How Many Armies?

[PartTimeVillain]

I'm still new to the game, and I'm wondering how many armies you guys tend to build in your playthroughs and at what point you start building them? Also, do you tend to make specific planet(s) from which to produce the armies and place the army-specific buildings only on that world(s)?

I'm assuming that there is going to be some variance based on your start (proximity to potentially hostile neighbors etc) and depending on if/how soon you're going to be invading planets. But what about for defense as well?

[SomberFlight]

i mostly start to build armies as soon as i start. 5-10 assault armies at ready and 5 defense armies(more if i'm at war and i know they may be able to siege the planet) per planet.

[cooltv27]

I tend to build a few armies every few years, about 10 every 10 years
this is going massively overboard and is completely unnecessary, but you do quickly get to the point where you dont have to bombard planets anymore

[Mansen]

I tend to roll with a single, elite army whenever possible. Typically 20 units with upgrades on every unit.

This makes me fairly vulnerable to ambushes, so I have an auxillary fleet ready to lure enemy fleets away while my transports catch up to the siege fleet.

[Mavkiel]

Having large ground armies can be neat. During the war of heaven I would help out by invading worlds being hammered by my overlord *mutters about spawning next to a fallen empire*.

It really hastened the victory, and it was amusing when my rivals tried to retake some worlds, and failed invading multiple times, keeping their main battle fleet tied down.

Finally large armies make going on the attack less stressful. Oh, an enemy fleet just popped by one of your systems, destroyed the space station and are landing troops? No worries, my full garrison of psionic troops will butcher them, or at least delay them long enough for me to react.

[✠DEUS VULT✠]

I start with 5-10 assault armies and by the mid-late game i just spam like over 100 clone armies

[cooltv27]

by end game I usually have around 100 gene warrior armies, cause screw your defenses im attacking you

[Qui-Gon-Chin]

I wish you could role transports into a regular fleet so they are escorted, troop convoys in ww2 always had destroyer escorts

[galadon3]

Since I usually leave 10 assault-armies on every captured world to keep small AI-landing armies from retaking the world during the war. I usually build quite a lot of armies. I also like a certain redundancy in case the enemy manages to get my transport fleet despite me trying to keep it close to the battlefleets.
Usually going from assault to clones for the masses and using a small cadre of elite-units to break the enmy defenses, Titan Beasts, Gene Warriors, Psionic Armies, depending on what I got.
About having specific planets, its kinda a given for the clones, since they need the special buildingt to recruit them. Usually I tend to build a military academy on those worlds too.
The Elite-units usually get drafted from very strong-Pops.

[Muggins]

yeah 10 assault units on pure steroids work fine
Unless u plan on cede their worlds than it's advisable to recruit more to "stabilize" the region, cuz rebellions go fast as garlic bread on a sunday

[galadon3]

Originally posted by Muggins the Evil Minion:

yeah 10 assault units on pure steroids work fine
Unless u plan on cede their worlds than it's advisable to recruit more to "stabilize" the region, cuz rebellions go fast as garlic bread on a sunday

Actually to keep ceded worlds after the war I usually give them resident-rights, decent living standards and I usually get the harmony-trad +10 happiness rather early, if necessary I throw in a propaganda campaign edict (seldom necessary), that usually keeps them quiet until the recently conquered modifier is gone.

[markdb92]

or just gene mod them to remove happy ie nerve stamp them and then eat them.

[[Lethalvriend]]

Minimum armies required to maintain stable unrest (so, 0). When war breaks out I'll usually create offensive armires on planets with the strongest potential species and place some defensive armies on all planets. I generally dismiss the ones I don't need after the war is over. All for the economy tbh.

[Muggins]

Originally posted by galadon3:

Actually to keep ceded worlds after the war I usually give them resident-rights, decent living standards and I usually get the harmony-trad +10 happiness rather early, if necessary I throw in a propaganda campaign edict (seldom necessary), that usually keeps them quiet until the recently conquered modifier is gone.

If u say that helps when theres 200 rebellion points on the planet, I will try to believe u ... but I will still police the sh&t out of those xenos

[galadon3]

Originally posted by Lethalvriend:

Minimum armies required to maintain stable unrest (so, 0). When war breaks out I'll usually create offensive armires on planets with the strongest potential species and place some defensive armies on all planets. I generally dismiss the ones I don't need after the war is over. All for the economy tbh.

Damnd could never do that, I would be waaaay too lazy to build all those units again, especially putting all those attachements on them.

[galadon3]

Originally posted by Muggins the Evil Minion:

Originally posted by galadon3:

Actually to keep ceded worlds after the war I usually give them resident-rights, decent living standards and I usually get the harmony-trad +10 happiness rather early, if necessary I throw in a propaganda campaign edict (seldom necessary), that usually keeps them quiet until the recently conquered modifier is gone.

If u say that helps when theres 200 rebellion points on the planet, I will try to believe u ... but I will still police the sh&t out of those xenos

Yea the point is that the less happy a POP is the more unrest it produces, upping the happyness by 40% goes a loooong way towards a stable planet. And yea a military-force to be sure, never really hurts.
(would be nice if it was possible to built defense-armies for other worlds though. Maybe just have them being transfered once. Thus it would be possible to have a garrison-force from my own people there that doesn't show on the side-screen)