Upgrading group size

from Elemental Forums

Am I understanding correctly that upgrading a unit by one figure always cost a flat 50 gildar? It seems very strange that units that require resources wouldn't have a resource cost for this. And for very expensive units, I think you could possibly end up with a better value by building a smaller group and upgrading it than rush building a larger group. It's a single player game, and I think I'll choose not to use these exploits on purpose (i.e. always build the largest size group I have access to at the time), but it still seems wrong.

11,474 views 8 replies
Reply #1 from Elemental Forums Top

It does cost resources to upgrade weaponry and defense.

I'm guessing that this is not a bug but intended to provide balance.

Reply #2 from Elemental Forums Top

Exactly, upgrading weaponry and defense consts resources, but upgrading group size does not, even though the larger group would have cost more resources to create in the first place. That's the upgrade path out of the 3 that seems out of balance to me.

Siege of Centauri
Reply #3 from Elemental Forums Top


I had the same thought (that you could build groups of 3 and upgrade to 6 for gildar only and save a ton of resources...150g vs 3x the metal, crystal, etc would be pretty huge savings) but haven't tried it yet - I tend to not exploit either.  I'm guessing it can be done since that's how the unit size upgrades work.

Reply #4 from Elemental Forums Top

As it currently stands, if you have limited metal or crystal and a bit of spare gold, it always makes sense to build the smallest size possible and then upgrade, as you only pay the metal and crystal for the smaller unit size, plus a small amount of gold for the upgrade.

This doesn't make a great deal of sense to me, and does feel like a bit of an exploit. It would surely make more sense if you had to pay the metal and crystal for upgrading the unit size, e.g. if you move from a unit of three to a unit of four then you should pay a third of the crystal and metal you paid when you built the original unit.

Reply #5 from Stardock Forums Top

Quoting merlinme, reply 4

 It would surely make more sense if you had to pay the metal and crystal for upgrading the unit size, e.g. if you move from a unit of three to a unit of four then you should pay a third of the crystal and metal you paid when you built the original unit.
End of merlinme's quote

 

Agreed... and while we're improving the upgrade process, I would love to have the ability to choose from available upgrade choices and then confirm once to apply them all.  As it is now one has to go into the upgrade process from the start for attack, defense and group size.

Reply #6 from Elemental Forums Top


I would prefer if I could chose what I wanted to upgrade to. I may not want to upgrade to the "best" item in the category according to what the game thinks. For example, it may make sense to keep the +initiative boots on the archers and not upgrade them along with the rest of the armor.

Reply #7 from Elemental Forums Top

Quoting jonasadolphson, reply 6
For example, it may make sense to keep the +initiative boots on the archers and not upgrade them along with the rest of the armor.
End of jonasadolphson's quote

I agree, that happens to be my main complaint with the way upgrades work.

Reply #8 from Elemental Forums Top

Yeah, it would be nice to be able to pick and choose which armour to get. But I'd consider that an extra feature, whereas zero metal and crystal cost for expanding the unit size just seems broken.