Legions - How to use them

Ok, I already know many players don't like legions, but in this thread I will explain why they are one of the best unit until the industrial era.

Knights cost 25 hammers. An army is 75 hammers. They got 12 attack, 6 defence and 2 movement.

Catapults cost 20 hammers. An army is 60 hammers. They got 12 attack, 3 defence, 1 movement.

Legions cost 10 hammers. An army is 30 hammers, They goy 6 attack, defence and 1 movement.

2 Legions armies become 60 hammers, 12 attack, 6 defence, 1 movement. You still get 15 hammers to use, and they got the same attack and defence of knights. Not only this. You only need 30 beakers to research iron working plus other 20 for bronze working. Feudalism is 150 and monarchy is 120. In the worst case, where you have few forests, 150 + 120 = 270 beakers, that could be 270 gold, then 135 hammers. It's 4 legions armies and half. If you can use forests, then it's 9 legions armies.

-Another good thing is that 2 armies have two times the probabilities of one unit. I mean, the attack and defence is the same, but while a knight army could lose the first battle, the first legion army could damage the army, while the second could win if the army is wounded, and you could get another upgrade. 3 legions armies usually beat 1 archer army, but 2 veteran armies could be enough.

-If the enemy keeps rushing units, 1 army can't beat more than one unit, the knight army. If you have 2 legions armies, you can beat 2 units per turn if you got enough attack to beat the defence, that means you will overwhelm them. If there is a counter, you have 1/2 defence but can defend 2 times, then you could counter them the next turn before they die (or you can sell them).

-If enemies are attacking you, and you need counters, knights cost 25 hammers - 75 gold in medieval. A legion army cost 30, 10 hammers per unit, and it's really easy to bank enough hammers and rush them everywhere. Then, it's easier to build counters if you choose legions, while knight's would be too hard to build fast. And let's say you lose these production cities.. You can't produce knights fast enough to stop the enemy, while legions only cost 10 hammers, and if you got 3 population and 2 trees, 2 turns is enough to build them.

-The last advantage probrably, but maybe the best. Legions usually work better with legions. Instead of choosing monarchy - feudalism you can choose maths - navigation and use galleons. A veteran galleon could be enough, adding +1 to all legions.
Let's talk about how this bonus is useful:

1) 10 knights armies, let's say they are veteran. 18 attack - 9 defence
Add a galleon and it's 19-9, then all them means 190 attack - 90 defence

2) 25 legions armies. 9 attack - 4,5 defence. With the galleon it becomes 10-5.5
250 attack - 138 defence.

Hey, that's the same price but, there is almost a x1.4 attack/defence bonus. That's great, isn't it? And that's easier to build legions. Galleons can also let legions move faster, and you can give the enemy a real problem. If you move 2-3 legions armies per city, then, the enemy wouldn't know where to defend, while knights are less armies. Obviously, archers can help legions, and you should use them to make sure they can't overrun your legions. Then, let's say you build a veteran galleon fleet, meaning +4 (or +5, but I think the developers preferred 4). You would use that attack - defence bonus getting + 100 attack and + 100 defence for the legions, while knights would get 40 attack - 40 defence.

Then, why not building legions? You can build them with ease, you can build a lot of legions armies, and, you can also use religion. Then you can apply the same thing. Legions would get x1.50 attack then knights if you count all them, and if you count the price.

Hoping that helps.

I recall similar threads from the early days of Civ 4. The huge flaw in the reasoning is that unit attack and defense strengths do not add. A single Modern Infantry army will defeat an infinite number of Legions, particularly if it's fortified and behind city walls. The AI uses similar logic, which is why a single Catapult army can usually defeat an AI's entire military on Deity. It goes bananas with Legions when it has Catapult or Knight tech available.

At 1:2 odds, defeat is extremely likely, with no damage to your target. At 1:1 it's a 50% coin toss. At 2:1, you will usually win, but there's still a danger of attrition. At 3:1 you never lose.

