Idea for Great Leaders and Armies

[The diplomat]

Has anyone had a situation where your Army actually fought the Army of another civ? I think it would great if this happened more often.

Most battles in civ3 are a single unit fighting another single unit.

I think it would very interesting if more battles could occur between two armies. Imagine if the player had 2 or 3 armies in the ancient era, and each army could hold say 5 units. Two armies meet, and the 5 units would take turns fighting. This would make battles longer and more interesting than the simple one on one between single units.

I think this would make battles more important, more epic, and have a more "decisiveness" feel to them. It would also make wars more organized, because players would have more stacks and less singe units. (I am aware that civ3 has stacked movement, but armies also allow units to kinda fight together too)

Great Leaders would still be important as they would still be the only way to rush a wonder. And Great Leaders would still offer a civ a "free" army.

Last, I don't think that having armies of 5 units would make wars hinge on single battles, because armies would be able to retreat, so not every battle would be to the death.

Here are the specific changes I am wondering about:
-allow players to build armies in ancient era.
-increase army size to 5 instead of 3.
-allow armies to retreat.
-make building an army cheaper.

If yes, has anyone tried to make these changes? Are they good? Opinions?

[Sheik]

If you want this go into the editor and make the only thing needed to build the military academy military tradition. You can also reduce the cost of armies so the AI builds more of them (Would this work?). As for increasing their capacity I do not think that can be done.

[The diplomat]

Originally posted by Sheik
If you want this go into the editor and make the only thing needed to build the military academy military tradition. You can also reduce the cost of armies so the AI builds more of them (Would this work?). As for increasing their capacity I do not think that can be done.

thanks for the reply.

I hope that there will be a way to increase the capacity to 4 or 5 units. I'd love to experiment with slightly bigger armies, to see if if it makes battles more interesting. 3 is not big enough.

[trevor]

There is a way to make armies larger. Its the 'Transport Capacity' number in the editor

[The diplomat]

Originally posted by trevor
There is a way to make armies larger. Its the 'Transport Capacity' number in the editor

wonderful!

[The diplomat]

So what do people think about the idea? Do you think it would make the warfare more interesting and more epic?

[bbaws]

I've had plenty instances of AI armies. I don't throw an army at an AI army if I can possibly avoid it. If the AI is daft enough to leave one in the open I use as much artillery/cannon/catipulti as I can against it.
I'd rather see a stack of doom coming my way than an army.
As far as armies go I tend to have loads of them in a stack doing nothing until MA becomes available. Usually one army of knights, one of cavalry and two or three of infantry (superb for protecting artillery stacks). I just keep building them and leave them empty because the AI seems to take note. Once modern armour gets a chance to become elite, bingo bango, world domination.