Why did civ7 get rid of unit promotions?

[SupremacyKing2]

I get why commanders get promotions. It is important for commanders to be able to buff units in combat. And commander promotions allow players to specialize their commanders. But I don't think unit promotions and commander promotions are necessarily mutually exclusive. You could have both. So why did civ7 get rid of unit promotions?

I can see a few possible reasons:
1) Maybe the devs were worried that unit promotions woud overshadow commander promotions. Players might rely on unit promotions to buff their units and ignore commanders altogether. By replacing unit promotions with commander promotions, it forces players to use commanders to buff their units.
2) Another possible reason could be that unit promotions and commander promotions might have been redundant, ie both give units +3 combat. There is no point in having two promotions that do the same thing.
3) Another reason could be that commanders get xp from units winning in combat which is how units used to get promotions. So mechanically, it might be awkward if both commander promotions and unit promotions come from the same xp. Although this could be solved by letting players choose how to to spend the xp points, on the commander or on the unit. This could be an interesting choice.

Having said that, I miss unit promotions. Without unit promotions, all units are the same. And by having promotions only in the commander, it means units are only better when they are near a commander. It feels odd that a unit that wins a big battle gets no benefit from that, instead the benefit always goes to the commander. In real life, units that win battles do gain experience that make them better too. An infantry regiment made up of hardened veterans will fight better than an infantry regiment made of green troops. That is a difference that is inherent experience of the soldiers in the unit, independent from any commander present. And training matters. A unit of soldiers with just basic training will fight differently than a unit of elite special forces soldiers. That difference is separate from any commander. We lose this by only having commander promotions.

Personally, I loved the unit promotions in civ4 because they allowed you to really specialize units. You could make a ranged unit ideal for city defense, or a unit ideal at fighting in forest or jungle, or a melee unit ideal for attacking a city, or another unit ideal at healing the stack etc... I feel like those types of promotions would not clash with commander promotions. Yeah, you might need to rebalance the promotions to make sure that unit promotions and commander promotions don't become OP when combined together, but I think you could have both. Having both promotions would allow players to specialize units as well as specializing an army of units.

 

[Kev1916]

Another idea to streamline the game, to cater to a console design . I really enjoyed creating specialist troops and re-naming them.
Less in this case is not best .

Also saves putting a big effort into improving the AI

 

[Siptah]

Honestly, this is one of my favorite changes in 7. Specialize Commanders which are now super important units that always need to be protected. In contrast, units are cheap, and not that valuable. This makes for far more interesting battles with much more dynamics.

 

[SupremacyKing2]

Honestly, this is one of my favorite changes in 7. Specialize Commanders which are now super important units that always need to be protected. In contrast, units are cheap, and not that valuable. This makes for far more interesting battles with much more dynamics.

I am not sure how making units cheap and expendable makes battles more interesting. On the contrary, it seems that it makes battles where losing units don't matter since you just bring in the same unit to replace it. As long as your commander is safe, it does not matter. Can you elaborate on this, please?

 

[stealth_nsk]

I am not sure how making units cheap and expendable makes battles more interesting. On the contrary, it seems that it makes battles where losing units don't matter since you just bring in the same unit to replace it. As long as your commander is safe, it does not matter. Can you elaborate on this, please?

Losing units matter a lot, because they aren't free.

To me, it also feels much better. I no longer try to remember which unit has which ability, I build tactics around commanders and it's really fun.

 

[Menocchio]

I think there's an argument for a flat veterancy system (a basic +1 / +2 / +3 and an associated CS bonus), but individual unit promotions are a) a lot to keep track of, and b) frustrating to gain/lose, because at least in Civ VI so much of your strategy hinged on whether or not you had the right promotions—and there typically were good choices and bad choices with those, rather than flexibility. Commanders as they are in VII are more dynamic and interesting; you can build them in a number of different ways depending on how you tend to use your military.

