Filling out your armies

[uberloz]

What is the best strategy regarding placing your units in an army?

For instance, I have turned my great leader into an army, but I haven't placed any units in it yet.

I still have 3 civs on my continent that I plan on destroying but as I have just finished 2 wars to secure some territory I am planning on building infrastructure while I manuever my forces into position for the final pushes against these 3 unsuspecting civs.

This could take maybe 20 turns to accomplish and I am quite confident I could finish them off with my regular units. I am playing as the Japanese (wow those samurai are amazing).

So my dilemma is this:

Do I create a Samurai army knowing that it will be outdated shortly (maybe before the final wars are over)?

Or do I leave the army unfilled and protected in the center of my empire until better units become available?

What sort of 'shelf life' do you expect from your armies; short and glorious, or long termed and victorious?

Any advice is welcome, and thank you in advance for your considerations.

[Donegeal]

Fill it and kill. With the bonuses giving to Army in Conquests, a Samurai Army would be : 13/13 6/6/3 Blitz/Free Pillage. It would work as 3 Cavalries that defend better than a Rifleman (Not that any AI would attack it) and could tear up the countryside on its way.

[UnOrthOdOx]

Samurai armies are among my favorites. They'll serve you well for quite some time yet.

[Theseus]

Yep, Samurai Armies are quite the treat. Being native 4/4/2, their is little advantage in mixing them with anything else, even with Cavs. So yeah, go for it, 3xSamurai, and add a Tank down the road.

[Tattila the Hun]

Nonono, haven't you seen The Last Samurai? They don't like modernization.

[Solomwi]

Any army I get before the Military Academy is built gets filled ASAP. Once I'm cranking out an army from the MA every 4-5 (sometimes even 3) turns, I'll let some sit idle waiting for the next big thing.

As for makeup, I like to keep mine homogenous, but that may just be to keep the math simple. Actually, the reason I do this is because you never want to mix slower units into an army, thereby slowing it down. I like to make my armies out of fastmovers, with a few exceptions (sword army in ancient, marine/berserk army), so that limits the choices to something like mixing knights and horses, and really, what would be the point? The same holds for cavs. By the time another 3-move unit comes along (assuming you aren't China or Germany), you should have a stack of empty armies waiting to be filled.

[Theseus]

When not playing the AU Mod, I am still a big fan of mixed-unit Armies.

Typically, if I have an initial force of Swords, I'll put two in, then later add a MedInf or possibly even later a Rifle. One of the nice things about C3C is that these Armies keep up with Knights.

Horsemen *never* get put into Armies... the Chivalry upgrade is too valuable and comes too soon. 2xKnight Armies are pretty kick-ass though, and get upgraded with a Cav... again, I love it that they now can keep up with the Cav's movement.

Whatever type of Army, I usually leave them at 3x until the advent of Infantry and Tanks, at which point they get bulked up respectively.

Regarding mixing slow- and fast-movers, well, that used to be a religious blasphemy. But with C3C Army movement, however, I've seen situations where I could justify it... for instance, if I were going for domination or conquest with Tanks (and in the absence of a meaningul Cavalry force), I could see foregoing the 3mps of a a 4xTank Army for (drum roll, please ) a 3xTank+Infantry Army.

/me ducks

[vmxa1]

I would never put an infantry unit in a 3xTank. Giving up that movement for what? A 10 vs 8 defense and that is only for one unit. No thanks, tank armies are for attacking, not worried about D that much. If I am I will have an infantry army to do the defending.

I got to speak up for 4xCalv as well. It can be so critical to attacking those civs with infantry and you still only have Calvs. You will lose that battle with a 4X enough, so no way I want to do it with a 3X.

PS do not bother me with using artie stacks please. That is not an option for most invasion from sea. Anyway do you know how many units a sid civ can build in the 3 or 4 turns needed to get them to cover the ground that the army does?

I understand at Demi and Emperor, you do not face this much, but I face it at Sid in every game at least once.

I toss a few 4X armies at them and protected them with my healthy units. even when I finally get tanks, I still need to use those 4x calvs a few times to get to those cities I can not hit with tank armies. Those with only 2 or 3 defenders and only my 4 move army can attack.

[Solomwi]

I can see the logic behind what you're doing with slowmovers, T, but do have a couple of small quibbles.

First, I want three units in my armies ASAP, in order to maximize the blitz ability. A 3xsword army, for instance, parked next to an enemy city can take on two spears and, even if the RNG decides not to cooperate, still have enough HP left to be a formidable defender if the AI tries to attack. That frees up other defenders, of which I have precious few in the ancient era, for the war effort. I'm just not nearly as confident with an 8 or 9-HP army on its own. That's probably more of a style issue than anything, since I'd probably do it your way if I intended to keep the army with other units at all times.

I'm with v on slowing that tank army down. I just don't see the benefit an infantry gives you. The defensive strength of the tanks is increased by 8.5, instead of 8, and the infantry goes to 18.5, as opposed to a tank's 16. I'm just not seeing that as worth losing a movement point and cutting the offensive bonus for your tanks from 16 to 13.5.

I do agree completely on horses, though. The only thing that starts to make sense is a pure horse army, for the movement, but I tried that once and was, to say the least, underwhelmed by its performance.

[Paddy]

fast moving armies have brought me victory several times when an enemy has broken thorugh my lines...

I highly recommend fast moving armies in pbems

so by adding in units that take away movement I can only see as a negative

happy playing out there Uberloz

[Theseus]

Originally posted by Solomwi
... since I'd probably do it your way if I intended to keep the army with other units at all times.

I do.

I'm with v on slowing that tank army down. I just don't see the benefit an infantry gives you. The defensive strength of the tanks is increased by 8.5, instead of 8, and the infantry goes to 18.5, as opposed to a tank's 16. I'm just not seeing that as worth losing a movement point and cutting the offensive bonus for your tanks from 16 to 13.5.

Yeah... I know, but I was just trying on the idea for size.

[vmxa1]

I will confess to slapping in an infantry for a calv army in a pinch for the defense on some maps. Especially when I am trying to hold a town that may get 3-6 attackers and not extra help, except maybe the one infantry.

IOW there are times when I have to take a hit on speed.

[Theseus]

Originally posted by vmxa1
I will confess to slapping in an infantry for a calv army in a pinch for the defense on some maps. Especially when I am trying to hold a town that may get 3-6 attackers and not extra help, except maybe the one infantry.

IOW there are times when I have to take a hit on speed.

If you do it... it can't be all bad.

That's an even more extreme example, especially in C3C... 4 mp down to 2? But the point remains: It's not so much the impact on a/d strength, but rather the use of hps, i.e., sure, vxma1's example is not awe-inspiring from a strength standpoint (+4d), but when defending the Infantry ALWAYS goes first, with 16-20 hps initially behind it.

/me , btw, lives in abject-huddled-naked-in-the-corner fear of some of the challenges vxma1 goes up against in Sid games.

[Solomwi]

I can definitely see getting the hitpoints in a crisis. Hey, a two move army is better than no army. I was thinking more in terms of actually having a choice.

V's example offers quite a bit more benefit with that one infantry (over a defending cav), too.

And yeah, I don't even like to think about the situations he gets into.

[vmxa1]

Bear in mind that this reconstituted army is never going to move again, unless it is using my newly laid rails.

IOW it is no longer going to be an offensive force and is just an attempt to make its defense better. Its job is to sit on a city until the land is taken and it is free to move to sit on another town.
That does not require great speed, even if I do not have rails up.