Number of military units?

[mnf]

Noble and below, I usually find that I can neglect my military pretty much all the time until late game. That is, having one archer in each city, two at border cities just in case, and then upgrade them to longbows when I happen to remember them, and finally upgrade the longbows to infantry or sometimes directly to mechanized infantry. It's a bad habit, but I always forget about my military until I find myself at a significant technological lead and have too much production on my hand.

I think Noble and below it's pretty safe to rely on the diplomatic modifiers to see who is likely to attack and who isn't.

But if one really has to say how many military units is enough, I seem to recall some veteran Civilization players saying, "you can never have enough military units."

For just learning the game, perhaps start with this general rule: if there's nothing you need to build in a city, then have it build military units.

 

[ZenMonkey]

It's a bad habit, but I always forget about my military until I find myself at a significant technological lead and have too much production on my hand.

That's funny, this is exactly what's happened to me this game. I'm far and away the leader score-wise (this is not bragging as I'm playing in Settler mode) but I've found myself in need of taking out Caesar's tiny little empire. So at this late date I've had to start cranking out the military units from all of my cities. Next time I'll plan better.

 

[ZB2]

build a military unit if (a) you dont have any buildings important for that city (b) if its construction time is less than 12 turns (normal speed)

thats how i work, and i have started using that 1 unit for inner city, 2 for outer. works well, i spend much less turns on making archers, and dont be afraid to shift some out to a new, outlying city whilst a horse archer defends temporaily. (reccomended for inner cities only however)

 

[asabahi]

If your neighbor is Monty, Nappy, Cathy, Ragnar, and/or Alex how can you have one or two units in your border cities? I have 2 units in all cities and 3-4 in each border city, with a couple of stacks ready to go near the border. I have a production/military city consistently building units. This is at prince and above.

 

[cabert]

I have a production/military city consistently building units.

This is a good rule of thumb. Build the HE (heroic epic = double building speed for units) asap, then affect this city the permanent duty of building units.
I usually mix the units it builds so that I get one unit per turn: catapults are 40 hammers.
I usually have more than 20 base hammers, meaning I can build a catapult every turn. I can also build a spear once in a while for 35 hammers. After a few turns, you have overflow. So you can build a maceman in 1 turn too...
This way you have a stack of say 7 catapults, 1 spear, 2 macemen in 10 turns.
the duration of a peace treaty...
a stack large enough to take down a city at any level between settler and monarch...
My rule of thumb.

 

[Dizzy75]

I find 1 in each city is enough, assuming it's strong enough to protect against barbs, plus a small mobile defense stack for pillagers. Attacking first is really the only strategy that works for me on Prince and above...if you do it properly, you should never have to defend your cities (until the modern era, at least).

 

[ZB2]

i prefer to have one large army, and 2-3 (depends on map size) quick reaction stacks in total.

the large army is usally enough to have 2 unit stacks along the entire front. thus preventing units from pillaging away 1000km from the frontline. it has more of an impact when i react to AIs pre-emtive strike, and means i have less time to cover large tracts of land in their borders.

slightly flawed by its own complexity, but it makes wars interesting and not just the quick rush to a city with III City Raider promotion