There's also the age-old Civ problem of games typically being either all-out-warfare or peaceful. I find that I either engage in brutal, existential wars with the AI opponents, or they leave me alone and I spare few thoughts at all for my military beyond garrison troops.

 

[Krikkit1]

I think it is to make units=production/gold…nothing else.

Partially because players end up getting super promoted units because the computer can’t 1upt.

This way the AI can burn through a ton of units and never lose exp because
commanders don’t die…they are just gone for a while.

And this also applies to lower skilled players, if they lose their highly promoted unit(commander)…they will get it back.

 

[Leucarum]

Agreed that this is one of my favourite parts of 7. It's so much less busy work and tracking what units have what. Commanders help the game in so many ways!

 

[m_mus]

Also like the change.

 

[Siptah]

I am not sure how making units cheap and expendable makes battles more interesting. On the contrary, it seems that it makes battles where losing units don't matter since you just bring in the same unit to replace it. As long as your commander is safe, it does not matter. Can you elaborate on this, please?

I consider using the same 4-6 troops (or boats) to conquer half the world not very interesting. They get better and better, you'll never risk them and they win any battles easily early enough. *yawn*

2-3 specialized Commanders with the more expendable units means you can take a lot of risky operations, and it's also fine to rush two or three more settlements at the end of an age while losing 8-10 units doing so. There are also some units that are always risky to attack, like the burning arrows – it's simply great that I can sacrifice a few cavalry units to take them and their defensive positions out instead of playing the battle out for 6 turns just to not lose an important unit. It also means that you generally have 2-3 armies of similar strength – or as many as you have good commanders. Yet, the AI also brought me into a few stalemate battles where the winner was decided by production/gold nearby.

 

[UWHabs]

Yeah, less work, and then it's nice to really not care about losing units. As long as my commander is in control of the battle zone, units are expendable.

 

[Monene]

I agree that it was a step backward to remove unit promotions even though commanders were improved. Ignoring the value of each unit just because it's easier for some (which actually ends up hurting true player strategists) is unacceptable. That wasn't the issue; the problem remains the ease of maintaining a vast empire as if all those under its control happily accepted their fate. Furthermore, a great general should be a threat to the leader if he gains too much prestige (as in real life).

 

[aieeegrunt]

Losing units matter a lot, because they aren't free.

To me, it also feels much better. I no longer try to remember which unit has which ability, I build tactics around commanders and it's really fun.

This was a constant annoyance for me, so I can see the point for sure.

 

[King Flevance]

I also like the change. But I echo that I have multiple times seen value in bringing back the Veteran system from Civ 1-3. If units just automatically received +1 str and maybe some health. With these mechanics units will hold some value if they gain veterancy. So you will have "expendable" battalions and "valued" battalions. But no complicated promotion stuff. This could also make lower tier units hold out better against newer troops. Or it could make a tech advancement really drive a technological advantage in a war. You not only have halberds, but also very well trained, battle hardened soldiers.

 

[GeneralZift]

I see the benefits of both systems so I'm not totally picky. The issue I saw with the old system was that the bonuses didn't really help you build a unit for any particular purpose.

Also, you never usually saw the end of their promotion tree unless you specifically played a high warmongering game.

Commanders are cool concept and their promotion system is interesting. Sucks it had to come at the cost of the other system but it makes sense in the end.

 

[Boris Gudenuf]

Here's a thought (and that's all it is),

What if you could Upgrade units when building them?

That is, if it costs, say, 100 Production to Build a unit of Gendarmes, spend 120 production and get Veteran Gendarmes, which gain X advantage (combat factors, movement, etc) in addition to anything they get from a Leader. The graphic of the unit might get a flag or other indicator added to it so you could tell at a glance on the map who is veteran and who isn't.

This isn't as 'accurate' as getting veterancy from actual combat, but it would allow the warring mongers among us to field armies of 'eliteish' troops which, all else being equal equal, cost more and so reduce the size of their army overall. - Prussia, as an example, might even get a UA of Cheaper Veterans to reflect their reputation.

