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.

[Txurce]

NYE, marshaling a sea invasion is another kettle of fish altogether, but that wouldn't go against Dominae's point (or my own), which is to build a military that suits your goals... and no bigger. On a standard map, you rarely need a large military to win the space race. Domination is a different story, obviously, and then there are space-race exceptions like the need to invade to get some uranium, or to stop a rival civ from launching. Even in those cases, though, if the target is near the coastline, I haven't encountered the need for more than three transports of armor and mech infantry to take and hold the uranium or raze the capital.

That said, I look forward (in a perverse way) to having to capture a target that is in the middle of one of those well-defended islands you're talking about. A rush wouldn't work, and it would come close to that fantasy scenario of yours where the AI general is a force to be reckoned with.

[Zachriel]

Just enough, just in time.

[rpodos]

This is interesting. As I expected, varying philosophies.

We seem to range, on a spectrum, from minimalist to maximist (big suprise!)... although the spread in total units is larger than I would have guessed.

Builders: Min military, just enough to feel safe, and to fend off thoughts of an attack by the AI civs.

Warmongers: Dear God, some of you are insane. nye, are you from Moscow? What the hell do you do with all those units? Seriously, why do you have such a large navy? And such an air force?

Early to mid-game, I wonder how the non-military players fare... do you get any GWs?

I'm just starting to address the late-game, and I am confused by the strategies out there... stop war, and build? Or is it that the strongest defense is a strong offense?

My guess is that I play heavily militaristic early-mid, and thus probably tend to have more offensive units than most up until the middle ages...

I guess the related question is, what kind of win do you shoot for?

R

[notyoueither]

Originally posted by rpodos
Warmongers: Dear God, some of you are insane. nye, are you from Moscow? What the hell do you do with all those units? Seriously, why do you have such a large navy? And such an air force?

I use them to crush my enemies, drive them before me and hear the lamentations of their women.

Navy? You call that a Navy? I'm still building. Later on we'll talk Navy. Army and AirForce too.

Would you believe I am not that far ahead of the other civs left in that game at this moment?

Seriously, I'm planning a 2050 score game. I'm going to conquer the limit to avoid Dominance. Then I'm going to get into position to destroy the capitol of any other civ working on a SpaceShip. Then I'm going to sit back and milk score. I figure that an impressive number can be racked up even if you avoid Aeson's exploit strategies. Mine will not be as high as his, but it may be respectable.

[Txurce]

Rpodos, I consider myself a warmonger early- to mid-game, but I get no GWs prior to the Chapel on Monarch, and don't even try to get any early ones on Emperor so far. This is probably due to the point I made a few days ago: I have a lot less units, and so a lot less elites taking fewer swings.

You hit the nail on the head in saying that your military should fit the sort of win that you're going for. If you're in a Domination game, I would imagine that the late-game war machine would slow only to stay current on military tech. In the space-race, there is a lull after the big cavalry wars, and if you're powerful enough, no one may come after you in a serious manner for the rest of the game. Again, there's no reason to be any more than powerful "enough."

[Odin]

For every city I have 2 defensive units, 3 fast attackers, 1 bombard unit, 1 slow attacker, 2 warships if on coast, and 1 fighter plane.

[Shadowlord]

I have 2 of my best defenders, veteran, in every city (For Civ III, the second-best defender is OK - but only for as long as it takes to replace them (assuming it isn't a totally worthless city). I.E. Infantry when I have Mech Inf.)

Almost all my soldiers (say, 90% or more) are veteran or better - I have barracks in every city, harbors in every coastal city, and airports in every city which may ever produce aircraft or, more commonly, which needs to move units around. Ex: In my current game, in the late modern age, every city on my home island has an airport, and all but a few are pumping out Modern Armor, which is being airlifted to my single airport on the Egyptian continent, where they reinforce and continue the war against the enemy.

In newly colonized/conquered cities, a single unit with decent defence will suffice, and for newly conquered cities, I make it a rule to never have more than 1 unit in it at a time for fear of it flipping to my opponent. My armies camp on the hill/mountain/forest nearby. (For the few turns it takes to regain health and then they move out again in pursuit of the next city.)

In conditions of peace, I maintain only a defensive army - It is too expensive to upgrade military units, so I do not keep a large standing army except in wartime, since it would likely become obsolete before I need it.

I ALWAYS have barracks in ALL my cities, except useless, newly conquered, or newly colonized ones.

I also maintain a decent navy throughout the game (I play English), which, after the discovery of Magnetism, is composed of roughly 50% transport-type ships, and 50% warships.)

