Upgrading Elite Units

[Stevet]

I noticed something annoying last night. When I upgrade any Elite unit it reverts to Veteran status. Should this happen or is it a bug? I've got Leonardos Workshop for 1/2 price upgrades.

I'm running with the latest patch.

[Dis]

feature

[Bambul]

Thats normal. You can't upgrade to elites or civ-specific units. Sometimes the benefits of upgrading are not met by the costs in cases like this. In these cases it is better to just build the upgraded units from scratch. But those Elites don't have to go to waste if you have a military acedemy/spare armies.

Say you have a bunch of Elite Riflemen hanging around for defence. You don't want to upgrade because you will lose their Elite status, but leave them and they will be of little defence against artillery/tanks. So just pop 3-4 of them in an army and you can have a 15-20HP defender to offset the lower defence. This works well with cavalry, especially considering that you don't get a 3move unit again until armour (unless you are German), so combining them into an army lets you have a faster but still effective unit to aid your tanks.

[waasabi]

THE FOLLOWING STATEMENT COULD VERY WELL BE WRONG: Elite units in armies do not generate leaders.

Heh, I never put elite units in armies because I think I'm closing my chances at getting a leader that way. I'll keep that elite rifleman "at the back", and specifically select him when a 1hp unit is sitting on top under the right conditions. Considering the AI attacks with swordmen and spears even in modern era at times, he WILL get his chance.

Anybody know if I'm wrong or right?

[jbavon]

just build Herpoic Epic and Military Academy

[dmjohnson]

IMO, Units should be upgradable to elite units or UU's when the civilization possesses the Military Academy. It's damn frustrating to not be able to upgrade to musketeers when you're playing the French, or Legions when you're playing the Romans (FTR, yes I do do the warrior to swordsman upgrade frequently).