Armies

[Will9]

The first army I ever saw was the enimies

[Prussia]

What was your reaction?

[rjwoer]

Originally posted by Virtual Alex
The problem I had with armies is the AI never had/used them. I have never played a game ever where I saw a single AI army. I on the other hand would have 3-4 killing everything I got near. 10 cannons and 3 cavalry in an army can single handedly take out a whole empire. As long as you have some garrison troops. The AI would never use it on me however, so even though I loved the concept, I did feel it gave the player too much of an advantage. I guess on Emprorer that advantage would be welcomed though, I played on Monarch.

An accurate analysis. This is why I feel that if armies were to be re-introduced to Civ, they would need to be far more balanced than in Civ III. There would need to be more AI usage, and civ penalties involving gold, happiness, or . . . maybe use only with certain civics (police state, vassalage, so forth; disabled with pacifism, free speech, etc.,).

[MasterDave]

I saw AI armies occasionally on Emperor level Civ 3 but they were very rare.

Armies were way too powerful IMO, and when you finally did get lucky enough to get a leader in Civ 3, it was open season on the AI for a while. Armies of Tanks were unstoppable in the late game, and armies of mech infantry or even regular infantry rendered a city untakable by the AI. Even armies of Crusaders from King Richard's Crusade could still kick butt in the late game.

We do not need armies in Civ 4. The player can sort of recreate the main benefit of armies (the retreat chance for the first and second units) by using units with flanking promotions. However, Civ3 style armies would definitely unbalance the Civ 4 combat system, big time.

[Will9]

Originally posted by Prussia
What was your reaction?

My reaction was to kill it in the open field.

I'm not proposing a return of the Civ3 armies (which would be imposible because health is now a percentage of total strength). I'm proposing more of a single powerful unit. Using the combat ranking in my first post, an all knight army would have a strength of 15.

[Prussia]

You mean, each individual knight would attack in the same way as Civ 3, one after the other, and they would all have strength of 15?

Or would it simply be one massively healthed unit with a strength of 15 that attacked like anything else?

[Will9]

I would prefer the second one. I would like to change the amount of units in the army from 5-6 to 3-4. An army of Pratorians would be the unbalaced armies since they would have twice the strength (12) of any unit of the time.

[DrSpike]

The implementation of armies in Civ3 was based on the fact that numbers rather than tech superiority was the dominant factor. In Civ4, like earlier games, tech matters.

[iapetus556]

Originally posted by Virtual Alex Not to mention armies always move 2, even if they are full of 1 move units. In essence, armies create a unit with an ton of HP (13-15 usually, 17-20 with pentagon) and the ability to survive any attack 100% of the time, unless the player forces a 3 hp army to attack. It can die on defense, but losing 15 hp from inside a city shouldn't happen unless it's cavalry defending tanks.

No, armies only moved at the rate of the slowest unit. And unless all units in them had the "Blitz" ability (i.e. were tanks, panzers, or modern armour), then an army could only attack once per turn. (So putting 3x cavalry in an army effectivly gave you one cavalry unit that was three times as tough as a normal one, but you lost the flexibility of having three separate units).

The problem I had with armies is the AI never had/used them. I have never played a game ever where I saw a single AI army. I on the other hand would have 3-4 killing everything I got near. 10 cannons and 3 cavalry in an army can single handedly take out a whole empire.

I saw AI armies a few times. Probably more than I had myself, as I normally play as a "builder", and I found that unless you played agressively with an "Aggressive" civ, you hardly ever got a Leader. (Which I'd normally want to use to finish a Wonder, rather than found an uneccessary army just so I could get the "Victorious Army" needed to build the wonder that improved the chances of getting another Leader).
As long as you have some garrison troops. The AI would never use it on me however, so even though I loved the concept, I did feel it gave the player too much of an advantage. I guess on Emprorer that advantage would be welcomed though, I played on Monarch. [/QUOTE]

[Will9]

Armies in vanilla civ3 couldn't attack more than once, but in ptw they could. As for speed they moved at a speed of two if the slowest unit's regular speed was one, and it move at two if the slowest was three.

[Addled Platypus]

all those interested in a mod that features stack attack

go here http://apolyton.net/forums/showthrea...hreadid=151787

still in the works for fine tuning, but fun none the less