Giving bathhouse and altar of the war god buff a retroactive effect

[loud crystal]

Hi there ! When playing the game i found out that those buff given to any recruited unit after owning specific building weren't retroactive. While not that much of a problem since the bonus are small, i would love a mechanic to give them to already recruited unit.

For my idea i will take for exemple what does another game named Heroe's Hour : when you unlock some feature for new recruited heroes, the one that are already recruited can benefit from those by going into the city that unlocked them. We could do exactly the same here : unit that haven't the bathouse or wargod buff can obtain them by going into owned cities that have them. It could also benefit summon that are spawned inside a city.

That's all for me, thanks for reading and have a nice day

[whole basin]

I agree it’s frustrating that you feel like you have to get it early so all your units to benefit from it. However, a retroactive benefit wouldn’t be in line with how other buildings work. You don’t get +10 gold for every turn before you build a market, for example. And for the armory line, it wouldn’t make sense to give retroactive promotions to T1s in the field.

[placid yew]

I dunno, it seems pretty standard in these kind of games for upgrades to be retroactive and income not being retroactive. I don't think that's a discrepancy.

The biggest issue with the buildings being retroactive though, is that you could build a bunch of them and stack the bonuses to a ridiculous amount.

I think Bathhouses are fine the way they are since the XP can be seen as more of a catch-up bonus. The Wargod buff kind of bugs me because I don't usually get that until I'm kinda close to winning the game already. I'd honestly just rather see it repurposed to something else.

[whole basin]

I’m sure there are games that give retro upgrades, but I’m blanking on those right now. I can think of the barracks and other wonders from civ not being retroactive, and the ship xp bonuses from stellaris not being either. It would require recording a unit’s origin city, and would raise the question of whether or not a unit loses its bonuses if its origin city is razed. I agree it would feel nicer to not have units missing out on an upgrade, but the alternative is having a widespread power boost at turn 70 that’s disproportionately better than completing other buildings

[loud crystal]

not obligatory. you could applied the buff when the unit came back to city. You just have to check the garrisoned unit and if they have the buff (only if the city can provide it)