I’m noticing that we can’t queue upgrades that are dependent even though they are available immediately after the dependent upgrade is complete. It would add to the game to be able to queue these technologically dependent upgrades, if the resources are available and you’re in the right age (with any dependent buildings built), in the queue as any other upgrade. I don’t mean to say upgrades that aren’t available yet. I mean the upgrades that are hidden because you haven’t research their previous dependency. As a player we have to keep clicking the building and checking the progress before upgrading. This would help militia be more prevalent and also help the cannon galley line. What say you?
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If anyone is wondering what could happen if you cancel a tech being reserched with dependents on the line, the game just needs to check if what’s on the line shouldn’t e there and remove/refund it all. I’m sure this is possible from a techinal point of view.
Swordsmen are different enough physically from each other than you likely won’t forget to research their upgrades.
Not happening anymore in DE thanks to the global queue.
It would barely change anything, and it wouldn’t do as much as say, Supplies/Malian pierce armor did.
And if its only applicable to research that are unlocked in the same age, it would affect:
Cannon Galleon (Chemistry, Cannon Galleon, Elite)
Bombard Towers (Chemistry, Bombard Tower)
Swordsmen (2H swordsman, Champion)
Knights (Cavalier, Paladin)
Indian Camels (Heavy, Imperial)
Rams (Capped, Siege)
Mangonels ( Onager, Siege.O)
That’s only 7 units (1 being applicable to 1 civ/35), all in Imperial age, and often your civ will lack them (besides Champion and maybe Siege ram) Also, let’s be real, if you plan to use one of these “super-units”, pick your civ accordingly, you’re not going to forget about them. All you have to do is look at the progress bar in the global queue, once it’s about to be finished you hit your building hotkey, and then you click once it appears half a second later. Furthermore, it might end up being a detriment, because you could then just mindlessly click 2H+Champion at once, then the enemy attack and you have to come back to your building and cancel Champions before being able to produce reinforcements. Also, did I mention the fact that all those upgrades are super expensive and you likely won’t be able to afford them at once?
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You make some valid points. It sounds like you play a lot of 1vs1. I was actually thinking this sort of change would be most helpful in team games as a quality of life improvement. I don’t think it would have as large of an effect as a balance change.
The way it often ends up for me is that (in team game) I neglect the militia line and if I see an opportunity to drop a bunch of champs in somebody’s base then I’ll do the upgrades. It comes up a lot in team islands when I see the opponent has already made pikes and would be vulnerable to a few transports with champions. In 3vs3 & 4vs4 you do get enough resources to do all the upgrades at once. I had 15k food and 5k gold when I started my champ upgrades and did the transport drop in the game that I played before I wrote this post. And that’s why I thought of it because the opponents were coming with a few canon galleys at the time and I kept going back to micro my champ upgrades 
And you’re right, the Paladin line and a number of other lines could use the same logic. The Militia line takes 4 though so it gets to be a lot of back and forth.
I guess the situation I’m saying this would be nice for is when you want to schedule all the upgrades suddenly when you realized it’s worth it… and get back to microing the battles that are going on at the same time
I don’t think this will do anything to improve the Militia line, unfortunately. Even with the new Supplies tech, swordsmen as the bulk of an army has the potent weakness of taking too long to upgrade and mass before it can do effective damage in comparison to archers and knights. Massed swordsmen are amazing for building destruction. 20 Long Swordsmen with Chain Mail Armor and Arson demolish fully garrisoned TC’s. But stone walls utterly shut down infantry attacks, even with Arson, giving the opponent enough time to make knights or archers or UU to soft counter infantry. And that’s assuming the opponent doesn’t have some military already because you’'re so slow. Siege Towers could be an option, but they’re far too expensive and vulnerable to a rewall. Same with Petards.
Now, stone walls shut down archers and knights too. But archers still have their range, and knights still have their mobility. Swordsmen don’t have so much to contribute against a stalled base push like archers and knights do.
If there is a bulk swordsmen build that can compete with the standard archer and cavalry builds, I’d love to find it. Too bad there isn’t one yet, because it’s silly for a cavalry civ to have success with using mostly cavalry, an archer civ to have success with using mostly archers, but infantry civs should use anything but swordsmen except in Feudal and late Imperial. But I’ll keep looking.
It really seems to bother you, so I’m gonna check something: do you know that clicking on the improvement’s icon in the global queue will lead you to the building where it’s being researched?
Then what about rams? After all if they get their bonus damage/speed only when you garrison infantry that’s for a good reason.
I’ve noticed TheMax likes to do mass infantry as Celts. Slavs can do that as well, and of course Malian. And Goths, if you feel like having a challenge.
Okay, i’m kinda noob, but I think that infantey is useful. Yeah, they have less mobility than knight, yet but you can mix it with pikes/monks agains knights, or skirms/onager against archers. Plus, I think the point of infantry is always flooding : it’s easier to defend from knights/archers than from militia line.
And I gonna ads burmese to your list. Burmese inf + elephants it’s an unstoppable combo (yet expensive, I know)