Legions - How to use them

[REDAF]

Another point that I may have missed here, after having read through the thread again, is that it appears that most of you are referring to MP games on-line. My comments have been based on SP Deity Games. It makes me wonder if Legions become better units in a MP game do to the lack of an AI Handicap...

Morte, GGrayson, Sn1p3r...
Can you confirm that your strats here are MP based?
Do you experience the same success with Legions against the AI?

 

[MorteEterna]

GGRAYSON
I agree with most of your points and will conceed that Legions are an early and cheap means of attacking and counterattacking. However, I still disagree with using them en masse and feel that they become so useless, so early that I skip them entirely.

By the time you have built 6 Legion Armies you have spent 180 hammers. (220 if you built a barracks to go with them.) All to take them to war and lose half of them to take a city? In order to continue your attack, you now have to spend more hammers (90?) to replace the armies you lost weakening your opponents defences.

Seems better to me to use those 180 hammers on 3 libraries and 1 market. Which will allow you to tech Mathmatics that much quicker and backfill Iron Working. I have built the Legions, and have had very minimal success. Which is why I go for building upgrades over Legions and don't believe them to be as strong as they are touted here in this thread.

Then, you don't know how to use them. Saying you lose half of them is not true. You could retreat if you want, and damaging the army could be enough. I didn't say don't build catapults, you could combine it and build perhaps 1 catapult army and 4 legions armies. I can't see the minimal succes, I've had a lot of games where I could lose and I won using legions. Catapults couldn't help, and it's simple. You can't build catapults everywhere, it would take too many turns (let's say 5), while in 5 turns you can build 2 legions and in almost every city.

I said, you have to understand the use. And I said you can use galleons to improve the attack, or fundamentalism. Then, they would become much more powerful

PS: Yes, they work better in MP. Why? Good players, are not stupid. You could say having less defences per city is bad but, I consider having 1 archer army per city like the AI does, being stupid. Good players prefer to have more cities and defences only where they need. And another thing I have seen is that AI win battles with more ease. Then that would be an overwhelming offence. What's the problem with the AI? If they keep spending resources to build a lot of units, they are going to lose. Who cares if they get 6 archer armies?

 

[GGrayson]

Another point that I may have missed here, after having read through the thread again, is that it appears that most of you are referring to MP games on-line. My comments have been based on SP Deity Games. It makes me wonder if Legions become better units in a MP game do to the lack of an AI Handicap...

Morte, GGrayson, Sn1p3r...
Can you confirm that your strats here are MP based?
Do you experience the same success with Legions against the AI?

nope. though it is easier to take down the AI online than on Deity, legions work just fine on Deity.

We're mainly talking about using them to kill human players, or counterattack humans. The AI gets abused online is a non-factor, so, when we're talking MP, the only time we mention the AI is just ways to abuse them. Legions are effective in this regard for taking down the remaining AI if you didn't do so earlier.

But you are correct in them being more useful in MP than SP. They are particularly helpful when you are behind and the other guy is out expanding you and aggression is probably the best solution to get back in the game. While they are building more settlers and buildings after the initial rush calms down, you can be building lots of legion armies and go pummel them when they thought they were leading.

MP is harder than Deity, unless you've got some bad players. But even the bad players are using more danerous tactics than the AI ever would.

I play Game of the Week Deity all the time. I don't know if you play it, but the AI starts out w/ a Barracks, a Great Leader and Bronze Working in 4000BC. So those archer armies are getting about 30 defense and the pikemen armies about 45. About the only way to get a quick BC victory to take down this strong of a force is getting a bunch of vet legion armies, hopefully have fundamentalism, and then stack about 5 legion armies against those 30 defense archers and let the battle begin. So if it works against harder Deity than you are playing, then yes it works

 

[GGrayson]

GGRAYSON
I agree with most of your points and will conceed that Legions are an early and cheap means of attacking and counterattacking. However, I still disagree with using them en masse and feel that they become so useless, so early that I skip them entirely.

By the time you have built 6 Legion Armies you have spent 180 hammers. (220 if you built a barracks to go with them.) All to take them to war and lose half of them to take a city? In order to continue your attack, you now have to spend more hammers (90?) to replace the armies you lost weakening your opponents defences.