You could either color-code the flag indicators for increased combat factor, movement, or some other special addition, or simply make Veteran = More Combat Factor to simplify things. In fact, simplifying Veteran to mean extra Combat Factor could leave extra Movement, the other biggie addition, as an aspect of the Leader only.

Other potential Veteran Promotions/Bonuses could be:
Extra Combat Factor on defense only or 'automatic' field fortifications
Cavalry Units with wider ZOC - they inhibit movement over a wider area
Units that ignore certain Terrain for movement and/or combat
Units extra good at attacking Districts/Quarters/Fortifications.

The problem with any of these complications, as noted above, is that it complicates the current Leader-based bonus system, which includes bonuses from Civics and other sources in addition to the Leader participation in battles. On the other hand, if you are limited to choosing a single type of Veteran Promotion, you would basically be building an entire army specialized in a single direction only - easy to keep track of of, and any other specializations could remain with the Leader.

 

[Krikkit1]

I agree that it was a step backward to remove unit promotions even though commanders were improved. Ignoring the value of each unit just because it's easier for some (which actually ends up hurting true player strategists) is unacceptable. That wasn't the issue; the problem remains the ease of maintaining a vast empire as if all those under its control happily accepted their fate. Furthermore, a great general should be a threat to the leader if he gains too much prestige (as in real life).

That’s what the Crises were for (many people hated it unfortunately)

 

[aieeegrunt]

Here's a thought (and that's all it is),

What if you could Upgrade units when building them?

That is, if it costs, say, 100 Production to Build a unit of Gendarmes, spend 120 production and get Veteran Gendarmes, which gain X advantage (combat factors, movement, etc) in addition to anything they get from a Leader. The graphic of the unit might get a flag or other indicator added to it so you could tell at a glance on the map who is veteran and who isn't.

This isn't as 'accurate' as getting veterancy from actual combat, but it would allow the warring mongers among us to field armies of 'eliteish' troops which, all else being equal equal, cost more and so reduce the size of their army overall. - Prussia, as an example, might even get a UA of Cheaper Veterans to reflect their reputation.

You could either color-code the flag indicators for increased combat factor, movement, or some other special addition, or simply make Veteran = More Combat Factor to simplify things. In fact, simplifying Veteran to mean extra Combat Factor could leave extra Movement, the other biggie addition, as an aspect of the Leader only.

Other potential Veteran Promotions/Bonuses could be:
Extra Combat Factor on defense only or 'automatic' field fortifications
Cavalry Units with wider ZOC - they inhibit movement over a wider area
Units that ignore certain Terrain for movement and/or combat
Units extra good at attacking Districts/Quarters/Fortifications.

The problem with any of these complications, as noted above, is that it complicates the current Leader-based bonus system, which includes bonuses from Civics and other sources in addition to the Leader participation in battles. On the other hand, if you are limited to choosing a single type of Veteran Promotion, you would basically be building an entire army specialized in a single direction only - easy to keep track of of, and any other specializations could remain with the Leader.

This is a pretty neat idea

 

[Boris Gudenuf]

This is a pretty neat idea

Basically, instead of getting all the better units from combat experience, you are getting them by giving them more intensive training using more resources, represented by Production. Another bit would be to not allow you to buy veteran units with Gold, since the veteran bonus requires them to go through the production-based extra training.

I suspect, to make it work with the Civ VII Leader-based promotions, you'd have to stick to one form of Veteran bonus for your Civ/military - extra combat factors OR extra movement, to avoid a potential mess of mixed Leader/Veteran bonuses.

 

[McSpank01]

What I quite like now is that units feel a little more disposable, which they sort of should be in a war. Previous games I would freak out if I lost even one unit, now I get to throw hordes of legions at the enemy and crush them under the weight.