Quick Answers

[Turner]

If you have the units and the leader in your town you can create the army, and most probably use it to the full movement points immediately. And yes, that's RoP Rape.

To create the army, make your leader the active unit. There will be two buttons on top (or middle if you have advanced worker buttons turned on). One will be Hurry Improvement, the other will be Build Army. Select the Build Army. The leader will immediately turn into the army unit. Then you load the army much as you would a transport. But once you put units in, you can't take them out. So be careful choosing which units to put into it. Most people like to use Elites that have already generated a leader and are at the end of their upgrade path (such as a Calvary), but of course you can put whatever unit you want in there.

Good Luck!

Edit:

You can select a leader when he is in the city and click build army button, then select a unit you want to add to the army and click load button; do it to all three units and you have an army... But they do lose their movement for that turn...

I'm pretty sure that's not accurate. At least, in C3C I'm fairly sure that you can load and move in the same turn. Also, the AI tends to not attack stacks with armies in it, so even if the moves are sacrificed you might luck out and they'll avoid that city.

You could also 'bounce' the AI SoD. Find a city outside the range of the fastest unit, and empty all units from that city. The AI SoD should change course to the undefended city, and you can have an extra turn or so to pick them off. And if you keep doing this, one turn this city, one turn a different city, the AI will keep bouncing around your territory for the empty city. You can then use your calvary to pick off the SoD.

 

[gmaharriet]

Thank you!!! I'll give it a try. I obviously need a whole lot more practice at fighting.

 

[Sandman2012]

I have PTW installed with Conquest. I also have the Conquests 1.22 Full patch installed. Do I need to install the PTW patch if I want to play a PTW game?

 

[Turner]

Whoops, misread the question.

C3C comes with PTW 1.27, which is the lastest patch version. So you don't need to patch it to play.

 

[Sandman2012]

Thanks. How about Vanilla? Should I install the 1.29f patch if I want to go old school?

 

[Turner]

If it's not patched, C3C patched it when it was installed. So no, don't patch it.

 

[Sandman2012]

Thanks again. One last quick question: I was reading about some bugs and other issues in the Conquests forum. I'm a bit confused about the chronology. Did the 1.22 patch fix most of the issues? Or is PTW less buggy? I thought I had read somewhere that 1.22 was gonna be the last patch for Conquests and that it didn't quite address all concerns. Is that correct?

 

[Turner]

Yes, that is correct. The 1.22 patch still doesn't address the Sub Bug, where the AI can 'stumble' onto one of your subs and declare war on you regardless of how they felt about you before. There's also the AI-doesn't-use-armies bug, which really should be the AI-doesn't-use-armies-as-much bug. There are others, but overall 1.22 Conquests is better than 1.27 PTW.

Despite the problems, it's still quite playable.

 

[gmaharriet]

Well, I built my army of 3 elite cavalry, stacked it with about 10 more cavalry, but it disappeared during the 1st battle with the Sumerian stack of infantry. Some cavs made it back to a city, but then the Maya and Americans joined the war, and everyone came at me with bombers and tanks.

My guys fought bravely, eventually retreating to my last city with barracks, and I SWEAR just before I was destroyed, one of my workers was beating on a tank with his shovel.

My question...I've read the War Academy articles, spent hours over the past month reading posts here, been following some succession games. How do I learn to fight???

 

[Sparta]

Good question; I'd have defaulted by referring you to War Academy articles... General experience should certainly help; you'll see things happen over time and learn (sometimes costly) lessons from how wars develop. I don't have any miracle advice, but in my experience, mobility and and terrain are important things to be aware of in almost any war. Try to defend on hills or mountains if at all possible, and likewise defend the same from the AI taking them (having an AI SOD settle on high terrain next to one of your cities will often times doom it or lead to a very costly defense at best). If you can manage to, try to steer AI stacks towards open territory where they will be more vulnerable (the AI will often hesitate to attempt to seize high ground defended by decent defensive units). Additionally, having roads and/or fast units on your frontlines can help you to trim approaching stacks while still being able to retreat back to the safety of your border cities (similarly, consider attempting to road if possible in front of border towns you expect to become frontlines anytime soon). In any event, you will certainly become more comfortable with your war efforts with more experience, so as with everything else in life, more civ is the answer!

btw, when you say you "stacked" your city with 10 more cavalry, you don't mean you just fortified them, do you? If you have an impending SOD and a bunch of cavalry (/offensive units), your best bet is likely to attack with all of your cavalry (and your army three+ times with its blitz ability). Given that you have cavalry, you should be able to attack with them and still end their turn (and possibly fortify) within the beseiged city. Hopefully you'll then only have to withstand half of the stack the next turn, and it may very well turn away given your army defending the city as Turner_727 noted (make sure it ends its turn inside the city, you may be able to get all four attacks though if it's starting there).

