Armies - is it worth it?

[Amask]

Advantages of having armies:
-They are harder to destroy (most of the time)

Disadvantages of having armies:
-They are too slow
-If you fight against a good defender, they can be crashed all at once. I had three archers in an army, attacked a spearman, and you can guess what hapenned. The sponger destroyed it and haven't lost a single health point.

So is it actually a good idea to have armies?

 

[Zouave]

Another problem with Civ 3 is that all armies seem to move at a speed one 1, be they sworsdmen armies or armor! That's rather dumb.

So, I went to the editor and gave all armies a MP of 2, and I also allow them to carry four units. Now they are worth it.

 

[Ironikinit]

Depends.

Are you going to be fighting more wars? If so, are you the one starting them? Will the Heroic Epic or the Military Academy help?

Sometimes you have to choose between a wonder or an army. I've played games without armies, and it's not a terrible thing to miss, but if I'm going to go to war a lot, I'd like to have built the army just to get the Heroic Epic.

 

[Moulton]

I had one army when I started my last war... infantry. The romans had 5. After being bombed a few times, they were easy to take.
The infantry army, not surprisingly was not good at attacking cities. It won, but took major damage. For defence, it was superb. The tank army I build during the war rolled over everything. Speed is not the problem of the army, but the units in it. I marched the infantry army with my arty train.... they never even tried to take it. Most of the cities I took without arty support after the tanks came on, and the tank army never failed.
Yes, they are worth it. Not the be-all, but worth it.

 

[infanta]

army speed is determined by the slowest member of the army, you make an army with 3 horsemen its got speed 2

advantages of armies are immense if you are frequent early warmonger

3 horsemen or 3 swordsmen in an army is unbeatable just about in ancient times (the 3 swordsmen one ideal for taking out cities)

your other advantage of armies is the more you got the more you keep getting

after the first one you get heroic epic so more chances for leader spawning

once you got three in play then you can make the pentagon (yes i've had it before the middle ages) making them even tougher

one of the big problems bout generating leaders is you gotta keep throwing elite units into fights and the casaulty rate for city assaults is real bad. Armies avoid this problem because they act as fast attack units so your elite units stay alive longer and so have more potential to generate leaders.

incidently disbanded armies generate 100 shields regardless of whats in em so its perfect for pop rushing some stuff when you got obsolute ones floating around (i often have the academy produce armies just so i can disband it elsewhere to rush production in frontier places if ive reached my limit for number of armies)

another minor point is 2-3 armies a hell of lot easier to move than 10+ units in a stack

the other thing is prior to the academy, armies scare the hell out of the ai, it won't go anywhere near one unless you got it under a third strength

so if you going for a conquest victory and thus gearing up for total warfare from start to finish armies are extremly effective, for non war mongers their importance is minor (i typically spawn 5-6 leaders per game and nearly all of em go into new armies until i get the academy up and running)

just wish they didn't so damned long to heal up

 

[zeeter]

A problem that I have with armies is that I'm tying up three or four attack units and can only attack once per turn with it. Conversly those four units outside of an army may attack four times. So while my army increases my chances of winning one battle, it decreases my ability to move quickly and take out several units per turn.

 

[Moulton]

Sure, zeeter, armies are wasted against weaker foes that a single unit coul dtake out easily. Use them against the strong foes, where otherwise you send 3 or 4 units to their death before the victory.

 

[Cerryl]

I use them strictly for defense only.

 

[eyrei]

Originally posted by Cerryl
I use them strictly for defense only.

I am generally the same. I do usually build one army of tanks in case I run into a very tough defender, with weaker defenders behind it. This can really help minimize losses.

 

[Cerryl]

Yeah, to elaborate, I get much more milage out of an army of defenders than I do attackers. Mostly because of the movement restrictions, and more importantly, the # attacks/turn.

I rarely attack with anything with a movement rate of one (except in the ancient era), occasionally I will pop a unit out of a city to get rid of an enemy, but when I'm on the offensive, I always use movement 2+ units.

An army of 3 or 4 infantry/mech inf, is near unstoppable.

 

[eyrei]

Originally posted by Cerryl
Yeah, to elaborate, I get much more milage out of an army of defenders than I do attackers. Mostly because of the movement restrictions, and more importantly, the # attacks/turn.

I rarely attack with anything with a movement rate of one (except in the ancient era), occasionally I will pop a unit out of a city to get rid of an enemy, but when I'm on the offensive, I always use movement 2+ units.

An army of 3 or 4 infantry/mech inf, is near unstoppable.

I agree heartily. The AI will simply not attack an army of good defensive units unless it is already severely damaged. I use them as mobile bases for my offensive units and artillery. If you make a stack of one army of infantry, 10+ artillery, and 15+ cavalry, you can take a city with almost no losses every 4 or 5 turns.

 

[Ironikinit]

I just want to be a witness for infanta and say:

YES, SWORDSMEN ARMIES DO INDEED ROCK.

If you get one at the right time, your ability to wage war is extended considerably. Swordsmen can't be upgraded anyway.

However, it is a big decision whether to make the army or rush a project. I've gone without armies in some games, even though I generated leaders.

 

[Amask]

I only used armies once, in my first game, and they didn't leave a good impression. Now I use leaders to hurry production in the cities with big corruption and waste. Especially if it is near a luxury or a resource.

 

[Bamspeedy]

Armies are awesome! I build just one, so then I can build those military wonders. After that first one if I get more leaders I may use them on Great Wonders if I have to, but I prefer the armies. I had an army of knights that was unstoppable until Nationalism came along (I completely dominated the Middle Ages). With the Military Acadamy I could have built more armies and I would have liked to see what an army of Tanks could have done, but I won by culture already (1860 A.D.) . I had earned 5 leaders by the time I had discovered Refining.

 

[Chaos]

I love armies

 

[EnduringFreedom]

An army of 4 modern armors is unstoppable! I love to build 'em. I really don't care about the reduced number of attacks. What matters is durability.

RAMPAGE!!! RAMPAGE!!!

:ripper:

:rocket:

:rocket2:

:rocket3:

______________________________________________
You've messed with the wrong people, Bin Laden!

 

[Cerryl]

An army of modern armors is very stoppable, since they only get 1 attack per turn. Two modern amors by themselves can take out an army of them easily, try it out sometime.

 

[eyrei]

I agree, an army of modern armor is not unstoppable, and is less efficient than 4 modern armor units. Now, an army of 2 modern armor and 2 mech infantry is a different story. One of these can take some serious punishment, as well as having a good attack rating. Of course, an army of 4 mech infantry is nearly invincible on defense.

 

[CrazyScientist]

Reading this thread gave me some great ideas about how to use armies, (particularly modern armies) so I may use them more often now. Previously I found that they decreased in usefulness as you advance in tech. (that is, generally more useful in ancient times than modern).
What I currently do is make an army with my 1st leader to get the Herois Epic, then use all those extra leaders to crank out the wonders.

 

[anarres]

Originally posted by Cerryl
An army of modern armors is very stoppable, since they only get 1 attack per turn. Two modern amors by themselves can take out an army of them easily, try it out sometime.

FWIW an Modern Armour Army has 4 attacks (or 3 in PTW), not 1.


Edit: I am very sorry for dragging this thread up with nothing useful to add - I followed a link here and didn't notice it was a month old.