What is a good Army size?

[PeepDog]

I hope this question isn't too general, but what do you think is an appropriate size army to have in order to survive. Right now, I'm referring to Noble difficulty, and not really looking for a Domination victory. Too often I find myself working on improving my cities with buildings/wonders, then see what other Civs have, and it's a heck of a lot bigger than what I have.

What is a good strategy for keeping your army up-to-date in case an opponent DoWs me? Perhaps a "every other or every third thing your city builds should be a military unit"? Or a "x number of units per city"?

Any/all suggestions appreciated.

 

[xDaunt]

There isn't really a good hard and fast rule for army size. It depends upon who your neighbors are, how big their armies are, where your tech is relative to theirs, what the diplomancy situation looks like, and what the terrain around your borders is like. Probably the best rule that I can suggest is to keep a modern army that is at least half the size of the army of the civ with the largest army (check demographics for where you're at in this regard).

 

[Lord Chambers]

The number of units I can reasonably use to attack a given city without being fired on by nearby cities. So usually about 4 melee and 4 ranged units does the job. Depending on the tech gap and the corresponding unit losses, I will have extra units marching to the front to replace the dead guys. I also have one or two units that tend to get smashed by city defenses as the rest of the units move into place, and those retreat without actually taking part in the city siege, they just tank damage for the more valuable and less mobile attackers.

 

[vexing]

seven

 

[CaptainKapow]

My last game I won a science victory on Emperor without building more than 2 warriors and an archer. Didn't even upgrade them.

 

[Roxlimn]

Depends on your civ size in terms of number of cities. The bigger you are, the more hostile the AI tends to be. They're also more hostile if you interfere with City State relationships, or go hard for wonders.

As a rule of thumb, keep one melee unit per city and then half that again with miscellaneous units - ranged, siege, or mobile.

 

[jdyi87]

seven

another magical number 7!

 

[FlowKey]

Don't be too worried by the size of the AI's army. It's not very good at unit placement in the chess like warfare of civ5 so they'll be dropping like flies once you start shooting...

 

[inscrutableone]

Recently I have been playing Elizabeth on either tiny islands or archipelago on Deity, and I typically have an army of just one or sometimes two units. I usually have only six ships and one general.

The low numbers allow to promote to logistics more quickly, which is the core strategy in most Deity games, and always extremely useful at any difficulty. Basically you can move forward, fire twice, and then move back again.

On land games its not so simple, but you should always have the absolute minimum number of units you possibly can. Until you know what that magic number is for the map you are playing on, save and replay often, only when you have mastered a map should you try for a clean run.

 

[FlowKey]

you should always have the absolute minimum number of units you possibly can.

Nice truism, but not very helpful. How many or how little units can you have? Technically you can have as little as 0 or as many as you can produce/buy and have gpt to support. It all depends on map, civ, strategy, level of play etc etc ...

Until you know what that magic number is for the map you are playing on, save and replay often, only when you have mastered a map should you try for a clean run

Save and replay is always very educational, but what's the use of this magic number? It may not be that magic on the next map ...

 

[Gehennas]

If you want to keep AI away from DoWing you, check the military advisor. As I noticed, if he says that AI's army will wipe you out of the planet, this AI will probably DoW you soon.

 

[fmlizard2]

It depends. If you aren't concerned about taking over lands then an army roughly half the size of your most powerful neighbor is probably enough. If you have a bunch of grasslands and weak cities, increase this. If you have chokepoints, hills, and fortified cities, you can probably get away with a little less.

 

[fmlizard2]

My last game I won a science victory on Emperor without building more than 2 warriors and an archer. Didn't even upgrade them.

Were you on your own island? I can't get 60-70 turns into an Emperor game on pangaea without being declared on, no matter who my neighbors are. If you were on an island that is a great strategy but otherwise you probably got really lucky.

 

[manu-fan]

I usually go with 3 siege, 2 melee, 2 ranged, and maybe 1 or 2 mounted.

Eventually, the ranged get upgraded to rifles, so that it becomes 3 cannons, 4 rifles, maybe 1 or 2 mounted.

Cheers.

 

[Roxlimn]

In practice, the functional size of a necessary army relates to terrain and functionality. If all you want is for a couple higher-tech units to hold a choke one hex wide, you can do with three units on any map.

The fundamental mistake many Civ IV'ers carry into Civ V is that more is always better. That's not true in 1UPT. After a certain size, more units just clog your functional ones and take up maintenance.

vexing's 7 units is a good rule of thumb for a single, unified, main fighting force on a Standard size map. On a Pangaea or with good intel, that may be all you'll need. I prefer keeping a couple garrisons around, not only because I like Honor but also because I don't know where I'll be hit by suddenly hostile Civs. I may need two or three units to perform hold and delay actions until the main bulk of my armies makes it through my road networks.

For that matter, highly suggest a little latticeworking on important road intersections. It costs a little more to maintain, but if you've got the money, an extra turn or two on response is golden. Or you can reload, that works, too.

 

[inscrutableone]

The thing about the games I usually play is that I always have one city of my own and the rest are puppets or I raze them. A small army for me is one unit, a large army is two. I start with Pikemen and upgrade them with a goody hut to Riflemen (if I can find any, usually I can). This gives me a powerful unit early in game, one that can easily draw fire from a city and an archer and survive, allowing my navy to slowly whittle it down.

In the early years I build triremes AFAP for defense of my first city, and this works, even on Deity against all opponents. The more that come at me, the quicker I get my units to Logistics and its infamous double attack and then move.

As long as the map has oceans this strategy is unbeatable. If you can't reach a city via water, leave it until you have gotten all the others.

An Army of One is just enough...

or at least its my magic number right now.

 

[brasaelal]

If I choose a peaceful path, I put ranged units in most or all of my cities and a couple of melee and a couple of fast units (horsemen>tank). If I feel threatened by a neighbor hostile civ, I keep a GG around.

I I go for Domination, then the best defense is to always be on the offense!

 

[MAGBaxter]

I usually have one unit to one city and a small navy in the harbor, Ranged for units near the frontier, Strong units in the Capital, so i can focus on Buildings ect.

 

[TommyVern]

If you're just trying to deter an AI from attacking, you want to field an army about 1/3 the size of the top army, which you can check in the demographics tab.

 

[Aoxomoxoa]

7 is a good number with a horse based army, if melee heavy that can go down to 6 or 5, however you will move slower due to more hp's needing to be healed.

If a siege based army (roman, e.g.) , I really like 8. 3 melee and 5 siege. it's hard to be able to target with all your siege, and I find with 5 I can usually make sure I have a siege ready to shoot on the tiles that have the range/sight. I'll trade one melee for a horseman if I can for the range defense.