Military: Quantity versus quality?

[Dr. Dr. Doktor]

In a current game as the Babylonians on a small pangea map I had 50 swordsmen and 20 bowmen (cannonfodder) and was still in the ancient age while my border civs (Romans and Zululand) had just reached the industrial age. Even though the zulus had musketmen and longbows they were beaten fairly easily. Meanwhile the romans have knights and longbowmen and are probably going to have riflemen in a couple of turns.

My point is that I think it is a valid strategy to maintain huge ancient age armies because quantity and low unit production cost is the decisive factor. (to a certain point of course i am not planning on using the proverbial spearman aginst a tank)

 

[werdhertz]

Ive won wars fairly easy simply by using small numbers, but advanced arms against a far larger force, but less advanced troops. It can go either way. I dont think there is any 'one' factor with large numbers winning over small numbers, or vice versa. Civ 3 seems to me more based on the little things, like managing your cities while IN the actual conflict, and using the terrain to your advantage etc.

 

[Mad Bomber]

I disagree with the previous post. Combat in Civ 3 is definately a numbers game. Keep a numerical advantage over an enemy and you should win, although you should try to keep your army at least a tech parity with your enemy. Only in modern times can a smaller force defeat a significantly larger one, this is due to the use of air power, artillery, and blitz attacks. However you should remember that you will suffer far larger casulties in a slugging match with a more advanced foe, so make sure your force is large enough in the initial attack, as reinforcements will likely be insufficient to replace losses.

 

[werdhertz]

Ive won uncountable battles versus the Persians while they were attempting to take one of my cities (at a choke point) with theyre Immortals (and lots of them, about 3 added to the offensive every turn) while i only had a spearman or 2 defending the city. With 2 Swordsman, and 2 Horseman hiding out in the mountains next to it, i attacked them everytime they neared my city, and have had absolute success on about 1 Swordsman/Horseman lost to every 3 or 4 Immortals, simply because they were walking across plains and everything i had was located across a river (except of course my offensive swordsman/horseman group).

Numbers, in my experience, are not as important as you make them out to be.

 

[Dr. Dr. Doktor]

Originally posted by Mad Bomber
However you should remember that you will suffer far larger casulties in a slugging match with a more advanced foe, so make sure your force is large enough in the initial attack, as reinforcements will likely be insufficient to replace losses.

Exactly. The strategy of superior numbers works best in a golden age situation where roundly one third is deducted in production time per unit under monarchy.

 

[sabreX]

In my recent game playing as Rome on a pangea huge world, though it created a world with two large contenents, I had complete controll of my starting contenent by the 1400's and i was just starting the industrial age. I was going to a conquest victory so i started creating a large landing force. This was going on for about 500 years, by the time everyone had riflemen / infantry (though i had a virtual monopoly on rubber I had a bunch of legionares that i couldn't upgrade so i loaded about 70 of them on my ships along with some settler, arty, and infantry. I found that even with a rifleman/infantry defence couldn't hold against enough legionares. Usualy it took about 5 leg. to take out one rifleman but that was ok cus they just cost me money and they couldn't be upgraded, so i got a few cities for pruning my obsolete units. All those legionares my conscript infantry to get a few easy levels by attacking those 1 hp rifle men after a few attacks from my legionares.

It really dosn't matter what kind of defence the AI has when you dump 160 mixed unit next to their capitol they are going to lose.

 

[cracker]

Doktor,

You are way off track here with a valid or even minimally competent strategy.

From a purely theoretical standpoint, you want to build military units and convert them into strategic advantages as quickly as possible. Having big piles of units sitting around will cost you points and lead to your demise, particularly if they are dead end tech units like swordsmen (pre-PTW). As an extreme example, you would want to build a bunch of warriors and then upgrade them to swordsmen and atatcl your enemy with swordsmen in such a way that when you are done all the enemies cities have been captured and most of your swordsmen have been consumed. Again from a purely theroetical standpoint, if you build only enough military to destroy or defend against the enemies you choose, then you have resources to dedictae to other purposes that will increase your game score.

I am not sure exactly where you think the hidden strategy is in your concept, but I think you need to look more closely at where you want to be in the game and cut way back on building swordsmen to attack rifleman. This sounds like a dead end concept of the highest magnitude.

 

[DaveMcW]

If you do a cost/benefit calculation, you will find that advanced units are indeed more powerful and cost-effective. But in cases like Doktor mentioned where advanced units are not an option, Civ3 does make it possible to overwhelm advanced units with masses of older ones. Firaxis said this is a design decision, to prevent advanced civs from automatically winning the game.

It only shows how flawed the scoring system is when you plan your offensive to kill 99% of your army. I use obsolete units in the front lines to kill them off faster, but purposely destroying your entire army so you can milk the rest of the game better is just sad.

 

[Lynx]

doktor, ur an idiot... :slay: :die:

This might work on chieftain, but on diety, outnumbering an opponent wont save you. The Battles of Crecy (100yrs, 3 to 1), Agincourt(100yrs, 5 to 1), Ia Drang Valley (2nd Vietnam, 5 to 1), Arnhem (WW2, 3 to 2), and multiple others are prime examples of despite bieng out numbered, they can stil win, and with few losses. :soldier: :arrow:

 

[Dr. Dr. Doktor]

Ok how about this one?