When you're attacking cities, you can expect 2-3 fortified archer armies. That's 12 defense, even if you're not attacking a capitol. Basic legions will simply die to no purpose. You need Fundamentalism and Veteran just to get 1:1, and you will lose 2-3 Legion armies taking the typical city. Veteran, Fundamentalist Catapults get 1.8:1. You will fight half as many battles, won't give the defenders upgrades to Veteran, and will lose far, far less material taking the city.

If you're comparing to Knights adding Galleons, it's even worse, because the defenders are almost certainly Veteran Pikeman armies, defense 27. A Fundamentalist, Veteran Legion with Galleon support can only manage 19 attack, for 1:1.4 odds. Honestly, I don't have a lot of experience attacking at such poor odds, but I suspect the casualty rate is 70%+, versus the ideal near-zero.

Knights have a harder-to-quantify advantage, which is mobility. A Knight army always gets the first attack against a Legion and Pikeman stack. It can also move adjacent, see a field army that is too large, and back away. That said, I rarely use them unless I'm playing Mongols, because an offensive war is much, much easier with modern technology (even on both sides), and Catapults can be a pretty good defense if you have a single defense point or a road network.

- Gus

Gus_Smedstad said:

I recall similar threads from the early days of Civ 4. The huge flaw in the reasoning is that unit attack and defense strengths do not add. A single Modern Infantry army will defeat an infinite number of Legions, particularly if it's fortified and behind city walls. The AI uses similar logic, which is why a single Catapult army can usually defeat an AI's entire military on Deity. It goes bananas with Legions when it has Catapult or Knight tech available.

At 1:2 odds, defeat is extremely likely, with no damage to your target. At 1:1 it's a 50% coin toss. At 2:1, you will usually win, but there's still a danger of attrition. At 3:1 you never lose.

When you're attacking cities, you can expect 2-3 fortified archer armies. That's 12 defense, even if you're not attacking a capitol. Basic legions will simply die to no purpose. You need Fundamentalism and Veteran just to get 1:1, and you will lose 2-3 Legion armies taking the typical city. Veteran, Fundamentalist Catapults get 1.8:1. You will fight half as many battles, won't give the defenders upgrades to Veteran, and will lose far, far less material taking the city.

If you're comparing to Knights adding Galleons, it's even worse, because the defenders are almost certainly Veteran Pikeman armies, defense 27. A Fundamentalist, Veteran Legion with Galleon support can only manage 19 attack, for 1:1.4 odds. Honestly, I don't have a lot of experience attacking at such poor odds, but I suspect the casualty rate is 70%+, versus the ideal near-zero.

Knights have a harder-to-quantify advantage, which is mobility. A Knight army always gets the first attack against a Legion and Pikeman stack. It can also move adjacent, see a field army that is too large, and back away. That said, I rarely use them unless I'm playing Mongols, because an offensive war is much, much easier with modern technology (even on both sides), and Catapults can be a pretty good defense if you have a single defense point or a road network.

- Gus

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I am probrably going to use one of my cards:

I am ranked first in the head to head leaderboard and FFA leaderboard in x360. I have played more than 1500 games (and don't tell me "get a life, etc..", you can't understand if you say that - I don't play 2 hours game).

My reasoning is DIFFERENT than the AI, and leave me say, building 3 archer armies is newbish, 1 is probrably too much for good players (good players know, build defence only where you NEED). Only the AI is so silly to build so many units, and falls behind

Legions to modern infantry is non-sense. This happens before riflemen probrably (and you could still beat them).

You talked about Pikemen.. 22.5 defence.

Knights plus galleon fleet (vet.) = 4. That's 22 attack, then 1:1

2 legions armies:

13 attack + 13 = 26

The FIRST army could damage the pikemen and they could be wounded and have only 7.5 defence.

I have explained why legions are better than knights and only few times it's better to build catapults or knights. Why 1 army that could die, while 2 can do the same, but getting more probrabilities to get upgrades and winning? Isn't this enough?

PS: A veteran legion army with fundamentalism is 13.5 attack

The most important thing that helped me in CivRev was utilizing Legions and quick expansion. Nice guide Morte.

