Hey folks, anyone know why certain military units cost more population than others? See the screenshot: Halberdiers cost 3 pop; others cost 1 or 2 pop. 

Thanks for the thorough response! The rationale makes sense. From a gameplay perspective, the population of major cities can support larger pop requirements by that stage of the game... As long as you've been investing in food. I didn't see anything about this in tooltips or in the encyclopedia, which is why I asked. Upgrading definitely seems to be the way to go. 

Speaking of upgrades, any idea why the cost to upgrade a unit is the same despite units being from different eras? For example, I upgraded a Warrior and a Swordsman into a Great Swordsman... Both cost 400. Seems to me that the Warrior upgrade cost of 400 makes sense, but I would expect the Swordsman upgrade cost to be less. Furthermore, I was surprised to find that we can't choose to upgrade to a lower-tier unit once we have unlocked the technology for a more advanced unit but don't meet the resource requirements. This is easy to play around (just don't research the tech for units you don't have the resources for) but it was surprising and inconvenient on my first playthrough.

Melliores wrote:

I think that the new patch introduced an issue with the upgrading costs. I am waiting to finish my old game and start a new one to make sure whether this is permanent bug or just related to old saves.

The same upgrading cost is in the game since launch, I think it's because units upgrade directly to the latest one, not "in a line", in a sequential order. Hopefully it will be fixed soon.

Hmm… Anyone tested whether you can disband the more expensive units and get that pop transferred back to the city? E.g. - If you disband a line infantry that costs 3 pop to build can you disband it back to the city for the full 3 pop? I smell a play test coming on when I get home today…

AuleCraft wrote:

Hmm… Anyone tested whether you can disband the more expensive units and get that pop transferred back to the city? E.g. - If you disband a line infantry that costs 3 pop to build can you disband it back to the city for the full 3 pop? I smell a play test coming on when I get home today…

Yes, you can do that. Military unit will refund its pop. You can use this to emigrate people from overpopulate city to another one or store them up by train excess pop into cheap military unit. It get hard to do that in the later era due to upkeep tho.

Goodluck wrote:
The number of pops you get from disbanding a unit is based on that unit pop cost, a rifleman will give you 4 population if you disband it, even if it was an upgrade from a 1 population cost warrior.

Good to know, I was wondering the same since the tooltip displayed on hovering over the Disband Units action specifically says, "...will grant one population". That should probably be changed.

shasho wrote:

Goodluck wrote:
The number of pops you get from disbanding a unit is based on that unit pop cost, a rifleman will give you 4 population if you disband it, even if it was an upgrade from a 1 population cost warrior.

Good to know, I was wondering the same since the tooltip displayed on hovering over the Disband Units action specifically says, "...will grant one population". That should probably be changed.

Yes you should inform the developers of any tooltip error, however I'm not sure how you inform them.