What do you consider a BIG army?

[Allemand]

I like for the AI to think I'm weak. I get more action that way.

The first war is always the best, because I have to build up my weak military while holding off the AI hordes. I usually have horsemen as my main unit. With a good road net, they do a good job.

When I get Chivalry I go on the offensive, and 40 knights is enough to kill "stronger" civs.

[Worthingtons]

Spec,the liklehood is that you are playing against a Militaristic Civ like the Japanese or Germans, who will have like 500 outdated troops, because they dont build anything else.

[Captain]

I think anything more than 200 military units (excluding workers) is enough. That's pretty huge in my mind. 100 units seems reasonable. Personally I prefer to have around 60 "modern/current" units (*to hold my own in peacetime, I build more in war).

That's for normal, regent, 8 civs. Huge maps, more civs, more difficulty, you'll need more.


IMHO, I think there should be some other penalties besides just cost for having a huge military. The fact that you can support such huge armies without pissing off your populace is weird. Usually people don't like having unnecessarily large militaries in peacetime. Maybe one reason is that once there's no city improvements left to build and you've got a +ve income, all you have left to do is churn out units and go-a-conquering.
Another reason might be that there's too many cities in this game. I would prefer no more than 60 cities under my control, ideally 25-30. It just starts getting tedius too.

I quit my last few games in middle ages for that reason. I could take over another civ, but I really didn't want 10 more cities to manage over the thirty I already have. If I raze them, the AI will rebuild them. I'm also not a warmonger so I only like to go to war if I have to.

[Tingkai]

Originally posted by Dida
Just ignore your stupid military advisor.
I have 50 Modern Armor in my arsenal, and the Persians have nothing but 100 workers and 20 Chavalry , and my military advivor told me they are more powerful

And who said CivIII doesn't mirror real life. Look at the Pentagon. The US has the largest and most advanced air force in the world and the Pentagon is crying that it needs more new and advanced fighters.

[Andrew Cory]

Originally posted by Tingkai


And who said CivIII doesn't mirror real life. Look at the Pentagon. The US has the largest and most advanced air force in the world and the Pentagon is crying that it needs more new and advanced fighters.

The US does, actualy...
Think about it like this: Yes, the B52s do their job, but(!) they are getting old. Finding parts for them is becoming problematic at best. In fact, one of the brand new planes that is being built _right now_ took so much time in the design and prototype phase that the pentagon is having to stock up on spare parts because within about 5-10 years all the parts will be obsoleat...

Of course, modeling somthing like this in civ would be difficult...

[Blaupanzer]

Based on recent discussions, the "who is stronger" calculation seems to consider both raw unit numbers and the number of "Offensive" units available. It clearly does not consider obsolescense. Skanky's point about how the AI's see you is spot on. The military advisor is telling you how the AI see you, not some universal truth. The same is true for the foreign and science advisors.

I haven't figured out what purpose the cultural advisor is supposed to fulfill. Would be nice if she could give a rough idea of the cultural values of the other nations. (F8 doesn't help much when several civs are close to one another. Mostly same for trade advisor, although at least you get an idea of available resources from other powers. Also would be nice if you could get power numbers from the military guy and techs the others have but you don't from the science guy. Seems silly to have to open negotiations to find out some of these things (techs, existing trades) when these advisors are available.