Armies: WOW!!!

Originally posted by Bamspeedy
Not quite 48, more like 40.
24*4=96/6=16 bonus +24 base=40 attack
...
The most common armies that people will have is the 3-unit army
Incorrect on both accounts.

Once you have the Military Academy the bonus gets upgraded to 25% and once you have that build I see no reason it would take long before any war inclined player would have 3 armies and the option to build The Pentagon and thus have size 4 armies (except if map is really small and/or you are loosing of course).

This make the math of size 4 Modern Armors (using catt's formula):
24*4=96/4=24 bonus +24 base=48 attack

Also once you can build Siphais you can also build the Military Academy (assuming you already have had an army of course), so I see no reason that size 4 Siphai/Cavalry(and above) armies should be a rarity - rather on the contrary I would guess.
 
Ah, I forgot about the Miltary Academy thing.

In regards to the Pentagon, even though you can build it upon getting military tradition (and having 3 armies), I usually don't build it until the very late game. If you load 4 units into an army, you can't transport it until combustion.
 
The discussion shouldn't be a contest about who's right or wrong -- it's about understanding how the game works.

I have no idea whether or not the Military Academy reduces the 1/6 bonus to 1/4 -- a couple of sources reported so during the beta, but lots of things change between beta and release versions (part of the reason I actually tested the bonus itself). If I had to bet, I'd say the MA does increase the bonus to 1/4 since it was mentioned in a couple of places relating to the beta, but I specifically stated that I didn't test it, that I didn't test defense stats, and that I didn't test mixed-unit armies.

As far as whether the change from PTW is overpowering or not, I'll keep my powder dry until I have more gameplay experience with C3C. I am not too worried about the effects of armies in the modern age since I am convinced that human tactics so overwhelm the AI in the modern age, given modern age unit capabilities, that armies are typically a very small influence on the outcome at that point. In my mind, the real evaluation test bed for the power of the army change is in the ancient and middle ages. I think that (but haven't played with) an immortal army -- available with only one tech researched and a supply of iron -- could be very, very powerful, but in a contrarian sort of way - I think the +1 movement of C3C armies may have more to do with it. An immortal army with 2 moves can take most ancient age AI cities in one turn (typically two defenders), and if not take it, certainly almost take it (Edit: with or without the combat bonus End Edit). Combined with the rapid healing of armies in C3C, the immortal army could be a terror. Similarly, a few armies of knights in the middle ages could be crushing -- in this case because of a mix of the attack value, the +1 move, and the blitz (which was in PTW anyway). On the other hand, anytime you can have two or three armies by the early middle ages probably means the game is done anyway -- if I think several knight armies would be too powerful, I have to wonder how I think 3 GLs (under PTW) by the early middle ages would also affect the game.
 
Bam:
Heh heh, of course you can't build Modern Armors until after Combustion either, but I see you point :p

Btw then you don't need Military Tradition (or any other tech for that matter) in order to build The Pentagon - 'just' 3 armies on the map. :)


Catt:
The Help file for the editor has the following to say about the Increased Army Value ability of the Military Academy
"Each army owned by a civilization that has built a structure with this attribute has its overall attack and defense values increased by 25%"
This is one of the reasons I have a hard time swallowing the result from your experiment showing that armies (even without this bonus applied) get an effective 50% increase to att/def values - let alone the assumed 100% increase with 4 units and MA effect ;)
 
Originally posted by tommahh!
Once I build an army, is it possible to add more units to it later?

Yes, provided you leave space in the army (units cannot be upgraded or removed once placed in an army) - one of my favorite uses for an army in PTW was to save room for later units. The thinking was as follows: (1) even a 2-unit swordsman army is going to crush just about anything it goes up against, and adding a third swordsman will do little good; (2) while adding a third unit will probably do little good, it can do harm because it takes a valuable space in an army -- with an available space, I can add, say, a musketman in the middle ages (see the quote below for an explanation of how mixed-unit armies work); (3) when I get the chance to build the Pentagon small wonder, I can add a still more modern fourth unit to the army. The end result was stretching the utility of the army from the ancient age through the industrial age, instead of filling up an army in the ancient age and having it more or less obsolete for combat purposes by the middle of the next age.

Mixed Unit Armies
The quirk about mixed-unit armies is that they "shared" HPs. If, for example I had a 12 HP army consisting of musket-sword-sword, and it was attacked by a knight, the musket would defend for the first 4 HPs with a defense of 4. If the army lost 4 HPs in the attack, a sword would take over with a defense of 2 (but with 8 HPs to go). Imagine the sword won shortly after and was promoted, so the army had 9 HPs. On the next attack, even during the same turn, the musket would again stand at the defense with a 4 defense and would do so for 3 HPs -- each of the units in the army gets its proportional share of HPs remaining for each battle, so with 9 HPs the musket would get the first 3, even though it "lost" four HPs in the preceeding battle. Mixes-unit armies thus were able to combine older units' HPs with newer units' increased combat values. All this by the way is largely the result of pioneering work by a poster named Theseus who, to my mind, was the first to extol the use of mixed-unit armies and explain their advantages.
 
