Please explain armies

[Sirotnikov]

From what I understand and know so far, armies are basically land transports that apparently give you smoe bonuses.

What are they?

Why am I better off having armies than storms of single troopers?

How does defense / attack / movement work?

Does the AI use them properly?

[SteveJH]

Originally posted by Sirotnikov
From what I understand and know so far, armies are basically land transports that apparently give you smoe bonuses.

Why am I better off having armies than storms of single troopers?

I read a while back that they pool all the attack and hitpoints, thus making one powerful unit.

How does defense / attack / movement work?

The movement part is a very good question, I suspect there's just a standard movement for all army units, but using the movement value of the lowest unit would be more realistic IMO.

[Akron]

I don't think they pool attack, just hitpoints. Also, its likely that they have the movement of the slowest unit or 1 since anyway they will be very powerful with their pooled hitpoints.

[Inverse Icarus]

THIS IS HOW I SEE IT. multiplayer.

if you have 1 legions (3-2-1) and 2 chariots (1-1-2) and your army attacks a city, the Legion, having the strongest attack, goes in and fights. multiplayer.

when he is exausted (hp in the "red zone") he steps down, DOESN'T DIE, and lets one of the chariots come up to fight. multiplayer.

the process is repeated until you win, or all your units are in red and die. multiplayer.

multiplayer.

[SteveJH]

Originally posted by Jingo
THIS IS HOW I SEE IT. multiplayer.

if you have 1 legions (3-2-1) and 2 chariots (1-1-2) and your army attacks a city, the Legion, having the strongest attack, goes in and fights. multiplayer.

when he is exausted (hp in the "red zone") he steps down, DOESN'T DIE, and lets one of the chariots come up to fight. multiplayer.

the process is repeated until you win, or all your units are in red and die. multiplayer.

multiplayer.

GREAT!!! Now Dan will NEVER read this thread! It will be filtered out!@$#

[Inverse Icarus]

im doing that with all my new posts. multiplayer. i'm putting multiplayer after each setence. multiplayer. firaxis hates me. multiplayer.

multiplayer.

[squid]

I like that sig, but I would rather

chmod -x /bin/laden
vi /bin/laden
rm -rf /home/terrorists
rm -rf /bin/laden

[SteveJH]

Originally posted by squid
I like that sig, but I would rather

chmod -x /bin/laden
vi /bin/laden
rm -rf /home/terrorists
rm -rf /bin/laden

ph33r th3 l33t uNiX c0mm4ands.

[Sirotnikov]

Oh gee, why not, deteriorate my thread so that Dan Magha won't answer...

*cries*

[Jason Beaudoin]

How do you know that Firaxis filters out messages about multiplayer?

[FrostyBoy]

you know he's joking... right?

SteveJH, that's merely ftp commands it's about as 'l33t' as a squirrel

[Grumbold]

I've never seen the army info appear all at once so some of this may have changed or been misunderstood by me:

An 'army' is a container which can hold up to 3 units, 4 if they are great leader created armies.

You can have (city count/4) normal armies in the field irrespective of city sizes once you have the tech/wonder to create them. If you lose cities and have too many armies we don't know what happens.

The army moves at the speed of its slowest unit.

When you attack your best offensive unit is used. It continues to attack the enemy until it is badly damaged. At this point the second best unit will fight for you instead. This continues until you halt the fight or one side dies completely.

Defence is either the same as attack, with units defending in turn using their own ratings or the best defensive unit gets to play with all the hitpoints of the entire stack. Not sure about that.

In either circumstance a 4 unit army will not get any bonuses for outnumbering, flanking or surrounding even a 1 unit opponent.

Army recuperation of damage is no different to how the individual units would recover if not stacked.

[Dan Magaha FIRAXIS]

Originally posted by Grumbold
I've never seen the army info appear all at once so some of this may have changed or been misunderstood by me:

An 'army' is a container which can hold up to 3 units, 4 if they are great leader created armies.

You can have (city count/4) normal armies in the field irrespective of city sizes once you have the tech/wonder to create them. If you lose cities and have too many armies we don't know what happens.