Seems better to me to use those 180 hammers on 3 libraries and 1 market. Which will allow you to tech Mathmatics that much quicker and backfill Iron Working. I have built the Legions, and have had very minimal success. Which is why I go for building upgrades over Legions and don't believe them to be as strong as they are touted here in this thread.

You're always gonna lose units when you're rushing en masse, but you are taking out atleast 25% of the enemy civs if you get one civ eliminated. If you want an early BC victory, you're gonna have to get lucky with a few horsearmies, or you're gonna have to spam tons of legions and go take them down en masse.

If you want to sit back and turtle, that's fine, but when you should be considering to build legions or not to, you shouldn't be building buildings. We're still talking about the BC here, and you're gonna need settlers, not buildings in the BC, in almost every case.

Plus, you'll be spamming those legions out of a city every few turns, but all you're doing in those cities that are building 40 hammer and 60 hammer buildings is just banking hammers for 8-10 turns, or more. You could spend 4 turns getting two legions out of five cities making 3 legion armies which will kill an archer army then start building settlers, libraries or whatever you want, so you can be aggressive, and really haven't slowed down your empire building either.

It's about coordinating them quickly, and you're cashing in something for 10 hammers, not waiting for 40 or 60 hammers to come to fruitition.

 

[REDAF]

GGrayson, Morte,

Thanks for your patience and detailed responses. I am going to attempt to put these strategies to practical use over the next couple of days. Thanks for your input, I'll report back and let you know how it goes

 

[REDAF]

REPORT FROM THE FRONT:

First off, I would like to say thanks to Morte and the others in this (and other) forums. I apologize for coming off with such a harsh tone originally. I love this game and am intrigued by other approaches to the game. Thank you all (Especially Morte and GGrayson) for sharing your thoughts and strategies, they have opened my eyes and greatly improved my game!!

Over the weekend I put Morte's Legion Strategy to use with mixed results...
The Advantages:
-I found that Legions Armies are very cheap and can be put together en masse in only a few turns. (No secret here.)
-Prior to Pikeman, Legions can not be stopped. (With or without help from upgrades and or Naval Bonuses.) Terrain attack bonuses are helpful, but not required against archers in non-capitals.
-Legions are very useful at counter attacking units in your home territory. Either while you are amassing your armies for war, or into the medieval era when they become rather obsolete as an attacking force in distant lands.
Disadvantages:
-Movement of Legion Armies is terribly slow. I found that an attack can be sped up with the use of a settler to run out ahead of the army, found a city and build a rode. However this tactic only works prior to declaring war, as your settlers will fall prey to enemey troops afterward.
-Somewhere around the Medieval Era with the development of Pikeman and into Rifleman, the units become undermatched and require the assistance of multiple promotions, heavy naval support and or a great general.

I found that I had a very difficult time with Legions beating Pikeman in Capital cities. My Legion armies were Veteran and were getting torn up in these Pikeman controlled Capitals. I would say that when attacking a capital with Legions, against Pikeman, one would need to enlist all bonuses possible to ensure victory. These include, Disrupting defensive units (SPY), Promotions (Infiltration), Naval Support (Probably Galleons), Terrain bonuses (Attack From Hills) and a great general.

Morte mentions Legions being viable as an attacking force even against Rifleman, however that seems like a bit of a stretch. I can't see Fortified Rifleman losing to Legions even with the bonuses listed above, but maybe so...

Anyway thanks again Morte for opening my eyes to how powerful Legions can be, I had always ignored them! I have also been reading some of your early expansion articles where you say to aim for 10 cities by 0AD. I haven't gotten there yet, but have been able to get 8! It makes such an amazing difference. I am blowing the AI away in the tech race and am not even bothering with Republic Government for expansion!!

 

[MorteEterna]

REPORT FROM THE FRONT:

First off, I would like to say thanks to Morte and the others in this (and other) forums. I apologize for coming off with such a harsh tone originally. I love this game and am intrigued by other approaches to the game. Thank you all (Especially Morte and GGrayson) for sharing your thoughts and strategies, they have opened my eyes and greatly improved my game!!

