Upgrade strategy

[podraza]

Hey gang,

I am getting ready to try my first Emperor game, having recently won a few on Monarch. One of the weaknesses in my game is unit upgrades. I currently have no idea what I'm doing.

I understand that the formula is 25 gold plus (hammers for new minus hammers for old) times 3 gold.

I also understand that this amounts to the cost of buy-rushing the unit plus 25.

While at first the price of upgrades tends to seem high, I think the point is to run your science meter at 0 for a while to pay for it. At 1 or 2 units upgraded per turn, this could be comparable to what you could be churning out new. Plus your cities wouldn't have to spend hammers on new units while the upgrades were being bought. They could spend those hammers on something else. You would fall behind in tech, however, while doing this. Maybe on Emperor falling behind in tech is something you can't afford to do.

But then what to do with obsolete units? Obviously you can keep some around as a minimum garrison for those safe cities far from the borders. But what beyond this?

My current strategy is to suicide them against the AI's more powerful units. But I've recently learned that this increases war weariness, as you are penalized per unit that dies on the enemy battlefield. Paying maintainence to have them just sit there seems a waste. I've read that they should be gifted to friendly Civs. I've never tried that before.

Disbanding them just seems a terrible waste. Is it really cheaper to build a new unit from scratch than to promote an existing unit? According to the formula, the old unit's value is subtracted from the cost, so shouldn't that make it cheaper? Isn't the real cost of upgrades the lost science? And might that not be worth it to have the stronger army?

 

[mice]

The main use of upgrading seems to be getting the city raider promo in units that dont get city raider off the bat, eg, Grens, rifles,infantry. Promote your axes to maces to grens/rifles for a city raiding force. Otherwise upgrades are too expensive, and only seem like a good idea if you are being attacked and need a quick boost in defense.I'm sure experts will have many refinements on this theme though

 

[Sisiutil]

A few points:

• If you're running Hereditary Rule, even an obsolete unit in a city = +1 . Send them to your unhappiest cities.
• Another use for obsolete units: fog-busting.
• If you generate a Great Merchant (such as by winning the race to Economics), you can send him overseas on a trade mission and use that gold for upgrades. Since Economics shows up just before Chemistry and Rifling, this is near-perfect timing for upgrading those CR units mice referred to.
• Upgrading is faster than building new units. If you need modern units in a hurry, upgrade.
• Building units is cheaper than upgrading. If you're short on gold, build new units.
• Ergo, if you need modern units in a hurry but you have no gold, you're screwed.

 

[Wlauzon]

I pretty much only upgrade units that have promotions unless I need better units in a big hurry. like for an unexpected attack.

 

[KinesongPayaso]

early on, when i dont have much buildings to do, or dont have a culture, wealth, research slider, i just produce units
but later on, as you go deeper in techs, you have more units to choose from... and since the tech requires more production, relating to the size of your city later on... i would be benefitting more by upgrading my old obsolete units, instead of producing another better uni

 

[cabert]

i'm a big fan of deficit research and GS, so money is scarce, and when i have some i spend it on research (deficit).
That's why i use old troops to keep cities happy (like sisiutil said or even as lone defender).
What I try to do for defensive purpose is to have those obsolete units in cities, and gold in the bank for at least 2 upgrades. This way, i can whip a unit and promote 2 others if I get attacked.
On offensive purpose, the only upgrade worth doing IMHO is axe or mace >grenadier, because there is no other way to get CR 3 grenadiers or better.

When I have those CR3 gunpowder units, i try to promote them as high as possible, but they don't live long enough in my games (95% odds are cool, but you lose 1 in 20, and there are so many cities to capture and I often only have 3 or 4 of those) + cannons get CR promotions, and do better than grenadiers = no need to focus so hard on it.

Don't forget that
- promoted units are capped at 10xp (keeping all promotions though)
- later units can be built with barracks, WP, theocracy and vassalage, pentagon = 14 XP.