Argument from authority doesn't mean you're making your point. You could be dead wrong about this and still have an excellent record because there's more to winning the game than choosing legions or catapults.

I don't play in multiplayer games for a variety of reasons. My own experience is entirely single player on Deity versus the AI, and of course I'm describing what I've had to deal with personally. The AI does some foolish things - I rarely build much in the way of fixed defenses myself - but it has enough production advantages to offset this.

I see I made some casual errors in my figures earlier. The bonuses add, rather than multiply, so Veteran (+50%) and Fortified (+100%) is x2.5, not x3.

I used Legions and Modern Infantry to illustrate a principle. You can't simply add the attack strengths of two units when doing analysis. If you want to accurately compare 1 catapult vs. 2 legions, you have to compare the odds of each attack. This has been done to death with Civ 4 because we had the precise mechanics.

It's less clear what's going on in Civ Revolution, since we don't know what's under the hood. Simply asserting the single, stronger army might die is meaningless. We have to know the odds to do a fair comparison.

My personal experience is that low-odds attacks are ineffective. I don't make them, but the AI regularly throws away units against mine when the odds are 1:2 or worse, and my units typically aren't damaged afterward.

Comparing two 1:1 attacks versus a single 2:1 is tricky. I guess you gain experience at a higher rate, but you also lose units regularly, which is unusual with 2:1 attacks, and never happens with 3:1 attacks.

- GUs

Gus_Smedstad said:

Argument from authority doesn't mean you're making your point. You could be dead wrong about this and still have an excellent record because there's more to winning the game than choosing legions or catapults.

I don't play in multiplayer games for a variety of reasons. My own experience is entirely single player on Deity versus the AI, and of course I'm describing what I've had to deal with personally. The AI does some foolish things - I rarely build much in the way of fixed defenses myself - but it has enough production advantages to offset this.

I see I made some casual errors in my figures earlier. The bonuses add, rather than multiply, so Veteran (+50%) and Fortified (+100%) is x2.5, not x3.

I used Legions and Modern Infantry to illustrate a principle. You can't simply add the attack strengths of two units when doing analysis. If you want to accurately compare 1 catapult vs. 2 legions, you have to compare the odds of each attack. This has been done to death with Civ 4 because we had the precise mechanics.

It's less clear what's going on in Civ Revolution, since we don't know what's under the hood. Simply asserting the single, stronger army might die is meaningless. We have to know the odds to do a fair comparison.

My personal experience is that low-odds attacks are ineffective. I don't make them, but the AI regularly throws away units against mine when the odds are 1:2 or worse, and my units typically aren't damaged afterward.

Comparing two 1:1 attacks versus a single 2:1 is tricky. I guess you gain experience at a higher rate, but you also lose units regularly, which is unusual with 2:1 attacks, and never happens with 3:1 attacks.

- GUs

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I have played more than 1500 games, and now please, don't tell me "get a life" etc.. I won't explain how, when, etc.. You tell me losing 3:1 never happens. That's WRONG, that could happen. And, I explained this why legions are the best unit until the late industrial era. I'll explain again:

They are easier to build, and as counters you can build them everywhere without problems, while building a knight takes too long, you can't send hammers to other cities and gold isn't enough. It's better to have 1:1 * 2.5 than 2:1 * 1. Other than applying maths to this, you could lose the single knight army (perhaps) then you won't attack anymore, unless you got more. More armies you got, more probabilities you get against odds. Then, 2 knights armies are worse than 5 legions armies. One of these legions armies could get an upgrade and you wouldn't lose too much. Let's say in the worst case you lose 2 legions armies. That's 60 hammers. If you lose a knight army that's still 75.

