How big is your military?

[Mad Bomber]

My armed forces are usually a bit larger than most in this thread, here is a listing of a game I recently played. Huge Conntinental map, 16 civs

Cities: 100+
Settlers: 0
Workers:107
Spearmen:2
Riflemen:14
Cavalry:20
Mech Infantry: 185
tanks:16
Modern Armor: 152
Radar Artillery:104
F-15's: 95
Bombers:14
Stealth Fighters:7
Stealth Bombers:12
Destroyers:35
Battleships:22
Nuc Subs:21
Transports:30
Carriers:13
Aegis Cruisers:6
ICBMS:29
Tactical Nukes:7
Armies:16

Total unit support: 1100+ gpt.
Not only was my army large but the two best rival civs were nearly comparable in nearly every area except tanks, air, artillery and carriers.

[Silpy]

I do agree that a strong Navy is nearly as important as your land forces (Exp. if you have a far strung empire)
So often neglected by AI's. If you update all your forces, if you go to war, you can garentee that you will have more units to replace the destroyed ones, by the same type and training. It may also save you money, for the money you spend on uprading will be partly offest by the savings on Maintinence on the obeslete units.
And, you will get a reputation after a few wars that you are allways ready for war. Really, the treat of long, draining wars keeps (relitive) world peace.

[Silpy]

Just saw this

Cities: 100+
Settlers: 0
Workers:107
Spearmen:2 (Upgrade to Mech Infantry)
Riflemen:14 (Ditto)
Cavalry:20 (Keep if they are Elete)
Mech Infantry: 185 (Keep the best on border Cities)
tanks:16 (Upgrade to Amour)
Modern Armor: 152
Radar Artillery:104
F-15's: 95 (Keep if you use Air Superority)
Bombers:14 (Upgrade to Stealth Bombers)
Stealth Fighters:7
Stealth Bombers:12
Destroyers:35
Battleships:22
Nuc Subs:21
Transports:30
Carriers:13
Aegis Cruisers:6
ICBMS:29
Tactical Nukes:7
Armies:7 (Dump any which are pre-Industral
Build replacement ones of you really
want to)

This will make your forces better organised, ready for a new war. A failure that some people have is that after fighting a long, bloody war, you do not continue to devolop you military. (I admit this has happend to me a few times) It will not cost you much.

[Tattila the Hun]

I usually win (or lose) before getting more than 50 Ma's... But then again, I usually fight smaller conflicts on small patches of land, not needing hordes of armour.

[Mad Bomber]

Originally posted by Silpy
Just saw this

Spearmen:2 (Upgrade to Mech Infantry)
Riflemen:14 (Ditto)
Cavalry:20 (Keep if they are Elete)
Mech Infantry: 185 (Keep the best on border Cities)
tanks:16 (Upgrade to Amour)
F-15's: 95 (Keep if you use Air Superority)
Bombers:14 (Upgrade to Stealth Bombers)
Armies:7 (Dump any which are pre-Industral
Build replacement ones of you really
want to)

1. The Spearmen and riflemen were on far away colonies or islands and were in no danger of being attacked, even then it would not have been a huge loss to lose the cities. Why upgrade if you do not have to?
2. Armies are 16 not 7, these include 5 armies of 4 cav of which most have created GL's and do not want to get rid of. The tanks are also in armies, 4 of 4 tanks most of these are vets but the armies are still useful enough to keep around. Rest are 2 MI and 2MA's
3. The F-15's are a mod they have a bombardment of 20 (same as a stealth bomber) Also Bombers do not upgrade to Stealth Bombers they must be built from scratch. (all bombardment units have been increased in my mod btw not just the F-15)

[ManicStarSeed]

I tend to run real lean. I often run my empires on 1. maybe 2 garrisons per city. With fourty or fifty cities. I often will operate with only 35-60 units including 10-20 workers. I opeate this way for close to half of the game during (relativly) peaceful games. I try to budget production to what is absolutey needed. I have been caught a few times needing to mobilize to a wartime footing just to catch up for defense.

In my current game. I have invaded the americans (one of the two major threats) via channel landing. The war is in turn 10 (I think) and I am adding and avgerage of 10-16 tanks per turn for reinforcments.

Once teh war is over, I expect to be able to upgrade my tanks to MA. I will disband close to half of them to build improvments in my newly aquired corruption ridden cities. I expect to be back down to maybe 100-125 units for 50-60 cities on a large, 10 civ emperor level, continental, 70% ocean world.

[Silpy]

1) I feel upgrading is good, because it can save your ass when being invaded.

2) My tactics rely on speed. I feel armies are too slow, and I only use them for GL creation or homeland defence
Do you like long, bloody wars?

3) Dont like the idea that the Ai's can see that you still have really old units. It makes me feel backward and weak.

4) Sorry. I created my own version of the World Map, where I have tweaked a few things. (Including Bomber
-> Stelth Bomber)

OK?

[Mad Bomber]

Originally posted by Silpy
1) I feel upgrading is good, because it can save your ass when being invaded.

2) My tactics rely on speed. I feel armies are too slow, and I only use them for GL creation or homeland defence
Do you like long, bloody wars?

