what do you consider a big army?

[homeyg]

depending on what size map you are playing what would you consider a big army?

For me I usually play on a standard map have around 100 defensive units garrisoned in my cities around 80 attack units and about 50 planes and ships. All of this around the industrial age

 

[silver 2039]

When your military advisor says your army is bigger than the Ai's.

 

[CIVPhilzilla]

Originally posted by silver 2039
When your military advisor says your army is bigger than the Ai's.

Plus 100 or more extra units. Just in case.


:soldier::tank::soldier::tank::soldier:
:soldier::tank::soldier::tank::soldier:

 

[silver 2039]

Yeah just in case of that invincible tank killing spearman.

 

[CIVPhilzilla]

yea lol

 

[thetyper]

Well on my current game as the Romans - Huge Map with 16 Civs - it's Modern Ages. Only 7 of the Civs are left. I control 80% of my continent which is the largest.

My ground defensive forces consist of 510 Mech. Inf. backed up by 30 Mobile SAMs which I can move into place.

Air defenses consist of 30 Jet Fighters which can be stationed anywhere in 2 turns (Conquests limits re-base range).

Ground offense is comprised of 80 single forward deployed (on the other continent) Modern Armor divided into 4 batallions. I also have 10 Armies of 4 Modern Armor forward deploed. Lastly a small Homeland Defense group of 16 MA.

Auxilary ground forces consist of 60 Radar Artillery.

Naval forces are based around my 10 Carrier groups. Each group contains 2 Carriers with 4 Stealth Fighters each. The Carriers are defended by 2 Battleships, 2 AEGIS Cruisers, and 2 Nuclear submarines as well.
40 Nuclear Submarines conduct enemy shore surveilance missions and home shore patrols. About 20 of these are armed with Tactical Nukes.
40 AEGIS Cruisers are forward deployed in the relevant seas.
30 Battleships are designated for home waters defense.

Air offense consists of 50 Stealth Bombers. And to ensure MAD - I have an arsenal of 40 ICBMs.

There's some units I'm missing and I'm sure I've had larger armies than this. This was a custom map with only 40% land. I've played Huge maps with 70% land where just keeping 3 Mech Inf in every city put me at 600.

 

[zerksees]

for a huge map - 1150 units?

400+ ma
350 mi
200 radar artillery

the rest is stealth bombers, fighters, ships, cruise missile and nukes

Also had another 150 or so workers so I could clean up some of the messes from ICBMs

For standard map I used to think 400-500 units was a big army.

 

[Goober]

I just build a crapload of tanks, and go WWWEEEEE through enemy territory. Actually I usually use ModArm, but Tanks also work well . . .

 

[Qitai]

ya, when the military advisor say so.

 

[ProPain]

I usually play normal size maps and off course it all depends on AI army size. But as a rule of thumb:
- In the pre-knight era, 30 horsies or swords and a few spears to accompany them are ok
- knight and cav, I'd say 30-50
- tanks and mod armor, 100 tanks, 100 arti, 100 mech inf. A lot of the mech inf is fortified in my towns then off course

 

[homeyg]

Originally posted by thetyper

Air defenses consist of 30 Jet Fighters which can be stationed anywhere in 2 turns (Conquests limits re-base range).

Conquests limits rebase range? How? Why?

 

[Veteranewbie]

When the computer crashed when I try to move all of my units in 1 stack

 

[Longasc]

I like the ancient times, I do not like those monster stacks of 30-40 Tanks...

I consider 24 offensive units and 8 defensive units a big army. I usually form 3 groups of 8 units and give everyone 2-3 defenders for garrison duties.

Late Ancient, Early Middle Ages - my favorite time to wage wars. Right after Monarchy has been discovered. :>

 

[Zardnaar]

20-30 Swordsmen/Immortals
or
50 Knights/Calvery
or
50-100 Tanks/Modern Armor+80 Infantry/MI+40 Artillery+40 Bombers

Anything above this is often overkill. You should be using the units earlier instead of seeing how many you can build. I'm always taking casualties and rotating in new units so attrition keeps my numbers down alot.

 

[col]

Once I have railroads in place I normally dont have any garrison units at all - except for the cities on the front line. All the rest of my units are mobile and can be used for offence or defense.

A big enough army is one that can deal with whatever the enemy can throw at it. This may mean an army that is numerically inferior if the enemy cant bring all their troops to bear quickly enough.

Ten swords can take down 20 spears one at a time..

 

[aaglo]

what do you consider a big army?

an army I cannot conquer.

 

[ShiplordAtvar]

My army is large enough for my tastes when, counting military units only (not workers), I have as many units as the sum of the dimensions of the world. I prefer to keep it at about twice that amount. Ex - a huge map, 160x160. 160+160=320, minimum # for my tastes. 320*2=640, desired #.

 

[thetyper]

Originally posted by homeyg


Conquests limits rebase range? How? Why?

Yes - in Conquests air units have a re-base limit of 6x Operational Range. It was to balance out the new lethal air bombardment. This is really only an issue on Huge maps. Even then I can get Stealth Bombers anywhere in 2 turns.

 

[homeyg]

Would the limit cause some planes not to be able to reach certain cities? or is the limit large enough that they would have no restrictions like that? (havent been far enough in conquests to get planes yet)

 

[mad-bax]

10 horses at 600BC: If I can do that I know I will win. Not sure if this would be big enough at Sid level, haven't tried yet.

I did play a game once where the main AI (Persia I think) had 230 Mech Inf and 170 Modern Armour. I thought that was quite big compared to my 45 cav, 50 infantry and 120 arty (IIRC).

The arty still won, but it was close for a few turns.