Damage doesn't depend on the enemy attack or defence, unless it is low (but I'm not sure, it could still happen). Deity, as I said in a lot of posts in some forums and here, is like playing chieftain, at least for me, and I'm sure it could be the same for other players. In multiplayer, you could find the real Deity, the real challenge, and you could understand more about the game. Playing deity is not enough to gain experience, I'm sure about that. Legions works better, easier to build, you only need 50 beakers, and that's easier to overwhelm defences. Remember also about upgrading them with Leonardo's Workshop

I know that Morte's right ; 2 Legion armies or 1 catapult army vs pikeman army= legion win

pikeman army = 9 def (add veteran and 100% fortified and you have 22.5 defense against your troops)

1st legion army : 6 attack (let's make it 9 from veteran)
->say 9 vs 22.5 : "O no, I lost", but count in the Civrev mechanics and you have defeated at least 1/3 of your enemy = 15 defense left
°got lucky?
-->2/3 gone ; 7.5 left, second legion army wins.

Catapults : 12 attack, 18 when veteran.
->Pikes win, catapults dead = bai bai 60 hammers....




Now to go sieging tactics!
-2 Catapult armies / 4 legion armies

your enemy rushes a unit a turn, and starts with a pike army and a pikeman....
Catapult army 1 dies first turn, second army beats pike army : end of turn, and oh no, there comes the counter attack from another one of your 3 remaining foes = FAIL

°Send in the legions!
-> 4 armies means cutting of your enemies resourses (production slows, income for egyptians is diminished, ...) and lets you stand on roads to irritate your target.
1st turn : Legion 1 dies, second maybe as well, third succeeds, and 4rth finishes of your final pike : A job well done



Seems obvious to me!

Sn1p3rk1ll3 said:

I know that Morte's right ; 2 Legion armies or 1 catapult army vs pikeman army= legion win

pikeman army = 9 def (add veteran and 100% fortified and you have 22.5 defense against your troops)

1st legion army : 6 attack (let's make it 9 from veteran)
->say 9 vs 22.5 : "O no, I lost", but count in the Civrev mechanics and you have defeated at least 1/3 of your enemy = 15 defense left
°got lucky?
-->2/3 gone ; 7.5 left, second legion army wins.

Catapults : 12 attack, 18 when veteran.
->Pikes win, catapults dead = bai bai 60 hammers....




Now to go sieging tactics!
-2 Catapult armies / 4 legion armies

your enemy rushes a unit a turn, and starts with a pike army and a pikeman....
Catapult army 1 dies first turn, second army beats pike army : end of turn, and oh no, there comes the counter attack from another one of your 3 remaining foes = FAIL

°Send in the legions!
-> 4 armies means cutting of your enemies resourses (production slows, income for egyptians is diminished, ...) and lets you stand on roads to irritate your target.
1st turn : Legion 1 dies, second maybe as well, third succeeds, and 4rth finishes of your final pike : A job well done



Seems obvious to me!

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Finally

However, you should have all units veteran when attacking in the mid game.. And if the enemy has got vet units, you should have them, too, or it wouldn't be good math. I would add that catapults cost two times, getting half defence..

I know that Morte is a fan of Legions because I have read it in many of his threads, however I completely disagree with the mass production of Legion Armies as I think they are a waste of time and hammers.

I played a game with the Germans two nights ago where I spammed warrior armies out of two cities, one of which had a barracks. By the time I was out of the Ancient Era, I had 7 Elite Legion (Formerly Warrior) Armies camped outside of the Greek Capital each with at least two bonuses.

In the next turn my ELITE Legion armies were systematically sawn in half by the Greek Pikeman Army(ies) that were fortified there. Going on Morte's recommendation of strength in numbers, in my opinion, does not work. I lost all seven armies in one turn. And just to reiterate, they were all Elite, Veteran, Legion armies with at least two promotions. At least 5 of them had infiltration.

I don't care how many games you have played, or what you are ranked, or what the odds are, what I do know is that I watched all seven of those armies get there a$$ handed to them. It didn't work then and personally I won't bother wasting any more hammers on Legions.

REDAF said:

I know that Morte is a fan of Legions because I have read it in many of his threads, however I completely disagree with the mass production of Legion Armies as I think they are a waste of time and hammers.

I played a game with the Germans two nights ago where I spammed warrior armies out of two cities, one of which had a barracks. By the time I was out of the Ancient Era, I had 7 Elite Legion (Formerly Warrior) Armies camped outside of the Greek Capital each with at least two bonuses.

