What do you consider a BIG army?

Spec · February 28, 2002, 12:24

I dont understand.....On a huge map, with about 35 cities, I have 83 musketman, 39 legionairs and 147 cavalries and my military advisor says:" Compared to these guys our military is weak". Why? Is it compared to the whole planet or to each civ one after the other? I could kill anyone whenever I want!! I'm also the only one with cavalry right now. Anybody got an idea why my military is the weakest? Or, like me, you think that my advisor had one too many beers.

Spec.

Zouave · February 28, 2002, 12:40

I completely ignore anything my military advisor says. The only advisor that seems to know what the hell he is talking about is the foreign advisor, and he is omniscient.

godinex · February 28, 2002, 12:57

If You have 100 Calvalrys and the Germans have 121 horsemen, they are more powerful for the advisor. Take your own conclusions.

Dida · February 28, 2002, 13:04

Just ignore your stupid military advisor.
I have 50 Modern Armor in my arsenal, and the Persians have nothing but 100 workers and 20 Chavalry , and my military advivor told me they are more powerful

Technoron · February 28, 2002, 13:20

as far as i've been able to figure, it's purely a quantity calculation. A million guys with pithforks will be more powerfull than 999,999 tanks. Whatever.

The power calculation is only for the currently selected civ. You can select diffent civs on the right half of the screen.

Think you need an embassy for accurate counts.

*shrug*

Seems most people just ignore the screen. I sure do. Unless I get bored with the game and need to look at something new and novel.

DrSpike · February 28, 2002, 13:26

Also great is when a civ about 6 or 7 techs behind you "feels they are our technological equal". All advisors talk rubbish. They aren't even amusing for the first game like in civ2.

Thrawn05 · February 28, 2002, 13:29

I think Aeson and his 375 Impi's is a large army. I forgot what thread it was that had a screenshot of his Zulu empire. But he had a total of a thousand or so units.

Pretty small to most civ players

Shadow_Cougar · February 28, 2002, 15:09

The numbers should just add up the Attack value of all the units and compare those. It wouldn't be perfect, but would give the AI a better idea of "relative" strength. That way England wouldn't make silly demands to me and make my tanks and MI crush their 3x as large army of calvary and musketmen.

Tarquelne · February 28, 2002, 15:17

Quote:

Originally posted by Shadow_Cougar
The numbers should just add up the Attack value of all the units and compare those.

The system I favor would be adding up the costs of the units.
I saw someone suggest a simpler system - the value of a unit depends on it's Age. An Ancient unit might be 1, an MA unit 2, etc. Very simple, but I think it'd still be a vast improvement.

Shadow_Cougar · February 28, 2002, 17:04

Quote:

Originally posted by Tarquelne

The system I favor would be adding up the costs of the units.
I saw someone suggest a simpler system - the value of a unit depends on it's Age. An Ancient unit might be 1, an MA unit 2, etc. Very simple, but I think it'd still be a vast improvement.

While I agree that my workers are about as dangerous to you as my warriors, I think my swordsmen are much more menacing than my settlers.

Currently, I am busily reducing French cities to piles of rubble. My army is decreasing in size, but I have added many French slaves. China now fears my swordsmen (instead of having a larger army).

The only units I have added have been settlers to live in those lovely French river valleys. That should not scare anyone, yet.

Dom Pedro II · February 28, 2002, 18:23

Yes, I was playing a game as the Japanese, and the Chinese bordered me to the South. They had about 50,000 warriors and 10,000 swordsmen (hyberbole of course) and I had about 20 Musketmen, 15 Samurai, and about 20 swordsmen... well, I'd probably win a war against them... but they'd just keep annoying me perpetually with raids on mines, irrigation, roads, etc. That's where the real power of obsolete units in numbers comes in. They're an annoyance.

Andrew Cory · February 28, 2002, 19:29

One of the things that I dig about the new unit suport system is the fact that armies in my rear are an actual threat that must be dealt with before I advance. In Civ 2, I was able to just take over cities, and watch the armies dissapear...

Hmmm, here is a thought: What if armies still in the feild after the nation has been destroyed still get to stick around for the next 10-15 turns. Perhaps they would be able to "liberate" cities, alowing the civilization to come back...

Provost Harrison · February 28, 2002, 20:16

64 Modern Armour, 12 Stealth Bombers, 50 Bombers, 10 Carriers, 12 Battleship, 8 Destroyers, 16 Radar Artillery, 126 Mech. Inf

I didn't think that was bad myself, enough to take on the rest of the world singlehandedly when used correctly...

