military questions

[Jay50]

Hey all,

I'm thinking of starting a new city soon in the new patch.
1: However, I was wondering how many soldiers you guys usually train in a city of say around 300 pops?
2: Do you allow everybody to train a little bit, or do you train a small group all the time to create some 'elites'. I always struggle with the military side in this game, since the ui in this regard seems a bit unclear to me (3: any improvements here in v68?).
4: also, at which point do your start conquering other cities? As in what is your population size when you starting thinking about conquering
5: What size army do you more or less need?

6: also, what determines whether you are being attacked by raiders? size? Wealth?

(added numbers to the questions for ease of answering them)

I know some of these questions are a bit subjective but I have you guys can share your opinion on some of these.

thanks!

[Rodito]

(1) I usually try to have 10 % of my population as full time militia, aka (2) in 100% training time. I have not tested to have a "mass" miltia with < 100% training, but with the above values I can at least beat almost every raider army that attacks for my current city level (except once I got "unlucky" because the raiders have used a unit of argonosh units ....). Oh and for the start leather armor and simple warhammers seem more than enough, if you have no standing army the you get a hugh stockpile over time with only the spoilage removing some stuff, so you basically almost fully equip your militia, too.

(3) Subjectively I think the UI is adequate enough, but I only played the game for the first time one year ago, so I cannot tell have worse it was before :). Otherwise, more (more weapons, armor) is better, more training means more time allocated to training instead of doing other stuff. BUT I actually do not know if there is a malus for assigning lets say 300 armor to a unit, but only having 100 OR if the game just handles it as if you assigned just 100 in the first place ... I imagine the second and give my militia full equipment, even if I have not (yet) produced it fully.

(4) I personally think I am to careful as I read that many people start conquering with < 1000 pops, but I only start when I got well above > 1000 pops. With v68 I always waited for the first "noble promotion" ( which first start to appear in the first new title with over > 1000 pops), Without the promotions you have almost no government points to develop the regions, as each noble only gives 5 at the start... and even the first upgrade of a region cost already 10... Even later with promotions government points are are very scare, I hope there are some ways to increase them in the future. Although I like the idea that you have to chose between boosting your city OR your kingdom with noble, maybe a way to "boost" the amount of government points nobles give you should be added.

(5) After conquering my first city, I gradually start recruiting army units on the world map instead of milita. So I keep the number of militias to 300 or maximum 450 normally while increasing the number of my world map army gradually.
In the current version, It seems that mighty neighbors seem to "like" you more than weak neighbors because of the rivalry value: The stronger the neighbor, the less they see you as a rival, which means the opinion malus is SMALLER and they like you for a longer time. Some envoys are usually enough to keep them happy.

So you actually only have to defend against you weakest neighbors. At least for me, I was never once attacked by a neighbor that had positiv relations with me. As a standing army on the world map cost a lot more resources, I try to keep the size roughly the same as my next "target" I plan to conquer. So in short, the size of my world map army depends actually on my neighbor size (if i doing bad economically, which still happens more often than I like, I even only keep it at the level of my milita PLUS global army = enemy army). Having a greater army and not using is is a waste of resource. ALTHOUGH I have to admit, I have not played so far to experience the "potential" giant raider armies you can see at the bottom of the raider list ...

(6) If your city grows, the more dangerous raiders (from farther below the list) appear. I do not know all factors, but i observed that the more militia you have, the more raiders are deterred to attack you. I had a warning that 1 raider MAY attack me. Then they attacked and killed 1/3 of my milita. After the battle I instantly get a warning that a new bigger raider may attack. But as my militia recovered and I recruited even more, the warning disappeared again for some time, until my city growed further.

[Jay50]

Wow, thanks for you very comprehensive answer! Much appreciated!

[Hippopwnamus]

I just want to add something quickly about region conquering. To be specific, you don't *need* government, just workforce. With four maximum upgraded global workforce buildings, you get like 36 workforce free everywhere which is like a tier 3 or 4 government. Great for building a little security and some additional income from outlying areas.

[Rodito]

Ah you are right I have not thought about the global workforce buildings. I have not played so far to get the maximum level of them but with this building you may actually not need any more government points after building the maximum of them.

Ok if this does not change during the beta I will definitely try a small world conquest as soon as the stable version is released. :)