On the Utility and Use of Armies

[rpodos]

Good strategy for taking out those French cavalry.

Intrigued by Zachriel's comment that he finds Armies more decisive in the earlier ages (BTW, this from the guy who has HOW MANY tank Armies??!!), I decided to do a little analysis.

Using my Army "total points" system, I compared various 3 unit homogoneous Armies' attack strengths to the defense strength of the defender that they would typically face. Assume the defender is fortified, but in a 6-pop or less town, and not on a hill, nor across a river. I deducted 1 hp's worth of total attack strength from each Army.

I divided the attacking Army's strength by one defender's strength:

Sword / Legion vs. Spear = 13.2
Immortal / Longbow / Knight vs. Spear = 17.6
Immortal / Longbow / Knight vs. Pike = 11.7
Cav vs. Musket = 13.2
Cav vs. Rifle = 8.8
Tank / Panzer vs. Infantry = 14.1
Modern Armor vs. Infantry = 21.1
Modern Armor vs. Mech Infantry = 11.7

To Zachriel's point, and as I always say, fight when you have the most relative strength.

The ones that really jump out at me are a) Immortals, and b) getting to Modern Armor while the AI is still on Infantry. Cav vs. Rifle is one to watch out for, as that is often the match-up for a good while... makes a good argument for the Pentagon, as the 4th Cav brings the ratio back up to 12.

My conclusion: Armies are ALWAYS effective.

R

[civman2000]

Originally posted by DrFell
You've never gotten a GL from battle? I usually get 1-5 per game, you must be doing something wrong.

I usually only get 1 or 2, and often don't get one until the middle ages...I'm usually pretty peaceful though and i'm rarely a militaristic civ...non-militaristic I've had like 30 elite victories in a big war and not gotten a GL...I usually use them for wonders anyways, until the end of the game when my productions good enough to build em in under 20 turns...

[bigvic]

armies are a real mixed bag. almost absolutely nececary if your playing an early uu challenged power like the germans and having to fight someone like the iroqois, yet so restricted in regard to upgrades, sea transport, blitzing, etc. a tough choice. after they become hopelessly obsolete, i stick 'em in my capital as sort of a swiss guard

[Zachriel]

Originally posted by bigvic
armies are a real mixed bag. almost absolutely nececary if your playing an early uu challenged power like the germans and having to fight someone like the iroqois, yet so restricted in regard to upgrades, sea transport, blitzing, etc. a tough choice. after they become hopelessly obsolete, i stick 'em in my capital as sort of a swiss guard

Yes, I do that too. Once I had an elite warrior in the 20th century still parked in the capital. He was like Hercules from ancient times, the ultimate warrior. My soldiers believed that as long as he lived no spearman could defeat our tanks. (It apparently worked.)

[Txurce]

I do the same thing. Who says they took all the romance out of Civ?

[Theseus]

This is especially true for Sword-level UUs.

I know technically that in Democracy there is no reason to garrison my interior, core cities. Maybe it's a leaveover from Civ2, but empty cities make me uncomfortable.

It makes the boys in the 14th Infantry and 11th Tank Corps at the front a lot more comfortable that their homes and families are being guarded by the Elite Legionairy National Guard, a unit whose history of honor and distinction stretches back into antiquity.

[Txurce]

I finally finished my Egyptian space-race version of the game I originally played for domination (1415 finish), launching my ship in 1772 (close but no cigar, Dominae). Then I started a game that really fits this thread.

Iroquois, Emperor, standard everything else. Finding myself on a small continent with only the Americans, I built just enough MWs to wipe out the Americans in three wars by 90BC. (I declared short periods of peace in order to get techs out of them.) At this point, with the Persians having two cities on my continent, I had the temples to switch from despotism to republic. Within a few turns I had the tech lead - at the start of the middle ages - and never lost it for the rest of the game. I thought I would keep my virtually corruption-free 17 cities stable, and play out a compact builder game. The only dark cloud on the horizon was that my continent had no iron.

