Partial Unit Upgrades

[SewerStarFish]

I haven't seen this anywhere -- if another thread exists sorry.

I would like the ability to upgrade a unit only partway up the tree. Say I'm stuck on an island, get the Great Library, then make contact with a whole bunch of civilizations. Suddenly my spearmen can be upgraded to riflemen. Sure I'd like some rifles, but I can not at present make some riflemen and some pikemen.

 

[boots468]

Aye man, this would add something to be sure, but perhaps other things need addressing first - it is rare you need to partially upgrade units but other issues raised here crop up nearly every game, and as such would probably be better to concentarate on (my view anyway)

 

[Aussie_Lurker]

How about making it VERY expensive to upgrade straight from spears to rifles, but much cheaper, overall, to upgrade to pikemen, then muskets THEN rifles. This would allow someone to make one or two riflemen (which they would probably guard quite jealously) whilst just upgrading the other units a little bit!
Another thing might be to require a civ to have at LEAST one of a techs prerequisites before they can get that tech-no matter what!

Yours,
Aussie_Lurker.

 

[rhialto]

lurker, Id say make it teh opposite - make it more expensive to do a partial upgrade. Otherwise you encourage MM.

 

[sealman]

Why would someone want to upgrade to pikemen when they could upgrade to riflemen? I don't get why anyone would do this. Unless there are financial constraints.

 

[satchel]

Why would someone want to upgrade to pikemen when they could upgrade to riflemen? I don't get why anyone would do this. Unless there are financial constraints.

It makes perfect sense to me. If I can't afford to upgrade all my defenders all the way, there are circumstances in which it would be preferable to upgrade a lot of them part of the way then to upgrade a few of them all the way. (If I have a large border or coast, for example, I might prefer 20 pikemen to 10 riflemen). The present upgrade system doesn't give you this option.

 

[sealman]

stachel: that is why I throw in the financial consideration caviat. I can sort of see it there, but in those cases, I just kill my research spending for a turn and then I got the gold.

 

[Aussie_Lurker]

Thats why I am strongly leaning towards a 'no Prerequisite, no tech' solution. That is, in order to recieve the tech needed for riflemen, you need to have at LEAST one of that techs prerequisites-otherwise no deal! To me it just seems like a grotesque exploit doing it the way SSF describes it in his initial post (not that I have EVER seen it happen myself!)

Yours,
Aussie_Lurker.

 

[Stid]

i dont care, stick to the current system IMO.its only an extra 60 or so gold anyway.

 

[SewerStarFish]

Thats why I am strongly leaning towards a 'no Prerequisite, no tech' solution. That is, in order to recieve the tech needed for riflemen, you need to have at LEAST one of that techs prerequisites-otherwise no deal! To me it just seems like a grotesque exploit doing it the way SSF describes it in his initial post (not that I have EVER seen it happen myself!)

Yours,
Aussie_Lurker.

Aussie: I'm not sure what you mean. My example was one where an isolated nation that has the Great Library meets a civ, trades to meet all the other civs and the next turn gets that bonanza of techs that 2 other civs may have. You don't get any tech without its prerequisite but you can go well past Education because the effect of Education stifling the GL doesn't occur until after you've learned every tech that 2 others have. In theory you could learn all the other techs this way.

I was trying to be brief. There are occasions, especially when you are isolated at the start of the game, when you quickly gain techs -- out-pacing your upgrading. Presently we are left with upgrading a few units at high cost. This presents a real problem (at least for me) when I'm playing a game at a higher difficulty. Aggressive AI civ's can overwhelm my front line of new muskets leaving a weakened rear of spears.

There have been many occassions where I would have traded some of those muskets for the ability to make some of the spears into pikes.