Is the army really useful at all?

[Homie]

IMO the army is not worth using a leader on. Let's set up some pros and cons.

Cons
1.)
If you have e.g. 3 knights outside an enemy city. You attack with the first one, win, but a spearmen is still there to defend the city. No worries, you attack with the second knight, win and capture the city.

However, if you had those three knights in an army, this scenario would probably be the case: You attack, win. But there is still 1 pikeman in the city, and you can only attack once, so won't get the city. And now you have lost the element of surprise. The next turn the AI could have moved more units into the city, so it will be even more difficult to capture the city. So in such a case(which it often is) the army will actually be a disadvantage.

Note: I have learned that in later pathches the army gets multiple attack, so the above statement might be incorrect.

2.)
The army is as slow as it's slowest unit, making the army slow, unless you only put fast attack units in it, but that would make it weak in defense.

3.)
The units in the army cannot be upgraded, except for v.1.17f( At least that's what PaleHorse76 said)

4.)
The army can hardly compete with a wonder which you can also build with the leader.

5.)
The army is too expensive to build compared with it's abilities.(You can build it if you have military academy, I think(I don't build it))

6.)
The army heals slower because it only heals one unit at a time.(Thx, ChiefP_thewhite)

7.)
"another sort of con is that an offense army may also be the best defender so any attacks may come against your army instead of designated defenseive units" - quote by ChiefP_thewhite


Pros

1.)
The army keeps the units in the army alive because you have to lose all health in the army for it to die. In other words: It has the combined health of all the units in the army making it hard to kill.

2.)
You will most likely win the battle(but not the war)

3. When you get fast-moving multiple attack units(modern armor) the army's efficiency increases.

4.)
It is really cool

IMO the armys cons outweight the pros.

But please post your ideas and opinions about the army

I also have a question about the army:
When you attack with the army, one and one unit in the army attacks. So if the unit defending itself doesn't die after the first unit in the army attacks it, can the defending unit be upgraded(to veteran or to elite), you know, like it could if it fought off a normal unit.

 

[damunzy]

You forgot to put in that you don't have to use an Army. SO if you don't find it worthwile to use it really don't crap your style.

 

[Taé Shala]

You forgot the use for an army:

you can build heroic epic (to get more leaders)

 

[Homie]

I know, I was just trying to start a discussion on the topic, then maybe someone could convince me that the army is worthwile, because I really think it's cool and I want to use it but find that it is not worth the leader.

 

[Dralix]

Originally posted by Homie
I know, I was just trying to start a discussion on the topic, then maybe someone could convince me that the army is worthwile, because I really think it's cool and I want to use it but find that it is not worth the leader.

As already mentioned, it is worth using your first leader on an army so you can build the heroic epic and get more leaders.

But after that, you can use all subsequent leaders on wonders and after discovering Military Tradition build the Military Academy and build armies without leaders.

Personally, I like armies of infantry or mech inf for city defense.

 

[Homie]

Yes, Dralix that would be very effective when you get railroads. You would just transport your defense army to the city which will be attacked(which you would see because of the borders). Good Idea

 

[MuddyOne]

I generally like to use armies for mostly defensive situations. Beachheads on a new continent, or as a fast moving defense to move with my fast moving troops that stalled outside a city. They can also be nice to break the up to date defender in a city and get to the weaker other troops if you are lagging behind in techs.

 

[Homie]

Keep yourself updated on this thread as I will add new Pros/cons to the first post of the thread(the thread-starter)
when I find them.

 

[cracker]

Armies make generally horrible defenders. They do not release the primary defensive position until they are battered to a pulp and then they heal at a snails pace compared to the same units on an individual basis. 3 individual Infantry units in a city with a barracks will be better defenders than the same number of infantry units in an army under the same conditions.

Armies also cannot be transported by air and cannot be loaded on transport ships in many cases because they exceed the transport capacity. A three knight army cannot ride in a caravel. A four unit army cannot ride in a Galleon.

Armies cannot pillage. I am fairly sure that fast units in an army cannot retreat when down to the equivalent of 1 hit point per unit.

Armies disable any special unit abilities such as airdrop for paratroops and amphib assualt for marines. An army of paratroops and/or marines is just a weak infantry army with tommy guns.

Armies are good for the extra hit points that will prevent a strong defender from stepping aside and/or promoting up to a stronger level because when an army attacks a defender it does not release and let the defender heal/promote.

Armies are primarily useful for generating the opportunity to build the HE so you will get more great leaders. I usually only use Great leaders to build the first army and then only build another army from a GL when I run out of wonders to build or when I can determine I will need one super killer to capture a major city.

Elite units in armies also do not produce Great Leaders so given the choice of three elite cavalry individually vs three elite cavalry in an army there are only a few cases where I would load the army.

Also, after I get enough armies to build the Pentagon (4 I think) then I disband any excess obsolete armies that may contain things like horsemen, archers, and/or swordsmen.

 

[miltonfriedman]

Homie, several things:

1. Army can attack multiple times afforded by the newest patch
2. It is no different from stacking several slow, high-defense units onto your offensive force. If you are worrying about protecting the high-power but low-defense units, you are still moving at the speed of the slowest unit.
3.-7. I agree

 

[cracker]

Milton,

Don't be deceived by the multiple attack promise. It is only half true.

