SavingHawaii
Chieftain
- Joined
- Jan 28, 2010
- Messages
- 13
Types of Military Units
There are four basic types of military units:
Types of Battlefields
There are five types of battlefields:
Preparing Your Army – Working as a Team
This is where things start to become complicated. It is extremely important to know the strengths of your own civilization and who your enemies are. Many players buy a few legions, a few spearmen, a few cavalry, a few archers; a little bit of everything. That's a very bad way to do things. Imagine that we had a 5-member civilization and were preparing for a battle on a coastal battlefield. Each player in the civilization has bought 5 legions, 5 swordsmen, 5 archers, 5 horsemen, 5 cavalry, and 5 galleys.
This is how you might end up filling your slots on a coastal battlefield:
Suppose instead that the members of your civilization focus on creating just a few specific units in their own personal army. Player 1 just creates 25 legions, player 2 just creates 25 swordsmen, player 3 just creates 25 archers, player 4 just creates 25 cavalry, and player 5 just creates 25 galleys. With this teamwork, here's what your battlefield will look like:
A strong civilization is one whose members focus on excelling in specific military roles. If you have a huge army but can't bring half of it into your battles, you're not going to win. Work with your civilization so that each member is focused on filling a specific slot on the battlefield. You don't need to fill every single unit slot on a battlefield, but you do want to make sure that every available unit is involved in the fight. The Defense Minister plays a very important role during battles in ensuring that unit slots are being filled properly. If a player is wasting a crucial melee slot with his 2 spearmen and blocking the entry of another player's stack of 50 legions onto the battlefield, the Defense Minister should order the retreat of those two spearmen so that a much more valuable stack of legions can join the battle.
Preparing Your Army – Know Thine Enemy
It can be daunting looking at the world screen and knowing that your rival fields a tremendous army. Relax. You can defeat them on the field of battle if your civilization works together as a team. Let's illustrate how this can be done using an example: My civilization wants to attacks our only rival in our current game.
Here's what their army looks like:
And here's ours:
Because we're attacking, the action will go down on a plains battlefield. That means three stacks of melee, 6 stacks of mobile, and 2 stacks of ranged units. 94 spearmen (188 defense), 75 phalanx (300 defense), 73 archers (146 defense), 82 horsemen (82 defense), and 22 cavalry (44 defense). With those units alone we're looking at a total possible defense of 760. But, they can't actually field that entire defending army at once. Most of their players only have a handful of each and every single unit. On an actual plains battlefield, they could at best field: 20 phalanx (80 defense), 14 archers (28 defense), 15 cavalry (30 defense), and 16 horsemen (16 defense). That's their best possible defense, for a total of only 154 defense. Not very good. On our side, we can put onto this battlefield 50 legions (200 attack), 60 man-at-arms (180 attack), 53 longbows (53 attack), 26 cavalry (52 attack), and 27 horsemen (27 attack). That's a total of 512 attack points versus only 154 defense, a crushing advantage.
When preparing for battles, it's important to know where they will be fought and who they will be fought against. Scope out your rivals. Identify who you're likely going to be struggling against. What sort of battlefield will you be fighting on if you attack them? What sort of battlefield will you be fighting on if anybody attacks your civilization? For both offense and defense, build an army that complements what the rest of the players in your civilization have. If you know that you're probably going to be fighting battles on the plains and that a couple other players already have large stacks of melee units, create mobile units so that you can dominate on the flanks of the battlefield as well. Don't waste your production creating a fourth stack of melee units that won't be able to join the fight because there are only three melee slots on a plains battlefield. As has been reiterated again and again, teamwork is essential to victory in this game.
There are four basic types of military units:
- Melee
- Ranged
- Mobile
- Naval
Types of Battlefields
There are five types of battlefields:
- Grassland
- Mountains
- Plains
- Coastal
- Forest
Preparing Your Army – Working as a Team
This is where things start to become complicated. It is extremely important to know the strengths of your own civilization and who your enemies are. Many players buy a few legions, a few spearmen, a few cavalry, a few archers; a little bit of everything. That's a very bad way to do things. Imagine that we had a 5-member civilization and were preparing for a battle on a coastal battlefield. Each player in the civilization has bought 5 legions, 5 swordsmen, 5 archers, 5 horsemen, 5 cavalry, and 5 galleys.