In the next turn my ELITE Legion armies were systematically sawn in half by the Greek Pikeman Army(ies) that were fortified there. Going on Morte's recommendation of strength in numbers, in my opinion, does not work. I lost all seven armies in one turn. And just to reiterate, they were all Elite, Veteran, Legion armies with at least two promotions. At least 5 of them had infiltration.

I don't care how many games you have played, or what you are ranked, or what the odds are, what I do know is that I watched all seven of those armies get there a$$ handed to them. It didn't work then and personally I won't bother wasting any more hammers on Legions.

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You disagree, but they are still the best unit to use, not depending on few cases like when playing Greeks/English. And you were Germans..You could have 7 elite knights armies. I've never had problems with them, nobody could stop all these legions, and unless pikemen got veteran upgrade plus walls and perhaps other bonuses, they are still better than knights or catapults

And, obviously, if you know your attack is too low, around 1/3, you should get fundamentalism at least, or use galleons. With all the improvemens around, with veteran legions you can still beat riflemen, if they are not with too many upgrades. And, it's easier to have all veteran legions veteran then the enemy having all cities with veteran units. Then, it's really easy to overwhelm defences.

May I suggest getting comfortable using legions as the Arabs?
-More chance of getting defenders down to 1/3

And remember the saying of a wise commy (Lenin or Stalin....) "Quantity is a quality of itself"

"Quantity has a quality all its own." There's quite a history behind that quote, but I think I'll stay on topic.

The problem I have with Morte's arguments is that there's no mathematical rigor to them. "More chances" doesn't mean much if the odds are poor, and he's completely neglecting the downsides, such as the amount of experience you're handing to the defense if you don't take the city in one turn, or the steady loss of units on your side.

I decided to play with Legions in my last couple of games. In each case, I beelined to Iron Working, and once I'd accumulated 100 gold from barbarian huts, I used that to pump out an early Legion horde.

My first result was quite positive, but atypical I think. As English I discovered Pharoah's Needle quite early, and got Religion. Fundamentalism plus Legions meant I quickly overran the Romans and Germans, though both were about 10 tiles away, which is a fair trip for a speed-1 unit. That initial boost was enough to win the game for me, though my rush stalled after that since I encountered the Aztecs (who are nearly immune to massed 1:1 attacks) and the French discovered Gunpowder. I took a shot at the French anyway with the Legions, but even with Fundamentalism and Galleon support I lost my entire legion military to a couple of Riflemen armies.

One thing I did get out of this game is that Legions have the advantage that you can get Iron Working much, much earlier than Mathematics. You have to sacrifice much of your future tech growth to do it, since you can't afford Alphabet and that initial rushed Library, but you can do it.

My second try showed what a crapshoot this approach is. I was playing Russians, and attacked the nearby Mongols with 5 Legion armies. I lost all of them to a single Archer army. The problem was that he rapidly upgraded to Veteran and then Leadership, and I simply did not do any permanent damage. I'd essentially thrown away the game on the results of that first die roll. If you win you're in good shape, but if you lose the defense rapidly escalates to invulnerable.

Currently, my impression is that Legions can be powerful in the early game if you have a boost of some kind. Which means either the Arabs, or building Trajan's Column through a Great Builder or the Angkor Wat artifact, or gaining Religion through Pharaoh's Needle.

- Gus

Gus_Smedstad said:

"Quantity has a quality all its own." There's quite a history behind that quote, but I think I'll stay on topic.

The problem I have with Morte's arguments is that there's no mathematical rigor to them. "More chances" doesn't mean much if the odds are poor, and he's completely neglecting the downsides, such as the amount of experience you're handing to the defense if you don't take the city in one turn, or the steady loss of units on your side.

I decided to play with Legions in my last couple of games. In each case, I beelined to Iron Working, and once I'd accumulated 100 gold from barbarian huts, I used that to pump out an early Legion horde.