Over the weekend I put Morte's Legion Strategy to use with mixed results...
The Advantages:
-I found that Legions Armies are very cheap and can be put together en masse in only a few turns. (No secret here.)
-Prior to Pikeman, Legions can not be stopped. (With or without help from upgrades and or Naval Bonuses.) Terrain attack bonuses are helpful, but not required against archers in non-capitals.
-Legions are very useful at counter attacking units in your home territory. Either while you are amassing your armies for war, or into the medieval era when they become rather obsolete as an attacking force in distant lands.
Disadvantages:
-Movement of Legion Armies is terribly slow. I found that an attack can be sped up with the use of a settler to run out ahead of the army, found a city and build a rode. However this tactic only works prior to declaring war, as your settlers will fall prey to enemey troops afterward.
-Somewhere around the Medieval Era with the development of Pikeman and into Rifleman, the units become undermatched and require the assistance of multiple promotions, heavy naval support and or a great general.

I found that I had a very difficult time with Legions beating Pikeman in Capital cities. My Legion armies were Veteran and were getting torn up in these Pikeman controlled Capitals. I would say that when attacking a capital with Legions, against Pikeman, one would need to enlist all bonuses possible to ensure victory. These include, Disrupting defensive units (SPY), Promotions (Infiltration), Naval Support (Probably Galleons), Terrain bonuses (Attack From Hills) and a great general.

Morte mentions Legions being viable as an attacking force even against Rifleman, however that seems like a bit of a stretch. I can't see Fortified Rifleman losing to Legions even with the bonuses listed above, but maybe so...

Anyway thanks again Morte for opening my eyes to how powerful Legions can be, I had always ignored them! I have also been reading some of your early expansion articles where you say to aim for 10 cities by 0AD. I haven't gotten there yet, but have been able to get 8! It makes such an amazing difference. I am blowing the AI away in the tech race and am not even bothering with Republic Government for expansion!!

You were talking about useless bonuses missing the best. A spy is 25 hammers (a legion army), and will only remove 50% fortification, then, never use this. Promotions are not needed, veteran is enough..
Hills, are helpful, but if you only get religion, 13.5 attack * 3 means 41.5
41.5 beats riflemen, unless you get bad luck, and if you get also naval support, you will beat these riflemen. That's the trick, religion.. You don't need all other bonuses, then, having many cities will help you getting religion, and if you also get naval support, you will crush their riflemen. Remember, they won't have veteran riflemen everywhere, that's too hard to do and if he did, he got few cities, then you sould still out-expand him.

 

[REDAF]

Morte, my veteran legion armies get 9 attack, how are you getting to 41.5 with fundamentalism?

 

[REDAF]

Morte, here are the numbers I come up with...
Vet Legion: 9
fundamentalism: 3 (12)
hill: +50% (18)
galleon fleet: 3
Final attack: 21

those odds are almost 1:1 on fortified pikeman armies. But you are talking about rifleman armies. Have you actually won a battle with legions against rifleman?

 

[GGrayson]

REPORT FROM THE FRONT:

First off, I would like to say thanks to Morte and the others in this (and other) forums. I apologize for coming off with such a harsh tone originally. I love this game and am intrigued by other approaches to the game. Thank you all (Especially Morte and GGrayson) for sharing your thoughts and strategies, they have opened my eyes and greatly improved my game!!

Over the weekend I put Morte's Legion Strategy to use with mixed results...
The Advantages:
-I found that Legions Armies are very cheap and can be put together en masse in only a few turns. (No secret here.)
-Prior to Pikeman, Legions can not be stopped. (With or without help from upgrades and or Naval Bonuses.) Terrain attack bonuses are helpful, but not required against archers in non-capitals.
-Legions are very useful at counter attacking units in your home territory. Either while you are amassing your armies for war, or into the medieval era when they become rather obsolete as an attacking force in distant lands.
Disadvantages:
-Movement of Legion Armies is terribly slow. I found that an attack can be sped up with the use of a settler to run out ahead of the army, found a city and build a rode. However this tactic only works prior to declaring war, as your settlers will fall prey to enemey troops afterward.
-Somewhere around the Medieval Era with the development of Pikeman and into Rifleman, the units become undermatched and require the assistance of multiple promotions, heavy naval support and or a great general.

I found that I had a very difficult time with Legions beating Pikeman in Capital cities. My Legion armies were Veteran and were getting torn up in these Pikeman controlled Capitals. I would say that when attacking a capital with Legions, against Pikeman, one would need to enlist all bonuses possible to ensure victory. These include, Disrupting defensive units (SPY), Promotions (Infiltration), Naval Support (Probably Galleons), Terrain bonuses (Attack From Hills) and a great general.

