Archived from groups: alt.games.civ3 (
More info?)
On Sun, 21 Nov 2004 10:01:06 -0500, Buck <Buck@your.guess> wrote:
>FYI I am playing C3C RAR. Please identify your game(s) when you
>answer.
>
>How do you compose and use armies?
>
>I have generally been making up armies with only one unit type in each
>one. Usually I include the fastest strongest attackers such as
>horsemen, knights and tanks. However, I accidentally loaded an
>infantry into an army of knights the other day. I think my army
>capacity grew after it was already loaded, or I may have accidentally
>sent out an underfilled army. Any way, that army did survive much
>longer on the defense.
>
>What are your ideas and comments?
There are lots of ways to do this, but I usually use only one type
of unit per army. When I get the Pentagon and can increase the army
size, I might add one more unit, at least as fast as those already in,
if it is clearly better -- but that requires that the army be rather
old in order to benefit from such upgrades.
Mixing slower units in an army slows it down. Slower speed means
fewer attacks, and that really hurts. Your knight army was move 3,
changes to 2 with the infantry. In effect, you lost one-third of your
attack potential.
OTOH, high defense units with relatively weak attack can be good in
an army in two ways. Take infantry. Ordinarily, they are slower than
Cavalry and so not so hot for attack, but they are nice on defense.
In an army, with move 2 they still aren't as good on attack, but they
aren't bad either. Their defense with all those hit points makes them
*really* good for defending key stacks.
Amphibious attack units shouldn't be mixed with others, because that
costs the entire army that ability (in Conquests). Otherwise, I think
that movement rate is the main thing to keep matched.
For example, tanks and mechanized infantry both move 2, so adding a
mech-inf to a tank army won't hurt it. And if you have move-1 units
with high attack and defense (swordsmen in ancient era), they are
quite nice when converted to an army.
Still, I tend to use armies primarily as attackers, which means that
they should have the best attack units in them for the era. Speed
matters a lot. A 4-cavalry move 4 army can do a real good job of
smashing an enemy in that era, and modern armor is even better.
If you *do* want increased defense, I think that you're better off
having a defense unit, or even a defensive army (all units with higher
defense than offense), rather than mixing slow and fast units within
an army.
--
*-__Jeffery Jones__________| *Starfire* |____________________-*
** Muskego WI Access Channel 14/25 <http://www.execpc.com/~jeffsj/mach7/>
*Starfire Design Studio* <http://www.starfiredesign.com/>
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