Upgrading does not make economic sense!

[Keith Larson]

If you have thought the cost in gold for upgrading units is high you are correct. In fact it is the cost of rushing a new unit from scratch! That right, the value of the unit being upgraded is not even considered. In other words, it costs 160 GP to upgrade a warrior, axeman, spearman or swordsman to a maceman . With this in mind here are a few rules to follow:

1. Gold is almost always better used to push science than to upgrade units. Cutting back on science to upgrade units (unless you are at war and it is a matter of survival) does not make sense.

2. Upgrade only highly promoted units. Upgrading level 1 or 2 units is a waste of gold. With barracks and civics new units with just as much promotion can be built. Disband, don’t upgrade non-elite units. The only exception to this would be boarder cities. This is where the enemy will strike first. If you feel threatened and don’t have time to build new units, upgrade just a FEW marginal units.

3. You get more bang for your buck upgrading older units. Upgrading a warrior to maceman makes a lot more sense than upgrading a swordsman to maceman. In the late Middle Ages swordsmen can still do a lot of damage, especially finishing off wounded units or older units. This is doubly true if this swordsman has lots of experience, if you upgrade him he goes back to only 10 experience points. Keep pushing that swordsman’s experience up and only upgrade when your opponents no longer have ancient units (which by the way is often very late in the game if ever).

 

[mharmless]

In other words, it costs 160 GP to upgrade a warrior, axeman, spearman or swordsman to a maceman . With this in mind here are a few rules to follow:

You are mistaken. I am looking at it right now, a sword is going to cost me 115 to turn into a maceman, an axe will cost me 130 gold to turn into a maceman, and spears may not become macemen at all, only pikemen. I have no warriors to check currently, but I would strongly suspect it would be 160. If you have many units selected, you will only be presented with the most expensive upgrade option to a given unit type. It wont actualy cost 160 each.

1. Gold is almost always better used to push science than to upgrade units. Cutting back on science to upgrade units (unless you are at war and it is a matter of survival) does not make sense.

We agree that gold and science are the same thing. But I also view production as being the same as gold and science. Call it the Grand Unified Theory... Alphabet lets you make production into research at 2:1 and Currency lets you do production into wealth at 2:1.

Civil service is right arround the same area as banking and guilds. Having access to +100% wealth generation soon after maces come into play is not unlikely. So that brings us to 1:1 ratio.

A new maceman straight off the line is 70 hammers and will have between 4 and 8 experience. Yes it is more expensive, no denying that at all. But its close. Not terrible. And by producing wealth prior to a major weapon change, you are in effect doing a civ3 style pre-build. Those hammers are being stored as coins, to be dumped into the millitary once the tech is in place. Try that out when rifles are about to come into play. Very nasty.

2. Upgrade only highly promoted units. Upgrading level 1 or 2 units is a waste of gold. With barracks and civics new units with just as much promotion can be built. Disband, don’t upgrade non-elite units. The only exception to this would be boarder cities. This is where the enemy will strike first. If you feel threatened and don’t have time to build new units, upgrade just a FEW marginal units.

I agree completely here. Upgrading a level 1 or 2 unit is a total waste. Unless it preserves promotions you can't get anymore (melee raider -> rifle) a level 2 unit is wasted gold.

3. You get more bang for your buck upgrading older units. Upgrading a warrior to maceman makes a lot more sense than upgrading a swordsman to maceman. In the late Middle Ages swordsmen can still do a lot of damage, especially finishing off wounded units or older units. This is doubly true if this swordsman has lots of experience, if you upgrade him he goes back to only 10 experience points. Keep pushing that swordsman’s experience up and only upgrade when your opponents no longer have ancient units (which by the way is often very late in the game if ever).

Costs are not the same as I mentioned under point 1 already. I disagree about waiting to upgrade a unit already over ten experience. If the unit is close to 17, I will wait and pay special attention to hit 17 xp and upgrade. If the unit is 10-13, it gets upgraded immediately so that I don't end up wasting more experience later.

I fight. ALOT. I dont think I've ever had an anicent unit hit 26 experience before a signifigant upgrade wave. Although, I do take many units with raider III and ship them to safe posts to await the rifle upgrade, so that sort of reduces the pool of candidates.

edit: Messed up the first quote.

 

[Gufnork]

You are mistaken. I am looking at it right now, a sword is going to cost me 115 to turn into a maceman, an axe will cost me 130 gold to turn into a maceman, and spears may not become macemen at all, only pikemen. I have no warriors to check currently, but I would strongly suspect it would be 160. If you have many units selected, you will only be presented with the most expensive upgrade option to a given unit type. It wont actualy cost 160 each.

You're playing different game speeds. It's more expensive on epic since the difference in hammers is larger.

I generally keep outdated troops as garrisons in my cities. If someone declares war I just upgrade the troops that will be seeing action and leave the rest outdated. Saves me a lot of time.

