Upgrades more powerful tool in civ4

Ahh; Oops. Looks like I confused myself then. I obviously have been up too long playing the game.

I'll edit it. Thanks for correcting me.
 
I've found that upgrading becomes much more manageable if you wait a generation or two. In other words, don't upgrade Warriors into Axemen unless you absolutely need to, or at least not all of them. Wait until you have the next upgrade available. Move the obselete units to interior cities where they'll not be as important, and you can move them back to the borders once you have the next upgrade step available.
 
Upgrading's too expensive. If cheaper upgrading is too unbalanced, I'd like to see a system whereby a unit can be upgraded in a city with the city using however much production it needs to build the advanced unit minus the amount of production previously used in building the current unit. That's how they did it in Total War, and I think it's a pretty good system. As it is now I always think three times before starting my military, because I really don't want to build it up and not use it before it becomes obsolete, which I think is a bit annoying.
 
I generally take a peaceful/expansive route in the early game, so by the time I'm ready to start seriously upgrading my military, I'm typically making 100g+ per turn (after 90% research). But if you need a quick boost to your economy for the unit upgrades, trade missions with your great merchants will go a long ways towards getting you that cash. Also, once you've built your holy shrine(s), settle your great prophets as "super specialists" in your cities; this really helps drive my economy, especially in the early-mid game.
 
Back
Top Bottom