My first result was quite positive, but atypical I think. As English I discovered Pharoah's Needle quite early, and got Religion. Fundamentalism plus Legions meant I quickly overran the Romans and Germans, though both were about 10 tiles away, which is a fair trip for a speed-1 unit. That initial boost was enough to win the game for me, though my rush stalled after that since I encountered the Aztecs (who are nearly immune to massed 1:1 attacks) and the French discovered Gunpowder. I took a shot at the French anyway with the Legions, but even with Fundamentalism and Galleon support I lost my entire legion military to a couple of Riflemen armies.

One thing I did get out of this game is that Legions have the advantage that you can get Iron Working much, much earlier than Mathematics. You have to sacrifice much of your future tech growth to do it, since you can't afford Alphabet and that initial rushed Library, but you can do it.

My second try showed what a crapshoot this approach is. I was playing Russians, and attacked the nearby Mongols with 5 Legion armies. I lost all of them to a single Archer army. The problem was that he rapidly upgraded to Veteran and then Leadership, and I simply did not do any permanent damage. I'd essentially thrown away the game on the results of that first die roll. If you win you're in good shape, but if you lose the defense rapidly escalates to invulnerable.

Currently, my impression is that Legions can be powerful in the early game if you have a boost of some kind. Which means either the Arabs, or building Trajan's Column through a Great Builder or the Angkor Wat artifact, or gaining Religion through Pharaoh's Needle.

- Gus

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You still can't understand what I say, probrably. Legions are ok until late industrial era. That means until riflemen.. When you meet them, it becomes a problem, if it is the AI. Why? On deity it gets a 40% handicap, but it's so stupid.. You can overwhelm them with better units, and I know for sure that AI usually win more battles than a human player, BUT, better players know how to play at least 2 times better than the AI on deity. Getting the great leader is really hard and good players usually expand a lot and build defences only where needed. Building some barracks and moving units to have veteran armies defending is pretty stupid, too.. I would do that only if I need. And, about the rushed library, that won't give you a lead, that's only a waste. 2 settlers cost the same but you get more food, production and science, unless you have dye and fish.

Legions don't need boost, you have to know how to use them and when. They are still the best unit in the mid game and they can do a lot of things. Artifacts (SP) don't count, and I don't even know what these artifacts do (only know some). Most civs can do a great job with Legions, with some kind of help:

Arabs, Indians, Romans, Americans, French (not sure, but the 1/2 price roads could help), Aztecs (auto heal helps a lot), Germans, and I'm missing other civs probrably. If you meet too strong defences, obviously you should change units, but remember, you can still use Leonardo's Workshop. Romans can do that really easy, and with a good tech lead they can have tanks and bombers everywhere before 1000 AD

MorteEterna said:

You disagree, but they are still the best unit to use, not depending on few cases like when playing Greeks/English. And you were Germans..You could have 7 elite knights armies. I've never had problems with them, nobody could stop all these legions, and unless pikemen got veteran upgrade plus walls and perhaps other bonuses, they are still better than knights or catapults

And, obviously, if you know your attack is too low, around 1/3, you should get fundamentalism at least, or use galleons. With all the improvemens around, with veteran legions you can still beat riflemen, if they are not with too many upgrades. And, it's easier to have all veteran legions veteran then the enemy having all cities with veteran units. Then, it's really easy to overwhelm defences.

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Morte, you keep touting your Legion Horde, I hope it serves you well. For my own playstyle, I will take two catipult armies with an archer army over the Legions everyday of the week and twice on Sunday.The reason being, they win.

2 Catipult Armies are far better than 4, 5, 6, etc Legion Armies. I know Catipults cost more hammers, but you only need 1/2 to 1/3 the number of Armies to take the city so the overall hammer count is probably pretty close to even. Especially considering the attrition rate at which you must be losing armies in these battles. Two Catipult Armies will definately take down a city defended by Pikeman Armies and with the right bonuses would do fairly well against Rifleman. And the beauty of it is you don't have to re-build more armies because they didn't die.

I've built the Legions, I've seen them die.

I would rather go to war with overwhelming force and not waste my hammers by turning them into my opponents upgrades...

Have your tried using legions in a game?
-No, not offline, but online, where players do counterattacks.