Cheaper units = more units = diplomatic respect.
More units = more elites = more leaders

By the way pikemen and swordmen are very effectiove against cavalry if you don't mind losing lots of units

Say you have 6 core cities each capable of producing one swordsman every second turn. That makes 30 swordsmen in 10 turns.
These thirty swordmen were converted into two conquered Roman cities and two razed English cities

The game is on emperor and i'm winning with swordsmen. Disgusting!

 

[krw72588]

If you want to knock out just one civ than a large low tech army is effective. If you want to conquar the world forget it. If you have ever tried attacking pikemen in citys with swordsmen you will agree with me. You will leave the war with about half the number of swordsmen you had at the start, counting reinforcements. It will take you a long time to rebuild your army.

 

[Clown2TheLeft]

Depends on the terrain. Longbowmen can rip up cavalry that's bogged down in the jungle, or from a fortified position with pikemen defending.

But in the open, when the cavalry can optimize its 3 movement points, it's best to counter with equal tech. The losses may be seemingly acceptable in that situation, but let's not forget maintenance costs to the amount of units necessary to even things out.

Regenerating the losses of lower tech units may be faster, yet bringing them to the front lines is a unique challenge. If you need 3 of your low-tech units to counter against every 1 of the enemy's, you're going to need to get 3 times as many units there. If going by sea? You'd better have a fordimable fleet of transport ships. If going by land....

...probably best not to consider how long it's going to take you to get the unit from the city of origin to the battle front. My own civ, at this point in the game, would take a foot unit 14 turns to go from my capital to the border (Don't get me wrong: I'm not saying that a 14 turn-to-cross Civ is a great feat; just giving an example to illistrate a point the good doctor may not have thought of).

If these damned Zulu keep it up, There's going to be a war--there alway is wth them. True, my Immortals could do some ripping damage to their country, but I don't want to wait 2 techs to get from Persopolis to Umfolozi. 14 turns is a long friggin' time...


Later!

--The Clown to the Left

 

[Mad Bomber]

Werdhertz:

That is more due to AI incompetence than great strategy, AI's rarely attack with a sufficient force to accomplish a task needed to be done. If defending against a competent foe the immortals would be backed up by a few defenders and catapults at least. Even then a SOD of 25 immortals can easily take out your defenses if willing to lose a few immortals.

Cracker:

Granted, attacking with a large ancient army is not the chosen path towards victory, but sometimes CIV deals you a bad hand, I think Doctor is trying to make the most of it (and fairly successfully it seems) He does have a valid point, Quantity has a quality of its own.

Lynx:

CIV 3 has NOTHING to do with history.

 

[Lynx]

... (You think i didnt know that!) Civ 3 isnt hstorically accurate as far as events are concerened, but at far as fighting, it is good. So... I put in some historical examples, there in nothing wrong with that. But you have to realize that, while Caesar didnt rule the Romans for 6000 years, hordes of swordsmen arent going to defeat a platoon of troops with mechanized units (mech infantry), or a fortified division of Infantry. :slay:

 

[gugalpm]

Quality!

 

[Yzman]

Try using tons of swordsmen against some infantry fortified in a city/metropolis. I'm not sure about your games, but in mine, that would be suicide.

 

[Mad Bomber]

Lynx:

But you are thinking of a real Mech Infantry, These are CIV 3 Mech Infantry we are takling about. Do you really think that 1 MI will stop 40 Immortals? In real life it would be no contest, but in CIV 3 the MI would be lost and probably not even cost you 10 of the immortals! Drop Real life analogies, WW2 would be over in two turns.

Yzman:

Never said that it wouldn't be ugly, but it still would be possible, depending on the size of the enemy civ.

 

[MSGT John Drew]

Originally posted by cracker
... and attack your enemy with swordsmen in such a way that when you are done all the enemies cities have been captured and most of your swordsmen have been consumed.

That's exactly what I do. I felt real sick in my early Civ3 days where my swordsmen die back to back without scoring a win. These times, however, I use swordsmen as very powerful 'cannon fodder'. My strategy will then call for horsemen to finish off wounded and redlined defenders.

 

[JuicyCivNewbie]

You can also use the horses as 'fast artillery' if you happen to end up with a mixed force. Attack with the horses first, assuming they are vets you're likely to take a few points off the defenders and keep the horsemen due to retreat. Then use the swords to finish them off.

 

[civ_steve]

My concern would be with the maintenance costs to support that army. 50 swords and 20 bowmen cost 70 gpt, minus whatever city support level you have (zero if republic or democracy.) Now if you have a massive empire of cities running as Despotism or Monarchy ... then you've probably won already and are just closing the book.

Another concern is the 1 movement point these units have. Any defender should see the stack coming for 3-4 turns before you're in position to attack. (Just another area the AI is poor in, however; a human player would flood defensive units in and make you fight for every space.) The horseman's extra movement point, retreat capability and upgrade option to Knights/Cavalry make it my primary offensive unit after an initial swordsman rush.