army or wonder?

[Willem]

Originally posted by GeneralTacticus


Actually, you can change that in the editor, assuming you have the patch. If you don't you'll have to download it, otherwise, then uncheck the box on the HE that says 'requires a victorius army'.

Well that's news to me, thanks. I've been using the hacked editor, which doesn't have the newer features. I find it a bit silly that I can make it all the way to the middle ages without once getting an army together.

[Grumbold]

Armies do have a use, but a very narrow one. They are the ideal assault force against a tough target like a fortified hill city when you just know that throwing in your normal attack units individually is likely to see one or more killed trying to wipe out that last defender hitpoint.

[kailhun]

Just adapted the HE. It now no longer requires a victorius army, but writing (For a HE to last it will probably have to be written down at some point) and monarchy (the story of how a hero defeated the evil despot and led the nation to enlightened absolute monarchy ).

Robert

[Hurry]

It very much depends on the situation. In my current game (emperor) I got a leader when I started a war I believed would be pretty long. I could build no wonders at the time. This left me with two choices: a) build an army and hope you get another leader during the war, or b) wait until a wonder is available for building (and thus lose the chance of getting another one since it seems the chance of getting two simultaneous leaders is close to 0%).

At emperor level (and even worse on deity) it´s almost impossible to get a wonder by building it traditionally. So I waited and eventually built Sun Tzu´s.

Armies can be good on the defence later in the game. An army packed with veteran mech inf will take care of almost any enemy counterattack, which allows you to move your attackers up to the next enemy city unharmed.

[Grumbold]

I'm sure I've had multiple leaders in play simultaneously. The odds of getting one after an elite victory is so small that its just unlikely you'll still have the first around unused when the next lucky roll shows up.

[Darth Sidious]

is it concidence

that i got both leaders when razing a capital?

[Velociryx]

There have been a lot of people who have made the comment that they seem to get more leaders when:

Their elites are in a closely contested battle and/or when an elite captures a city. I'm still on the fence there....part of me suspects those are just the battles we remember, and I HAVE gotten Great Leaders from just busting units in the field, so I'm not 100% sure that's accurate.

In any case, I agree. Armies are currently quite weak and hard to come by for their cost. Much improved if they were:

a) cheaper (by about 25%)
b) had blitz
c) had ZOC
d) could be created on a 1:3 ratio, rather than 1:4 (armies:cities)

The option to unload units from an army would make them FAR too powerful....just goes too far the other way.

Uses for armies (obsolete or no).

1) Lead element of an attack group. The AI defends with its best unit first. If you have an Army, your best unit has a TON more HP than the AI's best, and you're all but guaranteed a win.

2) Defense. Just park an old (obsolete) army in some newly captured town. 15hp worth of pikemen is a pretty tough customer for massed cav to chew through, and you'll find it'll serve you quite well for defending trouble spots.

3) Beachead. Let's say it's the Industrial age, and you just got the ability to build airports. You launch an attack on yonder continent, leading with your army, and then move to some piddling city and take it, rushing an airport as soon as the resistance has ended. Obviously, the loss of your primary means of shuffling troops over to the new continent would be a grim setback, so plop your army down there and flood the continent with tanks....

-=Vel=-

[Arrian]

I think I've gotten roughly a 50/50 mix of leaders from battles "in the field" vs. taking cities. It's all about using your elite units as much as possible, and picking fights they will win. I had some great success recently using War Elephants vs. longbowmen (4 to 1, if I'm attacking).

I have seen nothing to support that winning a "tough" battle increases the chance of getting a leader. I got one recently hitting a spearman with a Cav that didn't lose a hitpoint.

I think the best improvement for armies would be adding the blitz ability. Making them cheaper to build would be nice, too. Perhaps any army should prevent retreat, too... well, maybe not.

If I build an army w/a leader, it tends to consist of Knights. They make decent defenders, and they will not allow a 2-move attacker to run away, so they make good escorts for artillery/attack troops, and good defenders for a key city, so long as knights aren't horribly out of date.

-Arrian

[Willem]

Originally posted by Velociryx

In any case, I agree. Armies are currently quite weak and hard to come by for their cost. Much improved if they were:

a) cheaper (by about 25%)
b) had blitz
c) had ZOC
d) could be created on a 1:3 ratio, rather than 1:4 (armies:cities)



-=Vel=-

You can change all these things in the Editor if you want to.

[TinCow]

As for Armies being useless, I wouldn't go that far. As stated by a few guys above, there are times when Armies are nice. That being said... I don't know if this is just me, but I always have times when the city I build my Military Academy in doesn't have anything to build but units. Whenever this happens, I have that city building Armies. Sure it could be building other units, but I usually have enough other cities building units so that the loss of one city's production doesn't mean squat. The Armies I produce I stockpile empty in some well defended city. Then if I ever find I need them in the future, they're there. If I don't need them, I haven't lost much.

[Arrian]

Tin Cow - that exactly summarizes what I do when I have the mil. academy. That one city builds armies whenever it has nothing better to do. They stay empty until I want to use them... and usually end up being Mech. Inf. armies.

Note: The Pentagon requires several armies in the field in order to be built (3 or 4, I think), but those armies don't need to have troops "loaded" in them. They can be sitting empty in a city.

-Arrian

[Aqualung]

The Heroic Epic produces 4 culture. Military Academy and Pentagon both produce 1. Don't know if that's important to you, but if it is, then make an army.

I added Blitz and Unload to my Armies in my rules.

[Skanky Burns]

Arrian reminded me:

I actually never build the Pentagon any more. It requires 3 armies to be built, so i used to go and build my 3 armies (normally build 2, and have my original swordsman army still standing around) and then build the pentagon. Yay, now i can put an extra unit in my army...

But then i realised that the whole idea is useless. Why build a wonder if it doenst give me any tangible bonus. Putting a modern unit in my swordsman army would detract from my fighting ability. A cav unit can move 3 times, but putting in a swordsman army would let it only move 1 per turn. A cav can retreat, but if my cav gets defeated first in an army, chances are my swordsmen wont do any better leaving me with a total defeat for my army.

Question: Can you make an army of marines?? Only thought of that just now. They are one of the few useful modern units with only 1 movement point so cant retreat, and it seems to me would actually benefit from being in an army.

[Willem]

Originally posted by Skanky Burns
Arrian reminded me:

I actually never build the Pentagon any more. It requires 3 armies to be built, so i used to go and build my 3 armies (normally build 2, and have my original swordsman army still standing around) and then build the pentagon. Yay, now i can put an extra unit in my army...

But then i realised that the whole idea is useless. Why build a wonder if it doenst give me any tangible bonus. Putting a modern unit in my swordsman army would detract from my fighting ability. A cav unit can move 3 times, but putting in a swordsman army would let it only move 1 per turn. A cav can retreat, but if my cav gets defeated first in an army, chances are my swordsmen wont do any better leaving me with a total defeat for my army.

Question: Can you make an army of marines?? Only thought of that just now. They are one of the few useful modern units with only 1 movement point so cant retreat, and it seems to me would actually benefit from being in an army.

Does anyone know whether there is a definite ceiling on the unit limit for Armies, or whether adding more Pentagon type wonders will increase the limit by one each time? Anyone tried that one yet?

[Grrr]

Wonder, every time!

I recently saw the AI use a leader to produce an army, in a city where he was producing the Military Academy! If he had finished the wonder, he could build an army next turn!