This is how you might end up filling your slots on a coastal battlefield:
- Melee: 5 Legions (Player 1)
- Melee: 5 Legions (Player 2)
- Melee: 5 Legions (Player 3)
- Melee: 5 Swordsmen (Player 1)
- Melee: 5 Swordsmen (Player 2)
- Ranged: 5 Archers (Player 1)
- Ranged: 5 Archers (Player 2)
- Ranged: 5 Archers (Player 3)
- Ranged: 5 Archers (Player 4)
- Mobile: 5 Cavalry (Player 1)
- Mobile: 5 Horsemen (Player 1)
- Naval: 5 Galleys (Player 1)
- Naval: 5 Galleys (Player 2)
Suppose instead that the members of your civilization focus on creating just a few specific units in their own personal army. Player 1 just creates 25 legions, player 2 just creates 25 swordsmen, player 3 just creates 25 archers, player 4 just creates 25 cavalry, and player 5 just creates 25 galleys. With this teamwork, here's what your battlefield will look like:
- Melee: 25 Legions (Player 1)
- Melee: 25 Swordsmen (Player 2)
- Melee: Empty
- Melee: Empty
- Melee: Empty
- Ranged: 25 Archers (Player 3)
- Ranged: Empty
- Ranged: Empty
- Ranged: Empty
- Mobile: 25 Cavalry (Player 4)
- Mobile: Empty
- Naval: 25 Galleys (Player 5)
- Naval: Empty
A strong civilization is one whose members focus on excelling in specific military roles. If you have a huge army but can't bring half of it into your battles, you're not going to win. Work with your civilization so that each member is focused on filling a specific slot on the battlefield. You don't need to fill every single unit slot on a battlefield, but you do want to make sure that every available unit is involved in the fight. The Defense Minister plays a very important role during battles in ensuring that unit slots are being filled properly. If a player is wasting a crucial melee slot with his 2 spearmen and blocking the entry of another player's stack of 50 legions onto the battlefield, the Defense Minister should order the retreat of those two spearmen so that a much more valuable stack of legions can join the battle.
Preparing Your Army – Know Thine Enemy
It can be daunting looking at the world screen and knowing that your rival fields a tremendous army. Relax. You can defeat them on the field of battle if your civilization works together as a team. Let's illustrate how this can be done using an example: My civilization wants to attacks our only rival in our current game.
Here's what their army looks like:
And here's ours:
Because we're attacking, the action will go down on a plains battlefield. That means three stacks of melee, 6 stacks of mobile, and 2 stacks of ranged units. 94 spearmen (188 defense), 75 phalanx (300 defense), 73 archers (146 defense), 82 horsemen (82 defense), and 22 cavalry (44 defense). With those units alone we're looking at a total possible defense of 760. But, they can't actually field that entire defending army at once. Most of their players only have a handful of each and every single unit. On an actual plains battlefield, they could at best field: 20 phalanx (80 defense), 14 archers (28 defense), 15 cavalry (30 defense), and 16 horsemen (16 defense). That's their best possible defense, for a total of only 154 defense. Not very good. On our side, we can put onto this battlefield 50 legions (200 attack), 60 man-at-arms (180 attack), 53 longbows (53 attack), 26 cavalry (52 attack), and 27 horsemen (27 attack). That's a total of 512 attack points versus only 154 defense, a crushing advantage.
When preparing for battles, it's important to know where they will be fought and who they will be fought against. Scope out your rivals. Identify who you're likely going to be struggling against. What sort of battlefield will you be fighting on if you attack them? What sort of battlefield will you be fighting on if anybody attacks your civilization? For both offense and defense, build an army that complements what the rest of the players in your civilization have. If you know that you're probably going to be fighting battles on the plains and that a couple other players already have large stacks of melee units, create mobile units so that you can dominate on the flanks of the battlefield as well. Don't waste your production creating a fourth stack of melee units that won't be able to join the fight because there are only three melee slots on a plains battlefield. As has been reiterated again and again, teamwork is essential to victory in this game.