What's the biggest army you have built?

[Havocwreaker]

Hello, I'm wondering what is the largest army ever built in a regular Civ 4 game.

Number of units and demographic screen troop numbers both included.

 

[Cookie Crumbs]

In my late-game bloodbaths I can get around 100 Modern Armour swarming around destroying the globe.

 

[CivFan87]

Going by the demographics screen one time my army reached about 14 million troops.(Plus my vassal's troops)

 

[Thanny]

I recently started my final conquest run on a huge map. I had 150 cities at the start, with about 2400 ground units, 1500 air units, and 1200 water units between them for defense. I don't like having to worry about shuffling units around as enemy landing fleets show up (I like to kill them as they land, so they don't pillage the hell out of my countryside), so each city has pretty much the same defenses.

I have three major attack fleets, each consisting of 10 Battleships, 10 Destroyers, 10 carriers, and 25 transports. In the transports are 4 Gunships, 36 SEALs, 20 MAs, and (at the start) 40 Mechs.

There were four smaller fleets wandering around to conquer isolated islands (the main fleets go after the archipelagos), each with 8 warships, 12 MAs, and 4 Mechs.

Each main fleet has 200 Stealth Bombers to follow them around, while the mini-fleets have 100 SBs to provide support for one at a time. I also had 200 SBs on the biggest island shared by my cities and my most powerful enemy, to soften the dozens of units he'd be sending into my territory (there were a few dozen of my own waiting solely to hold them off, aside from my standard city defense). This is Warlords, of course. In vanilla Civ4, half the number of bombers would do the same job, since Warlords severely nerfs collateral damage.

Overall, probably around 7000 units, with the military rating at somewhere around 150M. The largest enemy had a 31M rating. I'd estimate that overall, there were around 10,000 units on the map across all remaining civs.

The game does not handle that many units especially well. It seems to actually try to render every single unit, even though only one should be visible per city (if you toggle bare map, suddenly everything's speedy again).

 

[cababika799]

@ Thanny
What year was it by the time you had amassed all of these troops? Just curious!

 

[mbaker2311]

Bet those spearmen were unhappy the day you landed!

 

[vorius]

I recently started my final conquest run on a huge map. I had 150 cities at the start, with about 2400 ground units, 1500 air units, and 1200 water units between them for defense. I don't like having to worry about shuffling units around as enemy landing fleets show up (I like to kill them as they land, so they don't pillage the hell out of my countryside), so each city has pretty much the same defenses.

I have three major attack fleets, each consisting of 10 Battleships, 10 Destroyers, 10 carriers, and 25 transports. In the transports are 4 Gunships, 36 SEALs, 20 MAs, and (at the start) 40 Mechs.

There were four smaller fleets wandering around to conquer isolated islands (the main fleets go after the archipelagos), each with 8 warships, 12 MAs, and 4 Mechs.

Each main fleet has 200 Stealth Bombers to follow them around, while the mini-fleets have 100 SBs to provide support for one at a time. I also had 200 SBs on the biggest island shared by my cities and my most powerful enemy, to soften the dozens of units he'd be sending into my territory (there were a few dozen of my own waiting solely to hold them off, aside from my standard city defense). This is Warlords, of course. In vanilla Civ4, half the number of bombers would do the same job, since Warlords severely nerfs collateral damage.

Overall, probably around 7000 units, with the military rating at somewhere around 150M. The largest enemy had a 31M rating. I'd estimate that overall, there were around 10,000 units on the map across all remaining civs.

The game does not handle that many units especially well. It seems to actually try to render every single unit, even though only one should be visible per city (if you toggle bare map, suddenly everything's speedy again).

Umm, how long does a computer's turn take with so many units for them to shuffle around !?

I don't think I've ever had more than like 100 units in a single game... My games usually go like this:

1. Build up my cities and out-tech the AI
2. AI gets jealous and starts making surprise, unprovoked attacks.
3. Repel AI and then grab some of their land
At this point in time, I don't even have medeival techs yet the game is already now too easy. If the AI fails in it's rush to attack me, then it's all over Johnny. Then since it's too easy now I just quit and start a new game!

