How to Produce Units Quickly

[CivIVMonger]

I realize that you can win any war with enough units. I have some trouble producing them quick enough though. This is sad, the AI on Monarch seems to be building units about twice as fast as I seem to be able to do. Their cities seem somewhere within the range of mine. I just want to war correctly!

So, there are a couple of individual questions I have:

How should I build?
Whip/Chop/Buy Can really mess up your economy if abused with the exeption of chopping. (Normal Production is just obvious because you have to.) But this is war, not economy time. That's afterwards.
So, thoughts on "how" to produce the units if you get what I mean. It looks like an obvious question, but I just want the thoughts of some of the advanced players on detailed areas of the subject.

Should I build units in every city?
I know that it helps helps immensely, but my question really means at any circumstance. If the commerce city *really* needs a Bank, should I substitute that for a Rifleman?

How do I get the Hammers?
This is a little harder to ask... Since their are so many eras and different ways. On the norm, how would you get enough hammers?

In the:

Ancient Era

Classical Era

Medieval Era

Renaissance Era

Industrial Era

Modern Era

Sorry for the taxing questions, but this is an area of the game that for some reason is hard for me. Thank you for any and all replies and answers.

 

[CornPlanter]

There are many ways to get hammers & hammer multipliers - mines, workshops, certain specialists & great people, certain civics, et cetera. Not easy to tell which ones you should use without knowing exact situation.

Overall, nothing beats drafting in terms of getting large (I mean, large) army asap. If your empire is not so big, drafting is very good. If your empire is large, drafting is awesome.

 

[Leventis]

Very open ended question obviously, and there are many ways to approach this. One thing I will say, is to use 'builder civics' (like OR) to get your infrastructure in place, then switch over to 'war civics' (Theocracy, Vassalage, PolState or Nat even) to pump out units with production and XP bonuses. This is not particularly hard to do if you plan accordingly, and even accomodate a Golden Age somewhere for a free civic switch and extra prod.

 

[Negator_UK]

Early Heroic Epic is a good way to make a productive city into a unit spammer - use early barb contacts or war to promote an axeman or chariot to 10 XP, promote it, and then you'll have the level 4 unit needed unlock the epic - just don't let it die until after the epic is built !

 

[UWHabs]

Keys: whip early, whip often. I personally am not a fan of stacking whip anger, but if you want an army, happiness be damned. As long as your cities aren't unhappy, whip away citizens for units. And if they're unhappy, whip multiple citizens into units to relieve that unhappiness.

Otherwise, drafting can be great as well. Especially if you can set up the Globe in a high-food spot, having one city that can draft a musketman/rifleman every turn or 2 can really help pump out units.

If neither of those work, then straight building can be fine. The keys are to specialize. So, honestly, there should be very very few cases where a city is working all 3 of a farm, a cottage, and a mine. Cottage cities shouldn't build units. Just keep them chugging away to keep your economy afloat (except late-game, if you're in Universal Suffrage, then I've had cities with all cottages get tons of hammers and they can contribute). Other cities should be either working farms to whip/draft, or farms/mines/workshops and be production cities. Your HE city should be able to build most military units in 1 turn.

Late game, nothing beats SP/Caste workshops. If you're so lucky to be able to avoid emancipation, you can get some monster cities late-game.

 

[r_rolo1]

Nothing beats the draft in terms of speed ( you have acess to the drafted unit right after the button hit half joke, but the draft is clearly the more effective way of getting a strong power up ).

Besides that, the whip is effective up to maybe rifles ( this obviously only if you can't draft or are not interested in draft/whip combos that already were more popular in here ). After that is better to rely in the specialized HE + Mil Acad city and on Police state .

 

[futurehermit]

Drafting ftw

Earlier on, HE city should be pumping troops (don't delay lit; get a 10 xp unit early)

Even earlier (and going forward), it's all about whipping/chopping

 

[tibbles]

When you talk about whipping out units for early wars, particularly in the early game (chariots/axes/swords) do you mean whipping every 10turns for stability or whipping off pop as fast as not wasting overflow allows (about every 3-4turns)?

I used to assume the former, but I never get the unit quantities at the speeds mentioned on these forums. A few times I tried the later and had an impressive rush, but one ugly recovery from an economy composed of pop 1 cities at their happy cap either from whipping or coming out of rebellion.

edit: Oh yeah, assume not having a bunch of trees to chop instead of whipping.

 

[kossin]

Whip for 2-pop for max overflow even if it's 4 turns. You'll get an army in 10~20 turns on Normal.

