3. Units

Units

Units both offer mobility to your civilization and supply the violence with which it will survive and expand. The available units may be classified as military units, whose talents are those of defense and aggression (warriors, phalanx, archers and horsemen), and a few noncombatants which support expansion (explorers and settlers), diplomacy (the diplomat and spy), and trade (caravans and freight). The support of your units will be one of your major expenses because of each unit requires gold.

Under representative governments, aggressive units standing outside your visibility radius of your cities each cause one worker to become unhappy. This makes war quite expensive under representative government, since gold are required to support each unit and luxury points must be produced to mollify the citizenry.

Movement

Units begin with movement time, depending upon their step time and time accumulation — shown for each unit in the catalog below. The accumulation reduced, for damaged land and sea units, in proportion to the extent of their damage.

Movement time of the unit

Every action undertaken by a unit consumes movement time. The most basic action is movement. Units can move into any of the eight surrounding squares under fairly obvious constraints: land units are confined to land and transport vessels; ships are confined to ocean squares and port cities (which are thus the only cities that can build them); and aircraft ignore terrain, though they must often end their turn where they can refuel — see the description of each unit for specific restrictions. Moving one square usually consumes one unit of movement time. Rough terrain, however, can be more costly for land units as detailed in the terrain catalog.

Enemy units impose zones of control, such that military units, settlers, workers, and engineers cannot move between squares adjacent to enemy units without retreating into unthreatened territory first, unless the square they enter already holds a friendly city or unit, or the unit is one that ignores zones of control. Note also that land units can embark and disembark from transports whenever the transport is adjacent to land or another transport — this does not require ports or other facilities. Land units can move instantly between airports in friendly cities with the airlift action. An airport can participate in only one airlift per turn.

Catalog

Several schemes are possible for organizing the variety of units available in Golden Age of Civilizations. This table arranges them chronologically: each of the eras in the following table groups units which require similar numbers of advances before they can be built.

The production cost, the purchase cost and the support cost specifies the economy of the unit, how many production points or gold a city must invest to build, purchase and support one unit. The fog radius (Fr) specifies how many squares see the unit. Next comes (Mt) the movement time and the (St) step accumulation of the unit. The combat statistics (As) attack strength, (Ds) defense strength are all explained in the section describing combat.

• Fr: Fog radius
• Mt: Movement time
• St: Step accumulation
• As: Attack strength
• Ds: Defense strength
• Ca: Capacity
• Pr: Production cost
• Pu: Purchase cost
• Su: Support cost

Era	Name	Fr	Mt	St	As	Ds	Ca	Pr	Pu	Su
Bronze	Settlers	2	120	24	1	64	0	128	800	16
Bronze	Warriors	2	30	4	8	8	0	16	100	2
Bronze	Workers	2	30	4	1	16	0	32	200	4
Bronze	Horsemen	4	30	8	32	8	0	64	400	8
Bronze	Archers	3	30	4	16	8	0	32	200	4
Bronze	Phalanx	2	60	4	8	16	0	16	100	4
Iron	Trireme	2	30	16	32	16	2	64	400	8
Iron	Chariot	4	30	8	32	16	0	64	400	8
Iron	Catapult	2	120	2	128	8	0	128	800	16
Iron	Legion	2	30	4	32	16	0	64	400	8
Iron	Diplomat	4	15	4	2	2	0	64	400	8
Exploration	Explorer	4	15	8	4	4	0	64	400	8
Exploration	Caravan	3	60	4	4	32	0	128	800	16
Exploration	Pikemen	2	60	4	16	128	0	128	800	16
Exploration	Knights	4	30	8	128	32	0	256	1600	32
Exploration	Caravel	2	30	16	64	32	4	128	800	16
Gunpowder	Galleon	2	30	16	8	128	4	1024	6400	128
Gunpowder	Frigate	3	30	16	256	128	2	1024	6400	128
Gunpowder	Ironclad	3	30	16	128	128	0	512	3200	64
Gunpowder	Musketeers	3	30	4	128	128	0	512	3200	64
Gunpowder	Dragoons	4	30	8	256	64	0	512	3200	64
Gunpowder	Cannon	3	120	2	512	64	0	1024	6400	128
Gunpowder	Engineers	3	30	8	8	128	0	512	3200	64
Industrial	Transport	4	30	16	16	256	8	4096	25600	512
Industrial	Destroyer	4	30	16	512	512	0	4096	25600	512
Industrial	Riflemen	3	30	4	512	256	0	2048	12800	256
Industrial	Cavalry	4	30	8	512	512	0	4096	25600	512
Industrial	Alpine troops	3	30	8	256	256	0	1024	6400	128
Industrial	Freight	3	30	8	16	256	0	2048	12800	256
Modern	Spy	5	30	8	16	16	0	4096	25600	512
Modern	Cruiser	5	30	64	1024	1024	0	16384	102400	2048
Modern	Battleship	5	30	64	1024	1024	0	16384	102400	2048
Modern	Submarine	5	30	64	2048	256	8	8192	51200	1024
Modern	Marines	3	30	8	1024	512	0	8192	51200	1024
Modern	Partisan	3	30	8	512	512	0	4096	25600	512
Modern	Artillery	3	60	8	4096	256	0	16384	102400	2048
Modern	Fighter	5	15	16	1024	512	0	8192	51200	1024
High-tech	AEGIS cruiser	5	30	64	2048	2048	0	65536	409600	8192
High-tech	Carrier	5	30	64	512	8192	8	65536	409600	8192
High-tech	Armor	4	30	8	2048	1024	0	32768	204800	4096
High-tech	Mech. inf.	4	30	8	1024	1024	0	16384	102400	2048
High-tech	Howitzer	4	60	8	4096	512	0	32768	204800	4096
High-tech	Paratroopers	4	30	8	1024	512	0	8192	51200	1024
High-tech	Helicopter	5	15	16	2048	512	0	16384	102400	2048
High-tech	Bomber	5	15	16	4096	256	0	16384	102400	2048
High-tech	AWACS	8	15	16	32	1024	0	32768	204800	4096
High-tech	Nuclear	4	15	16	16384	32	0	65536	409600	8192
High-tech	Cruise missile	4	15	16	4096	32	0	16384	102400	2048
Space	Stealth bomber	8	15	16	4096	1024	0	65536	409600	8192
Space	Stealth fighter	8	15	16	4096	2048	0	131072	819200	16384

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