I agree that catapults are superior offline (but the ai is bad, so that isn't comparable).
-Online, you want to choke your enemies, trust me

REDAF said:

Morte, you keep touting your Legion Horde, I hope it serves you well. For my own playstyle, I will take two catipult armies with an archer army over the Legions everyday of the week and twice on Sunday.The reason being, they win.

2 Catipult Armies are far better than 4, 5, 6, etc Legion Armies. I know Catipults cost more hammers, but you only need 1/2 to 1/3 the number of Armies to take the city so the overall hammer count is probably pretty close to even. Especially considering the attrition rate at which you must be losing armies in these battles. Two Catipult Armies will definately take down a city defended by Pikeman Armies and with the right bonuses would do fairly well against Rifleman. And the beauty of it is you don't have to re-build more armies because they didn't die.

I've built the Legions, I've seen them die.

I would rather go to war with overwhelming force and not waste my hammers by turning them into my opponents upgrades...

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I dont' think he was trying to say catapults are bad. They are difficult to use for some of the reasons you listed above. But saying 2 catapult armies are better than 5 or 6 legion armies, you are mistaken. I'll say 4 legion armies are worse than 2 cat armies, but no more than that.

Catapult armies have a base attack 12. They cost twice as many hammers. The only thing they have on the legion armies is that they autoheal, which is really nice.

But it takes forever to use catapults, and their window of effectiveness is decidedly smaller for attack. For counter attack they are nice, but it's hard to get a cat army in a lot of cities. They are great at repelling knights.

But you won't be able to get them every game, whereas you can always have legions for 30 beakers and 10 hammers a piece.

If you're saying 2 catapult armies are better than 5 legion armies, let's just say you attack a city that has an archer army in it, or maybe two. First attack, the archer army can kill half of your attacking force, since it'd be 12 vs 12. Catapult armies mimic the defense of archer armies, so it's a toss up. But if that first cat army dies, that's 60 hammers early in the game. You are going to lose legion armies, but usually it just takes 2 legion armies to take down an archer army, and 3 almost always does the job, or I would say 90% of the time. You just need some wounds, and then you kill them. If one legion army dies, it's a lot less painful. But I can't tell you how many times I've had someone beat me because I attack their city, I kill one archer army, they kill one of my catapult armies, and then they start defending with single units, till they can get another army from elsewhere.

Now if you hit them with 5 armies all in one turn, it gives them no chance to have more turns to replenish their defenses and defend w/ single units. If they have 3 units in the city, they can prevent 2 catapult armies from taking it over often time. 5 Legion armies will take down the 1 army plus single units, which is often the best you will see online.

Plus, it's easier to produce the single units of catapults from multiple places. The catapults often take a lot more turns because you're building up to higher numbers and few cities early in the game can produce them in a timely manner, whereas any city on the map, even w/ one forest and an unassigned worker can produce legions in just a few turns and then they can all meet up, no waiting to tech math, and go kill.

It's very effective, and before you knock it give it a shot. And if you knock it, and then try it and it works, don't still knock it saying you think it was atypical. If you don't prefer to use them because it's not your playstyle, that's fine, but everything Morte has written in his first post is sound IMO and experience.

Dude, I just get a big lead technologically, then mow everybody down with tanks and artillery, supported by my trademark battleships. I don't attack during the ancient era. I'm too smart for that. Well, unless it's Barbarians.

History buff33 said:

Dude, I just get a big lead technologically, then mow everybody down with tanks and artillery, supported by my trademark battleships. I don't attack during the ancient era. I'm too smart for that. Well, unless it's Barbarians.

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then you have outsmarted yourself

there are lots of strats for rushing early and it's way more powerful to take a city early than it is not to, unless you get a lot of gold and expansion is too attractive to consider rushing.

Yes, of course you can turtle and beat the AI everytime, and if you perfer to enjoy yourself that way on SP, then have at it. But you'd get smoked online. People are coming to kill you, and if you don't kill them first, you better have a way to stop them. Of course I don't rush every game, a lot of civs don't have great bonuses to rush right away, but for those who do, it's almost always benefical to try to pick up some early caps.