 

[lymond]

Possibly Medieval and higher, the Globe Theatre city absolutely rocks as a secondary unit pump. Later you can put the Red Cross in there and possible settle a GG or two. I place it in a high food city, often coastal with seafood. Nice thing too is if you want a key building in that city, well you can just whipped that too. It's amazing how fast it grows back too if the city is set up right. If it's coastal, you can whip out some naval units too. A lot of people tend not to emphasis navy, at least from what I read, but I think it can give one a great advantage depending on the map. Anyway, the Globe Theatre is powerful as heck if used correctly and can often get you units faster than the HE city.

I think back at how long I played CIV and completely ignored the Globe. Now it's my favorite NW.

 

[pi-r8]

I'd say that, in the ancient and classical eras, slavery is the best. Your cities are small, and can regrow quickly. As they get bigger and unit costs go up, slavery gets worse, although it becomes good again with biology and the kremlin.

Drafting is really nice when you first get nationalism. Especially in a city with the globe theater, it can produce a unit every turn, and regrow immediately with enough food. It becomes a lot less good once you get infantry, since those require two pop, so you'll only be able to draft 1 per 2 turns, and a lot of cities can build 1 per 2 turns at that time.

Cities with the HE and military academies can build stuff the normal way- mines, watermills, workshops, etc. Levees are great. Mining inc is really great.

If you don't need to research any more, and you have universal suffrage and a lot of towns, you can turn science to 0% and just buy everything. Works great, especially with the Kremlin, and you can route all production through a city close to the front lines, or one with a lot of military instructors.

I don't know any special tricks for making units during the Medieval era- probably why I hate fighting in that era ><.

 

[lilnev]

Ancient: Mostly chopping, some whipping, some mines. It's hard to whip when your happy-cap is so low.

Classical: Much chopping and whipping, some mines. Once the happy-cap lifts via HR or Calendar resources, you can whip more aggressively. I'm willing to stack my unhappiness 2 or 3, sometimes 4 deep (2 pop at a time, of course), to get an army large enough for decisive victory.

Medieval: Once you have an HE city, grow to it size, set it to mines, and don't whip it. Other cities here will be mostly whipping, chopping if you have any forests left.

Renaissance: Drafting ftw. Build or whip siege. Depends somewhat on happy-cap how many times you can draft, and my best commerce cities with modest food surplus may only draft once/10 turns. But many cities will draft 2 or 3 deep, maybe using the culture slider if needed.

Industrial: Still drafting. Building becomes more attractive than whipping as city sizes grow and units become more expensive. Plus your tiles are getting better (Chemisty workshops, Railroaded mines).

Modern: Mining Inc.

 

[JammerUno]

HE is the answer, turn every hammer into two. Whipping units isn't as favourable as buildings since they'll go obsolete. To avoid stacked whip anger you can't whip a ton of up to date units most of the time.

 

[kochman]

How should I build?
Whip/Chop/Buy...
Should I build units in every city?
How do I get the Hammers?

No need to tackle this by era. The strategy remains the same in all eras really.
For your questions... how should you build... all 3 options, use them when applicable. Don't whip at the cost of more than 1 population unless you need to for an emergency.
Build units in every city? Yes. Before you go to war, and continue to until shortly before you plan on making peace, when you revert 100% to infrastructure.
How to get hammers? I don't understand the question.

Some other tips...
*Your main military city (should have Barracks, Heroic Epic & West Point, settled Great Generals, and later the Military Academy) should ALWAYS be producing units, unless building a factory or something else to increase production.
*When you do declare war, it should be a surprise, getting to your first target city as quickly as humanly possible. Perhaps you won't even use your seige to lower his culture defense (especially in early periods), but instead use it to do collateral damage to the defenders (you will lose some seige, just be building more).
*Early rush (axes or equivalent UU time period) at least 1 opponent completely out of the game, then move into infrastructure mode until you start preparing for war again. This should begin when you have either 2 or 3 cities. Stop building settlers then, and build military until you do a surprise DoW and take his cities in a handful of turns. This will give you a production base/economic base needed to crush your enemy, see them driven before you, and hear the lamentation of their women.
*Bring at least 50% of your forces as seige, you will use them extensively... once you have started the war, 90% of my future building of military units are further seige weapons UNTIL I can get bombers, by then the game should already easily be yours anyhow.
*If the AI has a lot of units, once you surprise attack and take the first city, he will move his stack to take the city back, invariably. Have city defending units there, and seige. When he gets next to you to start the attack, use your seige in a pre-emptive strike to weaken his stack. If reasonable, use the rest of your units to further weaken his stack... You can 100% of the time count of the AI to move his stack to retake that 1st city against you (even if he is also being attacked by another AI).
*Several turns before you DoW the AI, try to bribe another AI into doing it for you. With any luck they will destroy each other's Stacks of Doom, leaving only you strong to mop them both up.

