armies, what are they good for?

[philly_boy]

hey,
i'm wondering what the main benefits are to having an army?
i could always attack with three units and would it be almost equivalent? (if i win with an army i could later heal any units that would have perished if they attacked as separate units)
on the downside, my whole army can get killed by a single enemy unit, whereas if they were separate the enemy could only kill one
i know there's some good advice out there on how to use armies most effectively... thanks!

 

[Dillo]

It keeps you from going to war by intimidation, and keeps the enemy from just walking in and occupying your towns and workers ect. It keeps civil unrest down buy force. There are many uses. These are just off the top of my head.

 

[pravda]

While we are talking about armies, i tried using three of my leaders to make armies, I sent them to a city, where i had heaps of troops , i then clicked the build army button, but unless i am missing something, the leader still runs around with out any men attached to him, and can't attack anything, what am i doing wrong please????????

 

[Beeblbrox]

You have to load the units into the army unit after you have created it. There will be a (L)oad option for any unit that is in the same space as an army unit with free space.

 

[DaEezT]

The only thing armies are good for is defense! defending your troops while your move them through enemy territory that has an extensive rail network and after conquering an enemy city to defend it.but since aunits in armies lose all their special abilities they are almost useless for attacking.

 

[Mr Spice]

The only thing armies are good for is defense!

What? In my current game, my army of three tanks has been used extensively, and still hasn´t lost a single battle. Even when I attack infantry inside cities my army always wins. Doing this with single tanks is hazardous, especially without having prepared the city with artillery bombing.

 

[Panda]

Armies are cool, but unless you're a militaristic civ you'll be getting very few leaders

Also, the fact that you can't unload and upgrade the units in your army sucks big time

(If you can, somebody please tell me )

 

[Black_Sauron]

Originally posted by Panda
Armies are cool, but unless you're a militaristic civ you'll be getting very few leaders

The militaristic civ bonus to gaining a great leader is not that big. Infogames have kept it quite balanced. Equally later when you develop Military Tradition you can build armies anyway without the need for a great leader.

Originally posted by Panda
Also, the fact that you can't unload and upgrade the units in your army sucks big time

(If you can, somebody please tell me )

Agreed, this hopefully will be addressed by the patch, as it makes armies seriously weak. Otherwise I find armies very effective for slicing through enemy cities.

 

[KnightOwl]

Sure.. once you get that first army...

 

[Selous]

Originally posted by pravda
While we are talking about armies, i tried using three of my leaders to make armies, I sent them to a city, where i had heaps of troops , i then clicked the build army button, but unless i am missing something, the leader still runs around with out any men attached to him, and can't attack anything, what am i doing wrong please????????

i think u can only have 1 army every 4 citys u have ..... is something like that ... not entirely sure of those figgures though

 

[VoodooAce]

Originally posted by Mr Spice


What? In my current game, my army of three tanks has been used extensively, and still hasn´t lost a single battle. Even when I attack infantry inside cities my army always wins. Doing this with single tanks is hazardous, especially without having prepared the city with artillery bombing.

Hhhhmmmm.....well, having your units 'in' an army doesn't increase their attack values at all, does it?

Attacking a city, or whatever, with an army containing 4 tanks is just the same as attacking with 4 seperate tanks, you just have to do each one manually.

 

[sideshow]

Originally posted by VoodooAce



Hhhhmmmm.....well, having your units 'in' an army doesn't increase their attack values at all, does it?

Attacking a city, or whatever, with an army containing 4 tanks is just the same as attacking with 4 seperate tanks, you just have to do each one manually.

This is not true. The army takes all the damage and not the individual units. attacking a fortified mech. inf. in a capitol city is damn hard to do with multiple tanks, but with an army of takes you can take it out usually with 1/2 damage or less. If you attacked individually, there is a very good chance you could lose all 4 without getting one of their mech. infs.

 

[ROBO-Jesus]

I found that adding "blitz" to armies (in the civ3mod thing) makes them really usefull for offense.

Prior to that I found they were kinda a waste on offense since if the computer is defending a city with 6 guys, and building more as I attack, it's a lot easier taking it with 3-4 seperate units (since each one could take out a defender, and the city could fall in a single turn), armies on the other hand always killed 1 defender, but that was it.

With blitz it let's your army realistically stay in the battle (if it has movement left), and fight until it is either out of steam, or it/defenders all die. My Cavalry armies are kicking ass.

 

[Grendel]

The key, as sideshow suggested, is that an attacking army is all but guaranteed to win its battle. Consider it a super-unit with 3x or 4x the hit points.

Though I, too, prefer to use them on defense (escorting my attack force). NOBODY wants to attack a fully loaded defensive army...

One question, though: Does fortifying an army gain any defense bounuses? A fortified army looks more like a "fortified" (ie, holding) worker than it does a fortified, entrenched defensive unit.

 

[Grendel]

In related news, has anybody ever seen the computer use an army?

 

[Xunziir]

So far I have seen four armies ever and I play as a conquerer. The first two were enemy AI armies, the next was mine but the enemy had a stack of units attacking and immediately after the elite unit won and made the army it lost the next battle and the army was destroyed without even getting to move it. The fourth I made on offense and so was able to protect until I got it to a city.

I always used this army on offense though originally it was so I could build the academy. After seeing it in action though I realized it was a great offense/defense unit.

Have an annoying Infantry dug into a trench on a mountain and you are worried you may lose a number of units trying to take it out? Send in the army. Sure that infantry may put a major hurt on my army but chances are it will not eat through all its health before going down. Result is that I lose no units period.

 

[Sparrowhawk]

I wish my army of exclusively marines could make amphibious assaults.... Apparently the "army" unit that holds the marines together isn't allowed to attack from the sea...

 

[Pggar]

As the thread shows there are good (i.e. great defense) and bad (i.e. single attack) points in the use of armies. This happens because Firaxis was trying to balance the power of them, but that's what I don't get. They are supposed to be powerful, and they shouldn't have so many drawbacks.

Anyway, they have another great ability. They're the only pre-patch way of stacked movement. That is why I build the maximum amount of them once I've built the MA. However, I still build lots of single units, so I can take cities more effectively.

 

[Akka]

Am I the only one who think that armies are just out of place, add nothing to the game and are basically a gadget ?
I would have preferred Fireaxis concentrating on making a Futuristic Age or a possibility to move a stack of units at the same time rather than putting these strange and void concepts of "armies" and "great leaders".

 

[jaguara]

Armies...hmmm

I have not had much use for them. I build one so I can get the mini-wonders that they allow...

I have seen one AI army, but it was rather useless (infantry, horsemen, and one other unit - with only the infantry being useful).

I used mine as a place to put cavalry into, since I was in the modern age...I figured it might make them semi-useful. I was wrong.

An army of mech-infantry might be useful as an emergency defence in a hotly contested place...or to guard an important resource behind enemy lines. I would never make an army of modern armour, as they lose multiple attacks...

Anyway, I think they fall into the unessecary gimmick range. A lot of complexity added to the game for no real reason.

Jaguara