How many units can a large empire wield?

[hardcore_gamer]

Since the player needs resources to build more units its probably save to assume that the player can't control as many units at the same time as he could in Civ 4.

I mean, I remember this once where I owned something like 80 tanks, 40 jet fighters, 34 stealth bombers, 30 missile ships, and over 120 tactical nukes or something (literally enough to blow up the whole world) and my empire only existed of something like 1/4 of the world (I was playing on a huge map size).

Somehow I have the feeling that creating huge armies like that isn't as easy in Civ 5, so what do you think the total number of units a medium to large empire can wield at the same time?

Discuss.

 

[Mercade]

What do you think yourself? Or do you just state something obvious to start a thread?

 

[hardcore_gamer]

What do you think yourself? Or do you just state something obvious to start a thread?

What do you mean? We already know that we can't build as many units as easily as we can in Civ 4, but we don't know how many units can be considered a large army.

Is a 20 unit army large? Or is a 30 unit army small? etc.

 

[Cristoval]

I bet not nearly as much as you could in Civ4, since 1 unit can last you longer now.

 

[Mercade]

What do you mean? We already know that we can't build as many units as easily as we can in Civ 4, but we don't know how many units can be considered a large army.

Is a 20 unit army large? Or is a 30 unit army small? etc.

I mean that you're not offering your opinion:

Somehow I have the feeling that creating huge armies like that isn't as easy in Civ 5, so what do you think the total number of units a medium to large empire can wield at the same time?

Discuss.

So, Mr Hardcore Gamer, what do you think the total number of units a medium to large empire can wield at the same time?

 

[Giant Dwarf]

Well, depends. I bet you won't ever use more than 30 land and sea units I a single front. Frankly, that may even be too high. We've seen videos of industrial age conflicts where each side is using about 10 units in each theater. So about 10 near one city, a few less at a periferal city, and probably a few more throughout the empire.

 

[Numi]

I would say it depends largely on a a couple factors: 1) How much gold do you have available to spend on their maintenance. This of course would not be a huge issue if you were prepping them to go to war immediately and would take heavy losses. 2) If the map you are on is incredibly small the 1upt might limit you slightly unless you have open boarders with your neighbors.

I'm sure there are more i just cant think of them at the moment because its rather early.

 

[Viatrix]

What we know is that the maintenance cost of your army will be a lot higher than in previous Civs. Also, like you said, resources limit the amount of your, uh... "Elite" troops. If you don't have any strategic resources, you can still make some units that do not require any resources, if there are such thingies.

My point is that the main factor determining your army's quantity isn't your resource quantity, but your maintenance capacity. They have increased it a lot to avoid too much unit-movement stuff per round and so keep the gameplay fun.

We have seen from screenshots that in the biggest battles there are around 10 units in the battlefield. Five versus five, or so. Usually there are a lot less, though. In one video there was this AI who guarded one of his cities with two units.

Anyway, my guess is that there will be a few units per city. We should know the amount of usual battlefronts (in war) to know better.

 

[Ddude97]

My guess is around 2-3 (maybe 4) land units per city, and maybe 1-2 naval units per coastal city, aircraft I expect to be around .5 per city (There was a video where I believe they mentioned/showed a stealth bomber)
Welcome to forum Numi!

 

[Schuesseled]

@OP thats like asking:

How many units could a large empire in Civ 4 build?

It's an unawnserable question.

 

[Ddude97]

@OP thats like asking:

How many units could a large empire in Civ 4 build?

It's an unawnserable question.

Take a guess (although you're perfectly right.)

 

[hardcore_gamer]

@OP thats like asking:

How many units could a large empire in Civ 4 build?

It's an unawnserable question.

No it is not, the fact that you can only build a predetermined amount of units depending on how many resources you have means that you can in fact know roughly how many units you can build at any given time.

 

[Ddude97]

No it is not, the fact that you can only build a predetermined about of units depending on how many resources you have means that you can in fact know roughly how many units you can build at any given time.

You could be using rescources for buildings, rescources (at least I hope) aren't even, not to mention not all units require rescources (I'm not totally certain on that last one)

 

[Tylerryan79]

Not all units need resources.

Nija'd

 

[Ddude97]

Not all units need resources.

Nija'd

Yes, I thought so.

 

[12agnar0k]

Exactly how many units you can support will depend entirely on your economy's ability to pay maintenance.

 

[Ddude97]

Meh. Just meh.

 

[hardcore_gamer]

Meh. Just meh.

 

[Ddude97]

No one will just guess.
Meh

 

[Thorburne]

Well, I did a thread where I gave estimates as to what I thought might be roughly the number (depending on various factors) for a standard map:

Army Sizes

Though, admittedly, I did not take resource limits into account.