How do i afford a huge army?

[Mao Zendog]

I keep hearing people talk about how markets are "kinda good for keeping your people happy". But what I am wondering is; dont people use them to pay for armys? why do I normaly see the tech currency as one of the last ones to be resurched in the aa? I normaly research it before construction or even before i research another form of government. Is this practical, or am I overating currency?

 

[sercer88]

For me, it definitely depends on the style of game I'm in, if you're talking about using it for the extra cash.

I usually don't have a huge army, so I can keep my science high without negative gpt. However, the extra happy faces for more than 2 lux's definitely helps. Especially in Rep, where there's no Military Police.

So, to answer your question more directly: Yes, I like to research Currency almost as soon as I can, and definitely before Construction (especially if I have a lot of luxes and big cities are beginning to become cranky!)

 

[TimBentley]

Obviously, markets are useless for cash if science is kept close to 100%, while they're quite useful if research is turned off. Of course people going for quick conquests would rather build units instead. Perhaps why currency is often researched last is that most people (in C3C) usually research towards philosophy (details vary based on the difficulty and start). By that time the AI has researched most other techs. Currency seems to be the AI's least favorite required AA tech, so researching it may be likely to get a monopoly.

 

[vmxa]

Some consideration about currency for me is can I afford to make a market right now? Often if I had the tech, I could not afford to take the production for a town and put it on a market, so early in the game.

If I have less than 3 lux, it will not help me there and if I am paying no tax, it won't help me there. In fact under those common conditions, it will only cost me maint and yield nothing.

Construction gets me aquas and I may be forced to go right into making one in some towns as they have no river. This is sill worth doing, if my life is not in the balance.

Getting to city size does many things for my empire, so it is a good idea, especiallly for those early towns that will have less corruption than later towns.

The way to support a large army is to have lots of cities. You get them by using that large army. It is usual for me in an AW game to get so many towns that I pay no support for a grossly large army.

 

[AutomatedTeller]

Currency being near the last researched has more to do with the way the tech tree is set up than anything else.

For the human, usually the most important thing is getting out of despotism as soon as possible, which means republic or monarchy 99.9% of the time. That means research CB->Myst->Poly->Monarchy or Alpha->Writing->CoL/philo->Republic, usually trading for the other techs as you go.

The AI researches with slightly different priorities, but currency is usually the last one they will research - construction gives a wonder and an improvement plus several worker actions.

As far as affording a huge army - well, currency can help with that, but it's usually best at that when you are playing a 1CC or 5CC variant and can't get a huge army any other way As vmxa says, the best way to support a large army is to have a lot of cities, which means taking them from the AI :O

 

[Decebalus]

You can have large army if you have lots of money.
Reliable source of lots of money are lots of BIG cities with lots of people working lots of road tiles.
Big cities will get big only if people are happy.

So yes, you use markets for both keeping people happy which results in more money for a bigger army.

For me getting a lot of luxuries helps and a market is a must. I'd rather build a market, than happy buildings or sliding the happy slider any further than 10%.

Not only that, but early on, if you have currency first, you can sell it off. The AI seems to love it. You can get easily $20-$40 per turn from most.

And playing off of currency, eventually banking you can make an even bigger killing selling to others.

And even further if you're first to get Economics?? not sure which one it is that lets you eventually build the "pay all upkeep for all commerce buildings" wonder.

You'll be swiming in cash since your market will have no upkeep.

Currency definately important to my style of play.

 

[gmaharriet]

And even further if you're first to get Economics?? not sure which one it is that lets you eventually build the "pay all upkeep for all commerce buildings" wonder.

Smith's Trading Post

 

[d_profesor]

Generally, There's two different ways to support Army :

City Support
It's depend on your government type and size of your cities (town, city, and metropolis). The largest support is given by Metropolis under monarchy government. Here, 8 unit can be supported /Metropolis. (read Civilopedia in Civ 3). base on these fact.. supporting large army could be done with switch to monarchy and get bigger as fast you can. You dont need marketplace anyway.

