Crossbowmen And Upgrading.

[Skunkone]

I know a lot of people have talked about how they dislike that they lose all of the upgrades they have had for their crossbowmen when they go to upgrade them. This for who does not know is because they upgrade to riflemen and the upgrades they are allowed are for ranged attacks only. However I think I know why, and sorry if this has been posted before. I think it is because if you allowed for cannon or greater upgrades of the Cho-Ku-Nu you will have some drastically overpowered ranged units. The Cho has the one downfall of being slightly less powerful per attack than a standard crossbow. If you upgraded that units to have +1 range and then upgraded it to the point of being a mobile missile system you would have a full strength double attack 4 range ignoring terrain unit. That would be devastating. With the current system atlest you must put you upgraded Cho riflemen in the front to take advantage of them.

Just thought I would toss this out there.

[Arobein]

They should've added Mortar Team unit for Crossbowmen to upgrade to.

[Veshta]

They should've added Mortar Team unit for Crossbowmen to upgrade to.

Perhaps with a Grenadier intermediary
Strength 10/16, +25% vs. Rifles, -25% vs. cities. Would make the upgraded mortars inferior as siege units and provide a reasonable counter to the rifle swarm the AI seems to adore.

[Jazzterisk]

They should've added Mortar Team unit for Crossbowmen to upgrade to.

Perhaps with a Grenadier intermediary
Strength 10/16, +25% vs. Rifles, -25% vs. cities. Would make the upgraded mortars inferior as siege units and provide a reasonable counter to the rifle swarm the AI seems to adore.

I agree with both comments. There definitely should be some sort of upgrade that maintains the ranged upgrades.

I hate to bring up the old Civ IV comparison again but they did that quite well - I think archery units upgraded to Grenadiers which was fine.

[Skunkone]

I agree with both comments. There definitely should be some sort of upgrade that maintains the ranged upgrades.

I hate to bring up the old Civ IV comparison again but they did that quite well - I think archery units upgraded to Grenadiers which was fine.

a upgrade to a mortar team would still leave them range and they should at some point upgrade into another ranged unit. This leaves the problem I brought up before.

EDIT: I was more or less bringing this up to see if people thought it was fine once they looked at it that way, or if they should have some kind of other upgrade tree to work with. Would also like to add horse units into this just to see what everyone thinks. Same as before if you do not know why it is because they have no upgrade after Calvary.

[Jazzterisk]

a upgrade to a mortar team would still leave them range and they should at some point upgrade into another ranged unit. This leaves the problem I brought up before.

You know I'd be fine if eventually a unit couldn't be upgraded anymore and you just either used it as is or deleted it. It's kind of silly to be upgrading cavalry to helicopter gunships after all.

That being said, I do think there needs to be another upgrade path for the early archery units that do not end up as riflemen. That's why I think a mortar or grenadier is a valid upgrade. I think after that you could just have the pathway end rather then having every unit upgrade to something more modern.
It also avoids having super powerful modern units because of all the ancient upgrade they've received.

Civ IV did it quite well I thought but I know this is not Civ IV - it doesn't mean you can't use ideas from it.

[Takao]

Meh, just be happy you have ranged units. Unless you care to explain how and why an archer/crossbowman can shoot further than a rifleman or tank. With the added caveat of not using that damn "game balance" excuse.

IMHO, once the first person gets "Rifling." all the archers/crossbowman should lose their range bonus. There is a reason why bows and arrows have not been used in combat for some time now.

[JQueue]

I'm not really sure how you would justify a grenadier unit being a ranged attacker if Musketmen, Riflement, etc. are melee.

Furthermore, where would you go from mortar team? More ranged units until the end of the of the modern age? Additionally mortar team sounds closer to an artillery unit than an appropriate ranged unit.

If archers were given a seperate line of promotions I would be more inclined to go the way of a Sniper/Ranger rather than Grenadier/Mortar team.

[legacy_programmer]

It's kind of silly to be upgrading cavalry to helicopter gunships after all.

That's actually historically accurate. The 1st Cav just traded their horses for mechanized transport in WWII and then helicopters during the Vietnam conflict, but they still had the same core veteran soldiers.

[ChandlerB]

It's kind of silly to be upgrading cavalry to helicopter gunships after all.

Why do you think there where real world units called Air Cavalry? I could even see Cav upgrade to light armor and then some kind of air mobile unit.