As I recall units were downgraded when they lost in combat until they became a free colonist or whatever specialty they held before fighting. I just downloaded onto my new laptop and the combat doesn't work that way. Almost every combat ends with the unit just disappearing, not being downgraded. Any thoughts?

It depends on the conditions of battle. Some units may be overpowered and killed, some may be captured, some may be downgraded to petty criminals.

It works as you describe in your memory. Certain units react in different ways...

Ships - Can be damaged and sent to port or sunk
Cannon - Damaged first, then destroyed, no chance for repair
Dragoons (mounted braves)- Defeat makes them Soldiers
Soldiers (armed braves)- Defeat makes them colonists
Colonists - Defeat results in their capture
Braves - Eliminated on defeat
Scouts - Defeat makes the colonists

No other results I can recall. Units never simply disappear unless you are talking REF, and then theres all kinds of new scenarios, but I am taking the liberty of assuming you are not talking about that.

Now that i just said that, the other instance is actually Indian raids. If you have an armed colonist they can eliminate him outright in some circumstances. If you have no wall, cannon, armed soldier, etc.

REF? I'm not familiar with the term.

I'm having dragoons disappear after losing a fight...but not every time. And it goes both ways, both the computer's and my units are being destroyed.

Royal Expeditionary Force, the end game invasion.

Assuming two dragoons facing each other in combat with no other considerations, they should each be taking the step down. Even with a bunch of other factors that should be happening. The only case it does not is during REF landing when they will eliminate units to do so.

Are you sure you are not stacked and simply missing a unit downgrade? And just to be sure, you are using the GOG version correct, not the new Civ4 Colo in which what you describe does happen.

No not stacked or REF and yes I'm using the GOG version. Started a new game and it was fixed. I think it was just a bug. Sucks to as I was raising a great little colony. Ah well. Seems to be fixed though. Odd. Thanks for the attempts to help.

The random number goddess is a fickle mistress.

I had this problem as well. Starting a new game and restarting my computer (Mac) didn't solve it. However, I was able to resolve it by deleting the .SAV files (and of course starting a new game since my old ones were deleted).

Also, the unit disappearance seemed to only affect the attacker when they would lose. It affect all types of units as far as I could tell.

I'm having the same issue. Units such as dragoons will die off if they lose an attack. It will fail to display the unit routed message as well. The unit disintegrates with a similar effect to artillery deaths.

I did see this happen once in my current game. I was capturing a bunch of French dragoons who'd foolishly decided to attack one of my colonies.

By this time the French units were degraded to "colonist" level (dragoon loses -> becomes Soldier. Soldier loses -> becomes Colonist).

I attacked one colonist with the Dragoons in my colony. Captured him. I attacked the other with the Artillery in my colony: the French colonist disappeared. Pity, as he was a Master Sugar Planter.

Perhaps attacking a Colonist with Artillery kills the Colonist? This would be worth knowing when you're trying to make defeated enemies your own.

But it definitely wasn't Dragoons disappearing immediately, as described by the OP.

My recollection was the game would not allow you to capture trained colonists in the field. They always reverted to free colonists unless you took them in the colony. Been a while though...

Does seem abnormal. I think I vaguely recall indians getting muskets and horses if they defeat you. Or am I just imaging that? Gee, wonder whether I should try my older versions on dosbox. I remember there were later patches that allowed map design and cheat menus, used to be crazy about it in early 2000s.

Thats true about the braves. If they defeat Dragoons/Muskets, they will upgrade with whichever.

Cheat and edit menu are also available. Just type ALT+W I N.

Have seen the same bug in several different games with dragoon vs dragoon.
Both AIs and my dragoons sometimes just disappear with no msg if losing.

Are there any fixes for this? I've started getting this bug and now it won't go away. Deleting saves or reinstalling doesn't seem to help, still happens in the next game.