Regressive Unit Upgrade Costs

[Woebearer]

I'd like to see a system that would help solve two problems:

1) A bunch of warriors and archers sitting around core cities in advanced ages.

2) A mass upgrade of units as soon as the enabling tech comes in.

My solution would be a to dramatically increase the base cost of upgrading a unit, but to slowly decrease that cost over time based on how long you have had the enabling tech. There would be a minimun % (say 10-20% of the base).

Example Upgade Discounts After Discovery of Enabling Tech:

Turns 1-10: No Discount
Turns 11-40: 3% discount per turn.

At the end of 40 turns the cost to upgrade the unit would be 10% of the base cost.

This would encourage players to upgrade their units before they discover techs that would make their cheaper upgrades obsolete. Of course the times, base upgrade costs, and minimun % would have to be balanced so that you couldn't just pump out a ton of Warriors and Archers, beeline to a millitary tech and then just sit back and wait till it was super cheap to upgrade them all.

 

[IrishDragon]

I think that when your in the modern age then warriors should be automatically upgraded to riflemen

 

[Diamondeye]

I really like the idea as long as it's balanced.

 

[Öjevind Lång]

I really like the idea as long as it's balanced.

So do I. If there is one ridiculous feaure in the game, it is those warriors sitting around in cities merely to make the population feel *safe*. "Don't worry about enemies, hon - Chicago is being protected by the First Clubwielding Regiment. Oops! Look at the time! I'd better leave or I'll miss the flight to Los Angeles."

 

[Dom Pedro II]

The early units should probably have graphical upgrades so that maybe they won't improve in terms of their fighting capabilities, but they will at least LOOK like they belong in the 20th century...

 

[Diamondeye]

They should increase a bit aswell - warriors would not wield only a scarf around the tigh and the clup wouldn't be a bone or a wooden club.
A medieval warrior could be a mn in simlpe clothing with a scythe and 3. In later ages the warrior-axeman-maceman might flow together into one unit- and the archer-skirmish-longbowman-Xbowmen might be another in modern ages.

 

[searcheagle]

I think that when your in the modern age then warriors should be automatically upgraded to riflemen

Do you think the upgrade should cost gold or not? If it does, what about the player with no gold?

 

[searcheagle]

This would encourage players to upgrade their units before they discover techs that would make their cheaper upgrades obsolete. Of course the times, base upgrade costs, and minimun % would have to be balanced so that you couldn't just pump out a ton of Warriors and Archers, beeline to a millitary tech and then just sit back and wait till it was super cheap to upgrade them all.

I do not see how giving the player a discount to hold off converting units will give them an incentive to upgrade units sooner.

I think the only real way to keep players from hoarding old units is to force them to disband them or upgrade. If they are too old, then the computer informs the user that units must be upgraded or disband or the game will do it for them.

 

[12thScout]

I think the only real way to keep players from hoarding old units is to force them to disband them or upgrade. If they are too old, then the computer informs the user that units must be upgraded or disband or the game will do it for them.

Whats wrong with invading the enemy with hoard of obselte units? Monty does it all the time!

I think that when your in the modern age then warriors should be automatically upgraded to riflemen

Now THATS ridiculous. Think about this : New strat, spam warriors in the ancient age. Then beeline to the modern age. (You can do that ya know...Ex. Theology automatically brings you to the Medival age, even if you don't know hunting yet xd)

Woe's idea is fairly good, but I think the limit should be raised to 50%. For example upgrading my chariot to a HA might take 200 gold. If I wait 40 turns, I can do it for 20 gold each. Hmm...tough choice...not...

If it was toned down abit, this would be an excellent idea

 

[Aytek]

I do not see how giving the player a discount to hold off converting units will give them an incentive to upgrade units sooner.

I think the only real way to keep players from hoarding old units is to force them to disband them or upgrade. If they are too old, then the computer informs the user that units must be upgraded or disband or the game will do it for them.

Totally agree: Disbanding or upgrading is the best solution, I think.

 

[PieceOfMind]

I think the idea sounds good. Some fiddling with the numbers of course. And the final cost, after the largest discount, would have to be less than it is currently in the game because as it is I never upgrade units - it's cheaper to disband and build new ones.

