What's the trick to making an army?

[MyOlde]

I've built Military Academy in my capital and put a bunch of cavalry there but there's no button to make an army out of them. What's the trick?

[GePap]

You load them into the army unit. You should see the same icon as you see when you go to load a ship or a helicopter.

That is after you build the army unit- which is rather expensive.

[alexman]

Build an Army first in your MA city (costs 400 shields), then put your cavalry inside.

[GePap]

The military academy allows you to build "armies" (which is a unit) in that city only. Then you load any units you want into the army until you have 3 units in it. If you build the pentagon you will be able to load 4 units into an army.

Be aware you never get these units out of the army again- so once you form them into an army, that's it.

[MyOlde]

Ahhh. Thank you. Too bad they don't tell us that in the Civilopedia!

[vmxa1]

Take a close look at how long it will take to build that army beofre you commit to it.

You can only build one if you have enough cities. It takes 4 cities for each army you have.
If you have say two armies and 11 cities, the army build will not show up in the MA city, until you have 12 cities.

[Dis]

I think the shield cost is too high. I tried building armies in the Napolean scenario. And I did build 2, but it ties up a city for so long. It's better just to build individual units.

I really only use armies with my military leaders.

[Theseus]

Originally posted by Dissident
I think the shield cost is too high. I tried building armies in the Napolean scenario. And I did build 2, but it ties up a city for so long. It's better just to build individual units.

I really only use armies with my military leaders.

Heathen!! You can never have enough Armies!

[vmxa1]

Originally posted by Theseus


Heathen!! You can never have enough Armies!

Especially at Deity and Sid. You really must have lots of armies to handle the massive numbers of troops. I think at Emperor, one or two is fine in most cases.

Building armies from scratch is best left to metros. I will only build them before factories, if it is the only way to get that third army for the pentagon.

[Solomwi]

Originally posted by Theseus


Heathen!! You can never have enough Armies!

Agreed. Ancient Cav and Knight armies have become two of my new favorites, still behind Marine armies. I've got to play the Vikes again and get some Berserk armies going.

[chuckdelicious]

I always make the city I build the MA in a pure army pump.

[Solomwi]

As do I. When looking to place it, I go, not necessarily with that moment's highest producer, but with the closest city to my capital that has the potential to reach 100+ shields without a nuke plant and 134+ with a nuke plant ideally, but with manufacturing plant definitely. A 4-turn army pump in the industrial can be pretty powerful, and a 3-turn pump in the modern, as well.

[Kuciwalker]

Armies are a must-have. They've virtually invincible.