Armies ...

[Otreb]

So do you think the fact that the oponent doesn´t use armies in Civ III is a bug??
Hmmm....
It may be...
Stay cool.

 

[Zeekater]

The AI usually uses armies to defend itself in my experience.
I once gave them a wonder which spawned armies every 3 turns or so and at the end of the game (when I reached that city) the city was full of empty armies and a few armies with only one unit in it.
They did also have other units, but send those at me in packs of three.
I had no armies, so if the AI had attacked I would have certainly lost...
Had total air control though

But once it has a few armies fully loaded it tends to use them quite well and inflict quite some damage.

Another bad thing about how the AI uses armies is that they always put in one fast attack unit and then some slow defender... Totally rendering the extra movement point useless...

 

[nullspace]

I like the idea of armies, but they way they are in C3C now is pretty broken. There's three main problems:

1) The AI doesn't use MGLs to create armies. With no victorious armies, they can't build the Military Academy. So the AI never has any armies.

2) Even if ithe AI is given an army, there's a bug with loading them. The AI will not add a unit to an army if the unit's movement is less than the army's movement. This sounds like a good idea to prevent mixing slow and fast units, but it doesn't consider the movement bonus that armies have. For example, if the AI puts a cavalry in an army the army has 4 moves, then it thinks that all 1, 2, or 3 move units are too slow to be added to the army, and the army will remain unfilled forever. The AI can fill armies if it puts a slow unit in first, and then two fast units.

3) Armies are crazy powerful, and the AI doesn't know how to fight against them. The combat system simply doesn't work when there are units that are more then three times more powerful than all other units running around. The AI is afraid to sacrifice units to kill them, so you get situations where an army of knights can run around an AI's territory in the industrial age without being attacked.

My solution is similar to Jaybe's, which he posted near the top of the thread. Armies can never load more than one unit. This solves problems 2 and 3. Give all civs an ancient age small wonder that auto-produces armies every 30 turns or so. This fixes problem 1. You can fiddle with the military academy, pentagon, and shield cost of armies too.

Armies are still useful. They get a move bonus, blitz, radar, a small stat boost, and free pillage, plus any hp bonus you give to armies. It's like a regular unit with a really great leader, rather than a super-unit that can't be killed until tech advances 1000 years. Another nice side effect is that using MGLs for small wonders or even improvements instead of armies isn't a total waste. Even weakening armes this much, they're still fun to use and fight against, but they don't single-handedly win wars.

 

[Bagatur]

Instead of doing mods, I put only two units in my armies, simple. But problem of AI attacking armies almost never will remain.

 

[dgfred]

I like the idea of armies, but they way they are in C3C now is pretty broken. There's three main problems:

1) The AI doesn't use MGLs to create armies. With no victorious armies, they can't build the Military Academy. So the AI never has any armies.

2) Even if ithe AI is given an army, there's a bug with loading them. The AI will not add a unit to an army if the unit's movement is less than the army's movement. This sounds like a good idea to prevent mixing slow and fast units, but it doesn't consider the movement bonus that armies have. For example, if the AI puts a cavalry in an army the army has 4 moves, then it thinks that all 1, 2, or 3 move units are too slow to be added to the army, and the army will remain unfilled forever. The AI can fill armies if it puts a slow unit in first, and then two fast units.

3) Armies are crazy powerful, and the AI doesn't know how to fight against them. The combat system simply doesn't work when there are units that are more then three times more powerful than all other units running around. The AI is afraid to sacrifice units to kill them, so you get situations where an army of knights can run around an AI's territory in the industrial age without being attacked.

My solution is similar to Jaybe's, which he posted near the top of the thread. Armies can never load more than one unit. This solves problems 2 and 3. Give all civs an ancient age small wonder that auto-produces armies every 30 turns or so. This fixes problem 1. You can fiddle with the military academy, pentagon, and shield cost of armies too.

Armies are still useful. They get a move bonus, blitz, radar, a small stat boost, and free pillage, plus any hp bonus you give to armies. It's like a regular unit with a really great leader, rather than a super-unit that can't be killed until tech advances 1000 years. Another nice side effect is that using MGLs for small wonders or even improvements instead of armies isn't a total waste. Even weakening armes this much, they're still fun to use and fight against, but they don't single-handedly win wars.

Good post and ideas . I MAY try to do this in my games from now
on . I just love the power so much, it is hard for me not to use
them for maximum destruction .

 

[citizen001]

armies make the game winnable on sid. but on lower difficulty levels, they're overpowered.

 

[onedreamer]

The AI does attack armies, occasionaly. Of course, not in the cases when it knows it will loose badly, which means in most cases. But rest assured that if an army is reasonably (for the AI) vulnerable it's going to be attacked and even destroyed, at least at Demigod difficulty.

Anyways, even when the AI was using Armies (pre-C3C), the way it was using them was almost laughable, so C3C didn't make a big difference.

In the end a question out of curiosity, what does the AI do with GML in C3C ?