I put very little emphasis on aircraft, and thus on aircraft carriers, as I have found them to be largely ineffective against my enemies. I do use them when the enemy sends out units near my ground forces, to weaken said enemy units so my ground troops can squish them for experience without much risk of being seriously damaged themselves.

My military is usually pretty small, until I get into a war, at which point, I start pumping out offensive units and moving them to the front as they are built. I tend to use Wealth cities to build armies - That is, cities which are doing nothing else at the moment, and I usually do not Mobilize to a wartime footing - So my economy mainly stays unaffected, except I may have to lower the science rate (Warning: Dark ages may result.)

I usually don't fight wars for wars sake except in the beginning and end of the game, so I don't usually need a large army anyhow.

When they're available, I build plenty of battleships (since they are the Queens of the Sea, after all!) in the modern age - they have a 2 bombard range, and can do serious damage with that, plus destroy naval vessels. I use them to knock out enemy resources near the coast, and when they have nothing better to do, and to knock out critical connecting roads and such, and to bombard enemy troops near mine.

Prior to that, I use Man O'War's (Did I mention I play English?) and establish a ring of them around my islands where possible, and use them for bombarding enemy cities in preparation of a Cavalry assault. Prior to Cavalry, I tend to avoid war. I don't research Chivalry, but I do head toward Magnetism and Tactics (If Tactics doesn't give Cavalry, it's my Civ II mental civilopedia being stronger than my Civ III mental civilopedia.) as fast as possible.

Prior to the development of a semi-useful sailing navy, any attacks I do will probably be over land, and very early in the game (I unify my island/continent under my rule as soon in the game as possible, to the intense displeasure of others on said island/continent.), with whatever military units are available, in huge numbers (The Soviets were right - Get a huge army, smash your enemies, and keep going, never giving them time to regroup.). I generally don't bother with swordsmen or horsemen in the early game, I just mass-produce archers and send them en masse to crush whatever resistance I find - Although I do avoid war with the Greeks and Persians in the early game. The Romans are not so strong if I cut off their source of iron, and I don't recall ever having any trouble with any other civilizations in the early game.

Early in the game, my scientific research isn't going too fast anyhow, and most of my cities have little to do except pump out archers for a while as a result.

I currently avoid war and thus have almost no army in the middle game, and as I said, it isn't until the development of Cavalry that I again will attempt war.

[Shadowlord]

I forgot to mention I also use Nuclear Submarines to carry Tactical Nukes. If I suffer a surprise nuclear strike which takes out my ground-based nuclear armanent, my submarines will still be able to retaliate.

Plus, tac nukes are cheaper than ICBMs, and can still be delivered a fair distance inland from a submarine.

Originally posted by Odin
For every city I have 2 defensive units, 3 fast attackers, 1 bombard unit, 1 slow attacker, 2 warships if on coast, and 1 fighter plane.

You do know that warships sink immediately if the land defenders of a city are crushed?

I sunk 2 enemy battleships that way.

[AJ Corp. The FAIR]

Originally posted by Shadowlord
...
I put very little emphasis on aircraft, and thus on aircraft carriers, as I have found them to be largely ineffective against my enemies. I do use them when the enemy sends out units near my ground forces, to weaken said enemy units so my ground troops can squish them for experience without much risk of being seriously damaged themselves.

You're using battleships to bombard improvements on coastal resources, that's good. But the best bombarding units are the bombers (never gotten to stealth before spaceship): especially when your planes can reach the enemy's cities/strategic resources from your own cities.

To attack an enemy civ on a different continent, in late game, bombers come in very useful. Defend the carrier with battleships, let them also bombard coastal objectives and use your bombers (greater range of 8 IIRC) to bombard inland objectives, especially resources, prior to the land invasion. Guaranteed fun and succes.

Once the French were near to completing Manhattan Project. As I don't like nukes, I sent an invasion force to them and first crippled Paris totally (every city square was totally 'de-improved' by the bombers on two carriers) and invaded and razed later. If I hadn't had bombers, i couldn't have achieved this in time.

As the bombard succes rate of bombers seem higher in comparison to battleships, you should seriously consider using them.

AJ

[Zachriel]

Originally posted by AJ Corp. The FAIR
Once the French were near to completing Manhattan Project. As I don't like nukes, I sent an invasion force to them and first crippled Paris totally (every city square was totally 'de-improved' by the bombers on two carriers) and invaded and razed later. If I hadn't had bombers, i couldn't have achieved this in time.

AJ

Yes, bombers are very effective. In any case, you demonstrated one of the few examples of razing that could possibly be morally justified -- to stop the enemy from developing weapons capable of destroying the free world.