 

[Divi Filus]

Don't forget about a couple of things:
1. When you upgrade your city can be producing something else - building takes time.
2. You can't hurry (much) until you have universal sufferage (slavehurry has limits).
3. All XP are retained, so even if the unit only has two promotions its still that much closer to its third.

 

[Keith Larson]

My mistake, you do get credit for previous builds, so at Noble level a warrior cost 274 GP to upgrade, a Axeman 184 GP and a Swordsman 160 GP. What level are you playing at? Clearly at that level upgrading is more affordable. I still thing upgrading cost are way out of line.

 

[Heroes]

You are mistaken. I am looking at it right now, a sword is going to cost me 115 to turn into a maceman, an axe will cost me 130 gold to turn into a maceman, and spears may not become macemen at all, only pikemen. I have no warriors to check currently, but I would strongly suspect it would be 160. If you have many units selected, you will only be presented with the most expensive upgrade option to a given unit type. It wont actualy cost 160 each.

At normal speed, warrior (15 hammers) -> mace (70 hammers) costs 190 gold. Actually it's just 25 + 3*(70-15)=25+165=190. So the more upgrades you do to a units, the more the base 25 gold need to be spent.

 

[Keith Larson]

Heros is correct. I just found the same information in the GlobalDefines.xml. There is a base cost of 25 gold everytime you upgrade and the difference between the the cost in hammers on the original unit is subtracted from the cost of the new unit and then multiplied by 3 to give the total gold cost.

So I think my original point is still valid, upgrading is rarely a good use of gold.

I think the game would be better if the numbers in the GlobalDefines were as follows:
<DefineName>BASE_UNIT_UPGRADE_COST</DefineName>
<iDefineIntVal>0</iDefineIntVal>
</Define>
<Define>
<DefineName>UNIT_UPGRADE_COST_PER_PRODUCTION</DefineName>
<iDefineIntVal>2</iDefineIntVal>

 

[Astax]

OMG PLZ SHUT UP :/ I always upgrade especially when my units are lvl 4+ Any good warmonger will have the money to upgrade simply from pillaging. I've upgraded 20 max withdraw -1 movement cost knights to cavalary in yesterdays game. Often if I have not enough money ill turn research down to 0 to get it.

 

[crazypooljunkie]

I disagree i believe it is definitely worth the money spent. I play games with a relatively small military so I need every point of power that I can get. Plus I would much rather spend excess gold on upgrading military units so that my cities can concentrate on improvements rather than building replacement units. If you've built one of the major temples through a great prophet in a holy city and spread your religion well enough you should be getting plenty of excess gold even when you have your science/culture sliders set at 90 or even 100%. If you let that build up over time upgrading a small military isn't too bad at all. I don't think its quite as black and white as stated here.

 

[Ezy]

i also upgrade, i never have enough time to build enough army for war with out herting my town(not building improvments) i never have my reserch above 80%(exept early on) i know i will need gold for upgrades (well another reason is that i never play sapce race)
i like war and u need gold for it, u got to store some for the new towns when u expend, they will cost alot for +/- 10 turn before u will get any gold from them
yah it cost alot to upgrade but i think it will cost u way more to rebuild army again and im not going to go into promotions again i think other people covered it realy well

i can see how upgrading can be used for a warmonger and a hippy

this might not be true for lower or higher diff.lvl but i know it is for me on my last 2 games on monarch

 

[KrikkitTwo]

OMG PLZ SHUT UP :/ I always upgrade especially when my units are lvl 4+ Any good warmonger will have the money to upgrade simply from pillaging. I've upgraded 20 max withdraw -1 movement cost knights to cavalary in yesterdays game. Often if I have not enough money ill turn research down to 0 to get it.

If you do upgrade a lvl 5 unit when does it get its next promotion, at 17 XP (getting 7 more exp) or do you have to get 16 more to get the level 6 promotion (at 26 XP)?

 

[AnotherJon]

If you do upgrade a lvl 5 unit when does it get its next promotion, at 17 XP (getting 7 more exp) or do you have to get 16 more to get the level 6 promotion (at 26 XP)?

You need 26 XP to get a further upgrade.

 

[Mujadaddy]

Pillaging towns is money for upgrading Archers in the rear to Riflemen.

I have =no idea= what the original poster is talking about

 

[Pfeffersack]

You need 26 XP to get a further upgrade.

No...10 exp are saved when you upgrade.So you need 16 exp to get the 5th level promotion.

 

[Penitent]

My experience disagrees with your theorising here I think. I upgrade units all the time, I don't have the turns to waste spending 5-10 turns building a military unit, when I can simple upgrade the warrior who's been sitting there the whole game, building a city improvment in turns of production I freed up. By which the time upgraded unit is already out there fighting and gaining promotions. I build up an excess of unused gold so that I can mass-upgrade and go on a conquering spree.