 

[doc mabuse]

The problem is that they make the game too easy

I know there are a lot of specialists who are reallly good in the game but might you take some consideration to people who are not (yet) good in the game. When I played C3C for the first time (chieftain) i didn't find it dead easy (not as in Civ 2). And as most people keep saying, if you don't like the odds, mod the game to your liking.
I, for one, like the principle of an army, and, maybe, when I get to be a Sid expert, I'll have the same feeling as you, but that's still a long way from home

 

[synthboy]

Originally Posted by doc_mabuse
I, for one, like the principle of an army, and, maybe, when I get to be a Sid expert, I'll have the same feeling as you, but that's still a long way from home

A very good point and probably what is the crux of this thread.The concept of armies in themselves (a highly skilled, charasmatic leader bands together more troops than one man could normally and leads them more effectively, see Boudicea, Hanibal, Fidel Castro/Che Guevara) isn't bad, it's just their current implamantation that's causing all the problems. Currently the AI does not use armies to their full effect giving the player a massive advantage when it comes to city conquest. However, the AI is very good at micro-management, unit placement and movement, diplomacy, trading, etc.

Get the picture? A Sid veteran can probably do all this things as well as the AI and the army 'bug' just makes things too easy but for the bulk of us mortals armies give us a crutch for our conquests. Maybe we shouldn't rely on that crutch but it's in the game so why not? People have made some great points on this thread about modifying armies and making them 'fairer' and I might even have a bash at some of them but not at my current difficulty level. More importantly we have to hope that whenever Civ4 makes it's appearance somebody has paid attention to this and armies are, somehow, 'fixed'.

 

[Quilty]

I think armies are a good addition to the game, because units reduced to one HP retreat to make way for a fresh unit to keep up the attack. This means armies can even the odds a bit late in the game, when the large population of enemy cities gives them a high defensive bonus. In any case, I receive leader units so infrequently during a game, and often use them to rush-produce a Wonder, that I rarely if ever get to use armies. And I've never seen other civs use armies at all, but then again I'm an occasional player.

My big problem with armies is the inability to change units within them… but I've started playing Conquests only recently, so I don't know if there's a way around that now.

 

[amtrick]

I agree with Synthboy. I am a "part time" player. The spradic appearance of an Army just levels the playing field for me. The AI is just so much better than I am at other things, that the ability to occasionally open a can of whoop ass on them gives me a better chance at victory, but doesn't necessarily guarantee it.

 

[CarnDaWoods]

Armies speed up an inevitable victory. Sometimes they can make an appearance when you are under pressure from the AI and it ease the pressure dramatically.

I do not use them to pillage resources. I want to capture the cities and deny the AI resources that way.

AI armies have a short life span. Though it would be interesting if the AI used them the same way that I do, it does not prevent me from continuing to use them.

Some games you do not get them at all, some games you get them so late they are not really needed, just speed things up a tad.

 

[mrtn]

.... BTW the AI uses armies in the rise of Rome scenario because I was trounced by Hannibal the army in a very bad way, Damn Carthaginian elephants. ....

A tip is to move the Macedonian horseman starting in Sardis (where the army is) to Antandrus (or something). This way you will probably get a hoplite army instead of a one-unit-horse-army for the Macedonians... This should take care of the bug punkbass2000 talked about.

 

[tomart109]

So if you think using Armys is cheating, then Don't Use 'Em! Or restrict yourself to one- or two-unit Armies. If you're that concerned about not taking advantage of the AI, it's real easy to not do it. Use your MGLs for small wonders or city improvements. I don't see the need to complain or start modding.

Like Charles, I see c3c Armies as an equalizer. I can go up a difficulty level or two, or be at war with everyone else, with these little monsters on my side. They're a potent tool in the human's arsenal, if you choose to use them. My complaint about Armies is how difficult it is to get them (unless I'm playing a Mil civ - then I'll likely get enough to win with.) The cost of the Mil Academy and building them from scratch is too high, imo.

 

[punkbass2000]

"I don't see the need to complain or start modding."

Sure, there's no need to mod, but why not fix a problem if you can?

 

[The Last Conformist]

"I don't see the need to complain or start modding."

Sure, there's no need to mod, but why not fix a problem if you can?

Indeedy.

And there is a need to complain when the AI's handling a less-than-entirely-marginal part of the combat system is terribly broken.

 

[tomart109]

Sorry, I don't see a problem. I like the Armies as they are now, it doesn't bother me that the AI doesn't use them (well) - it doesn't use artillery and some other units well either - but I don't like to start modding because then we're all playing different games, and we've lost the ability to share stories, stats and compare our mileages.

I guess what clinches it for me is that it's now officially too late - our discussions will never achieve any improvement in the civ3 AI; the book is closed and civ4 is on the horizon. Oh well.

 

[The Last Conformist]

I've mostly played mods and scens over the last 18 months ... I couldn't care less about "compatibility".

The AI uses things like artillery very poorly, yes. But it doesn't use Armies at all.