[Arrian]

If I'm playing as a warmonger (which is what I've been doing lately), my army in the ancient age will usually consist of 2 garrison units per city (often a warrior/spearman combo, sometimes two warriors - this is mostly just to keep them happy) with a relatively large force of horsemen, backed by a few sword and spear.

Specs: Normal, Continents, 70%, Normal/Normal/4billion, Monarch, 8 civs.

My initial attack will be with roughly 20 horsemen, with maybe 3-5 swordsmen and a couple of spearmen trying to keep up. Those usually become garrisons, but I have had occasions where the swords have come in handy.

Throughout the ancient age, I will maintain my horseman strikeforce, which will probably grow to 25-30 units. More spears will show up for garrison duty. I will conquer my continent.

Then I go builder. My surviving horsemen (probably 25ish) will get upgraded until Cav. I will build units whenever I have nothing better to do, but there isn't a whole lot of time for that. Once my factories & hospitals are done, I will often pump out infantry (or riflemen that will become inf). My coastal cities will start building a navy (normally the first offensive ships I've built) of destroyers and battleships.

Upon getting M. Transport, I start building tanks. Lots and lots of tanks (see signature - after all, Grog has been waiting thousands of years for those things). If there is a need, I will build an airforce.

It all depends. If the ancient fighting goes well, I don't have a need for a large navy or airforce. If the game goes long enough, my military will often top out around 200 units (75-100 inf, 50-75 tanks, the balance will be artillery, ships, planes, and old units that are hanging around for whatever reason).

-Arrian

[Kizami]

+500 UNITS......HOW?!?!?!!!

[Zachriel]

A possibly good change to the game would be to make the modern units more powerful, but more expensive. This way there would be fewer modern units, being easier on the human (tedium) and on the computer (cpu). I wouldn't increase hitpoints much as that increases the number of die rolls to be resolved, increasing the drag on the computer. It might be better to just increase the a/d, but importantly, increase the cost.

-------------------------------------------------

Incidentally, tanks should have a lower overall defense. On defense, tanks operate like poor artillery, and are vulnerable to enemy bombard. They have to move to be effective. Just lowering the defense of tanks would make combined arms popular in the modern age. Rather than just wave after wave of tanks, you would see infantry and bombard support units with tanks held back until the moment of tactical advantage.

Modern infantry could be much more powerful, and not stack. This would force the development of infantry lines (with fewer units). Infantry lines are generally "impregnable," and can maneuver across the terrain unopposed until confronting an enemy infantry line, in which case they more or less lock in place. Armor, moving in fog of war behind the line, concentrates (stacks) in a single spot to knock a hole in the enemy infantry line. Then the infantry fills the hole, perhaps moving artillery onto a strategic hill in order to rake the enemy with bombard.

Historically, an entire battle line could be seen by the commanders, entire battles decided in a day. In modern times, the infantry line has grown longer and longer. Wellington could ride his horse from one end of the line to the other, micromanaging during the course of a battle. By WWI, the infantry lines stretched across a continent. Not by design. Each side tried to flank the other side, and they would set up defenses. Then everything became locked in place. In WWII, the infantry lines were still long, but armor was concentrated (stacked) for classic attacks like the Battle of the Bulge.

Even though these changes could be easily achieved with the current game engine, some would change the game drastically, so would require extensive testing, so would not be undertaken at this time.

I am merely positing.

[rpodos]

Or (and this is probably easy to implement), dramatically lower the cost of Armies in the modern ages, specifically at the point of Modern Armor.

This would force the more effective use of modern defensive units, both Infantry and Mech Infantry.

Given the raw power of multiple MA Armies, the defender would need to be pretty smart about "point" defenses. Given the speed of the MA Armies (now with blitz), the defender would also have to carefully consider the "line."

This would also, obviously, increase the importance of the Military Academy, which I think most people don't bother with, other than Army-pushers (like a person or tow I could think of).

This also feels more "real" to me, as did looking at some of your screenshots in the American saga.

R

[Dominae]

rpodos, that's a fantastic idea. Making Armies cost less in the modern era and teaching the AI to build them would practically force us humans to use them as well (those of us that don't build the Military Academy, that is).

Modern battles would then always involve a couple of good Armies, making combat (I think) a lot more exciting. Modern era military strategies would revolve on getting an Army or two (along with support troops) to the front and quickly decimating all opposition. Last I checked the news, this is how wars are now being waged in the real world. I'll take any realism I can get.

As a side benefit, if Armies became so critical to modern warfare, all players (including Builders) would eventually have to "blow" a GL on an Army sooner or later. I'm all for that.

Again, great idea.


Dominae