And legion rushing really isn't an exclusive ancient era attack, in fact, it's usually in the medieval when they are used. They are effective anytime before the other guys get pikemen, as a few armies can easily take down archer armies.

And, you've missed half of the point of the thread. Legions are an exceptionally cheap way to counter attack. Two legion armies will take down a knight army coming your way pretty much everytime. They will kill horsemen with ease.

The AI is ******ed when it comes to attacking others, so of course you can sit back and easily figure out a way to get to tanks. If that's all you want to do, then fine, it works most of the time. But, if you want to actually use more than a few units, and try to become a better player, then it's nice to know that there is a cheap and fast alternative than waiting for an hour to let your attack percolate.

If you only want to turle up to tanks, I'll write you up a thread that's about 4 paragraphs long, and you won't need any other threads here.

Sorry for the prickish tone, didn't really mean for it to come out that way, but I guess it did. lol. I guess I geek out way too much about this game, no turning back now

GGrayson said:

I dont' think he was trying to say catapults are bad. They are difficult to use for some of the reasons you listed above. But saying 2 catapult armies are better than 5 or 6 legion armies, you are mistaken. I'll say 4 legion armies are worse than 2 cat armies, but no more than that.

Catapult armies have a base attack 12. They cost twice as many hammers. The only thing they have on the legion armies is that they autoheal, which is really nice.

But it takes forever to use catapults, and their window of effectiveness is decidedly smaller for attack. For counter attack they are nice, but it's hard to get a cat army in a lot of cities. They are great at repelling knights.

But you won't be able to get them every game, whereas you can always have legions for 30 beakers and 10 hammers a piece.

If you're saying 2 catapult armies are better than 5 legion armies, let's just say you attack a city that has an archer army in it, or maybe two. First attack, the archer army can kill half of your attacking force, since it'd be 12 vs 12. Catapult armies mimic the defense of archer armies, so it's a toss up. But if that first cat army dies, that's 60 hammers early in the game. You are going to lose legion armies, but usually it just takes 2 legion armies to take down an archer army, and 3 almost always does the job, or I would say 90% of the time. You just need some wounds, and then you kill them. If one legion army dies, it's a lot less painful. But I can't tell you how many times I've had someone beat me because I attack their city, I kill one archer army, they kill one of my catapult armies, and then they start defending with single units, till they can get another army from elsewhere.

Now if you hit them with 5 armies all in one turn, it gives them no chance to have more turns to replenish their defenses and defend w/ single units. If they have 3 units in the city, they can prevent 2 catapult armies from taking it over often time. 5 Legion armies will take down the 1 army plus single units, which is often the best you will see online.

Plus, it's easier to produce the single units of catapults from multiple places. The catapults often take a lot more turns because you're building up to higher numbers and few cities early in the game can produce them in a timely manner, whereas any city on the map, even w/ one forest and an unassigned worker can produce legions in just a few turns and then they can all meet up, no waiting to tech math, and go kill.

It's very effective, and before you knock it give it a shot. And if you knock it, and then try it and it works, don't still knock it saying you think it was atypical. If you don't prefer to use them because it's not your playstyle, that's fine, but everything Morte has written in his first post is sound IMO and experience.

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GGRAYSON
I agree with most of your points and will conceed that Legions are an early and cheap means of attacking and counterattacking. However, I still disagree with using them en masse and feel that they become so useless, so early that I skip them entirely.

By the time you have built 6 Legion Armies you have spent 180 hammers. (220 if you built a barracks to go with them.) All to take them to war and lose half of them to take a city? In order to continue your attack, you now have to spend more hammers (90?) to replace the armies you lost weakening your opponents defences.

Seems better to me to use those 180 hammers on 3 libraries and 1 market. Which will allow you to tech Mathmatics that much quicker and backfill Iron Working. I have built the Legions, and have had very minimal success. Which is why I go for building upgrades over Legions and don't believe them to be as strong as they are touted here in this thread.

I never said that you should never use catapults (I use them as well), but legions won me quite some games!