You should not be able to upgrade units without any promotions

I think it should not be allowed to upgrade units without promotions so you can't stockpile tons of ancient units and get modern army the second you hit the required tech. This nerfs commercial hubs since you can't get modern army out of ancient 3-turn built units for very little money with 50% upgrade discount card. This makes generals that give promotions more useful, terracota army more useful, encampment production city states more useful, encampment buildings that speed up experience gain more useful, good points all round.

As to what to do with units without levels I had idea of turning unit into something useful by moving it into city or districts, this should be available only if unit is outdated and has no promotions:
1) City Center settles unit in the city by turning them into small amount of food, percent of their production cost, useful for new city boost
2) Holy Site converts unit into missionary with single use at holy site
3) Encampment converts unit into military engineer with single use (only medieval units and later)
4) Commercial Hub converts unit into trader, if trader slots are available
5) Industrical Zone turns unit into small amount of production (maybe limit to only buildings)

Maybe other disricts can have some uses too, share your thoughts!

Also navy units might be exception since navy is pretty weak as it is and you can't get it into districts for above options.

 

I don't think pre-building units for upgrades is inherently problematic as a strategy (and if it was, this proposal wouldn't solve it- getting units to level 1 by fighting barbarians is incredibly easy). The problem is that the cost of upgrades is much too low to create the right trade-offs. It's fine for pre-building to be an effective strategy when you really want to start using an advanced unit as soon as its available, but it shouldn't also be the best way of building those units from a pure resource efficiency standpoint. The 50% upgrade discount is a big part of the problem (compare its power to the tile purchase policy, another gold discount that can easily be switched out after 1 turn), but it's not the only cause. I'd actually argue that 30g upgrades from slingers to archers are the worst offender.

 

(Reposting this thread here since it seems that Ideas & Suggestions subforum is for "elimination" threads only and I can't delete it there now)
Moderator Action: This is an appropriate thread for I&S, so thread moved and merged with the existing thread-- Browd

I think it should not be allowed to upgrade units without promotions so you can't stockpile tons of ancient units and get modern army the second you hit the required tech. This nerfs commercial hubs since you can't get modern army out of ancient 3-turn built units for very little money with 50% upgrade discount card. This makes generals that give promotions more useful, terracota army more useful, encampment production city states more useful, encampment buildings that speed up experience gain more useful, good points all round.

As to what to do with units without levels I had idea of turning unit into something useful by moving it into city or districts, this should be available only if unit is outdated and has no promotions:
1) City Center settles unit in the city by turning them into small amount of food, percent of their production cost, useful for new city boost
2) Holy Site converts unit into missionary with single use at holy site
3) Encampment converts unit into military engineer with single use (only medieval units and later)
4) Commercial Hub converts unit into trader, if trader slots are available
5) Industrical Zone turns unit into small amount of production (maybe limit to only buildings)

Maybe other disricts can have some uses too, share your thoughts!

Also navy units might be exception since navy is pretty weak as it is and you can't get it into districts for above options.

 

Eh, would only hurt the AI, which is already very poor militarily.

It is interesting idea but rather they work on other things, tbh.

 

Scout for trader? Then Expanding Commercial Hubs will be a good investment since the cost of traders are reduced significantly.

 

I'd rather see a system where to upgrade a unit, you have to send it back to a city (or encampment), and then to "upgrade" it you essentially give it back to the city and the production from it goes towards the unit it would upgrade to. With the caveat that it would somehow remember the promotions or XP that it had before.

That way, to upgrade units, you actually need a city still capable of building a unit, so you can't simply upgrade your entire army with a stockpile of gold. And it would prevent the case where you use the 50% bonus card to build a unit, and then use the 50% upgrade card to upgrade it, effectively getting a new unit for a much cheaper price than you could otherwise build it for.

 

You could do that only when you'll research rangers. Anyway, its just a suggestion on what to do with outdated units that weren't really in combat.