2. Gold
Gold is needed when the city unable to support quantity of ur unit (ur unit overquantity) or.. You are under democracy. Cities dont support unit under democracy so You only use gold for supporting. Then.. You need marketplace ultimately in your rich city. Cozz Marketplace increase gold in city by 50%.

i never built marketplace in the early. I prefer built settler, and build more cities. Under despotism, town able to support 4 unit.for the same purpose, We have to build a marketplace in a city that produce 8 Gold. We just have a few city like this in the early

 

[alcinicia]

Best of those two is city-building. This gives you the option of high production over the long term; you can use up gold in produciton much more quickly thna oyu accrue it.

 

[RFHolloway]

Why do you want a big army?

You don't actually want a big army if its just sitting around. You want lots of units fighting. If support costs are too high - go fight something!

Your army should be made of two parts

Defensive army
Attacking army

The defensive part really shouldn't be that big. (don't leave units in cities that don't need it, upgrade or disband units if appropriate)

What makes the attacking part effective is how quickly you can replace them. That means how many units you can produce.

You will reach a stable state when the number of units you have is the total of units that are healing plus the number of units you can produce in one turn multiplied by the number of turns it takes to get to the action. Then on any turn you have units equal to the amount you produced, plus any that finished healing to throw into the action.

 

[eldar]

One word: Communism

 

[Decebalus]

A big army is a big deterent. You won't get picked on if you're strong.

If you ever go to your millitary advisor and see him saying "Compared to these guys we have a weak/average millitary" then you're probably going to be harrased by that civ sooner or later and chances are war will break out eventually.

Plus, at some point you will have to go to war. It is better to have a big army and win quickly (minimize impact in terms of war wariness and lost money) than to have a little one and stop production on other things suddently to support your advance.

Plus, at higher levels, having "just enough" troops is never enough. You need a strategic reserve always in case you suddently find you've lost a ton of your troops in some dissaster: loosing a transport at sea, that pesky infantry fortified in a size 12 city on a hill, and so on.

In terms of an army, the bigger the better. And if it does ever get TOO big, you can always be the one to initiate a war. I'd always rather use up a ton of old units in a small little war than disband them.

 

[Tortosa]

There are many excellent ways to pay for your army, as have been mentioned above. Here's another method -

Use that army to capture resource rich land, then sell extra resources to friendly civs for gpt

1) You need to have enough info on rivals' territory and military strength to know the best location to strike

2) You need to know which civs (if any) have free capital to spend. Sometimes they just can't (or don't want to) afford it.

Research is the key, and Civ Assist II is an immense help with this.

Besides, why would you pay all those troops if yr not going to use them, to keep their swords nice and shiny? Disband or conquer & trade

 

[SG-17]

if you are a warmonger like me, and love to build your army, i would suggest keeping monarchy until you research fascism then switch to that.

 

[WackenOpenAir]

Your army will pay for itself by conquering cities.

Just don't wait too long before you attack. If your millitary advisor sais your millitary strength is about average compared to your neighbour, you should be more than strong enough to crush him.

Keep your army fighting and conquering, and soon you have so many cities that upkeep is no problem. On top of that, they conquer wonders, resources, luxuries and population to be turned into scientists for you.

And i surely suggest not using monarchy. Republic really is all you need, also for the fiercest warmongerers. (as everyone who keeps optimizing their game for faster wins, regardless the victory condition, will end up being)

 

[Zandrew]

Obviously, markets are useless for cash if science is kept close to 100%, while they're quite useful if research is turned off...

Don't markets added 50% to your base gold production for that city no matter how you spend it? I build markets all the time for the extra cash, not just happiness.

 

[Norton II]

Don't markets added 50% to your base gold production for that city no matter how you spend it? I build markets all the time for the extra cash, not just happiness.

Markets only increase your tax income, not overall commerce. They can still help your research indirectly, of course; with more money coming in, and with the additional happiness from luxes, you can afford to move the science slider higher.