 

[CivIVMonger]

Thank you all so very much! I will take heed to this.

 

[CornPlanter]

Your main military city (should have Barracks, Heroic Epic & West Point, settled Great Generals, and later the Military Academy) should ALWAYS be producing units

This is probably just a subtle detail but wouldn't it be better to ALWAYS be producing units as opposed to producing West Point at some point? (unintentional pun ). I like to put my West Point into Ironworks city if I have a chance... or elsewhere... but once some city gets Epic, it produces units and only units till the rest of the game _except_ if I clearly need no more units (and thus no West Point) anymore, and except if I really need increase it's happiness or health or quickly build e.g. theatre to increase theatres count (which goes with increased happiness cap too). This is more a question from my part than a statement or argument.

 

[DaveMcW]

Don't build any buildings.
Don't build any wonders.

Suddenly you'll have twice as many units as the AIs!

 

[TheMeInTeam]

Don't build any buildings.
Don't build any wonders.

Suddenly you'll have twice as many units as the AIs!

Seems to dig into the tech rate though, especially if doing that means you don't put things that raise or caps into your cities. The units themselves work for happy under monarchy, but then those aren't taken out...

Well the point is pretty simple and you're exactly right overall though...if you want more units, build more units, not buildings.

High level games on faster speeds make units seem a fairly weak investment in some eras though. Tech parity medieval or catapult wars are possible but unless you have circumstances that are semi-rare they're not all that favorable.

 

[kochman]

This is probably just a subtle detail but wouldn't it be better to ALWAYS be producing units as opposed to producing West Point at some point? (unintentional pun ). I like to put my West Point into Ironworks city if I have a chance... or elsewhere... but once some city gets Epic, it produces units and only units till the rest of the game _except_ if I clearly need no more units (and thus no West Point) anymore, and except if I really need increase it's happiness or health or quickly build e.g. theatre to increase theatres count (which goes with increased happiness cap too). This is more a question from my part than a statement or argument.

I like to put it in my main military city as it is a rather quick build (you can whip a good portion of it even), and when you have that, barracks, and the Great Generals, you can have massive amounts of units with 3-4 promotions out of the box... That can mean Combat 1, Medic 1, and March, for a great conquest army..., it can mean 3 x City Defender... 3 x woodsman, etc... for each unit.
So, yes, you do lose several units, but to me, the future units with promotion potential makes it worth it.

 

[Airey]

Ancient: Mostly chopping, some whipping, some mines. It's hard to whip when your happy-cap is so low.

Classical: Much chopping and whipping, some mines. Once the happy-cap lifts via HR or Calendar resources, you can whip more aggressively. I'm willing to stack my unhappiness 2 or 3, sometimes 4 deep (2 pop at a time, of course), to get an army large enough for decisive victory.

Medieval: Once you have an HE city, grow to it size, set it to mines, and don't whip it. Other cities here will be mostly whipping, chopping if you have any forests left.

Renaissance: Drafting ftw. Build or whip siege. Depends somewhat on happy-cap how many times you can draft, and my best commerce cities with modest food surplus may only draft once/10 turns. But many cities will draft 2 or 3 deep, maybe using the culture slider if needed.

Industrial: Still drafting. Building becomes more attractive than whipping as city sizes grow and units become more expensive. Plus your tiles are getting better (Chemisty workshops, Railroaded mines).

Modern: Mining Inc.

Very nice and organized.

Don't build any buildings.
Don't build any wonders.

Suddenly you'll have twice as many units as the AIs!

So I guess you are going to say we're paying the maintenance by working at cottages! :O
Good tip for many. Not good to build everything in every city. XD

This is probably just a subtle detail but wouldn't it be better to ALWAYS be producing units as opposed to producing West Point at some point? (unintentional pun ). I like to put my West Point into Ironworks city if I have a chance... or elsewhere... but once some city gets Epic, it produces units and only units till the rest of the game _except_ if I clearly need no more units (and thus no West Point) anymore, and except if I really need increase it's happiness or health or quickly build e.g. theatre to increase theatres count (which goes with increased happiness cap too). This is more a question from my part than a statement or argument.

There was a discussion related to this before. I cannot find it. But the main point was to spread out the production of military units into 3 or 4 cities - westpoint/Ironworks/HE/good production city. So all can chunk out at good rate, plus have the option of quote swapping all different units with 1 turn left to complete so it comes out at theology (use of golden age/spiritual trait).
The downside to 1 or 2 city for military is all the excessive unit maintenance cost. Drafting is very effective hammer-wise and how it solves maintenance. Since upgrading units have it's own bottleneck.