Why armies aren't useless

[Gingerbread Man]

From what I've seen so far on this site, there seems to be a common belief that armies are useless. They claim they are slow and weak. But armies are ALWAYS the spearhead of my attacks.

How I use my armies - usually I have them filled with all of the same units e.g. in early industrial, all cavalry. in late industrial, all infantry or tanks. In modern times I have about 3 armies with 4 MA in each, plus 1 with 4 MI to defend new captives.

Armies with 100% blitz units carry the blitz ability. with my army of 4 Modern Armor, I attack 3 times every turn. with 3 armies at one hard-to-capture cities = 7 to 9 attacks with almost guarunteed success in all of them. major cities often fall in two or less turns.

An army with 4 MA moving 3 squares per turn, with 20 hit points is indestructable.

At the moment I'm playing Regent, staying one step ahead of my enemies in the science race. until i build Sun Tsu and discover nationalism, my military consists of spearmen and pikemen. once i get nationalism, i take research down to 10% and upgrade 3-5 spearmen per turn, for about 6 turns. Some - or all - of my tech lead is lost, but my military power is tripled. I attempt to get an army, then go for a modern era war. With this strategy I defeated the most powerful nation, occupying an entire continent, with extreme ease.

And I never, ever put units of varying speeds in the same army. Think of an army as one 20hp unit, not a collection of units.

 

[NTJedi]

I see armies only as useful for defending key locations.... such as bottle-neck points and key towns. Armies cost lots of shields to build and great leaders are usually saved for Wonders.

 

[Gingerbread Man]

I guess so, but I only ever use a great leader for my first army. I never use another one for an army again - the rest are for wonders. Actually I prefer to use the switch from palace trick to rush wonders.

 

[NTJedi]

I agree... only the first great leader should be used to build an army.

 

[MadHatter]

I got one just after finishing Hoover Dam. Save it for Manhattan or U.N.? That's a while away. In the meantime, I planned to be generating a few more leaders. So I made him into an army, but left him empty. I'll fill him with tanks when I get them.

G-Man, I have independently come to the same conclusion about armies, fill 'em with the same type of unit. With 3 infantry in them, the AI (cavalry) totally ignores that stack. They can protect my tanks on the move, otherwise AI will of course attck tanks w/ horses.

 

[Moonsinger]

Army is very good for defensive purpose. For some strange reasons, the AI has always been so afraid to attack the army (at full health). For example, in my previous game, I invaded the Indian continent with 3 armies of knights, 4 settlers, 1 musketter, and 11 cavalries. That was pretty much all the force that I had. The indian force was at least 10 times more than me and they were at 1 tech tree higher than me. They could have wiped out all my force without any problem, but they didn't attack. Turn after turn, I watched their stack of doom (cavalries and riflemans) matching around me.

 

[Knight-Dragon]

Armies are good, when I have the time and opportunity to build them. Esp defensive ones.

That said; though I find using 4 MAs to attack is more efficient than a single combined 4 MAs unit, esp when it comes to healing. And you get a few more few MAs fr the army unit itself...

But for defense like a 4 infantry army, they're excellent as the core of my artillery or offensive units stacks.

 

[Moff Jerjerrod]

It's been a while since I've posted in the Civ3 forums but couldn't resist entering my opinion here.


I'm also a big fan of armies. Usually my first leader is used to create an army. I do this when there are no good wonders to rush buy. Considering that the first victorious army gives you the Heroic epic, I jump at the chance. It gives you one extra wonder that other civs might not yet have and therefor an extra source of culture. Plus the slight increase in leader production can help you the next time to rush another wonder.

Armies are powerful units to be brandished like a fine shiny sword. They are usually strong enough on their own to rip a heavily defended city apart. Put a defensive army on a key mountain top and nobody can move him easily. I could go on and on but I will enjoy the fact that I am one of the few who loves armies. If they ever fix PTW properly so that MP works smoothly then I can test my army theories on live opponents. Till then I won't waste money on PTW. I'm making this assumption based on dated info mind you so if PTW has been fixed let me know so that I can rush out and buy a copy.

 

[handyandy]

i feel that armies don't make as good a defender as three or four indervidual units as when a army is attacked you could lose 3/4 units but when a unit attacks a single unit you might win but if you lose you only lose one unit.

 

[Oceanus]

My latest game has been one of total war. Literally, from turn 5 until the just entered modern era I was at war EVERY turn (I mean really at war, I had the Mongols on one side, on another a 3-way European ganging from France, England, and Rome). Anyway, it worked out because I had planned to learn for myself a bit more about armies. I had only occasionally used them in the past, and I don't think I had ever had the Pentagon.

First thing I found out, was wow! as a militaristic society always at war, I made ALOT of great leaders. Entering in the modern era I believe I have had 6-10 leaders, I belive I'm about to begin or just begining my 3rd run through the list of great leader names. I used 2 for armies, the rest were all wonders. Somehow I manged to keep almost up with tech, but I complete every wonder first! In any event, back to armies...

