Will there ever be an option to upgrade old units?

Agree completely - this is a serious flaw in Elemental. I was very surprised that I couldn't upgrade my units. I get attached to them...

Consider this post me making a fuss about this if thats what is needed. Like sethai says this really would make a huge difference and it is a recurring request on the forums with many new players counfused as to why it isn't possible and if they have missed something. If intuitively people expect a feature and are suprised by its absense it would seem like a good idea to add it in most cases.

It only makes sense to have an upgrade option. Why else, then, would I take such great pains to conserve my forces and help them level up. I have very experienced spearman in padded clothing I'd like to improve with new weapons and armor and then group together into squads and companies. It's hard to watch a level 6 spearman get eviscerated by a level one squire or duke with a warhammer and stout armor.

What i noticed in the game is that you cannot manipulate equipment on soldiers, that stands out much more than upgrading! It sends us all a message loud and clear that soldiers are intended to be a dead end creation in the game.

I would assume this is because soldiers equipment is manufactured, not purchased and Stardock must believe it important to game balance that players should not be able to manufacture their own equipment. I would agree with this in the context of earlier game versions where guilder is much harder to come by, but now with the latest game versions, guilder is much easier to earn, so i do not think it is needed to prevent players manufacturing their own weapons anymore.

Soldiers should be configured the same as hero's but without the attribute selection, and all units should be able to form squads and leave squads at will.

Yes, we need an upgrade option! And the ability to group your early individual units into parties, squads, companies.

Agreed on the need for an upgrade option; it's a basic TBS feature, made even more important in a game where even normal units gain experience and level up. There are several ways it can be implemented - say an instant resource cost, possibly discounted by old unit's value, possibly adding an extra gold fee, or needing to 'train' a new unit from the old one using the city's production. I'd prefer taking the time to train the unit rather than paying extra resources for an instant upgrade; I hate the situation in GC2/Civ/many other games where new units cost one resource (such as production) but upgrading units cost another (such as gold), so you can mass produce new units but not have the gold to upgrade a single veteran old unit. But really there just needs to be some way to carry over your old unit's experience into a new one at an appropriate cost, not picky about the details.

For that matter we should get a refund for disbanding units in a city - obviously the lost production time can't and shouldn't be recovered, but the metal/materials/crystal at least should be recoverable, maybe a portion of the gold.

As i mentioned before, allowing access to soldiers equipment the same as hero's would solve the problem, but the soldier could be restricted in the equipment it can use and also it cannot equip a weapon type other than that which it was created with. In other words, if you want to give a more powerful weapon to a soldier who is using a short sword, he can only use one handed bladed weapons.

Also any units joining squads, if squad joining/leaving is allowed, must equip the exact same weapon that the squad is using.

I don't think SD has anything against upgrading, it just wasn't added, like a lot of other features. I completely agree with all stated sentiments, whether it is an equipment swap like that for champions, or re-training through the city queue. I am constantly disbanding obsolete units with lvl 5 or 6 experience. Such a shame. I think a global equipment locker would be in order, that's sometimes called an armoury.

Would also be cool if particularly heroic units had a chance to spawn a hero who could become a new Champion for you.

That makes me think of Rome Total War. If you had a unit of just regular soldiers (i.e. no "General" unit in the force) and won a particularly heroic battle (and the game even recognized "Heroic Battles") then you got the option to adopt the soldier who lead the men in that battle; he became a new General unit you could use (if you accepted him after looking at his stats).

I think something like that would add well to Elemental. And while we are at it, can we please add the ability to have a commander of a group of units? Many other strategy games have this, and it would also fit very well with the game's RPG overtones - a really great hero might make a good commander (depending on his/her stats, like str, int, etc) for a group (or they might not, lol). Their stats could give bonuses to the units under them (or even penalties, say for a commander with really low Int, where magic defense might suffer, but their high Strength stat boosts their Att).

I have heard many complain about the lack of depth in Elemental (and I am one of them too), so this could be a great way to add much more. Suddenly commander selection decisions make a big impact for different kinds of battle circumstances (defending vs attacking, etc), and thus the player would need to think more carefully about assigning hero stat points at level ups. Do I make Sartan's strength even higher for a larger Attack boost, or do I bring his Int up to par to avoid a penalty? Commanders could affect moral too (for better or worse). This could be some great stuff, and not too hard to implement, I think.

Great ideas.   Could be a bit like Great Generals in Civ, except the Generals would have more character.

Yes to Generals that affect combat performance on several levels, and yes to General units that arise out of sufficiently experienced regular units!

Best regards,
Steven.

Once upon a time, SD was actually flirting with the idea of "general" units:

"One of the concepts we’re playing around with is a leadership ability. Leadership basically gives a general bonus to your side. The idea there being that players who don’t want to monkey around with the tactical battles can focus on having heroes who are also excellent generals (high leadership) who you can have confidence that they will fight a battle with maximum capability.

"The AI too will be allowed to invest in leadership skills to help their generals get better and better. Early on, leadership won’t mean much."

Unfortunately,  it was yet another feature that never materialized. 

Still worth bringing it up though, as an option for units with a lot of experience.  And since they are remaking the game, its worth bringing something like this up.

Best regards,
Steven.

BUMP da   on da head n' steal all da gold

 Agreed; though admitably, I have no qualms of killing my own troops by my own hand, having the option to upgrade a veteran experienced unit with better armor & weapons would definately be a good adition. Skilled slaves are not a dime a dozen & should not be frivously discarded like the unwashed masses.

This would be cool.

Just voting for a YES to some kind of upgrade system.  I almost feel bad when the time comes for a beloved old unit to be downgraded from "meat shield" to a "speed bump" to gloriously slow down the enemy while my sovereign throws spells.

