what to do with obsolete units?

[wit>trope]

What do people do with obsolete, non-upgradeable units?

In my current game I have about 90 Frigates and I'm only a few techs away from Combustion so I decided to stop building them

Does naval bombardment ever destroy city improvements? I've bombarded cities with my Frigates like 20 times and I've yet to destroy a city improvement. I either hit a unit or it says the bombardment failed So I've been mainly just bombarding tile improvements and creating craters

 

[Whomp]

You can disband them. That will put shields in the box of the city they're disbanded in. It may you save some cash too. Frgates can destroy things inside of cities. I think the coastal fortress or harbors first.

 

[morchuflex]

If you can afford the maintenance, keep them. Frigates won't do much good against BBs but can still fare decently against these antiquated units the AI keeps using. They also can help patrolling the seas and detecting enemy invasion forces. In archipelago games, I keep all outdated ships and use them in "chains" (one every four spaces) to make sure no enemy fleet approaches unnoticed.

 

[WackenOpenAir]

If you have money to upgrade them to something usefull and you think that is at that moment the best investment for your gold then upgrade them.(you are actually planning to go to war with the units).
If you have knights for example and your opponents have muskets it is a very good investment to upgrade to cavalry if you can afford it.

If you do not have the money to upgrade them, but you do have no problems with their upkeep and they can still be of help on the battle field, just keep using them.
Cannons for example are often too expensive to upgrade to artillery, but they can still be of use against infantry.

If you do not have money to upgrade them and you do have problems with their upkeep or they can not be of use anymore on the battle field, disband them in cities so you get 1/4th of the shields back.
Horses are pretty useless against pikemen, if you still have these around in the middle ages and no money to upgrade them to knights, it is probably best to disband them. Also if you still have 50 cannons after replacable parts is around and you have problems paying the upkeep, go disband those cannons.

 

[TimBentley]

To answer the more general question, obsolete land units could be used as MPs if the government allows.

To answer the first specific question, groups of frigates can even kill better ships if you bombard them first. If you're paying for your units, however, it may be better to disband them.

To answer the second question, I believe Conquests changed bombardment so that units will be bombarded first, then improvements once all units are dead or redlined (depending on the lethalness of the bombarder), then citizens once all bombardable improvements are destroyed. I haven't seen/done any testing that proves this, however.

 

[WackenOpenAir]

On open terrain, the units are first killed before the tile improvements are destroyed.

In a city, artillery / bombers hit city improvements, citizens or units randomly.

 

[wit>trope]

Thanks for all the responses.

I have Conquests. Can anyone verify that this was changed in Conquests like TimBentley said?

 

[cidknee]

ive only seen them hit randomly in Conquests.... doesnt seem to be any preference

 

[searcheagle]

In conquests, with an air unit, there IS lethal bombardment.

All other ground based artillery can NOT destroy units (weaken them up with artillery and take them out with aircraft).

Both of these are the same reguardless of bombardment type:

In a non city square, units are attacked first, terrain improvement last.
In a city square it is random (citizen, improvement, unit)

 

[Zakharov]

All other ground based artillery can NOT destroy units

The only exception is the Korean Hwach'a.

To answer the second question, I believe Conquests changed bombardment so that units will be bombarded first, then improvements once all units are dead or redlined (depending on the lethalness of the bombarder), then citizens once all bombardable improvements are destroyed.

This is correct, at least for artillery. I'm not sure if it's the same with catapults, trebuchets or cannons as I rarely use them.

 

[Theoden]

If the unit's are un-upgradeable it will depend on the goverment I'm using. If in republic the cost is too high to make it worthwhile having obsolete units running around. In any other case I will probably save them especially units with bombard ability. Of course, if a war breaks out I will sacrifice these units first to soften up the enemy, and to get rid of the obsolete units while still making good use of them.

 

[wit>trope]

This is correct, at least for artillery. I'm not sure if it's the same with catapults, trebuchets or cannons as I rarely use them.

Thanks Zakharov. Is this true for naval bombardment also? I think so because I think my Frigates should have hit a city improvement after so many tries!

 

[nullspace]

Yeah, Conquests has some complicated rules for the order in which things are hit by bombardment.

For land-based bombard units, I think it's: walls, ground units, ships, planes, improvements, then population.

For naval bombardment: coastal fortress, planes, ships, ground units, improvements, population.

Aerial bombardment randomly hits population, improvements, or units. The order for units is planes, ships, then ground units.

I'm fairly sure about most of that, but if anyone knows differently, I'd like to be corrected.

 

[Zakharov]

The only correction is that improvements and population are mixed together. They are both equal possibilities to be hit once the other targets have been exhausted.

 

[TimBentley]

Naval bombardment hits ships before planes.
Note that walls can not be destroyed in a city or metropolis.

 

[WackenOpenAir]

Artillery hits population also before all units are dead.
Older ground bombardment cant kill citizens or destroy buildings even after all units are dead iirc.

 

[Zakharov]

In conquest:

-Artillery&Bombers hit both citizens/buildings and units randomly when attacking a city.

No, as I have already stated artillery attacks units first until they are all red-lined, then they attack improvements and pop randomly. I saw this in effect only a 1/2 hour ago. Maybe I'm just on the longest RNG streak in history, but I have only ever seen units attacked first.

 

[WackenOpenAir]

No, as I have already stated artillery attacks units first until they are all red-lined, then they attack improvements and pop randomly. I saw this in effect only a 1/2 hour ago. Maybe I'm just on the longest RNG streak in history, but I have only ever seen units attacked first.

When i use artillery, i don't do it for population, i do it for units alone.
By the time i killed all units, the city usually has shrunk in size because i also hit citizens unintended.

Or oh well, might have been PTW.....

 

[nullspace]

Zakharov and TimBentley, thanks for the corrections.

When i use artillery, i don't do it for population, i do it for units alone.
By the time i killed all units, the city usually has shrunk in size because i also hit citizens unintended.

Or oh well, might have been PTW.....

Yeah, that was vanilla and PTW. The changes so that it hits units first greatly improved the value of land bombardment units in Conquests.

One thing I've noticed, is that all bombard units seem to have "lethal air bombardment." Whenever you can hit a plane, you can destroy it.

 

[wit>trope]

What would happen if all the units in a city were red-lined AND all the city improvements are destroyed AND the city is down to 1 population?

Would you not be able to bombard or would it let you bombard and have everything miss? Would investigating the city be the only way to know if all the city improvements were destroyed?