Unit upgrades

[Birdjaguar]

For infantry, there should only be three paths:

Archers > Cross bows > Muskets > Rifles
Warriors > Spears > Pikes > Muskets > Rifles
Swords > Men at Arms > Muskets > Rifles
Horsemen > Knights > Hussars > Cavalry > end
Horsemen > Hussars > Cavalry > end

As eras change new promotions should be available and a unit's basic stats would auto increase. Ancient era spear men would be weaker than classical era spear men. similarly, swordsmen would improve over time so that if you get to classical before your neighbor, your sword guys will be better than his. Specialty units would come as go per civ. Horsemen would improve until you learned knighthood, or if you didn't, they would continue on to cavalry. I'm not sure what to do with horse archers.

Chariots would be just specialty units.
Artillery would have its own path beginning with early cannon.
With rifles a machine gun path would open.
Tanks would be a new path too.

 

[Schuesseled]

For infantry, there should only be three paths:

Archers > Cross bows > Muskets > Rifles
Warriors > Spears > Pikes > Muskets > Rifles
Swords > Men at Arms > Muskets > Rifles
Horsemen > Knights > Hussars > Cavalry > end
Horsemen > Hussars > Cavalry > end

As eras change new promotions should be available and a unit's basic stats would auto increase. Ancient era spear men would be weaker than classical era spear men. similarly, swordsmen would improve over time so that if you get to classical before your neighbor, your sword guys will be better than his. Specialty units would come as go per civ. Horsemen would improve until you learned knighthood, or if you didn't, they would continue on to cavalry. I'm not sure what to do with horse archers.

Chariots would be just specialty units.
Artillery would have its own path beginning with early cannon.
With rifles a machine gun path would open.
Tanks would be a new path too.

Having ranged units turn into into melee units was by far the stupidest error of civ 5 vanilla. So no thank you.

 

[unpossible251]

Mmmmm. How about...

horseman > outrider > light cavalry (all high movement, requires horse, fair combat ability with hit & run tactics)
Chariot > Knight > Lancer (heavy cavalry line, moves faster than infantry but slower than the line above, requires horse & iron)

Similarly, 2 (or 3) streams of infantry, and a stream (or 2) of artillery support... Each stream having its own strength

 

[KrikkitTwo]

I would prefer

Infantry (resource)
Infantry (nonresource)
Eventually merge

Archery
Archery (resource*) ie horse archers...may only be available as UU/barbs or early chariots
Eventually merge...to light fast /raiding infantry (range2, but always very low melee strength and never move-shoot-move except for UU like Keshiks maybe)

Cavalry-tank (always resource)

Siege(unless they are strictly support units)