3) Dont like the idea that the Ai's can see that you still have really old units. It makes me feel backward and weak.

4) Sorry. I created my own version of the World Map, where I have tweaked a few things. (Including Bomber
-> Stelth Bomber)

OK?

1) Yes, upgrading is good, as you can see from the makeup of my army I believe in upgrading as well, but there are some units that it is just better to leave be. (most of the riflemen have come from cities that I got either as war booty, CF'd to me or I propogandized, they will be upgraded, eventually )

2) Armies are a bit slow but are very powerful, esp in defense.

3) Nor do I, but some things can wait, only three civs remain, and I can handle them easily.

4) Yes, I play with a modded version myself, but when offering advice it is helpful to note that the advice comes from a mod.

and yes its ok with me, thanks for asking

[VenomLord]

in response to the question i can only answer in one way: how long is a piece of string my military is as big as i can make it (as you can tell I'm a bit of a warmonger) and it seems to do the trick in my games (monarch lvl) but i doubt it'd work on higher difficulties

[vmxa1]

Originally posted by Silpy

2) My tactics rely on speed. I feel armies are too slow, and I only use them for GL creation or homeland defence
Do you like long, bloody wars?

Armies can not create a leader. If the army is staffed by movement 3 units it is not slow. If it has 1 move units and that is all you have at the time, they are not slow.
IOW speed is not a function of the being an army, it is a function of the units. An army of Calv is not slow.
Armies are very good for homeland defense and for quelling resisters. They also allow you to overcome the metro defenses.

[War4ever]

i personally like a large mobile army witha few defenders on high terrain.....

but i have about a 80-20 attacking defending army.....i hate letting the ai attack.....

if i fail its one thing, but if my troops fail defending then i feel i have no control over the game

[Melboz99]

1840's, Warlord, Carthage

140 Infantry
37 Gurillas
130 Workers
66 cities

Current Score: 2300

I think that Military is sufficient for this game. The other civ's Mil is made primaraly of spearmen, then musketman, and a few rifelman.

I play total peace, I don't like war. The koreans have 63 cites but their score is almost half of mine, so I don't care. I use military for defence, and score. I plan on haveing 3-4 Mech Inf in each city by the end of the game, Which I believe will be around 1950, spaceship. Once I have moderen armor, I may make a little war for pure curiosity. But then I would probaly have to leave my democracy, which I don't like.

Oh yeah, Huge Map, Temperate, 4 Billion years, continents, normal rain.

[Stuie]

This thread makes for interesting reading.

I've actually modded the game to discourage large militaries. I increased support to 2/unit for Republic, 3/unit for Democracy - both have some added "free" units to partially offset the increased cost. I found it way too easy to warmonger with Republic and Democracy otherwise - war weariness seems pretty easy to keep in check in my opinion. Hit them in the wallet, though, and that keeps them in check. Now Monarchy/Communism are much more desirable for war.

All that said, my current game I have about 20 cities and around 40 units in the early Middle Ages - half defensive and half offensive (just upgraded to Ansars - time to crush my neighbors).

Monarch, 170x170 map, continents, wet and 3 billion years.

[Pyrodrew]

I agree that one's forces depends on the map, difficulty, & progress.
On this game I went builder (no iron or saltpeter access gave me the push on a huge world, no nearby civ in the beginning), later went warmonger. The world was mostly 1 long snake continent. No spaceship or UN this time.

Monarchy, Huge World, Temperate, 3Billion, Archipelago@60%Water, 1800 AD, 16Civs

Cities~200+

Ground:
Workers - 3 (but I have tons of captured workers)
Marines - 6
Paratroops - 6
Obsoletes - 13 (in armies or no good reason to upgrade)
Cavalry - 13
Mech. Infantry - 125
Modern Armor - 313 (game is almost over)
Artillery - 45 (these bring all my enemies down to 1 red just fine)
Radar Artillery - 2

Air:
F15 - 7
Bombers - 21
Stealth Bombers - 17
Tactical Nuke - 2
ICBMs - 5

Sea:
Galley - 1 (not necessary to upgrade for its use, was later)
Galleon - 1 (not necessary to upgrade for its current use)
Transports - 7
Subs - 3
Destroyers - 1
Battleships - 20

For the Industrial & Modern Age, # of units in most cities is about 0 - 1 depending on location. High risk cities 2+. I would rather have 100 more Offensive units (land, sea, air, whatever) than have 1 more Mech. Inf. eating powdered donuts in my cities.
Game was won on 1826 AD.

[Silpy]

Hello again.

1) Sorry, I did a typo. I use armies to create small wonders (Heroic Epic, Military academy and Pentagon) not for leader creation, which it does not do.

2) If you can knock out a civ or two easy, why dont you? If you wait, you may find that they get more powerful!

3) I think everybody who has Civ III more than a week has their own modded version. Mine is so Modded (now V 14) I an considering realsing it on the net, because it is really good

4) Nice idea, to increace the cost of militarys for demarctic nations. I'll think I will add it to V 15.

5) It seems that nobody considers the advanatges of a large navy. So does the AI. Get my drift?