The Persians declared war soon after, so I knocked them off my continent. They shared the larger continent below me with the Zulus, with whom they were at war. The Persians wouldn't trade any iron with me under any circumstances, so I took a coastal city with both iron and saltpeter with three caravels of MWs and one musketman. I then hung on until military tradition, and upgraded these defenders to cavalry. The Persians steadily wiped out the Zulu, and kept attacking my cities. I eventually lost my one persian city, but by then had discovered iron on my home continent. I then established a beachhead elsewhere on the Persian continent, and made contact with the dying English, stunted French, and the dominant power on their much larger continent, the Heroic Epic-enhanced, army-rich Germans. By the time I reached the industrial age, my tech lead had led the Germans to declare war on me, and this inevitably dragged in fellow MPPers like the French and Persians. While I was safe from all of these aggressors, the revolving wars not only knocked me permanently out of democracy and into republic, but kept my luxury tax climbing, despite having both the Chapel and Bach.

After researching motorized transport, I was ready to do something about it. My fully-developed cities switched to tank production. I had lost two leaders on counterattacks already, but a third led to my first tank army, and the quick building of both the Heroic Epic and the Military Academy. I started putting together a force to try out a policy that would destroy nearby Persia while mainatining my low corruption: scorched earth. It worked. Persia had almost twice as many cities as the Iroquois, but by the time it built some tanks, they were on their last legs. And I had built a force that featured five four-tank armies, plus a sixth of mech infantry (think Zachriel's graphic!). The result: a mid-sized continent that had only one city on it by 1840s... one city, and a bunch of freshly spawned barbarians! (No, they don't have muskets, like in Civ2.)

At this point Germany wanted to declare peace yet again, but I had all those armiers and nothing to do with them. So I decided to build my version of a D-day invasion force and attack the German continent. I put together the following:

2 carriers (8 bombers) 2 battleships
8 artillery 11 tanks
16 marines 5 tank armies
1 mech-infantry army

...and set sail in 1866. The 16 marines went in following a heavy bombardment, but were insufficient, given that the Germans' had just landed a transport full of cavalry in addition to infantry. So I landed my force on open ground and... nothing happened. The next turn I took the city. The German panzer counterattack began in earnest the next turn, but those armies weakened but didn't crack. (My artillery weakened a panzer army to the point that one vet tank destroyed it.) I decided that I didn't want to bother reinforcing my invasion force, so set my goal the razing of two German cities en route to one with four luxuries. I didn't have enough forces to successfully defend my original captured city, but succeeded in splitting the German contione t in half, and taking the city with the luxuries. I then negotiated a peace, focused on the space race, and won going away in 1951.

What was noteworthy about this game? A successful transition to republic in 90BC, and the taking of the tech lead soon after... both unusually early. My decision not to expand my borders led to more war, and more entertainment:
the building of six armies, the sustained razing of a major continent, and a combined-arms invasion that worked not due to numbers, but to the power of those armies. It also confirmed my instinct that limiting the size of a civ can make the game more competitive, and more varied.

[Dominae]

Sounds like a great game Txurce. You've just showed how late-game wars are a lot of fun if you face enough competition.


Dominae

[realpolitic]

Re: On the Utility and Use of Armies

Originally posted by rpodos
I am a proponent of Armies.

I play an early warmonger style, with one of my primary objectives being the generation of GLs. Therefore, I like to build the Heroic Epic as early as possible; it only requires 200 shields

No it also requires a leader, because to be able to build it you need the GL to create an army. Heroic Era changes the odds of an elite unit generating a GL from 1/16 to 1/12 in a successful battle. Without the wonder, if your elite units destroy 48 units, you'll get an average of 3 GLs. With it, you'll get an average of 4 GLs. The fourth GL will cover the GL to spent on building the first army, minus the opportunity cost and the 200 shields for the wonder.

