Unit upgrades - the way to rush buy

[Martin Alvito]

I'm sure I didn't discover this first, but there doesn't appear to be a thread.

Long story short: always build obsolete units and upgrade on the turn after the build. It's arguably a more efficient use of your gold early on than buying city-state influence on the higher levels. At Immortal and especially Deity, the AIs will all dogpile you at the first opportunity if you have a soft military. This usually leads to death.

Consider the following alternatives:

1) Build Warrior for 40H and upgrade it for 90G, vs. build Swordsman for 80H, vs. rush buy Warrior for 200G and upgrade for 90G, vs. rush buy Swordsman for 410G.

The gold -> conversion factor on the first option is 2.25:1, which is considerably better than the approximately 4:1 ratio on rush buys. You get a 1.8:1 increase in unit strength as a result of the upgrades, which isn't bad. As another poster noted, this is one way to execute a viable early rush. The game won't let you upgrade (thankfully) without the Iron hooked up, so you'll want a Worker/Settler handy depending on where it spawned.

(The other thread suggested a rush to this with the GL (Pottery -> Writing, start GL, Mining -> Bronze Working, should finish =/- same time), but as far as I can tell a conventional REX start is superior. Good cities will spit out Warriors in a hurry by turns 50-60, and getting IW swiftly is useless if you don't have the productive capacity to make use of it.)

2) Build Chariot for 60H and upgrade to Knight for 150G, vs. build Knight for 150H, vs. rush Chariot for 270G and upgrade for 150G, vs. rush buy Knight for an appallingly large amount that I forget (800ish?).

What we see here is the power of skipping steps on the tech tree. Here you're using 150G to buy 90H, which is a very strong 3:2 ratio. (Six times more efficient than the usual 4:1, to be precise.) You get a 3:1 boost in unit power at the cost of range. Obviously, you'd only take this approach in a Horse-rich start. If you rush up to Civil Service with the GL on Immortal or below, you can an army of Knights in the field before turn 100. If you're really in a hurry, Babylon can build the GL, a Library, and use the GS pair on CS -> Chivalry for even faster deployment.

So if you want/need to use your gold to build things, always use it on your military. Some uses are more efficient than others, and it seems to get better rather than worse as the tech gap between units grows. Under some circumstances, this will be a better use of your gold than investing it in city-states - especially if you aren't in a position to sit on all of your Social Policy choices until Medieval is unlocked.

 

[badlydrawnben]

It seems as though they kept the unit upgrade costs comparable to Civ4, which isn't really compatible with the increased value placed on military units in 5. The easiest way for them to fix this is to appropriately increase the upgrade costs to reflect the added value.

rush buy Warrior for 200G and upgrade for 90G, vs. rush buy Swordsman for 410G

It's almost offensive how huge the difference here is. Hopefully they'll get the gold-to-hammers conversion fixed. Are these both done in the same amount of time? or does the upgrade cost you an additional turn?

 

[ShaqFu]

Thanks for the post! I was curious as to the effectiveness of manual production vs. immediate rushing vs. incremental upgrades, and this seems to answer that.

My only issue is:

If you rush up to Civil Service with the GL on Immortal or below, you can an army of Knights in the field before turn 100. If you're really in a hurry, Babylon can build the GL, a Library, and use the GS pair on CS -> Chivalry for even faster deployment.

I'm not sure this works, since you still need HBR and Currency for Chivalry, both of which are somewhat pricey that early. TGL->CS is fantastic, but there's still a lot to backfill before Chivalry opens. You could probably stomp a civ or two with Pikemen, though, esp. as Germany.

(Speaking of which, how does the cost of UUs affect the calculations; namely, Spearmen->Landschenck?)

 

[Martin Alvito]

I'm not sure this works, since you still need HBR and Currency for Chivalry, both of which are somewhat pricey that early. TGL->CS is fantastic, but there's still a lot to backfill before Chivalry opens. You could probably stomp a civ or two with Pikemen, though, esp. as Germany.

True enough, but you can still get this before turn 100 if you are efficient, particularly if you fill a Library after CS. The other expensive tech you need is Iron Working.