I prefer a strong HE + WP theocratic production city. Upgrading is just too expensive for the human.
AI gets a huge discount however. If you gift obsolete units to an ally, he'll be able to upgrade it for 1/4 of the price!

 

[Pogel]

I work it very much the same as cabert. Let's face it, you have to have a very strong economy to be able to produce 3 times as much commerce as hammers. I'll always prefer to run high research at a cash defecit than blow the cash on upgrades. The only exceptions are emergencies (good to keep a small cash float if there's a chance you'll be attacked), to preserve promotions, to stave off an unwanted war or to take advantage of a military tech lead.

Personally, I usually restrict promotions to the CR axes->maces->grenadiers route. What you're paying for is the CR and the ability to quickly explot the military tech advantage and those can have quick returns if it means you can take more cities.

As I start playing at higher levels I'm learning to make better use of my obsolete units. Giving a scout or warrior combat 1 & medic can give you a medic unit that can last the game. Giving your early chariots sentry not only pays out initially (better fog busting) but gives your stacks or border cities a valuable early warning system. Accuracy cats never need to be upgraded to keep on bombarding those city defenses.

 

[Andorim]

I'm a big fan of siege units. I'll usually upgrade my catapults to cannons as soon as I can, and likewise with cannons to artillery.

I have a really hard time deleting obselete units: it just seems so wrong.

 

[svv]

I will often pay to upgrade to get my defensive units and siege engines, since massive experience isn't as necessary there, and produce new offensive/city raider units.

 

[UncleJJ]

I work it very much the same as cabert. Let's face it, you have to have a very strong economy to be able to produce 3 times as much commerce as hammers. I'll always prefer to run high research at a cash defecit than blow the cash on upgrades. The only exceptions are emergencies (good to keep a small cash float if there's a chance you'll be attacked), to preserve promotions, to stave off an unwanted war or to take advantage of a military tech lead.

Personally, I usually restrict promotions to the CR axes->maces->grenadiers route. What you're paying for is the CR and the ability to quickly explot the military tech advantage and those can have quick returns if it means you can take more cities.

As I start playing at higher levels I'm learning to make better use of my obsolete units. Giving a scout or warrior combat 1 & medic can give you a medic unit that can last the game. Giving your early chariots sentry not only pays out initially (better fog busting) but gives your stacks or border cities a valuable early warning system. Accuracy cats never need to be upgraded to keep on bombarding those city defenses.

I have a similar upgrade policy as this but you don't have to use 3 commerce to get 1 hammer... there are many ways to raise gold. Warlords has made another option available (or perhaps an old one more viable). That is building wealth to generate the gold for the upgrade.

That is useful if you are fighting on another continent and a new tech is soon to be researched. Why wait to build new units and transport them, taking maybe a 6 turns delay to reach the battle when you can send a few old units before the tech is available and upgrade those.

Also I like to generate a lot of my middle age troops with high experience so I'll run Vassalage and Theocracy for 10 or 20 turns until I have a substantial army (maces, pikes and trebuchets) built in all my cities. Those civics give +4 exp and together with the barrack's +3 I have a large army built with +7 exp. After a few combats many of these will have +10 exp or more. Once this army is assembled I'll switch back to other civics that can make better use of the conquered cities. I find it is unecessary and very expensive (2 or more turns of anarchy) to later switch to Theocracy and Vassalage again. So upgrading can be cheaper than rebuilding new troops if you want high promoted troops.

Obviously my main army is supplimented by fairly continuous production from HE and WP + barracks + great Generals (= 7 + exp) making a unit every one or two turns. But my main cities are free to build infrastructure or run specialists and if gold is needed they build wealth. Upgrading is a viable strategy in Warlords and stronger than it was in vanilla civ 4.

 

[KinesongPayaso]

well I guess now that i read other people's opinion, it really matters whether you have more commerce or more production
but I guess commerce would be the bigger factor, since you can build more cottages than mines

PS:
am I the only one disturbed by the opening remark?

Hey gang,

it sounds too wierd.. like shaggy and scooby wierd