Options! Unit retraining/upgrading! Separated tiers! Arms trading!

So: you keep the three tiers of unit progression that we have now, more or less along the same time-frames as they currently are. But within each tier, the upgrades are much freer and more varied. If you want to upgrade to the 2nd or 3rd tier, you have to build new units.

Example:
Corvette: research tier 1 and get a basic all-round coastal patrol ship, much as you do now. After that, you have several options for upgrades. You could choose to boost the fixed-wing AA strength, anti-heli strength, anti-sub strength, or ship-to-ship strength; you could also choose to boost engine power (for speed) or survivability (for HP).

You can research as many or as few of these as you want at tier 1, but you have to apply upgrades manually to your already-built ships and you don't have to apply the same ones to each ship. Upgrades cost resources (and a small amount of time) to apply, so you'd probably want to be selective. You could even have a couple of upgrade-levels for each type of upgrade within a tier, for even greater specialization.

When you choose to go for tier 2, you're researching a brand new ship - that's why you have to build new units from scratch. It's significantly better than the basic tier 1 model all-round, but not quite as good in specific aspects as one that's been upgraded in those particular aspects. It has potential to be much better once it's been upgraded itself, and has more upgrade options (eg. better radar/sonar, better combat range, lower signature maybe, less deep-water strength-penalty, etc).

Lower-tier units that you don't want/need any more could be decommissioned (for a recuperation of part of the mobilization+upgrade cost), or - even better - sold to other countries. Trade prices would be fixed by the game to prevent people giving free units away - the purchasing country has to be able to afford the market price of the unit, which is set by the game according to mobilization and upgrade cost. Buying units costs more than building them yourself in terms of the individual units, but because you aren't paying for the research or the pre-requisite buildings, it could work out a little cheaper overall, depending on how many you buy. Units that you have bought from another country cannot be further upgraded, and count as a different type from the ones you've mobilized yourself (in terms of stacking).

**Infantry are an exception!**
Infantry don't require new units to be mobilized for tier-level upgrades (because they are people, not machines, and can be continuously retrained). Also, you can't "sell" infantry to other countries (slave-trade should not be a part of CoN!).

Ground units could be upgraded according to specific terrain types, as well as general combat strength upgrades for particular unit types - so you could for example create specialist mountain-, jungle- or arctic-warfare troops.

Aerial units could have range upgrades, speed upgrades, HP upgrades, a variety of particular combat-strength upgrades, radar upgrades, surface-to-air defence upgrades, etc. You choose which ones you want.

Advantages: More customization and strategic choices; more potential/reasons for diplomatic engagement with both allies and non-allies, and more coordination within coalitions or teams.
Disadvantages: maybe a bit too complicated for some people's taste; all the current meta-knowledge probably goes out of the window!


Any thoughts?

Interesting. Thanks for the responses, chaps.

The idea first seeded itself in my head a while ago because I fancied the idea of equipping my infantry with some specialist skills to match the type of terrain where they would be fighting - say, mountain warfare troops for Scandinavia, jungle warfare specialists in SE Asia, desert troops in northern Africa, etc. It'd just be a little boost to their effectiveness by removing combat penalties and/or applying bonuses for those units in that terrain, if you chose to focus on that. I think it'd perhaps give you more of a sense of identity with your starting nation, and make a bit more use of the existing terrain effects as a gameplay feature.

The other main reason for it is that I quite often find myself upgrading a particular unit over multiple levels, purely to obtain one specific bonus ability that only comes later on in the tech tree - I don't care about the other combat/range/speed boosts I'm getting along the way, I just want this one feature. For example, the surface warfare kit for the ASW Helis or the airlift ability for certain Support/Armored units. I think it would be preferable to be able to go for these at an earlier stage if you considered it important to your situation, at the expense of not getting the other buffs until later, if at all.

In terms of min-maxing, I agree with Teburu that this would probably be increased. For ranged bombardment Support units, you're always going to want range and damage and speed above all else in the end. But I don't think that's necessarily bad for the game, and there's also a decision for the player to make over what order to get those things in: if you're fighting someone with the same range as you, you're going to want to boost that first; if you already out-range your opponent, you might go for a damage buff instead. With ground-attack aircraft, you might choose Fuel Optimization to extend range first if your target is a little bit too far away for you to reach; but if they are already within range, you'd maybe go for increased damage; if your opponent has ASFs, you might choose to buff HP or air-to-air strength, or even speed. There will be emphasis on min-maxing, but it would be situational as well. The player would choose the upgrades that best fit their situation, or their preference for how they want to fight a particular war.

The thing about forcing new units to be built when you research a higher tier unit is not integral to the idea; it's just something I shoved into the suggestion as an afterthought, because it's always bugged me a bit that, say, a MiG-23 suddenly transforms itself into a MiG-29 in the middle of combat! The inclusion of unit trading is also just an off-shoot of that concept - if you have to replace units, you're probably going to to want to get rid of the old ones, and trading would be one way of doing that which would also open a new, I believe interesting, gameplay option. Again, it's not fundamental to the main idea.

Really, I wanted to think of a way of utilizing the existing gameplay concepts in a way that increases the player's input into how they choose to prioritise upgrades. Most of the buffs (and the associated icons) are already in the game - including some terrain-specific ones - it'd just give the player more control over what they choose and when. It might increase the need for accurate intel on specific stacks; but again, I don't see that as a bad thing. Neither do I think it's a difficult concept for new players to get their heads around; experienced players will perhaps have more of an advantage in knowing what is most useful at what stage, though.

It's not exactly the same.

I like the concept of unit tiers that the game has right now. You start with a Scorpion AFV, later you research the FV Warrior, and eventually you get the Puma, for example. But I would like to see more of a 'shopping list' of upgrades within each tier. You could keep upgrading your Scorpion until it's actually better than the standard Warrior, or at least has more terrain-specific or enemy unit-specific strengths. But you'd hit a ceiling at some point, and someone with an upgraded Warrior is going to have a better AFV than you. There's a choice to make over whether/when to go for the next tier of vehicle, or just keep going with the one you have and give it incremental upgrades. You might alternatively choose not to upgrade the Scorpion at all, and concentrate instead on researching the Warrior at the earliest opportunity, and then focus your research resources on upgrading that. Or even wait for the Tier 3 Puma to become available before researching and applying upgrades.

That's also part of the reasoning for requiring brand new unit replacements to be built for each tier: it accommodates this process better. That is, if your upgraded Scorpion transforms into a non-upgraded Warrior, it might actually get worse before it gets better. If the tiers are differnet units altogether, you could keep using your upgraded Scorpions until your Warriors are upgraded, or until you've done the research to build ready-upgraded Warriors. And then you could scrap/sell your old models once they have become obsolete.

Does that make sense?

Sorry about that. Was it my writing or my idea that was inelegant?

[Double Post]