Armies

[Kobra]

The Army concept is excellent but too much rigid. I tried to list some problems and ideas for Civ4 (maybe some posts have already been published about it) :

* No Armada for sea armies
* No Air fleet for air armies
* Can't upgrade units in armies can't unload units in the army !
* Must wait a heroe to create armies Why can't we create armies when we discovered a technology like Military Tactics ? Making them cheaper would allow the ennemy to use armies specialised in defense !
* Units in armies fight one after the other. Could be interresting to use Archers and artillery and at the same time to attack with knights or tanks. For example : Your knight is fighting against an hoplite, at the same time, your archer is bombarding from behind your knight. Thus the hoplite could lose 2Hp in one round. Would improve strategy : archers would be more interesting if they could afford you any victory I remember CTP had 3 conventionnal units : 1st line units (Warriors, Hoplite...), Artillery (Archers, cannons, catapults...) and flank units (knights, cavalry...). 1st line could attck only if it had an ennemy in front of it, Artillery could attack from behind and wasn't attacked until 1st line and flank units were alive, flank units could attack even if it has no enemy in front of it, it was an extra-attack. In civ4, archer and artillery could attack when an other unit is fighting, fast units could attack artillery and archer while there are "1st line" units.
* First armies should upload only 2 units, then you could upgrade it to 3, 4 and 5 units (or more).

Any other idea ?

 

[Hyronymus]

Not any more ideas but some notes. Air units can only be attacked by other air units and in my experience the AI doesn't build many fighters. It might therefor be tough to get an army out of an air battle. For naval battles it's much the same. When was the last time your ships were attacked by >3 enemy ships?

The positive news is that with a naval army you could attack a stack of ships and eliminate it in one turn. Quite nice since the AI is obsessed with protecting transport ships with battle ships. An army in the air is still a bit tricky IMO since 4 bombers alone can already wreak enough havoc.

 

[RollaDuck]

I see the army as a response to the CTP concept of stacking units, with the obvious advantage that you only lose the stack once you've lost the entire thing and the disadvantages of not being able to remove/upgrade, etc. Personally, whenever I get a great leader that I don't plan on using to rush a project I've recently started (or project I will soon start as soon as production finishing or tech permits), I send him over to my capital, build an army, and leave it there. Someday, I too, will have MA/MI, or Panzer when Germany, and a stack of 15/15 24.16.3 is amazing to behold. Even more beautiful is once the Pentagon goes up, and that becomes 20/20. I would love to see the ability of the ships to generate great leaders, or whatever the Civ4 equivalent is. There's no reason Frances Drake, John Paul Jones, Halsey, Nimitz, Yamamoto (sp?), Togo, and Von Tirpitz shouldn't get recognition, as well. And my Elite Destroyer that just took out a battleship deserves some credit. And yes, naval fleets would be nice additions, too.
I think armies should be able to blitz once for the lower of the movement points or unit count for armies of units that cannot by themselves blitz. Gives reason to use cavalries in armies.
One concern I have is that if you empower armies too much by making them too cheap/powerful/modular, then you will see them being used all over the place, and can you imagine trying to crack your enemy's continent and seeing his first city filled with 10 armies of MI? (My response to that situation would be tactical nuke, but I digress.)
I do like the idea of flanking, etc. you included, but I think that begins to get too tactical, and Civ has always been a strategic level game.
The air concept needs to be re-worked before I would seriously consider using Wings in the air, or whatever you would call them.
Good day!

 

[Commander Bello]

I too see armies as a reply to the CTP concept, but still I would like to see CTP's armies adopted in cIV, as I feel this was the clearly better designed approach.

 

[Chazbagel]

Smart Bombs, where you could choose what in the city to attack... Ex:Lead the smart bomb into the barracks.

 

[rhialto]

I'd rather see CTP style stackjed combat, with some modifications...

1 - Your stack limit (for who can fight) depends on how many military-leadership / command-control style techs you have.
2 - wonders will increase this limit
3 - great military leaders stacked with the force will increase the limit.

 

[crimson238]

I'd love to see CTP style stacking especially with the navies of the world.. Air Forces..maybe only avalible with bombers from WW2... And also, I'd love to see the AI use the army..

 

[dh_epic]

There are strong rumors that stacked combat will play a bigger role in Civ 4.

If that's the case, I hope there are lots of "bonuses" that change the complexion of a stack. You build a stack of 3 plus a great leader. Or you build a stack with 3 offense units, and a unit that gives it bonuses in forests. Or you combine 2 attack with 2 defense units, which somehow ISN'T worse than 4 attack or 4 defense units via some interesting math.

I'm just not much of a military strategist, and can't quite figure out how to make these kinds of decisions meaningful If the player ends up stacking the 4 best offense units together, let alone dozens of the best offense units together, there's no new choices... you're just reducing micromanagement, which is good, I guess.

 

[crimson238]

I'd like to see paratrooper armies.. and marine corps armies.. that can amphibiously assault or paradrop ect.. IIRC you can't use special abilities liek that in the civ III armies.