Behaviour of mixed Armies?

The AI appears to be perfectly happy to have any old mix of troops in its Armies; I've seen a Cav-Inf-Tank Army for instance. Now, an obvious drawback is that the army moves at the speed of the slowest unit inside. But how does it work in combat - will it always use the best available attack/defense value?

If yes, a few of combinations that suggests themselves; Tank-Mech Inf Army, Inf-Marine Army and Longbowman-Pikemen Army.

If no, then how does it work?

BTW, can an all-Marine army make amphibious assaults? Can one including both Marines and other units?

Originally posted by The Last Conformist
Now, an obvious drawback is that the army moves at the speed of the slowest unit inside. But how does it work in combat - will it always use the best available attack/defense value?

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Yes, it will. It will also "share" available hit points. Say for example, a 16 HP MI/Tank/Tank/Tank army is attacked -- the MI defends with a value of 18, winning the battle but losing 3 HPs, dropping the army to 13 HPs. The next attacker steps up and the MI again defends at 18, using 1/4 of the remaining HPs, or 3 HPs at 18 defense, instead of the "1" HP we might expect an individual MI to have. When attacking, the tank will be the attacker (with its higher A value).

Mixed-unit armies can be powerful -- I tend to end up with mixed units from different eras on the belief that a 2-knight army is just about as deadly as a 3-knight army, but a 2-knight army can later have a cavalry or tank added to it and still be useful in the industrial age, whereas a 3-knight army is obsolete too quickly. Or, put another way, due to the inability to upgrade units in an army, filling an army over time can extend the army's battlefield dominance beyond one era or portion of an era.

BTW, can an all-Marine army make amphibious assaults? Can one including both Marines and other units?

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No, not under 1.29f. But according to one of the chats, under PTW armies will take on the characteristics of their constituent units - provided all the constituent units have the same special ability. In other words, all-marine armies will have amphib ability and all-paratrooper armies will have airdrop ability (but mixed-uinit armies won't).

Originally posted by Catt


Yes, it will. It will also "share" available hit points. Say for example, a 16 HP MI/Tank/Tank/Tank army is attacked -- the MI defends with a value of 18, winning the battle but losing 3 HPs, dropping the army to 13 HPs. The next attacker steps up and the MI again defends at 18, using 1/4 of the remaining HPs, or 3 HPs at 18 defense, instead of the "1" HP we might expect an individual MI to have. When attacking, the tank will be the attacker (with its higher A value).

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Does that mean that if the second attacker inflicts three damage, any further rounds in that combat will be against the Tanks' defense?

Mixed-unit armies can be powerful -- I tend to end up with mixed units from different eras on the belief that a 2-knight army is just about as deadly as a 3-knight army, but a 2-knight army can later have a cavalry or tank added to it and still be useful in the industrial age, whereas a 3-knight army is obsolete too quickly. Or, put another way, due to the inability to upgrade units in an army, filling an army over time can extend the army's battlefield dominance beyond one era or portion of an era.

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This also suggests a use for left-over Cav; but two Cav in a new-built Army together with a Tank - the Cav'll basically be extra HP for the Tank.

(Edit: Corrected formatting)

I think he meant whenever defending, the MI will always steps up to defend since it got the best defense.

I have said this before in some other tread and now i will say it again. Armies are units nomather what u put in them, so if u give them blitz they blitz and if u give them all ter as road they move fast, so here is the point a marine army cannot make amphibious assaults onless they are set to be amphibious.

Originally posted by The Last Conformist


Does that mean that if the second attacker inflicts three damage, any further rounds in that combat will be against the Tanks' defense?

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No - the most powerful defender, based solely on "D" value, will take the initial defense, and will also "share" the remaining HPs of the entire army. This is one of the reasons that mixing units from different ages into armies can really prolong the power of an army (rather than having it go obsolete very quickly).

To continue my above example, an MI/tank/tank/tank army with 16 HPs is attacked. The MI defends with its 18 "D" and loses 3 HPs (army has 13 remaining). Another attacker comes. Again the MI defends with its 18 D, losing 2 HPs (11). Another attack comes. Again the MI defends with its 18 D, losing 2 HPs (9). Another attacker comes. Again the MI defends with its 18 D, losing 1 HP (8). The army now has 8 HPs left, but over the course of the attacks, the MI has defended for all 8 HPs (and probably been promoted). Now when the army goes on the attack, the attacking unit will be a tank with a 16 "A," and will have 6 of the remaining 8 HPs to use before the MI (with an "A" of 12) will take over for the remaining 2 HPs.

This also suggests a use for left-over Cav; but two Cav in a new-built Army together with a Tank - the Cav'll basically be extra HP for the Tank.

(Edit: Corrected formatting)

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Exactly right. And exactly why I don't like to fuill my armies right away. My most recent game I played as Rome. A 2-Legionary army is pretty unstoppable; adding a 3rd Legionary wouldn't have made my army appreciably stronger, since I expected it to win every battle anyway, and the one-move Legionary didn;t confer blitz ability to the army. By leaving an open army slot I was later able to add a rifleman. After later building the Pentagon, I added an infantry. At that point I had an 18 HP army (Legionaries were elite) with an infantry on top -- my old Legionary army was still quite useful, as the Legionaries and Riflemen were "sharing" their available HPs with the infantry.

Originally posted by Yoda Power


I have said this before in some other tread and now i will say it again. Armies are units nomather what u put in them, so if u give them blitz they blitz and if u give them all ter as road they move fast, so here is the point a marine army cannot make amphibious assaults onless they are set to be amphibious.

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In one of the patches (1.17f or 1.21f?) armies were given the blitz abilities -- even armies made up of units without blitz could then blitz (i.e. cavalry armies could attack up to 3 times (movement points) during a turn even though individual cavalry couldn't blitz. The problem with giving an army the amphib ability is that any units in an army would then have amphib ability - i.e., an amphibious tank army. But, somewhere in the CFC chat, I believe Mike B. indicated that one of the minot tweaks to armies in PTW will be to alow them to adopt the special abilities of the units placed in them, provided all units had that special ability -- i.e., an army of only marines would have amphib ability, an army of 2 marines and 2 infantry would not.