How big is your military?

[rpodos]

It has occurred to me that even the warmongers among us probably have drastically different ideas about how much time, effort, and money to allocate to the military.

I'll kick off with the game I'm currently playing:

Rome
1020 AD
Monarchy
40 cities
Total units: 194
3 Armies
38 Knights
44 Legionaries
2 Catapults
5 Musketmen
39 Pikemen
1 Galley

R

[rpodos]

Oops, amend that... Total units included Settlers and Workers.

The correct number is 132, counting Armies as units.

R

[Harovan]

What's the map size?

[rpodos]

Excellent point.

Parameters:
Large, Continents, 10 civs, Monarch.

R

[Harovan]

Well, just a few words (bedtime):

We seem to be in the first third of Medieval age. First of, since our opponents are only AIs (no MP yet), a Pikeman (or Musketman) as garrison per city sufficit, hence 40.

All else depends on our further plans.

If we plan to conquer our continent for us alone, I'd recommend to start with about 80 knights; 2 per city, to keep cost under control, we are a Republic, are we? Since we are Romans and still have a lot of 3/3/1 legions, half Knights and half Legions should be fine too. Switch your core cities around the Palace and FP (have we one?) to produce Knights, and GO. If it's possible, that somebody attacks you from behind, keep a small (20%) militia of half Knights and half Legions home. Collect newly built Knights at some point, and when you gathered a stack of, say 10, let 'em go as reinforcement. Conclusion: If we want to warmonger, we're ready, but must be aware, that we shall continuously replace our losses, hence the total # of (military) units is 120+

If we are peacenik, I'd recommend 1 good defender per city (pikeman or musketman), and about 2 Knights (better) or Legions per border city, overall about 80.

[PerpetualNewbie]

I don't have many savegames to look at, and none at this point in time, so I just played a "quick" game up til about halfway through Medeival.

Of course, this happened to be a weird game, and I have needed very few military yet. I am on a Y with Bismark and Hiawatha, and I am holding off Hiawatha at a narrows only 3 tiles wide, Bismark 2 tiles wide. Lots of blood spilled, but I have yet to see a leader.

Anyway

Monarch, 8 civs, standard size, 300AD
Cities -- 12
Warriors -- 2 (where are they hiding? )
Hoplites -- 7 (6 elite)
Swordsmen -- 14 (9 elite)
Horsemen -- 16 (16 elite)
Knights -- 11 (1 elite)
Catapults -- 1

Total Military -- 51, if I added it up right.

Much weaker than normal. but according to the military advisor, I am stronger than 5 civs, average with the other two, with whom I am good friends...

I would guess that usually at this point in time, I am sitting on at least 80 military.

[PerpetualNewbie]

Or are you asking how many military we would have in your game, sight unseen?

[notyoueither]

Roman. Large Map. 12 civs. Continents. Warm Climate (critical). Emperor. Tech values modded to make tech come slower (much fun).

1804.
4 civs left.
About 80 cities.

Settlers x 6
Workers x 60 Roman
Captured, about 100
Marines x 8
Knights x 3 (in Army)
Cavalry x 18 (1 Army of 3)
Inf x 24
Tank x 49
MechInf x 104
Artillery x 43
Cruise x 44
ICBM x 8
Ironclad x 2
Transport x 6
Carrier x 7
Submarine x 6
Destroyer x 12
Battleship x 13
Nuclear Sub x 2
Bomber x 25
Jetr Fighter x 19
Legion x 1

Do I win?

[Inverse Icarus]

201+ late game

i once had 574 units on a large map as Germany on Monarch.

the game got so slow that i quit and didnt bother backing ti up before the reformat

[The Mad Monk]

Thanks to capitalization and its brethren being severly weakened, and the way the AI can now throw dozens of units at a city, I now use a much larger military than I ever did in Civ II or SMAC.

500+ is typical, and I'm a builder.

[notyoueither]

500? Builder?

Go attack someone. That's what they're for.