Skanky Burns · February 28, 2002, 20:44

Just remember one thing - the AI civs will also be viewing you as 'weak', and will treat you as such. They will violate your borders, give you less in trade deals, and be prepared to declare war on you (despite the fact that you know you will win).

If you want the AI to respect you, there is only 2 things you can do:
First one is to increase your "military". This may involve building more units (doesn't matter what they are), conscripting more units, or buying workers off another civ.

The second is to decrease the AI's military strength in its eyes. You can either buy his workers off him (as workers are included in the military strength calculation) or you can declare war and smash his units.

Doing either of these two things will now make the AI respect your borders (as much as an AI can respect them), give you better trade deals, and really make the AI think twice about declaring war on you.

Dida · February 28, 2002, 20:52

Quote:

Originally posted by Provost Harrison
64 Modern Armour, 12 Stealth Bombers, 50 Bombers, 10 Carriers, 12 Battleship, 8 Destroyers, 16 Radar Artillery, 126 Mech. Inf

I didn't think that was bad myself, enough to take on the rest of the world singlehandedly when used correctly...

I only have 50 MA and 80 Mech Inf, but I'm already taking on the rest of the world singlehandedly.

Allemand · February 28, 2002, 21:12

I like for the AI to think I'm weak. I get more action that way.

The first war is always the best, because I have to build up my weak military while holding off the AI hordes. I usually have horsemen as my main unit. With a good road net, they do a good job.

When I get Chivalry I go on the offensive, and 40 knights is enough to kill "stronger" civs.

Worthingtons · February 28, 2002, 21:47

Spec,the liklehood is that you are playing against a Militaristic Civ like the Japanese or Germans, who will have like 500 outdated troops, because they dont build anything else.

Captain · March 1, 2002, 01:40

I think anything more than 200 military units (excluding workers) is enough. That's pretty huge in my mind. 100 units seems reasonable. Personally I prefer to have around 60 "modern/current" units (*to hold my own in peacetime, I build more in war).

That's for normal, regent, 8 civs. Huge maps, more civs, more difficulty, you'll need more.

IMHO, I think there should be some other penalties besides just cost for having a huge military. The fact that you can support such huge armies without pissing off your populace is weird. Usually people don't like having unnecessarily large militaries in peacetime. Maybe one reason is that once there's no city improvements left to build and you've got a +ve income, all you have left to do is churn out units and go-a-conquering.
Another reason might be that there's too many cities in this game. I would prefer no more than 60 cities under my control, ideally 25-30. It just starts getting tedius too.

I quit my last few games in middle ages for that reason. I could take over another civ, but I really didn't want 10 more cities to manage over the thirty I already have. If I raze them, the AI will rebuild them. I'm also not a warmonger so I only like to go to war if I have to.

Tingkai · March 1, 2002, 02:18

Quote:

Originally posted by Dida
Just ignore your stupid military advisor.
I have 50 Modern Armor in my arsenal, and the Persians have nothing but 100 workers and 20 Chavalry , and my military advivor told me they are more powerful

And who said CivIII doesn't mirror real life. Look at the Pentagon. The US has the largest and most advanced air force in the world and the Pentagon is crying that it needs more new and advanced fighters.

Andrew Cory · March 1, 2002, 02:29

Quote:

Originally posted by Tingkai

And who said CivIII doesn't mirror real life. Look at the Pentagon. The US has the largest and most advanced air force in the world and the Pentagon is crying that it needs more new and advanced fighters.

The US does, actualy...
Think about it like this: Yes, the B52s do their job, but(!) they are getting old. Finding parts for them is becoming problematic at best. In fact, one of the brand new planes that is being built _right now_ took so much time in the design and prototype phase that the pentagon is having to stock up on spare parts because within about 5-10 years all the parts will be obsoleat...

Of course, modeling somthing like this in civ would be difficult...

Blaupanzer · March 1, 2002, 12:45

Based on recent discussions, the "who is stronger" calculation seems to consider both raw unit numbers and the number of "Offensive" units available. It clearly does not consider obsolescense. Skanky's point about how the AI's see you is spot on. The military advisor is telling you how the AI see you, not some universal truth. The same is true for the foreign and science advisors.

I haven't figured out what purpose the cultural advisor is supposed to fulfill. Would be nice if she could give a rough idea of the cultural values of the other nations. (F8 doesn't help much when several civs are close to one another. Mostly same for trade advisor, although at least you get an idea of available resources from other powers. Also would be nice if you could get power numbers from the military guy and techs the others have but you don't from the science guy. Seems silly to have to open negotiations to find out some of these things (techs, existing trades) when these advisors are available.