(Speaking of which, how does the cost of UUs affect the calculations; namely, Spearmen->Landschenck?)

You won't want to upgrade Spearmen. Just build the German UU with Hammers. Those things are dirt cheap, which is (oddly) a liability at the moment.

Edit:

Those prices definitely need to be fixed.

/agree

 

[Celevin]

Those prices definitely need to be fixed.

 

[KrikkitTwo]

You won't want to upgrade Spearmen. Just build the German UU with Hammers. Those things are dirt cheap, which is (oddly) a liability at the moment.

The real problem there is they went a somewhat stupid route for unit maintenance with some complex opaque calculation, when they could have simply gone with a fraction of unit production cost. (say 5%)

 

[Martin Alvito]

The real problem there is they went a somewhat stupid route for unit maintenance with some complex opaque calculation, when they could have simply gone with a fraction of unit production cost. (say 5%)

No, what I mean is that there's little real advantage to 50H Pikes. Right now, high tech units are inexpensive to build via upgrades. 50H Pikes will certainly save you some gold, but what you want right now is an expensive, accessible unit with a strength bonus and a long time window before it obsolesces (necessitating another upgrade).

Roman Legions will allow you to put a pretty serious hurt on somebody with a rush, and have a decent window of opportunity if you upgrade several Warriors right after you hook up the Iron. By contrast, Knights replace Alex's Companion Cavalry on the battlefield pretty quickly. You want to prioritize CS for Pikes and the passive food buff, and Knights are then just a tech away. The Arab UU is just plain vicious (5 MP super-strong archers that can move into range, fire and retreat are just plain wrong), and the Songhai have a city-buster UU coupled with a bonus that synergizes well with upgrades.

I agree that the unit maintenance mechanic is a mess. Clearly they want there to be an escalating penalty for each additional unit, but simply letting the fraction slide as the number of units increases would do that. Since they don't seem to be afraid of rounding in this game, you could just as easily have maintenance start at 5% and follow some smooth growth curve on a per unit basis. Then just tell the player that right now they're paying 5.74% of production cost in maintenance; giving the instantaneous rate of change is enough for the player to be able to make decisions effectively.

 

[obsolete]

At Immortal and especially Deity, the AIs will all dogpile you at the first opportunity if you have a soft military.

Not true. I've played quite a few deity games and the AI is always a push-over. The exception so far has been Bismark. In that case, you may have something there since he seems to be the one that always looks for an excuse to DoW on someone, even if you don't do anything to piss him off.

 

[Martin Alvito]

Not true. I've played quite a few deity games and the AI is always a push-over. The exception so far has been Bismark. In that case, you may have something there since he seems to be the one that always looks for an excuse to DoW on someone, even if you don't do anything to piss him off.

This has not been my experience. It's possible that I'm doing something wrong diplomatically, since those systems are less than clear. But I'm finding that any of the warmonger types (Greece, Rome, Bismarck, Japan, China) will DoW without apparent provocation at the first sign of weakness.

As I've started going more horizontally early on and started building more Warriors for upgrading to Swordsmen, I've started to limit the attacks to a single, manageable DoW. A single DoW isn't dangerous; as you note, you can crush a single AI with inferior forces in late Classical/early Medieval. But taking two or three DoWs before you finish the expansion phase can be a real problem.

 

[Pragmatic]

All these "build basic units then upgrade" strategies:

Do you keep the warriors sitting around until you've researched Iron Working? Once you've researched Iron Working, doesn't your ability to build Warriors go away? It seems like, if you're rushing towards Iron Working, it's a short-term exploit.

If the Warriors are out exploring the map and hunting down barbarians, you have to drag them all back to your cultural borders to upgrade. Given the size of the maps, that can take quite a while.

(Not a great gamer, not particularly good, just asking questions....)

 

[Callonia]

Building spearmen and upgrading them to landkerschet only costs 10 gold per upgrade.

Cheapest upgrade in game oh and if you get professional army from honor line, it costs 5 gold to upgrade.

 

[keweedsmo]

It's arguably a more efficient use of your gold early on than buying city-state influence on the higher levels.

I can't begin to emphasize how wrong you are.