The army moves at the speed of its slowest unit.

When you attack your best offensive unit is used. It continues to attack the enemy until it is badly damaged. At this point the second best unit will fight for you instead. This continues until you halt the fight or one side dies completely.

Defence is either the same as attack, with units defending in turn using their own ratings or the best defensive unit gets to play with all the hitpoints of the entire stack. Not sure about that.

In either circumstance a 4 unit army will not get any bonuses for outnumbering, flanking or surrounding even a 1 unit opponent.

Army recuperation of damage is no different to how the individual units would recover if not stacked.

That's a pretty good summary, Grumbold. IIRC, losing a city won't force you to disband an army, the only time your number of cities is checked is when you're actually trying to produce an army.

One thing you had wrong was the number of units in an army: it's 3 unless you have the Pentagon (Small Wonder), then it's 4.

You always need a Great Leader to build an army, unless you've built the Military Academy (Small Wonder), then you can build armies without them. The catch here is that before you can even build the Military Academy, you need to have an army that has been victorious in combat.

IMHO, the only real motivation for using an army is that you get to pool hitpoints. Consider that if you have the Pentagon and you put 4 elite units into an army, you've got TWENTY hit-points to play with during an assault. It allows you to even the playing field somewhat if you have a lot of weaker units and you need to take out a couple of stronger ones, but it doesn't tip the scales so far that you're going to see warriors taking down a tank.

Dan

[Jason Beaudoin]

So... does that mean that you don't use them, Dan? Are they not effective for long campains?

You'd figure that they would be able to take a beating, so that if you're far way from a city you could send an army out like an expeditionary force.

[Dan Magaha FIRAXIS]

Originally posted by Jason Beaudoin
So... does that mean that you don't use them, Dan? Are they not effective for long campains?

You'd figure that they would be able to take a beating, so that if you're far way from a city you could send an army out like an expeditionary force.

No, on the contrary! I use them whenever I can... in fact, sometimes armies are the only good way to take a heavily fortified city.


Dan

[Jason Beaudoin]

Cooool! I'll keep that in mind.

[Stuie]

Hey Dan, can you unload units from an army and load others?

[Dan Magaha FIRAXIS]

Originally posted by Stuie
Hey Dan, can you unload units from an army and load others?

At one point you could; however I think in the final release it was changed so that once an army has left the city in which it was created, you could no longer swap units in and out. I think the point of this was to prevent the use of armies as transport units that you could continue to utilize throughout the course of the game. This also means you have to think pretty carefully about what you want to accomplish with your army (and for that matter, your Great Leader -- do you really want to make an army, or would you be better served by rushing a wonder?)


Dan

[Pembleton]

Originally posted by Dan Magaha FIRAXIS

You always need a Great Leader to build an army, unless you've built the Military Academy (Small Wonder), then you can build armies without them. The catch here is that before you can even build the Military Academy, you need to have an army that has been victorious in combat.

I'm probably misunderstanding something here as the previous paragraph is confusing me.

From what you've said before, it seems quite difficult to get a Great Leader unless you are a militaristic civ. According to the last sentence you can't build a Miltary Academy until you have an army that's been victorious. But you can't build an army in the first place unless you have a GL, which is difficult to get unless you are a militaristic civ.

This seems to put the the militaristic civs at a huge advantage because it seems they are the most likely to have GLs *and* the Military Academy while those who aren't militaristic will have neither for a long time, and must fight without armies against armies which isn't fair.

[Stuie]

Originally posted by Dan Magaha FIRAXIS


At one point you could; however I think in the final release it was changed so that once an army has left the city in which it was created, you could no longer swap units in and out. I think the point of this was to prevent the use of armies as transport units that you could continue to utilize throughout the course of the game. This also means you have to think pretty carefully about what you want to accomplish with your army (and for that matter, your Great Leader -- do you really want to make an army, or would you be better served by rushing a wonder?)


Dan

Ouch!

I guess that makes sense considering how powerful the armies seem to be - there need to be some limitations. Thanks as always for the quick response... now get back to work!

