How long can you use the eagle warrior's ability to capture enemies and turning into builders?

[mballesteros]

So we know that this ability will not work on barbarians, and it is a great incentive to go for early wars. It can really boost the Aztec's early game by using those builders to speed up the construction of districts. You can exploit this and construct two things at the same time: the district (with the builder), and another thing (for example more units) with the regular city output (you have to keep switching production every turn!). The question is: HOW LONG CAN YOU DO THIS? DO EAGLE WARRIORS LOOSE THIS ABILITY AFTER A CERTAIN ERA? DO THEY KEEP IT WHEN YOU UPGRADE THEM TO SWORDSMEN? Thank you!

[Roarak]

Eagle Warriors lose the ability to do this after upgrading to Swordsmen, so you might want to keep a few around after you gets swords, and unlike Civ 5 Warriors can still hold their own until muskets come along, Eagle Warriors even more so.

[AnneFrankFanfiction]

Originally posted by WTFohitsyou:

Eagle Warriors lose the ability to do this after upgrading to Swordsmen, so you might want to keep a few around after you gets swords, and unlike Civ 5 Warriors can still hold their own until muskets come along, Eagle Warriors even more so.

Especially since Aztecs get a combat bonus for luxury items. Between that and promotions, the other civ would have to have some kind of combat edge of their own (Like Roosevelt's special ability) for their swords to be able to handily beat your Eagles.

[Rhudda]

Rough calculation: If you manage to get all luxury resources (+16), give them battlecry (+7) (are there other promotions that simply buff strength?), and make them an army (+17), Eagle Warriors reach a strength of 68, only two lower than infantry. This is very situational, as you probably won't have access to all luxuries and it takes a long, long while to get armies, but theoretically you could use Eagle Warriors until late into the game.

[Shirome Artiste]

Realistically you can safely use eagle warriors until you're a good chunk into the renaissance era. At that point too many units start outperforming your warriors to let them truly shine, but even then you can sneak in a quick steal here and there.

Although with the current AI not upgrading their armies you can basically use eagle warriors the whole game, plenty of archers and stock warriors to smack around.

[HeLLfire]

This is actually something i was missing from CIV 5. There's no way special units can be upgraded and keep their bonuses anymore...sigh.

[AnneFrankFanfiction]

Originally posted by Hagrid in a Hobbit Hole:

Rough calculation: If you manage to get all luxury resources (+16), give them battlecry (+7) (are there other promotions that simply buff strength?), and make them an army (+17), Eagle Warriors reach a strength of 68, only two lower than infantry. This is very situational, as you probably won't have access to all luxuries and it takes a long, long while to get armies, but theoretically you could use Eagle Warriors until late into the game.

And if anyone really wants to try that, by all means take screenshots.

But realistically, I'd say this means you should be fine for ganking an AI's swordsmen with your veteran Eagles.

[mballesteros]

Thank you for the comments! very useful! I'm keeping a couple of veteran eagle warriors just for fun, and use them to finish very weak enemy units.

[BoydofZINJ]

In my game, I entered the futuretech era in the late 1800s... and had modern armor, mechanized infantry, and attack helicopters roaming my lands. For the random barbarian spawns... they never got above Pikeman, but they also always spanwed a regular ancient recon unit too. On riots, the rioters used the most advance gear around them... so they came up as mechanized infantry and rocket arties.