auto unit upgrades?

Gammaray fan · April 22, 2001, 21:11

If you discover techs that make units obsolete, they should be upgraded automatically for a small fee. I'm not sure, but I believe this happens already in SMAC? If it does, it will probably be in Civ3 so that's a relief. Having a tank side by side with a phalanx was really silly, and you never had time to organise lots of major offensives because you were constantly building musketeers or whatever to takeover from the obsolete phalanx. In fact, has FIRAXIS stated whether this will be in the game already?

Cyclotron · April 22, 2001, 21:56

Umm, this has already been a topic, I would recommend doing a quick search a couple pages down and you should find it.

Upgrades should not be automatic. Phalanxes don't upgrade to musketeers by themselves. In fact, I don't think there should be any upgrades... the system is much better represented by the disbanding of old units and creating new ones. This better represents the massive re-training and re-tooling necessary to modernize a unit... modernization is and should be a costly and long process, not one that happens instantly as soon as you discover a tech. After all, getting a tech is only half the job... you need to implement it, and that is a crucial element of the game. You would never consider a temple automatically appearing in your cities as soon as you discovered ceremonial burial, would you? If not, then why should it be any different with units?

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- Cyclotron7, "that supplementary resource fanatic"

JamesJKirk · April 22, 2001, 23:34

I agree with cyclotron7...Anyway, you can always go to a city and disband a unit you don't want to get half of it's production value, well probably you'll still be able to

Gammaray fan · April 23, 2001, 02:14

OKAY, I take your point. However, you shouldn't have to go to the trouble of clicking on every city, disbanding all your obsolete units, and buildings the same number of non-obsolete units. This is pointless, and time consuming (especially if you have a huge empire!).
To get around this micromanagement problem, you should be able to select 'upgrade all obsolete troops', and the computer will automatically calculate the amount of sheilds returned from disbanded units, calculate the amount of sheilds needed to build the same number of new units as the disbanded ones (effectively upgrading), figure out how many sheilds still needed, then take a few turns to accumalate the necessary sheilds (the city production view can simply show 'stockpiling sheilds' or something to that effect). When enough sheilds are ready, all the obsolete units should 'upgrade'.
This is essentially allowing for 'upgrading' without changing the required resources needed to upgrade.
ANY PROBLEMS?

Stuff2 · April 23, 2001, 11:16

I'd like to see military production totally seperated from the other production.
Actually I'd like to see all military management being able to handle from a single window.

Cyclotron · April 23, 2001, 18:21

What I don't like about your system is that it is too sudden. If we hjave two players, with one behind the other scientifically, we get a problem... the more advanced player, once he has the tech and accumulated the neccesary shields, will suddenly experience a total and instantaneous upgrade, say replacing all his musketeers with riflemen. What a difference! I can easily see how this would be abused. You could lure enemy troops toward a surrounded group of your cavalry... and suddenly, they turn into tanks and crush the enemy in one turn! Besides the fact that it is not realistic, it is grossly unfair to the other players when you do upgrading in batches like this. That is why I would like to keep unit-by-unit modernization... to keep these sudden and drastic upgrades from happening.

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- Cyclotron7, "that supplementary resource fanatic"

Gammaray fan · April 23, 2001, 20:52

You wouldn't be able to do an ambush because only the units in the city would be upgraded, no those in the field.
Anyway, what's so unrealistic about 'sudden' upgrades, when game turns are usually more than a decade.
I do however, take your point and can find an easy remedy.
Say the Romans issue a command to upgrade all phalanxes to musketeers. This will obviously take a few turns, but when the actual command to upgrade is issued, any civs in contact with the Romans should get a message saying 'Romans embark on a project to modernise their army', so the upgrade won't catch you off guard!

Lawrence of Arabia · April 23, 2001, 21:26

I believe we already discussed this at the beginning of the month

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Its okay to smile; you're in America now

SerapisIV · April 24, 2001, 01:44

quote:

Originally posted by Gammaray fan on 04-23-2001 08:52 PM
You wouldn't be able to do an ambush because only the units in the city would be upgraded, no those in the field.
Anyway, what's so unrealistic about 'sudden' upgrades, when game turns are usually more than a decade.
I do however, take your point and can find an easy remedy.
Say the Romans issue a command to upgrade all phalanxes to musketeers. This will obviously take a few turns, but when the actual command to upgrade is issued, any civs in contact with the Romans should get a message saying 'Romans embark on a project to modernise their army', so the upgrade won't catch you off guard!

I like that idea Grammaray. Also the length of upgrade should correlate to your overall economic strength (one of the demographic numbers). If you have a huge production capability, you should get 6 rifleman upgraded per turn to mech infantry, lower economy, then only 3 per turn. Also the idea that you must upgrade in a city must be in the game IF upgrades are allowed. Nothing was more unrealistic then in SMAC as I'm in the midst of an invasion, get a tech then magically my army gets weapons upgrades.