Starting to like armies

[vmxa1]

I have to take my fair share of chastising for pass irreverences concerning armies. I was not very fond of them. I saw a post about playing legionares on a huge map and gave it a whirl. I have had so many GL's that I cranked out an army of legionares. Then one of Horsemen and next came Calvary. I just make my first army of MechInf and wow do I like them. This is a four member army. They are all elite and spank tanks attacking the city like Howard Stern. They are so fearsome that some paratroopers turned around and went the other way without attacking. I can't wait to get MA and make an army of them. That should be a real city wrecker.

[alexman]

Don't forget to try some mixed armies. Mixed armies can be far better than the sum of their parts. It might be too late in your game now, but some excellent choices are:

-> Adding a longbowman to an army of two swordmen, and later adding a rifleman or infantry.
-> Adding a Mech. Infantry to an army of three tanks or three knights.

Ask our resident mixed-army expert, Theseus, for more creative combinations...

[Theseus]

Welcome to my world!

Seriously, glad you're getting into them. Interesting that you started with Rome... a 2 or 3 Legion Army, or 2 Legions with either a LB or a Musketeer, are probably my favorite early units... just completely indomitable, and maintain value for a looooong time.

Also, adding a MA to a 3 Cav Army is awesome... in effect, you've got 16-20 hp MA, maintaining 3 move attack.

Remember that while units in Armies lose blitz, the Army can blitz, meaning attack more than once. Try it when you get to the 4 MA Army... it's the most powerful thing you've ever seen in the game.

[Destroyer]

Dont mix! Armies are offensive units, so stack deffensive units to protect them.

Armies have their greatest use late in the game when you are trying to knock out heavily defended cities with 4-5 mech inf. defending. These buggers can soak up several attacks from modern armour, so the extra hit points help to take out the stubborn bastards without taking any losses, saving individual tanks for the weaker defenders.

I never ever get armies before the industrial age due to playing on a very huge map.

[Zachriel]

You know me:

[Ethelred]

Originally posted by Destroyer
Dont mix! Armies are offensive units, so stack deffensive units to protect them.

What he was doing was mixing units with same movement. That might be OK.

Mixing a slow unit with fast units is a bad idea as armies move at the speed of the slowest unit which not only slows the army down, a single one move unit stops the army from attacking more than one time a turn.

[Jaybe]

Originally posted by Destroyer
Dont mix! Armies are offensive units, so stack deffensive units to protect them.
...

Often, when you stack defensive units with an offensive Army, the Army will be the defender because of its high number of Hit Points.

[vmxa1]

I had already made a mixed army by adding a calv to my horsemen army when they became available. It was sweet as the Calv fired its rifle first in all attacks and made the army 322 instead of 212. I did this when I got the Pentagon built. I have not made my tank army as I am hang fire until I can make MA. I have two Mech Inf armies and may make one more as I just got my 28th GL with nothing to use it on until I finish Rocketry. The GL's are not coming as fast as they once were. Best in a turn is 3 on offense that turn and was one on defense (it got killed), so 4 in one turn.

[Theseus]

vmxa1, those are actually blended stats. The Cav goes first on both attack and defense, so you've actually got an Army that acts like this:

Attack:
First 4-5 hps: 6 attack
Next 12-15 hps: 2 attack

Defense:
First 4-5 hps: 3 defense
Next 12-15 hps: 1 defense

This happens for each individual battle. If the Army is damaged, the units divide all remaining hps equally.

That's a reason, btw, I never build 3 Horsemen Armies... I'd rather have the 3rd unit be a Knight-level unit (Samurai being best, for a little extra defensive strength sitting on top of 8-15 extra hps).

[ALPHA WOLF 64]

I tend to mix a single def unit with the same movement into each army. The a few purely offensive armies and maybe 1 or 2 defensive armies against nations with large numbers of fast offensive units.

[alexman]

Do units in armies trigger a GA?

Say I have a horseman-impi army. I win a battle without having to use the impi in the army. Do I get a GA? Has anyone encountered this situation?

[RedBird]

Re: Do units in armies trigger a GA?

Oops, misread that one. Moving on...

[planetfall]

mixed armies?

Maybe I don't understand the statistics behind the actions of armies but I don't like to mix offensive/defensive units in armies because it shows down the offensive armies to the speed of the slowest unit.

I prefer either A) mostly offensive armies to break down cities and a few defensive armies to hold key bottlenecks, or B) all offensive armies being linked to a stack of defenders for a particular campaign but free to seperate before start next campaign.

--PF

[vmxa1]

Originally posted by Theseus
vmxa1, those are actually blended stats. The Cav goes first on both attack and defense, so you've actually got an Army that acts like this:

Attack:
First 4-5 hps: 6 attack
Next 12-15 hps: 2 attack

Defense:
First 4-5 hps: 3 defense
Next 12-15 hps: 1 defense

This happens for each individual battle. If the Army is damaged, the units divide all remaining hps equally.

I knew that, I just too lazy to mention that aspect. I also just found out that a unit that made a Gl as a Tank (named Tank30 for the 30th GL, should have called Grog30) can be upgraded to MA and make anothr GL. Now called Tank30_MA32. Is it normal to have so many even in a never ending war on Huge as Militaristic civ? I never had more than 5-6 before this patch, but I rarely pick that trait either.

[Theseus]

Well god bless you, this has been the theory, but it's the first report I've seen of an upgraded unit* being promoted to elite and generating another GL... figures it would come with MAs, though.

And no, from what you've been posting, I haven;t heard of getting so many GLs... makes up for the games in which you won;t have'em!!

alexman: No GLs from Armies.

planetfall: alexman's example (Horseman+Impi) was actually a perfect example of mixing offense and defense... but, agreed, don;t mix units of differing speeds.