Originally posted by CyberChrist
Catt:
The Help file for the editor has the following to say about the Increased Army Value ability of the Military Academy
"Each army owned by a civilization that has built a structure with this attribute has its overall attack and defense values increased by 25%"
This is one of the reasons I have a hard time swallowing the result from your experiment showing that armies (even without this bonus applied) get an effective 50% increase to att/def values - let alone the assumed 100% increase with 4 units and MA effect ;)

If you're proficient enough with the editor to discover this, I'm guessing you're proficient enough to set up an accurate test scenario to test the effects of the Military Academy and 4-unit armies, since I'm about all tested-out and I'm sure the civ-community would love to know the result. ;)
 
Sure, just as soon as I sign a contract with Atari on doing that part of their job for them :p ;) :cool:

Anyway, my argument isn't really whether it actually works that way or not, but rather if it is meant to work that way or not. The Help file certainly doesn't seem to indicate it is supposed to work as the result of your experiment has shown.
 
Catt, I thought armies got averaged combat values.

Using one veteran Horseman (2-1-2) and one veteran knight (4-3-2) would produce a 3-2-2 Army with 8 HP.
 
Don't always believe what you see on the screen. :)
The stats of a mixed-unit army shown in the box are an average, yes.
But these stats have nothing to do with the real stats that armies use.
Each unit in an army attacks with its own stats, when it's its turn.
 
alexman is as usual spot on correct. And I tried to convey the same message in multiple earlier posts in this thread:

In PTW, mixed-unit armies displayed stats reflecting averages of the unit values, but actually employed real unit values when engaged in combat (i.e., a tank-cavarly-knight army would attack with a value of 16 unless the army lost 1/3 of its hit points in any one battle, and then the battle would continue with an attack value of 6 -- this even though the units stats in the info box showed the army with stats of 9.5.2 or 8.4.2 if my rounding is wrong). In C3C the above example army would have an attack bonus of 4, and based on the PTW implementation, I would speculate (repeat: speculate) that the above army would attack with 20 so unless it lost 1/3 its HPs in one battle and then would continue the battle with an attack value of 10.

And mixed unit armies attack and defend with the repspective units values -- not a blended army value. Put a tank and an archer in an army in PTW and its stats will show in the info box as 9.4.1 (or 9.5.1 if my rounding is wrong) -- but the army will attack with a value of 16 until such time as the tank is forced to yield to the archer and then it will attack with a value of 2.

Mixed Unit Armies
The quirk about mixed-unit armies is that they "shared" HPs. If, for example I had a 12 HP army consisting of musket-sword-sword, and it was attacked by a knight, the musket would defend for the first 4 HPs with a defense of 4. If the army lost 4 HPs in the attack, a sword would take over with a defense of 2 (but with 8 HPs to go). Imagine the sword won shortly after and was promoted, so the army had 9 HPs. On the next attack, even during the same turn, the musket would again stand at the defense with a 4 defense and would do so for 3 HPs -- each of the units in the army gets its proportional share of HPs remaining for each battle, so with 9 HPs the musket would get the first 3, even though it "lost" four HPs in the preceeding battle. Mixes-unit armies thus were able to combine older units' HPs with newer units' increased combat values. All this by the way is largely the result of pioneering work by a poster named Theseus who, to my mind, was the first to extol the use of mixed-unit armies and explain their advantages.

Although I know this is now a very long thread (Edit: and my own posts are perhaps too long ;) End Edit), it helps to read the prior posts for context ;) (I'm not trying to be an ass with that comment despite how it sounds, but to emphasize that it's tough to have a true dialogue if one party doesn't hear all that the other is saying :)).
 
Some of the things people have been saying here reminds me of the things some people say to authors: "I haven't read your book, but I want to tell you how bad it is"

Have any of the people that are complaining about how the armies work now actually played C3C and seen for themselves whether it is unbalanced or not?
 
Originally posted by Bambul
Some of the things people have been saying here reminds me of the things some people say to authors: "I haven't read your book, but I want to tell you how bad it is"

Have any of the people that are complaining about how the armies work now actually played C3C and seen for themselves whether it is unbalanced or not?
It's easier to complain about the balance in a game, then the story in a book. Because balance is simple mathematics, and story is a complex thing that can be looked at with different tastes.
 
I don't see why people are complaining that Modern Armors are suddenly overpowered in an army. By the time you get them the game is almost always over. If you're going for a military victory, most people win by tanks...
 
In addition, most games I've played lately the AI has been using armies also.
 
Modern Armors is just the final extreme example of the effect of what seems to be the current bonus to armies. Rest assured that Siphai/Cavalry armies will be just as unstopable, so in essence you are right - the chance of reaching the modern age and get armors with armies like that might very well become more uncommon.
 
Think 4 elite mech infantries in an army after a military academy was buily in a fortress with a barricade ontop of a mountain near a radar tower on the other side of a river. The defense ability would propably reach into the hundreds!!!!!
 
Originally posted by CIVPhilzilla
Think 4 elite mech infantries in an army after a military academy was buily in a fortress with a barricade ontop of a mountain near a radar tower on the other side of a river. The defense ability would propably reach into the hundreds!!!!!

if my enemies get one of those, I swear im gonna nuke that thing.
 
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