 

[Martin Alvito]

All these "build basic units then upgrade" strategies:

Do you keep the warriors sitting around until you've researched Iron Working? Once you've researched Iron Working, doesn't your ability to build Warriors go away?

Yes, they just sit there and make the AI think you can actually fight a little.

AFAIK, your ability to build Warriors doesn't go away until you hit Steel. Then you can build Swordsmen and Longswordmen, but not Warriors.

It appears that you have to apply each upgrade independently (can't skip from Warrior to Longswordmen, for instance). But it was offering an upgrade from War Chariots to Knights the other day, so IDK what's up there. Upgrade path on that UU might be buggy.

I can't begin to emphasize how wrong you are.

Prove it. I've presented an argument. Refute it, or post a link to what you think refutes it. I've seen the Patronage arguments. There's no question that it's a strong strategy, but you are dead if you try that on Deity on a small map. Building large monuments precludes settling good locations and training people to use pointy sticks.

In a compressed Deity start, early hammers are both scarce and insanely valuable.

 

[MuteWolf]

I can't begin to emphasize how wrong you are.

Agreed. Especially if you are talking about making a military city state like you which can lead to the units you can then upgrade. I'm not sure about higher difficulty levels maybe they give less or worse units but on prince even if you spent 250G on one to get to be friends you may get a warrior from that, yeah it cost you an extra 50G, warrior is only 200G, but the perks of a city state friend are still worth it. The draw backs are of course the wait time, the chance that you may only get a scout, or an archer which isn't bad but can't be upgraded to swordsman. Still I think I would rather friend or ally a city-state then buy a unit, unless it is immediately necessary.

 

[aryah]

this was used in the 'long gameplay' preview prior to the release by the firaxis folks playing it. One explained how he was building swordsman then upgrading them to samurai cuz he was the underdog in the fight to maximize his resources.

So, if they knew and approved of it, is it a bug or a feature?

I do agree it makes little sense. It should be ok if it is meant to merely emulate building a unit part-way and rushbuying it the rest by other means. But the costs certainly shouldn't be lower rushbuying weaker unit + upgrade vs rushbuying the aimed-for unit immediately.

 

[Martin Alvito]

Still I think I would rather friend or ally a city-state then buy a unit, unless it is immediately necessary.

Allying with a Militaristic city-state is clearly more cost-effective than rush buying units from scratch. The question on the table is whether or not you're better off upgrading your military first with your initial cash pool, or buying food/culture and a luxury from a city-state.

On a small Deity map, it's rare that you won't be in a war by turn 90. You're behind in units and tech, the AI knows it, and so it comes to pay you a house call. Unless you've been very fortunate in the terrain along your natural borders, you're going to need upgraded melee to deal with horde of upgraded melee that will come boiling out of the AI city three tiles away from your border. (If it hasn't been settled yet, it will be.)

 

[oPlaiD]

This has not been my experience. It's possible that I'm doing something wrong diplomatically, since those systems are less than clear. But I'm finding that any of the warmonger types (Greece, Rome, Bismarck, Japan, China) will DoW without apparent provocation at the first sign of weakness.

As I've started going more horizontally early on and started building more Warriors for upgrading to Swordsmen, I've started to limit the attacks to a single, manageable DoW. A single DoW isn't dangerous; as you note, you can crush a single AI with inferior forces in late Classical/early Medieval. But taking two or three DoWs before you finish the expansion phase can be a real problem.

I just beat a one-city challenge game on Deity while building only a single land unit - a worker.

The secret? Play on an archipelago!

It seems that the AI is extremely aggro if you are near any border, on any difficulty. On the archipelago, though, France ended up wiping out Germany pretty early because they were on the same slightly larger island, but there was barely any warring other than that throughout the whole game.

I could say it was something I did diplomatically, but all I did was accept every pact of secrecy and pact of cooperation offered to me while selling Open Borders to every leader every 30 turns for 50g and selling my one Gold to Alexander for 300g and my Ivory to Askia for 300g whenever they came up. Oh, and I also declined Alexander's frequent requests to go to war with him against Egypt. He never actually went to war against him the whole game, I guess he figured he couldn't win without the contributions of my mighty army consisting of a worker, a caravel, and my initial warrior.