 

[FoxURA]

I once built a massive invasion force force that required at least 10-15 transport ships to move in the initial force. The naval escort force had at least 15 ships and 15-20 air craft. The rest of the invasion force was waiting dispersed amongst my own cities waiting to be airlifted in after I captured the first enemy city on their mainland. While the land invasion was just about to start, one of my scout ships located what turned out to be just about the entire enemy fleet escorting an attack force that filled up at least 6 transport ships. Needless to say my aircraft had a lot of fun with the enemy fleet and it turned out that there were so many units in the enemy fleet that even my carriers had to move in to finish off the enemy force. Since I had Universal Suffrage and a butt load of extra cash all I had to do was wait for the revolt in the first conquered city to finish before the true invasion force could begin to move in. Anyways, by the time the second wave was moving in, the first wave had already captured about five cities in one massive blitz.

Also, just in case you were curious, by the time I started this conquest my empire had spread to almost completely fill a large continent except for a sliver of it where my adoring vassal, Bismark, had his small empire.

 

[Thanny]

@ Thanny
What year was it by the time you had amassed all of these troops? Just curious!

4000+. Marathon game, archipelago, conquest-only victory, and vassalage enabled (which means I had to be picky for a while about who I fought).

 

[Thanny]

Umm, how long does a computer's turn take with so many units for them to shuffle around !?

Up to half a minute during peacetime. During war, probably a couple minutes initially, but eventually just a couple seconds (as they ran out of units).

I don't think I've ever had more than like 100 units in a single game... My games usually go like this:

1. Build up my cities and out-tech the AI
2. AI gets jealous and starts making surprise, unprovoked attacks.
3. Repel AI and then grab some of their land
At this point in time, I don't even have medeival techs yet the game is already now too easy. If the AI fails in it's rush to attack me, then it's all over Johnny. Then since it's too easy now I just quit and start a new game!

Try a different type of game. A huge archipelago map effectively prevents rushes, since you have to wait for Galleons at the least.

 

[Antilogic]

I typically play Standard Maps or smaller, with an extra Civ to eat up some space on the board, so I think I've founded a lot of cities when I place the 5th on the map (I typically found 3-4).

I don't have the patience to play like Thanny. My army at its largest in the Industrial Age (I typically don't get far into the Modern Age and I don't care for it all that much), and I may breach 100 units (main offensive force may have in the 50-60 range with 40 scattered about in other places in my empire).

 

[Bast]

I had 55 Redcoats playing as Victoria. The game didn't advance beyond the age of redcoats.

 

[Perfection]

Uh like a warrior and like a spear guy.

 

[Gooblah]

Amphibious Assaults usually require the most troops, and even more so if the Sirian Doctrine is followed. Since i play on Fractal maps, AAs are needed all the time.
Victoria was isolated on her own continent. For whatever reason, she wasn't that backward in tech, so I had to tech straight to Industrialism to actually have an advantage. About 20 Transports with 36 Marines, 14 Gunships, and 30 Tanks were sent sailing, divided into 2 fleets, each fleet guarded by 2 Carriers with 6 Fighters, 5 Destroyers, and 5 Battleships. My power rating became so high that the rest of the remaining Civs (Victoria, and an isolated Catherine) became lines on the bottom of the power graph....
In two turns, I had a conquest victory.

 

[Penitent]

I often engage in a massive military buildup towards the end of the game. Last time my target was a powerful civilization on another continent.

As England I built up four more or less identical navies with military units. The plan was to launch a surprise attack on the enemy civ's four largest costal cities, take them with marines (after bombarding the defences in a single turn), then move inland from there with the rest of my units, trying to link my conquests together culturally.

I also had two smalls fleets full of marines and jet fighters going around capturing island chains.

For good measure I got the enemy civ's largest neighbor to declare war on them a few turns before the offensive began, which ended up starting a massive world war as civs everywhere chose sides. I had to build a new army to defend the homeland and before I knew it I was fighting battles on every continent and enegaging enemy flees all oveer the place.

T'was fun, although I got bogged down eventually and won through highest score rather than domination.