I also agree with some kind of upgrade system, but I would like it to be something of value. In the civ series, the player spends money and a turn to change a old unit to a new unit, with the benefit of the unit keeping his experience and bonuses. The problem with this kind of upgrade system in Elemental is that the only bonus a unit got from leveling was some extra hp, and even so, an old unit in Elemental even with upgraded weaponry would have no chance against 12 troop units later on in the game.

What Elemental needs is an upgrade scheme which feels more like rpg leveling. So the idea would kind of be as follows:

- You start the game and recruit a single club guy. No Armor, limited health, and a club between him and his foes.

- This dude starts to fight and win, gaining levels. Each level this dude not only gains hp, but would also gain stat points based on his equipment. So in the case of our club guy, he might get some strength and a small amount of dexterity. As his skills increase, this guy also gets access to special abilities which are based on his stats. So maybe, now our club dude at level 2 can now use a club smash, and then at level 5, he gets a disorienting strike, etc.

- Now, our club guy has fought several battles, and has hit a milestone level, perhaps every 2 or 3 levels. At the milestone level, the unit would get not only his stat bonus, but can now choose one of a few items. For instance, he could get the next tier armor, the next tier weapon ( so now his club becomes a mace), an additional troop for his unit, a magic item, or an additional stat increase.

- As the game progresses, our club guy with no armor slowly morphs into a 12 unit lord hammer dude with great stats and a host of interesting abilities, due simply to players grooming this unit towards one strategy or another.

This entire idea would give allow players to hone their troops while still researching and producing better and better new troops, without simply taking the unit and magically making them better because their economy was simply churning out resources to make them better. So players who turtle and only have units defend while blasting through the tech tree would eventually be capable of building awesome veteran troops, while players who build troops and rotate in new troops to fight monster or go on quests with their champions would be rewarded for these RPG efforts with strong well trained troops as well.

I don't consider it a flaw at all.  If all standard units could be upgraded like champions, then there would be no difference between standard units and champions.

I like the way the game is currently set up.  Champions are special upgradable characters, while standard troops are limited use, but can be recycled.  I personally don't want this to change.

I agree with TeamM on this one. And take it from another angle. These troops you are wanting to upgrade were not trained to fight with those weapons, armor, or groups. The only way you should be able to combine them like this is if they were Penelized with a "retraining" Period probably equal to half the training time of a new unit.

I think upgrading should carry an experience penalty and should not be cost-efficient, but should be allowed.  The one exception would be upgraded a unit to a group, which should take half of the experience.

Low-level troops are untrained, inexperienced peasant rabble, so making them less trained isn't going to matter much.

Upgrades should take time though, making the weapons isn't instant, and it should require using the unit queue.

The core difference between Champions and normal units is not simply that one upgrades and one doesn't. Champions start with special abilities, they can be customized when leveled, and they can change equipment. As I said, in my previous posts, I do not want to see standard units get leveled up directly nor be able to change their weapons at a whim. However, I think it is more than reasonable to make the difference between a level 1 peasant and a level 2 peasant be more than just HP and accuracy. The best idea would be to allow units to expend some kind of level up points ( like in civ ) to select a weapon which is similar to their current weapon. A good example would be club->mace-> battle hammer->lord hammer. This would give players more reason to love their normal units, while not taking away anything from Champions who could still specify their skill improvements, buy and trade items, and get initial special abilities. In Fact, I think that if they change normal units to have a bit more in their level up scheme, then it would make sense to give champions a bit more as well. For example, champions could be classed and have customizable skill trees like in other rpgs.

One of the many ways that Fall From Heaven 2 improved Civ4 was that it accelerated advancement of units via experience, while at the same time having a shorter tech tree (vs. Civ4 going from spears to nuclear weapons). Since Civ4/FFH2 had upgrades already, the result was that you could develop a great set of veteran units -- not invincible, but certainly powerful (or very useful). With Kael over here at Stardock now, I have hopes of a similar system making its way into EWOM.

It strikes me that one approach would be that the level of the unit unlocks replacement of certain items with better versions of those same items, but otherwise you can't otherwise modify that design. For example, suppose I create an archer unit design (SimpleArcher) with just a crude bow and a padded cuirass. Once a SimpleArcher unit reaches level N (whatever that turns out to be; say, N=5) or higher, I can replace the crude bow with a cedar shortbow, and/or I can replace the padded cuirass with a leather cuirass, but that's all -- no other weapon/armor changes, additions or substitutions, and the appearance otherwise stays the same. When that unit reaches level M(=10) or higher, I can now also upgrade to a cedar longbow and/or a light plate cuirass, and so on.

What that means is that designed units are going to stay pretty much as designed; you can (for a price) upgrade the components they were originally designed with as tech advances and individual unit levels allow, but you can't otherwise add or take away from the original design/appearance/function. Units that survive battles and level up become more valuable and more powerful not just from the increased hitpoints from level upgrades but also from equipment upgrades as well. The Equip panel for regular units could be readily adapted for this purpose.

Of course, having typed all this, I just looked up and saw that kenata was proposing pretty much the same thing. So consider this a second vote.

I have to say, me too.

Best regards,
Steven.

Surprise, I am voting with Kenata.

I think his system makes the most sense, especially considering the "families" of weapon types.  For troops you could cut it into "roles" and only upgrade a trooper to a new version of a unit that matches his "role":

Archers: duh

Bashers:club, mace, battle hammer, etc.

Pole Arms: staff, spear, warstaff (NEED MORE POLEARMS)

Swordsman: dagger, short sword, broadsword, etc.

Build skill trees for these "troop roles"; have different (much larger) skill trees for champions.  Add in an ability to combine individual identical units into squads / parties when you gain access to the appropriate tech and I think you have solved this problem extremely well.  Only thing left is balancing the costs / training times to do the actions.