Morte mentions Legions being viable as an attacking force even against Rifleman, however that seems like a bit of a stretch. I can't see Fortified Rifleman losing to Legions even with the bonuses listed above, but maybe so...

Anyway thanks again Morte for opening my eyes to how powerful Legions can be, I had always ignored them! I have also been reading some of your early expansion articles where you say to aim for 10 cities by 0AD. I haven't gotten there yet, but have been able to get 8! It makes such an amazing difference. I am blowing the AI away in the tech race and am not even bothering with Republic Government for expansion!!

I think you are getting it. I agree with your advantages/disadvantages section for the most part.

It is harder to take down pikes and riflemen w/ legions, and you are gonna need a lot of legion armies to take down pikes. Riflemen would be pushing it, but could technically be done, though it probably wouldn't be the best way.

Stick to killing archers with them, and the occasional pikeman army is fine, if it's worth killing with just legions. coutnerattack, as you noted, it the other main use for them. They are one of the best BC units that's made for the BC. You're not forcing a knight rush way early when you don't have the hammers, you're not bankrupting yourself for catapults to defend, and you're not mortaging your early devolpment for horsmen, you're just cranking out a cheap workforce for to gain some advantages and then stopping.

I don't agree with Morte's 3*13.5=41.5, so this should be a rifleman army. It doesn't work that way. It's more like, "Let's hope we wound this rifleman army, then hopefully one more time, then maybe with 3 other legion armies you can kill it". I would say you need luck and at least 5 legion armies w/ some kind of multipliers to kill a rifleman army fortified. 10 legion armies may not kill them. I've lost a huge stack of legion armies against vetern pikeman.

As I said, it's best not to go overboard, but realize their uses, which I think you are understanding it. Most people don't use them at all. But there comes a point when you need to not use them anymore, and that's typically after the BC ends and you start getting more units. I only build mass amount of legion armies if my initial legion rush is more successful than I thought it would be, so I'm gonna try and finish the game, or if I'm losing, and just trying a last ditch effort.

 

[MorteEterna]

Morte, here are the numbers I come up with...
Vet Legion: 9
fundamentalism: 3 (12)
hill: +50% (18)
galleon fleet: 3
Final attack: 21

those odds are almost 1:1 on fortified pikeman armies. But you are talking about rifleman armies. Have you actually won a battle with legions against rifleman?

Another usual mistake is about fundamentalism (I explained how it works in the first post):

Legion = 6
Fundamentalism = 9
Veteran = 13.5
Hill = 18
Galleon fleet = 3

21

You are confusing a lot the bonuses.. You would say the hill gives 100% or something like that..

And I said 3 legions armies, and, unless the enemy is lucky, 3 legions armies (without galleons) beat riflemen. It's not about hoping the riflemen get wounded 1 time each, but you should do damage and kill them. Galleons are a waste, 1 is enough if you want to move units, and they are useful only with spain, english or Americans (half price) if you want to do a good job. Then, with catapults helping for the first 1-2 attacks, you should beat riflemen. And remember they won't have veteran riflemen everywhere.

An army fortified has got 30 defence, veteran means 37.5 and hill / palace 45.

 

[REDAF]

Thanks Morte and GGrayson.

After all is said and done, I have gained a new respect for Legion Armies and have added them to my early game repetoire. Using them to take an early capital and or a few other cities has made a huge difference in the Ancient Era and in combination with Rapid expansion has given me an early and commanding lead in all of the games I have played lately.

I don't foresee using them as an attacking force much later than 1000AD. By then, my rush is well over and whatever Legions I have left, I keep around for counter attacks and or Michealangelo's Workshop.

Thanks again, I'm sure we will meet again in another forum on some other thread...

 

[Nightingale737]

well im new civilization in general and also to this forum but if anyone can send MorteEterna,telling him that i said hes legit i will appreciated a lot. idk how to send message in here. i found this quite inters thing because when i got cillvation i just jumped in deity and use aztec horse rush tactic.until i read this i keep building horsemen till i got one army to take them out but i will get stuck when i count beat them. with legions you will saveing time money and since.just repeated what i got for the post . oh yea MorteEterna nice debater skills i em on a debate team my self and i was impersest that someone can argue like that with out taking a class( assuming u dint)