[deanrasche]

I just found this thread....
First off, great advice on the use of armies here. I really like the feint strategy and can't wait to use it with defunct armies...
In the games I've been playing, one of the start units has been changed to a leader for players 1-8. Personally, I've used the GL for a very early wonder to build culture, either as soon as I get the tech I want or in my second city as soon as it was built. In my last game, (monarch-16civs-Japan-conquest-2150 or so final) I used it for the pyramids as soon as I got the tech. I played with elites having 6 hp, so it was even more advantageous to me to have them. I got more soon, as I eliminated two nearby civs early on, and used one for an army, mostly so I could build the epic and academy. Later in the game, I had armise sitting around with nothing to do and no units in them, because I left my "academy city" on build army. This was basically so I could fill them with modern armor if I needed because I was basically dominating anyway.... Just my experience...

[The_Hawk]

I am envious of all of this talk about GLs, especially in the ancient era or even the Middle Ages. Rpodos, are you playing a Civ with the militaristic trait? If so, then I can see it. I've played with either Egypt or France and I NEVER get an army until at LEAST the Industrial Age (mostly I get it in the Modern Area). And I do my fare share of attacking, especially when i'm making a play on owning my own continent. Is there anyone out there who is playing without the military trait who is getting GLs early? If so, I would love to hear what you do...

[Theseus]

Hi Hawk, it's me, Theseus / rpodos.

While I do get more GLs playing militaristic, I can generate a fair amount otherswise as well, although usually not in the Ancient era.

Overall tips:

* Whack an AI civ upside the head as early as possible. There seems to be an "aggression flag" that can be triggered very early, making the game much more militarily oriented (and thus the AI civs produce many more training tools for you).

* Where possible, hit enemy units in the open field... create killzones for easier wins.

* It's all about your elites, baby... use your weakest units first, even if it sometimes gives the enemy a promotion. Check out the Calculator, and play with the odds between a 5hp attacker and a 2-3 hp defender. That said, try to use the same vets again and again to get them up to elite.

* Be careful when mass upgrading units... in many cases, keep strong-enough elites as they are, and upgrade them for instant healing. My favorite example of this is all the Knight-class unit... until Rifleman, they are strong enough to take out any damaged defender.

* Read Arrian's posts... he's gotten obsessed with GLs.

* Lastly: I forget who came up with this, but there are tactics specifically focused in GL generation. For instance, if at early war with a not-too-threatening AI civ, send out an Archer with a Spearman... use that Archer again and again out in the field, protecting it with the Spearman. I'm gonna try variants of this in AU 101.

[Theseus]

Oh, also, Arrian pointed out once that as I was using large maps and slowmovers, the AI civs had an opportunity to build many more units for me to... ummm... train with.

Big wars = GLs.

[Arrian]

Just in case you don't know about it, be aware that you can only generate 1 Great Leader per elite unit. Upgrading the unit drops it to veteran and resets it. In other words, if you get a GL from a horseman, yank him from the front and hold him back until you have chivalry. Then upgrade him and send him off again. If it's a swordsmen, you can disband him for the shields.

I'm still trying to perfect GL generation in the early game (when it matters most). I used the archer/spearman team in one of my games (12 leaders total, 2-3 of them in ancient times), but I don't think the idea was mine. It just so happened that the English were dumb enough to send out 1 archer at a time for my elite archer to kill.

-Arrian

[steven8r]

rpodos / Theseus, Great thread! I wish I had found this one earlier. I've found that my Army strat is very similar to the one you listed here. My only problem is that it has taken me several (many, many, many) game's worth of experimentation to discover this. However, after all of my experimentation, my strat re: GL's is along the same lines as yours.

What I'm trying to say is that your strat has been blindly and independantly tested and it works. Double-blind studies are enough for the FDA to approve a new drug for the masses. Your strat now has that same backing. I believe it can be safely verified as a 'good strategy'.

Arrian, Your advice on GL generating units is top-notch, and w/ the 1.29f patch the GL generating units can now be named. This makes it MUCH easier to keep track of units that have produced GL.
Edit: If the unit that makes the GL cannot be upgraded for a good while, he's usually the first 'member' of my Army. If he can be upgraded fairly soon, he gets first dibs on upgrading.

The ? about Armys generating GL's has been asked in this thread, but not yet answered. (It has been answered in other threads.) The answer is 'NO.' Only single, elite units can produce GL's. Armies cannot.