Another drawback of building units instead of upgrading older ones, is that by the time you have built enough of them to fight a war with, your enemy will be closer to researching a counter for that unit, shortening the lifespan of that unit. By upgrading as soon as you research something you prolong the upgraded units usefulness, by maximising the amount of turns that you can use it effectively.

 

[Shillen]

Hammers are more valuable than gold by far. Building new units is a waste of hammers. When I'm playing a heavy war game I usually set up a great person city and have it generate great merchants all game long. Then I have them do trade routes and get lots of money to handle upgrades.

 

[mharmless]

My mistake, you do get credit for previous builds, so at Noble level a warrior cost 274 GP to upgrade, a Axeman 184 GP and a Swordsman 160 GP. What level are you playing at? Clearly at that level upgrading is more affordable. I still thing upgrading cost are way out of line.

Current game settings are:
Harmless Bonaparte of France
Aggressive, Industrious
Prince Difficulty
Standard World Size
Temperate Climate
Medium Sea Level
Ancient Starting Era
Normal Game Speed

Options
All Deftaults

It doesn't mention anything under settings, but it is a Terra map style.

With these settings;
115 for sword->mace
130 for axe->mace

 

[anton_z1]

I upgrade some units only and on following conditions.

1) My great Merchant just brought 2500 gc to my empire
2) 2 Mongolian Keshniks surround my 1 Archer city .
3) My level 3 City raiding axmen is useless, however a level 3 Maceman would be a definite city grab.
4) I am drunk.

 

[Lord Chambers]

I really don't see what all you guys have to build so much of that you don't have time to build units.

With few exceptions, you will have cities where commercial production is miniscule. These cities aren't worth build banks, markets, and libraries in. So then, you have them build units for the rest of your cities.

Furthermore, I recently played a game as Financial/Expansive on Prince where I kept the slider as much on the science as possible. Even with, in theory, the most speedy research bringing me new buildings to build, I reached rifling and pretty much had nothing to build but Redcoats with which I took over the world.

So in conclusion, I really don't understand how you (1)accumulate any money to upgrade with, since science is so much more valuble, or why (2)ya'll have such pressing buildings to build in your cities that you don't run out of things to build around the industrial revolution, or have cities where building military units is the only thing worthwhile. Short of being threatened, I don't see where upgrading makes sense.

 

[mharmless]

I really don't see what all you guys have to build so much of that you don't have time to build units.

With few exceptions, you will have cities where commercial production is miniscule. These cities aren't worth build banks, markets, and libraries in. So then, you have them build units for the rest of your cities.

Furthermore, I recently played a game as Financial/Expansive on Prince where I kept the slider as much on the science as possible. Even with, in theory, the most speedy research bringing me new buildings to build, I reached rifling and pretty much had nothing to build but Redcoats with which I took over the world.

So in conclusion, I really don't understand how you (1)accumulate any money to upgrade with, since science is so much more valuble, or why (2)ya'll have such pressing buildings to build in your cities that you don't run out of things to build around the industrial revolution, or have cities where building military units is the only thing worthwhile. Short of being threatened, I don't see where upgrading makes sense.

I fight all the time, not just when rifles come along. In that previously mentioned prince game, the Most Advanced notice just came up a dozen or so turns back and listed me as fourth of five. Rifles are relatively new to the empire, and I'm currently researching corporation. All of the computer players except Alexander have at least four technologies that I do not have, that they won't trade me. Certainly not on top tech wise.

Looking at the info screen, it says I've built 8 rifles, lost 3, and have 27. Also says I've built 21 swords, lost 5, have none. built 16 macemen, lost 9, have 1. Thats alot of offensive units built, and as you can see from the statistics the older ones were also being upgraded.

It isn't that I cant build units, it is that I can't build them as fast as I need or use them. Most of what gets built is fodder (41 catapults built, 39 lost, 2 current $$), fresh units get thrown against reduced cities to bring the top defenders low, and then the older units attack with good odds to guarentee a take. Yes its not as clean as sitting back and trying to tech up for an overwhelming advantage, but just dont think I can compete with the computer at research any more now that it gets to start cheating. Combat tilts the advantage to the human player, the more you exploit it the higher your score will be.

Edit: I didnt realy answer how I get the money. Right now have 1307 gold on hand, and not long ago when I got rifles I upgraded about thirty mace into rifle. That costs 145 gold each, so 4350 gold or so. That is about the same as the beaker value of two technologies near rifling. Corp is 2k beakers for instance. It would have taken more than 2 techs worth of time to manufacture 30 rifles, and they sure wouldnt have been as effective as what I had at my disposal the turn after rifles. Very worth it. Make a couple of cash cities to Wealth in, and keep science down a bit.