Army bonuses?

[player1]

How big bonus on attack and defense get units in armies (with and without Mil. Academy)?
I can't seam to find exact numbers.

[alexman]

Bonus on attack and defense: Add the attack/defense of all units in the Army and divide by 6 (round down). With the MA divide by 4 instead.

[Dauphin]

The bonus is in addition to.....?

I have no knowledge about how armies work. A quick rundown or link to previous thread could be useful.

[Aqualung71]

Say you have a 3-Knight Army, MA not yet built.

Attack rating is 4 + (4+4+4)/6 = 6
Defence rating is 3 + (3+3+3)/6 = 4.5

This means each Knight in the Army has those stats, so a 50% bonus. Also, the Army gets a movement bonus of 1, so with 3 fast-movers (2 movement), the Army will move at 3. You also get free pillage (no movement cost).

If the MA is built, the ratings become:

Attack: 4 + (4+4+4)/4 = 7
Defence: 3 + (3+3+3)/4 = 5.25

So a 75% bonus.

Now if the Pentagon is also built, allowing you to have 4 units in your Armies, a 4-Knight Army would have the following stats:

Attack: 4 + (4+4+4+4)/4 = 8
Defence: 3 + (3+3+3+3)/4 = 6

So a 100% bonus.

[bongo]

Also worth mentioning is that armies have extended vision (Probably got the 'radar' flag on in the editor?) and heal faster.

4hp per turn in friendly/neutral territory, 3hp per turn in enemy territory. They heal even faster in cites(8hp per turn?)/cities with barracks(Xhp per turn).

[gunkulator]

Also, all armies can blitz, i.e. attack more than once per turn.

[MrWhereItsAt]

/me chimes in for the +1 whilst still adding to the conversation

And can pillage without losing mp.

[Dauphin]

Ok, thanks for the details.

Is the stat used for a battle the stat of the best unit for battle? Say I have an army with 1 MI and 2 Musketman, and attack twice, will the MI's stats of 4 + (4 + 2 + 2)/6 = 5.33 be used both times?

If that is the case, the best mix for an army would be 1 good defensive unit, and the rest strong attacking units? (or vice versa for defencive armies). You sacrifice a small fraction of offencive capability but would gain a more than proportionate increase in defencive capability?

[bongo]

You got the bonus part right, but when fighting, the army always fight one unit at a time. The strongest unit always fight first, until *his* hitpoints are exhausted.

With one MI and 2 muskets, you got an attack bonus of (4+2+2)/6=1.33, and a defence bonus of (2+4+4)/4=2.5

We also assume the MI is an elite unit.

When you attack, you attack with (4+1.33), if you don't succeed in winning *before* your army lose 5hp, the MI will be pulled back and the second best attacker(a musket) will continue the attack, this time with an attack strength of (2+1.33) 3.33. If however, you win before you lose 5hp, you can have another attack(remember blitz ability and bonus movement) and the MI will lead this attack as well(he will still be pulled back if he lose 5hp)

Personally I only use mixed armies to strengthen old armies after I build the pentagon. Add one cavalry to that knight army for example. Then again, there are others who are very fond of mixed armies and use them all the time.

[Solomwi]

Are you sure, bongo?

I've always been under the impression that armies, while fighting unit by unit, fight with a constant strength. To illustrate, the hypothetical army in question would fight as:

(4+2+2)/3 = 2.33 + 1.33 (bonus) = 3.66. on attack, and 4.66 on defense.

Personally, it's not an issue, since I rarely, if ever, use mixed armies. This may also explain my unfamiliarity with how they work.

[bongo]

I'm pretty sure that is how they worked it PTW, game-experiences so far in c3c suggest this still is the case but I haven't done any thorough testing.

[Dauphin]

So the best way to handle armies is to not mix units? Best to have a purely offencive unit army and leave the defencive units as individual defenders. Or alternatively vice versa.

[Solomwi]

I prefer homogenous armies for a few reasons:

The army takes on any special traits of the unit (I absolutely love my 4xMarine armies ). The exception to this is the paratrooper army, which is nigh on worthless, except as a weak infantry army.

A homogenous army of the fastest unit of the era becomes one move faster, effectively giving you an era's worth of speed. The 3xKnight or 4xKnight is a great example of this. It basically becomes cavalry (3x: 6/4.5/3) or Sipahi (4x: 8/5/3), well before you get MT. 4xTank armies bridge the 3-move gap from cavs to MA. NB: I know heterogenous armies still get a move bonus, but am not sure how it works with units of differing speed, so this point may not stand in the context of homogenous v. heterogenous armies.

Third is that it allows for more "mission specialization". Due to its bonus and sheer number of hit points, an army of the era's top offensive units is still going to be a pretty good defender, so my focus is maximizing offensive power and speed. Putting a defensive unit into an offensive army waters down the offensive strength, and doesn't really help as much on the defensive side, especially given that the AI tends not to attack healthy armies. There are times I'll make a defensive army, and the reverse holds. I'm not going to use it to attack, for the most part, so I want it to be an overwhelming obstacle. Honestly, until the Ind. Era, I don't build many defenders, only the bare minimum to hold what I take, and maxed offense armies fit my playstyle best.

Fourth is aesthetic purposes. I name all my units, keep them fairly well organized and keep histories of my wars, and it's just tidier to have armies made up of one type of unit.

I'd be interested to hear benefits of mixed armies, to see if any make playing with the idea worthwhile. Off the top of my head, the only thing I can think of is cramming some units into an army in a desperate situation to stave off an AI attack, but I'm a mere Monarch player, so that's a rare situation.

[MrWhereItsAt]

Originally posted by Solomwi
I know heterogenous armies still get a move bonus, but am not sure how it works with units of differing speed, so this point may not stand in the context of homogenous v. heterogenous armies.

The army has the base moves of the slowest of its components, thus the army has the slowest unit's move points + the 1 bonus, ie a Musketman + 2 Knight army has a movement of 2.

[Solomwi]

Thanks, MWIA, that's what I suspected. With that knowledge, I'll stand by that point.