[Txurce]

Sometimes I think I'm playing a different game than everyone else. Case in point: Aztecs, Emperor, 8 civs, standard continents. As always, I am going for a space-race win via a reformed-warmonger approach: consolidate militarily, then build.

By 1050, I have conquered almost my entire continent - 40% of the total land mass. Here is my army:

12 knights
19 spearmen
3 swordsmen
2 pikemen
1 JW

By 1570, the continent has been all mine for a while - almost half of the total land mass. I have focused on infrastructure, and have taken over the tech lead. My army now:

9 cavalry
1 knight
19 spearmen
3 pikemen
1 rifleman
1 musketman
1 swordsman
1 JW

I won the space race in 1880. In 1840, I was at war with the Germans, who controlled the rest of the world. This is the German army circa 1840:

26 panzers, 109 mech infantry, 26 artillery, 14 bombers, and 10 longbowmen.

The Germans invaded twice, and I fought them off easily. I kept my focus on the space race, but built contemporary units with all my cities that had nothing better to do. In other words, as si usually the case, it was a little bigger than I would have planned, had I been watching evry city at that point. Here is my 1840 (final) army:

6 modern armor
15 tanks
3 cavalry
8 infantry
19 spearmen
3 pikemen
1 rifleman
1 musketeer
1 JW

This is par for the course for me, except that I don't always wind up with this much territory. I build my armies on the "just enough" principle, because my focus in a space race is on infrastructure. I invade as soon as I think I have just enough troops to achieve my goals. I use my non-upgradable units as cannon fodder and - once my territorial goals are achieved - I only build just enough of the current offensive state-of-the-art unit to fight off the very predictable numbers that the AI uses in its overseas invasions. After I've built a rail system, that number rarely needs to be more than 16 cavalry or, later, 16 tanks.

[Dominae]

I believe in building enough units to accomplish goals (my opinion on the usefulness of goals is on another thread). Determining the size of the force you need is a key skill.

If my army is so large that most units aren't participating in any given battle, then I've wasted shields building those units and am probably losing gold to them every turn.

This is especially true for defensive units. The AI in Civ3 is not very good at sneak attacks (much worse at it than in Civ2, I think), so defending your non-border cities is virtually useless. You can usually see their Galleys coming from miles away and set up an adequate defense by the time their "invasion force" decides to make landfall (I've had a couple of Knights shadowing Galleons along my coasts to great effect). By the time your railroad network is in place, having defensive units in your core cities goes from virtually useless to completely useless (unless you're in Communism or such).

I place 3-4 of my best defenders in my border towns, more if war is imminent. If I plan to attack, I determine how many units I'll need to take a city in one turn, plus how many units I need to pillage their roads and/or set up defensive cover. Anything fancier in terms of campaigns is lost effort against the Civ3 AI. Oh, I'll sometimes have a bunch of artillery units around that I've been upgrading throughout the ages for those particularly tough cities.

So, any standing army of over 100 units seems to me excessive.

Edit: I play exclusively on Standard-size maps.


Dominae

[notyoueither]

Dominae.

Ever tried to invade a large island/small continent that is occupied by a single AI civ with a few more units than Txurce's Germans?

Gives me a little more respect for the AI. Except that they should have swept me off during the first 2 turns and didn't. They have very effectively countered every probe I have made until just recently.

That's one of the reasons I would love to see a *Don't Play this Level Unless You Want to Lose Guaranteed* where Soren could make the AI do everything he wishes it to do, but can't because it still has to be fun for everyone. : Drool:

[Spock]

Seems I play a bit different....I go as small as possible. I try to win with as few cities and as little military as I can.
In the game I'm in now...Japan, standard map, island, Emperor,vs 6 civs.

I have only eight cities, with four musketeers in each(for defense purposes only), and two calvalry in each, for a total of 40.

I always make a mpp with the largest(most powerful) civ...rarely will anyone attack me. While all the other civs are busy fighting...I'm reaching for the stars.