An army of 3 swordsmen can only attack once because all the movement points of swordsmen #2 and #3 get wasted in the first attack. The individual swordsmen could each attack individually, one attack per swordsdude, and potentially terminate three weaker defenders all in one turn.

An army of three cavalry units can move two tiles and then only attack once while these same three cavalry units could move two tiles and then attack three times.

An army of three cavalry units that begins its turns sitting in a square next to an enemy can attack three times, just like the same three units individually, but at the end of the turn the individual cavalry units will still each have two movement points left and can move to another tile and fortify for defense. (note: if the individual cav survive)

 

[explodin dog]

no cracker, that's cos swordsmen are foot units, like infantry, marines, mech infantry, etc.
they can only attack once, unless they are attacked first, by some other civ's units. so if you had the choice between modern armor or mech infantry in your army, you SHOULD go with the modern armor. I find armies useful only when they contain modern armor, to take over a city when nothing else really works..

one other thing: only a fool would load different units in the same army. that is what screws your movement up. a wise person would load three or four of the same unit in the same army.

 

[andyo]

an obvious practical point that no one has pointed out yet - the ai will almost never attack a strong defensive army - put 4 infantry in an army, and the ai will almost never come after it - very useufl in some situations - i.e. establishing a beach head - or my favorite - find a mountain right near an enemy capitol, put an army of 4 infantry and a bunch of artillery on it - and destroy all the roads leading to the capital - very effective, and even then the ai will rarely attack an infantry army fortified on a mountain/hill, even if not doing so means their death :-D

 

[sadu]

It is posted (somewhere here by the guys that make civ3) that you can only have one leader at a time. Given this bit of info, it is critical to use up those great leaders as soon as possible while at war (you can sit for a while in times of peace).
If you have just scored a leader, and you don't feel like putting a wonder in a newly stolen city (in case it flips), generally you can't afford the few turns required to ship your leader to another city.
In my current game, playing a militaristic civ, with heroic epic, in cavalry and musket era, I got 3 great leaders over the space of 8 turns. It would have taken me 6 turns to ship the leader back to safety, so I converted them to armies, and laughed as the leaders kept rolling in.
It depends how the war is going, but you can't afford to waste any opportunity by having leaders tied up in transit, or being "saved" for a specific wonder.

 

[Random Passerby]

Pre-tanks, the AI often won't even try to fight infantry in mountains at all.

Note that every post in this thread seems to be assuming one thing: that you're keeping your army filled to capacity. I've always found two-unit armies to be quite useful, for a number of reasons:

1. They still have twice as many hitpoints as anything else.

2. An army's number of attacks is tied to its movement points; individual units' attacks are based on numbers alone. A two-cavalry army can get three attacks under some circumstances, and can still move and get the two that the cavalry normally would have.

3. The defender-picking mechanism handles a two-unit offensive army somewhat better than it does a three- or four-unit one, since defensive units in the same stack will often have enough defense power to offset the paired army's moderately increased HP compared when a full army would often be put on top to defend (even if it were cavalry in a stack of riflemen or infantry, or tanks in a stack of modern armor).

4. You can always fill them later. An army with two cavalry can later, with the Pentagon, be filled to have two modern armor. Since the cavalry aren't going to be doing anything attack-wise by this point, this in effect upgrades your two-cav army to a two-modern-armor army, with the added benefit that the modern armor has a little light backup; it's probably not going to be much help, but again, the cavalry wouldn't do much anyways and on a few ocassions it has saved my army (10 HP of cavalry is generally enough to knock off that last HP from a stubborn mech infantry).

5. You can't have more than one leader out, so if you've got a huge war going you might as well spend them anyways.

 

[philippe]

hey in gotm 8 i had a leader of 3 swordsmen and i destroyed france ONLY with that army.
it killed about 10 spearman and i hate spearman i had almost tears in my eye of joy

 

[Sanaz]

Pro : Pre-artillery, an Army of Cavalry can take out the top defender in a city fortified by Riflemen, where you would just break 3 individual Cavalry while probably raising the Rifleman up to Elite. Then other attacking units can come attack the weaker defenders.

Con : until you have Galleons (carry 4), you can't transport a 3-unit Army from the continent it's built on. Galleys (2) and Caravels (3) can't hold it.

I think the biggest Pro is building the Heroic Epic.

I never thought of putting only two units in an Army so I could move it, and so I could add Modern Armor when available - good idea.

 

[sadu]

OK, when I build an army, I like to maximise HP by only stacking elite units into the army, which is a bit of a waste. Are units able to upgrade from vet to elite once they are in an army, so your army can go from 12HP to 15HP?

 

[Zouave]

Armies are something of an unnecessary luxury item that I almost never use before the Modern period. I would never dream of building an army instead of a Wonder. But if I'm very aggressive, and current Wonders are well under way by other civs, then I may as well use a leader for an army, especially late in thegame when upgrading is irrelevant.

THE PROBLEM: After Civ 2, we wanted MILITARY leaders who could effect combat, the way Napoleon, Alexander, Hannibal, and others could do. I understand that such would work best with STACK VS. STACK combat, instead of individual unit vs individual unit in stacks, but we still should have something that would give a combat bonus if in the same stack as a Military Leader.

The lack of Military Leaders is serious omission.

 

[Maple]

sadu-

I have heard that they can be upgraded, but I have never seen it happen.