Unit Upgrade Paths

Some important points to remember:

Caravels do NOT upgrade to Transports. If you need to transport units but dont have Galleons, build galleys.

Gunships cannot capture cities. So be careful about upgrading Cav if ur exclusively using them to attack (though u shouldnt be in many cases).

Same theory with regards to Grenadiers. These (and Machine Guns) are more specialized units. Machine Guns cannot attack. If you not careful, you could be moving a stack of Artillery and Grenadier and realize you have a bunch of artillery after a wholesale upgrade.
 
Jaybe said:
Because it is grouped with the other "Seige" units, silly.
(You probably figured that out 2 minutes after you posted)
Click to expand...
Actually I would never have figured it out.
I havnt even played the game. (I plan to eventually, I just don't have time these days)
I was asking just from a "nice graph" point of view...
 
akots said:
Fast moving units upgrade
Click to expand...

Great pictures! :goodjob:
The only minor and funny point is that war elephant is not "fast": its movement is just 1. But, if it's your first mounted unit, the game still tells you that it's fast and can pillage and retreat! :lol:
 
akots said:
Other units, which are not on the chart, are apparently not participating in upgrade paths. The following land units have to be built from scratch: Archer, warrior, swordsman, and musketman.
Click to expand...

Ha, and tank! :D
 
A note is that if any unit upgrades to rifleman, it can also upgrade to grenadier. It would be nicer to make this clear in akots' picture. :)
 
Yes, indeed this whole classification is extremely confusing and different from civ3. I was trying to stick to the system provided in the manual.
 
Heroes said:
A note is that if any unit upgrades to rifleman, it can also upgrade to grenadier. It would be nicer to make this clear in akots' picture. :)
Click to expand...

Are you sure about that? It seems that musketman and longbowman cannot upgrade to Grenadier at least that is what civilopedia is telling. I'm yet to play to that point in the game. So far it had been moslty lower difficulty (Monarch) and the AIs did not survive to gunpowder units.
 
akots said:
Are you sure about that? It seems that musketman and longbowman cannot upgrade to Grenadier at least that is what civilopedia is telling. I'm yet to play to that point in the game. So far it had been moslty lower difficulty (Monarch) and the AIs did not survive to gunpowder units.
Click to expand...

Oh, you are right, longbow and musket are exceptions. :)
 
This is the table with upgrade cost for normal game speed. Sorry again for lack of designer skill. It is partially due to the glitchy nature of Microsoft Office and lack of any good imaging software on my PC. Apparently for epic speed these costs are just multiplied by 1.5 similar to the hammer price of units and rounded.

Thanks for the info provided by snepp, there is a flat upgrade fee of 25 gold and then it is 3 gold per each hammer.

Good thing, upgrade cost does not depend on difficulty and map size and does not seem to depend on starting and target unit strengths.

The starting point of the upgrade is in top row and left column is the target of upgrade. Intersection give the price for upgrade.

There are some very peculiar features to notice here. The most important is that the player gets some discount for bulk upgrade due to upgrade fee.

For example, if warrior is upgraded to pikeman directly, the price is 160. On the other hand, if warrior is first upgraded to spearman (85) and then spearman is upgraded to pikeman (100) this gives upgrade fee of 185. Thus, upgrading directly costs 25g less. In the case of warrior to mechanized infantry upgrade this gives even larger discount. Direct cost of upgrade is 580, whereas gradual upgrades through all intermediate steps will cost 680 for a total savings of 100g which is a lot of money.

Another thing to notice is that AI even on lower difficulty levels is either disbanding the old medieval units or upgrading them, cannot tell exactly. This is supposed to be a feature of civ4 apparently so that no more spearmen defenders against tanks. It seems that AI accumulates some cash and then as soon as a new unit is available either disbands the old one or upgrades it. Which means AI spends some extra money by doing all intermediate upgrades.

Never mind, here are the tables:


civ4upgradecost.JPG
 
akots said:
I really don't understand where these numbers come from, it seems that the cost varies from 3 to 4 gold per hammer with some additional flat fee or it is just a result of rounding the unit cost. :confused: I'm not good at XML and have tried to find it out in xml files but failed miserably.

For example, if warrior is upgraded to pikeman directly, the price is 160. On the other hand, if warrior is first upgraded to spearman (85) and then spearman is upgraded to pikeman (100) this gives upgrade fee of 185. Thus, upgrading directly costs 25g less. In the case of warrior to mechanized infantry upgrade this gives even larger discount. Direct cost of upgrade is 580, whereas gradual upgrades through all intermediate steps will cost 680 for a total savings of 100g which is a lot of money.
Click to expand...
There is a base fee of 25g when upgrading a unit (consider it an administrative fee :lol:) plus the gold per hammer fee. So yes, it is considerably cheaper to make one big upgrade (warrior-->mech infantry) than it is to do incremental upgrades.
 
Thanks for the great info akots!! It is much better than anything was going to post. It seems when I get home and have time to update the chart I find myself inexorably drawn to playing the game. Funny how that happens. :D
 
kroym said:
akots,

Wow! Great chart! Would you mind if I integrated that into my set of reference charts found here: Civ IV Reference Charts Thread?
Click to expand...

Yes, sure, go ahead. I have an Excel file at home. Can either post it or pm it to you, whatever you prefer later today.

There are also a couple of typos in the upgrade picture, I have to update that as well. Will try to do it as soon as there is time.
 
On thing that was brought up briefly but not addressed is the issue of promotions. For example, I have Jags and now macemen with the 'City Raider' promotion. They eventually upgrade to riflemen...who are not eligible for the 'City Raider' promotion. If I upgrade, do I lose those promotions? Or do they become something else (just go to Combat II, Combat III, etc)?

Just wondering...I'll find out soon enough, when I get back to my game tonight...
 
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