A few times throughout the game, I check my Economy (whatever it's called) screen and see that I'm paying x amount of gold per turn for unit costs. I then go around deleting warriors and other obsolete units which'll likely never have use in battle again. Sure I could use them as fodder in battle but I don't think 1gpt each for maybe 100 turns is worth it. My point is, this doesn't feel right - I figure the game designers wanted me to upgrade the units instead of disbanding them - so upgrades need fixing for sure.

 

[Zachron]

I like it just the way it is. Not only should we be able to keep old units, but I think they should improve a civ's culture. One plan is prehaps beign able to convert obsolete units into monuments that produce 1 culture per turn per level. That is a level 5 unit would make 5 culture per turn, and so on. The idea being, that units that have been around for a long time develope a heritage about them to the nation they serve and the areas they are stationed. That is said unit has been around for long enough that people who have served in that unit have gone on to do many things and be involved in many activities in the local culture and politics, even to the extent that large amounts of people are even descendants of people who have served in that unit at one time or another. The unique heritage of a given military unit is already somewhat in the game mechanics in the form of promotions, and said promotions being retained regardless of how many times than unit has been upgraded or how old the unit is.

 

[sluglord99]

On a related, but slightly different note, it has always irked me that upkeep cost for a unit of warriors is the same as that of a battleship or aircraft carrier! The more modern a unit, the higher the upkeep, as long as income at more advanced ages scales to compensate, at least somewhat. Of course, since incomes in Civ IV are unitless (in terms of RW currencies), it must be already scaling, at which point obsolete units should have [relatively] no upkeep, and current units would have the normal upkeep cost as exists in Civ IV now.
As this would also encourage ppl to utilize these units to pacify safe interior cities, in addition to some of the suggestions above for upgrading units, another incentive to upgrading or disbanding might be this: what a city considers as "adequate defenses" to make them feel safe should also scale with age: 2 min for ancient, 4 for classic, 6 for medieval, etc. This would be total strength, so 2 warriors would be needed to make a classical-era city not go ballistic, or just one spearman. Back on the notion of no upkeep for obsolete units, an obsolete unit acting as one of the units to make a city's inhabitants not "fear for their lives", there would be NO maintainance reprieve, but would cost full price. Thus, pacifying your medieval cities with just warriors would cost you three times as much (minus free units, etc) in upkeep than would using a longbowman/crossbowman! Strong incentive to modernize (or just disband) right there!

Combined with one of the price reduction ideas above, hardly anyone/anybot would have a warrior in an era with riflemen or beyond. At least any SANE person. As you say tho, there IS always that wacky Monty, who might consider a warrior as an ideal city attacker...

 

[searcheagle]

Perhaps the most realistic thing way to phase out obsolete units is to have them lose all benefits as military units. There are two primary ways that military units assist the game:

1. Protection-from other civs
2. Internal order- maintaining order (I don't think this aspect has changed since Civ 3.)

If an unit is considered too obsolete, simply have it lose the ability to maintain order. In real life, no populous, will respect the law if the people maintain the law have swords while everyone else has automatic weapons.

 

[Exel]

If an unit is considered too obsolete, simply have it lose the ability to maintain order. In real life, no populous, will respect the law if the people maintain the law have swords while everyone else has automatic weapons.

In the UK police have sticks and the criminals have guns. People still respect the law there.

I really think unit upgrade costs should be a lot cheaper. I don't like seeing hordes of archers in the modern age marching next to tanks.

 

[arstal]

And this is why the AI has half price upgrades even at Chieftain.

 

[Khan Quest]

Mostly, I think the current system works fine. As others have suggested, these weaker units are more representative of civil peace-keeping and law enforcement. Consider a moden police force's effectiveness in battle. And you still have to pay maintenance fees.

That aside, here is another approach.
After two tech advances for a type of unit (spearman <- pikeman <- musketeer), the units abilities begin fade. Every few turns the unit loses experience and the promotions that go along with it. When experience is zero, the unit starts losing strength (the obsolete arms and armor becoming more and more difficult to maintain). When the strength drops to zero, the unit is eliminated.

 

[Exel]

I've tried playing now with simple reduced upgrade costs (20gp + 1gp per hammer). The cost is still high enough so that you can't upgrade all units in one turn unless you are really filthy rich, but now the difference between upgrading older and previous tech units isn't quite as big, favoring the upgrade of most obsolete units first. You still have to think which units to upgrade and when, but I didn't for once see the usual AI hordes of antiquated units. They were at most two tech levels behind the state-of-the-art the AI had.