mod in lower hammer costs.

About 2 weeks after civ5 was released I have been playing the game modded with units at 0.5x hammer costs and buildings at 0.75x hammer costs.

It works pretty well.

 

[Bibor]

If your main "heavy unit" production city for airplanes and armor units isn't producing around 100 hammers per turn, it's either badly decided on (poor location), not large enough or there are not enough buildings in it. I say this because in some games this happened to me as well. If you're stuck with an inevitable late-game war, hydroplants, solar plants and nuclear plants become almost mandatory (depending on what you can afford).

 

[Slowpoke]

My current mod has a net effect of reducing unit prices to 2/3 price. And forge is pretty cheap with it, so it really adds up. Unfortunately the A.I. gets this too, so it gets pretty clogged.

But yeah, railroads and factories really speed it up if you get to those techs

 

[qyll]

If you have enough money, buy some production modifiers in your best production cities like factories, hydro plants, or solar plants. If you've got communism, you can be pumping out a modern unit even ten turns.

But usually I just buy more units or have city states give me units (I got a GDR from a CS in my latest game). Being allied with three militaristic CS's guarantees you a new unit every 6 or 7 turns, which is huge.

 

[lindanealmck]

Have you tried shifting the production focus of the cities? Usually gold vs production (may have to micomanage some). This often makes a huge difference.