In any event, good luck with your continued practice and development! Happy Civving!

 

[Tman65]

Currently playing my first game in C3C and considering that alot more units have defensive bombard, I have a question. If you have more than one unit, say 3 longbows in a stack that is attacked, you only see one fire in defensive bombard. Does only one fire back or is there just one animation displayed? If only one fires back, doesn't this limit the usefulness just a bit?

 

[Ginger_Ale]

Only one unit with defensive bombard in a stack will fire back. It is still useful, though, since if you have 3 units with defensive bombard, the next 3 AI units that attack the stack will have a chance of being bombarded defensively (each by one unit). Defensive bombard can be very powerful.

 

[gmaharriet]

btw, when you say you "stacked" your city with 10 more cavalry, you don't mean you just fortified them, do you? If you have an impending SOD and a bunch of cavalry (/offensive units), your best bet is likely to attack with all of your cavalry (and your army three+ times with its blitz ability). Given that you have cavalry, you should be able to attack with them and still end their turn (and possibly fortify) within the beseiged city.

They were right next to my city, I moved them all outside next to their SOD and attacked them. Moved all back inside city to heal.

Hopefully you'll then only have to withstand half of the stack the next turn, and it may very well turn away given your army defending the city as Turner_727 noted (make sure it ends its turn inside the city, you may be able to get all four attacks though if it's starting there).

The next turn all the tanks and planes hit me, along with what was left of their original SOD...wiped me and that city out.

I've decided to try some advice I saw in another thread somewhere, using small pangea, and just trying to do as much fighting as possible under various conditions until I get the hang of it. I've improved a LOT on early moves, settler factories, trading, etc...everything but fighting...so I need to just to take my lumps until I figure it out. This game is too much fun to just give up.

Thanks for all the helpful advice.

 

[klopolov]

In my recent game (my first emperor game ever and looks very good so far ) I'm on an island, Zulus are on another island right next to mine. I have no horses, so I traded with Babylon for horses and built lots of knights to later upgrade them to cavalry and destroy the Zulus who have been constantly attacking me. So, the Zulus attack again and my trade route with Babylon is gone... I get Military Tradition and I have saltpeter in my territory... But I cannot upgrade knights to cavs because I don't have horses!!! They are already sitting on the horse, why do I need more horses to upgrade them??? I had to wait for Zulus to agree to peace and get horses from Babylon and am destroying Zulus now... Is that a bug or is that just a minor thing Firaxis didn't think of??? or is it just me and it makes perfect sense somehow and I don't get it?

 

[Turner]

That's just the way the upgrades work. You need the resources that the upgraded unit requires for build in order to upgrade to that unit.

It might not make sense, but there's probably some kind of reason for it.

 

[Tman65]

Only one unit with defensive bombard in a stack will fire back. It is still useful, though, since if you have 3 units with defensive bombard, the next 3 AI units that attack the stack will have a chance of being bombarded defensively (each by one unit). Defensive bombard can be very powerful.

Thanks Ginger_Ale....hadn't even thought about the 1 bombard per unit per turn. Makes sense to have a few along as added protection....but not in an arty stack right? If you had artillery and a def. bombard unit (like a longbow again) the artillery would fire but the def wouldn't (unless all available arty had already fired)?

Thanks again!

 

[Ginger_Ale]

Thanks Ginger_Ale....hadn't even thought about the 1 bombard per unit per turn. Makes sense to have a few along as added protection....but not in an arty stack right? If you had artillery and a def. bombard unit (like a longbow again) the artillery would fire but the def wouldn't (unless all available arty had already fired)?

Thanks again!

Yes, any artillery unit will also defensively bombard, and I do think that artillery will go before units, but I'm not quite sure.

 

[Daghdha]

One question from a new player. When you talk about SoD I wonder how big it is to be called that. I just buyed the game and have done some tutoriels so I am very much reading and learning. When I have played a little my "stacks" are more like "trouble" than "doom". I have 4 guys in them.

 

[Ginger_Ale]

It depends on the age. A SoD in the ancient age could very well be only around 10 powerful units, but for the middle ages, maybe 15-25 is a bit better. In the modern age, with super-productive cities, SoDs might be 50 - 100+ units!

 

[Tomoyo]

It also depends on the unit. An SoD of archers may need more units than one of swordsmen, one of berzerkers may need less than one of MDI.