Army composition.

[Aegis Shield]

My starting mindset with armies was to keep them pure, A.K.A 3 Middie infantry grouped together. But recently, I started thinking that it might be best to take a slight hit to the offense of the 3 middies by doing 2 middies and a pikeman, for instance. Once you get up to the industrial age, those questions become moot because of the speed divide between tanks and infantry, but in the middle ages what are your armies composed of? Pure offense, pure defense, or some sort of mix?

 

[denyd]

Not counting UU usage, most people build Sword armies in the AA, Knights in the early MA and Cavalry in the late MA. In the IA it's either cavalry or wait for tanks.

The normal reasoning is to have the strongest attacker possible to lead your army. If you have 3 MDI in an army (assuming no horses available), it would be a 6-3-2 army for attacking purposes. If it was 2 MDI & 1 Pike it would be a the 2 MDI would only attack at 5 and with pike would defend as 4. Considering that the AI rarely attacks healthly armies, the sacrificed attack is not worth the extra defense.

The only time I use defensive units in an army is as a defensive escort. An army of muskets or infantry escorting a stack of cannons/artillery for taking cities or an army of pikes escorting a stack of horses on a pillaging mission.

 

[soul_warrior]

right on, denyd
armies are by nature an offensive lot, and as such i would almost always fill them up with my best attack unit available. swords in the AA, MDI > knights in early MA, cav later, etc.

i would use a purely defensive army (e.g. - a 3 pike army, etc,) for pillaging duty. i send one of these deep into enemy turf to cut of thier resources and attract some attackers. these i consider my crack suicide squad, and will use only when i need the diversion (when attacking a superior foe) not needing them for offense or having a spare army to use. (now there's a thought spare army??? )

 

[wallytych]

Hi Guys .Im not an expert (although I do play alot) I ususaly build 3 or 4 Calvary,1 or 2 rifle companies ( of 3 or 4 units ) Alot of Tank Divisions then Up to either Mech Inf.Army or Modern armour divisions ( mind you if I am winning this helps) .Cheers

 

[Doc Tsiolkovski]

An exception of the 'Keep it pure' rule: If you have the Pentagon early (and the MilAc far away), it is indeed worth it to join a Pike/Musket as 4th unit to your MDI Armies. Attack won't be hurt, but Defence gets better.

 

[Bagatur]

MDI only armies wont get attacked if health bar is green until tanks, while they still can perform well atacking not bombarded rifles in cities, but this is their almost maximum. I wont bother adding defensive 4th unit, weaker than rifle.

 

[Doc Tsiolkovski]

Bagatur: But, it will get attacked in a city, or if it's the only of your units on a landmass. A 4th MDI won't give you anything before the MilAc (unless you take the risk and attack with only 4HP); a Musket/Pike will be the one unit that steps up to defend first, with a defence value of 5/4.

 

[Bagatur]

Yes, it will get attacked, if weakened, or in JUST CAPTURED city, but 4th unit will prevent transportation of army till very late moment when its almost useless. In my experience, even two MDI army, with 10 hitpoints wont be atacked until rival has Cavalry. Three MDI will be attacked only by tank and above(maybe Sipahi?). MilAc doesnt make difference how AI will evaluate its chances to kill your army, at least for MDI armies, which is one of most common used in my games. I wish AI attacked armies everywhere it can. Its very exploitive to pillage it resources with 2 Knights army, bcs its sure it wont attack it.

 

[DBear]

In one of my games I killed off an AI army that had a knight, a mace, and a longbow

 

[Percy]

an AI army ? i thought the AI didn't use armies.

 

[nullspace]

an AI army ? i thought the AI didn't use armies.

It must have been PTW. The AI doesn't build armies in Conquests, and even if it had an army, it would not fill it in that way (in Conquests).

The thing I don't like about adding a defensive unit to an offensive army is what happens when the army gets near death when attacking. If you've got 3 medieval infantry in the army and 1 pike, and the army falls to one fourth the hp it had when it started attacking, then the pikeman will start to fight. (I hope I'm right about that, it's been a long time since I make a mixed army.) Once that pikeman is fighting, your army is probably gonna die. I'd rather have a few more hitpoints of medieval infantry in the army.

Knight armies are the way to go, anyway

 

[Rwedgie]

I'm playing as Russia currently and I'm definately impressed by my 4 cossak armies. Four armies like that and I wiped out the remaining civs on my continent in no time. (Granted I am ahead in techs so they don't even have cavalry ).