At first defending armies seemed really good, but upon further reflection I think I prefer plain defensive troops. For example, I mad several 4 Infantry Armies, and placed then in cites that were being beseiged by European SoD's. Sure, they fight great but, heres where I see the drawbacks

1) The army simply keeps fighting every battle until he is down to 3-5 hp after a battle, then another defender unit in the city might take over for the next fight. So in prolonged fighting, your army fights for a bit, then gets down to danger level on hp, and can die just as easy as any other unit. So for the extra shield cost, it doesn't seem worth it, just stack 4 separate defensive units who will each take over fighting as they lose hp.

2) Also, since the army takes up the fight before other units (it has more hp to start, and far longer into the battle), other units not getting a chance to fight means they never get a chance to promote. I went and read up, I believe the rule is if a unit wins a combat but fails to promote, and then fights again the same turn, it automatically promotes. So, in large defensive battle, with a number of defensive units each getting to fight they all get promoted quickly, then they all produce great chances for more great leaders! Defensive armies disrupt that.

Now, the one plus for defensive armies, or really any army positioned to defend even if they are offensive units. As mentioned by another poster, the AI seems to shy off from attacking armies. So you can often use an Army to stategically control a piece of land withour combat, making the enemy avoid the army.

For offensive purposes, the obvious benefit is tacking those tough cities. An army of offenseive units (stacked with some defense units for protection in the open) can seige and attack a defended city several times, taking out tough defensive units, where otherwise you'd be throwing single units at it all day.


Sorry for being longwinded, just had this all on my mind and it seemed applicable. I'm usually the builder/trader type, but I've really gotten into some of the plus's the aggressive civ's enjoy.

*edit* changed some word-age

 

[Lynx]

I ust dont like armies...

 

[Illustrious]

Originally posted by handyandy
i feel that armies don't make as good a defender as three or four indervidual units as when a army is attacked you could lose 3/4 units but when a unit attacks a single unit you might win but if you lose you only lose one unit.

No. That's lousy logic.

Compare 3 veteran (4/4) units defending a city with three identical units in an army defending an identical city against identical attackers. If the enemy can do enough damage to kill the army, they have done enough damage to kill all three of the independent units. That's the worst case: the army does as badly as the three individual units. In all other cases, which involve the loss of either one or two of the independent units, the army is still intact and so does better.

The point is, an army will usually do better than solo units - it will never do worse.

 

[CrackedCrystal]

I ALWAYS use armies if I can get them. The only downside I find is the lack of airdrop ability, and nothing smaller than a transport for overseas is required. Pile 4 modern armors into one (after the pentagon of course) and that is usually enough to take a border city alone.

Its also a way to keep your dead end units useful (like cavs in the modern age). An army of cavs could take out a lone mech inf easily.

 

[Lynx]

armies suck!!!!!!!!!!

 

[Moff Jerjerrod]

Originally posted by Lynx
armies suck!!!!!!!!!!

On the contrary, if understood and used properly they are a devastating weapon. :tank:

 

[handyandy]

Originally posted by Illustrious


No. That's lousy logic.

Compare 3 veteran (4/4) units defending a city with three identical units in an army defending an identical city against identical attackers. If the enemy can do enough damage to kill the army, they have done enough damage to kill all three of the independent units. That's the worst case: the army does as badly as the three individual units. In all other cases, which involve the loss of either one or two of the independent units, the army is still intact and so does better.

The point is, an army will usually do better than solo units - it will never do worse.

no becouse of the number generater thing you could get v unlukly when the army is defending so you will lose all the units but with solo units each unit has a differnt chance thanks to th nomber generater

 

[Moff Jerjerrod]

Originally posted by handyandy


no becouse of the number generater thing you could get v unlukly when the army is defending so you will lose all the units but with solo units each unit has a differnt chance thanks to th nomber generater

Yes I've seen this happen on a number of occasions. A defending army getting wiped out by a single unit happens but not to often in my experience. However if an army composed with offensive units is used just for attack, which is what I do most of the time, then armies are very usefull.

Try sending an army of 3 swordsmen against 2 spearmen fortified in a town (size 6 or less). The army will rip them to shreds even without artillery support. These same 2 spearmen may require at least 4-7 individual swordsmen to take them out. Give it a try.

 

[Knowze Gungk]

At first I hated armies because of the fact they can only attack once when you fil them with multi-attack units & you can't upgrade the units in them.
But then I moved on from chieftian.

 

[Illustrious]

Originally posted by handyandy
no becouse of the number generater thing you could get v unlukly when the army is defending so you will lose all the units but with solo units each unit has a differnt chance thanks to th nomber generater

Basing your decisions on freak outcomes of the RNG is extremely poor logic.

Extreme outcomes of the RNG occur on very few occasions - most times, the RNG gives results which support the normal outcome.

If it takes a 1 in 100 freak result to make an army do worse than individual units, that means that on 99 occasions the army is better value. To throw away the 99% outcome because you don't like the 1% outcome is classic short-sightedness.

 

[MTheil3508]

I have seen the AI put armies in their cities. When my units came to the modern armor army of the AI fortified in their city, instead of losing numerous units and countless turns, I just nuked the city. It almost wiped out the army and I practically marched right into the city without a fight.