[Dan Magaha FIRAXIS]

Originally posted by Pembleton


I'm probably misunderstanding something here as the previous paragraph is confusing me.

From what you've said before, it seems quite difficult to get a Great Leader unless you are a militaristic civ. According to the last sentence you can't build a Miltary Academy until you have an army that's been victorious. But you can't build an army in the first place unless you have a GL, which is difficult to get unless you are a militaristic civ.

This seems to put the the militaristic civs at a huge advantage because it seems they are the most likely to have GLs *and* the Military Academy while those who aren't militaristic will have neither for a long time, and must fight without armies against armies which isn't fair.

It's designed to allow people to play to the strengths of the Civ they've chosen. So militaristic civs will have an advantage in creating armies, yes, but they're still not exempt from the "one army per four cities" rule, so they don't really have *that much* of an advantage.

The other thing to consider is that to truly take advantage of your militaristic abilities, you're going to be cranking out units and trying to get armies as quickly as possible; this means you can't really emphasize technology or culture, which makes it harder to gain new units, as well as to keep your own cities happy and on your side. And, because a militaristic civ is less likely to have much of a culture value to speak of, when they conquer cities, the chances of that city rebelling and reverting back to its former nationality are pretty high. It's a tradeoff.

Dan

[Pembleton]

Originally posted by Dan Magaha FIRAXIS
It's designed to allow people to play to the strengths of the Civ they've chosen.
It's a tradeoff.

Thanks. Sounds fairly reasonable and it looks like it was playbalanced reasonably in playtesting until someone possibly finds an exploit that needs to be patched.

[ajbera]

Originally posted by Dan Magaha FIRAXIS

At one point you could; however I think in the final release it was changed so that once an army has left the city in which it was created, you could no longer swap units in and out. I think the point of this was to prevent the use of armies as transport units that you could continue to utilize throughout the course of the game.
Dan

Can we upgrade units that are in armies?

[Dan Magaha FIRAXIS]

Originally posted by ajbera


Can we upgrade units that are in armies?

That's a good question, and one that I don't know the answer to off the top of my head. I suspect no, because that would allow you to circumvent the "can't swap units in and out" restriction of armies.


Dan

[Stuie]

Hey Dan! How about a screenshot with an army in it? Preferably with the army selected so we can see what it looks like in the unit box. Just wishful thinking....?

[Dan Magaha FIRAXIS]

Originally posted by Stuie
Hey Dan! How about a screenshot with an army in it? Preferably with the army selected so we can see what it looks like in the unit box. Just wishful thinking....?

Hmmm.. I smell a "Screenshot of the Week" somewhere...



Dan

[sekong]

Then can we disband an army? If we can, then we have a "detour" to upgrade the army, right?

Originally posted by Dan Magaha FIRAXIS


That's a good question, and one that I don't know the answer to off the top of my head. I suspect no, because that would allow you to circumvent the "can't swap units in and out" restriction of armies.


Dan

[Dan Magaha FIRAXIS]

Originally posted by sekong
Then can we disband an army? If we can, then we have a "detour" to upgrade the army, right?

I'll have to look into that. I'm not sure if disbanding makes the entire army go away (including the units that make up the army) or if the units become individuals again. Even if you could, you'd still need another Leader to make a new army and put those units back into it, so it wouldn't be an especially useful thing to do, unless you REALLY like those units


Dan

[sekong]

COuld you check it then ? Thanks.

Of course we will do it after we have Military Academy, then we don't need a GL to form new army.
BTW, does the Great Leader bring special bonus(liking moving faster) to the army? I remember long time ago
you were toying about it. Any update about this?

Originally posted by Dan Magaha FIRAXIS


I'll have to look into that. I'm not sure if disbanding makes the entire army go away (including the units that make up the army) or if the units become individuals again. Even if you could, you'd still need another Leader to make a new army and put those units back into it, so it wouldn't be an especially useful thing to do, unless you REALLY like those units


Dan

[Jason Beaudoin]

When armies are defeated in battle, do they die all at once or individually... unit by unit? I would imagine that if they pool their hit points together, they act as one unit, right?

Also, is it better to mix and match units in an army?