[Suggestion] Making and upgrading units

from Elemental Forums

I find it odd that there is no money cost for making units, especially since the game calculate the amount of labour needed to making a unit. Surely, for your economic model to make sense, labour needs to have an associated money cost.

Labour wouldn't cost that much maybe, ten points of labour = 0.4 Gildar. 

While your mechanic for upgrading units’ works fine, unfortunately the cost of actually upgrading a unit is astronomical. I had a unit of Spearman with leather armour: the cost of upgrading them to chain armour was over 5000 Gildar! 

If we take the example of upgrading a unit from leather armour to chain armour, I propose that the cost should be the material need to make that much chain armours, and the cost of the labour needed to produce it.

3,803 views 4 replies
Reply #1 from Elemental Forums Top

I know there has to be some sort of scaling cost with upgrading, since I've had different costs for different degrees of unit upgrades.

But you're right: how exactly are upgrade costs calculated? Also, they should probably not scale up so quickly.

Reply #2 from Elemental Forums Top

Upgrade costs atm are pretty outrageous. As far as it costing nothing to build your units...just assume your people work for the food you give them. Granted it's food they harvested, but hey better then them getting eaten by giant spiders amiright?

Offworld Trading Company
Reply #3 from Elemental Forums Top

Upgrading is almost crazy enough that it's better to disband the unit and build the new one rather than try and pay the outrageous costs to upgrade. I think the balance on this needs to be examined.

If you create units in your town, does that decrease your population?

Reply #4 from Elemental Forums Top


Perhaps you should only be able to upgrade units when in cities, and rather than the unit possessing an upgrade tab, the city does. That city then selects any of the present units and pays the difference in time and materials to upgrade the old unit with new equipment. The upgrade screen would only include weapons/armor/equipment not traits.

Optionally you could choose to reset the xp of the unit (or reduce it - whatever) to alter the size of the troop. So that you don't have to remake an entire squad of spearman if you already have a group.