Any Civ that can spam armies?

[Pumpkin man]

Hey I wanna try out new civ leader but not sure which one to use. Is there's any civ leader that is really good at spamming armies? If it helps, the closest I can think of a similar play style from other game is like the Necrophages from Endless Legends.

[Rift]

Abe Lincoln spits out an infantry unit every time an Indy Zone is built, and for each Indy Zone building; units consume no resources or gold upkeep. The Byzantine Empire spits out a Heavy Cavalry unit with each Entertainment Complex (Tagma UU if you wait and play Basil II), and for every building built in them; units consume no resources or gold upkeep. "Age of Empire" Victoria gets a free melee unit each time she settles a city on a new continent (aside from her capital, first city only on each continent), and spits out a free melee naval unit when constructing her UD. Uhh... Nubia prints Archers at +30% Production (and +30% XP gain). Lahore city-state Nihang (spelling?) can be purchased with Faith. I feel like I'm forgetting some stuff... Edit: Alexander's (Macedon) Basilikoi Paides grants Science equal to 25% of the production costs of military units (plow through tech tree while unit pumping), +25% XP gain, and his Hetairoi replace Horsemen but are Heavy Cav, and get a free promotion on recruitment. "Varangian" Harald can levy city-state units for 75% less (I.e., pay small fee to control an entire city-state's units for X amount of turns), as well as -1 to all unit maintenance costs. Gilga-Bro has a reduction, too - I think it's 50%? (Also gets War Carts, lol) And Hungary gets +2 Movement and +5 Combat strength to levied city-state units. Scythia builds 2 for 1 Light Cav and Saka Horse Archer UU (i.e., train 1, get 2). Plus, +5 combat strength vs wounded units and Heal +30 HP when killing a unit (stacks with "War Department" Govt. Plaza building). Gran Columbia gets a free Comandante General every era after Ancient Era, +1 movement for all units, and units can promote and still move / attack in the same turn.

[Evrach]

Without mods, Scythia is the best at spamming units. Otherwise, Zulus, Mongols... every military civilization can do it at a certain level.

[Sstavix]

Originally posted by Evrach:

Without mods, Scythia is the best at spamming units. Otherwise, Zulus, Mongols... every military civilization can do it at a certain level.

Tomirys was my first thought, too. Once you get to her unique unit, she can spam them out like crazy.

[plaguepenguin]

None of the civs have an across-the board production bonus for making all units, and production can't be stored up empire-wide, but is instead used city by city turn by turn, so no spamming advantage in that sense, from production.

Suleiman does get a 50% discount, but only for siege units. He has a unique governor who grants a 20% production bonus for all military units.

Shaka gets pikemen a lot cheaper (almost 50% off), in the form of his impi, and also get to train corps and armies more cheaply in his unique encampments.

That said, gold and faith are accumulated empire-wide turn after turn, so both can be used to create an instant army as large and varied as your war chest allows. Faith purchase of units is only possible, though, if you build Grandmaster's Chapel as your second tier govt plaza building. The path to spamming units from gold and faith lies through whatever you have to do to generate lots of gold and faith, so any civ with special abilities to get lots of both or either has that indirect unit spam ability. That faith and gold spam has to be developed to allow unit spamming on a large scale, because you pay a quadruple penalty in gold compared to production points, and double for faith.

At the start of the game any civ can spam low-cost, low-quality armies. Warriors don't cost that much, archers not much more, but in the very early game there are so many competing priorities that your neighbors often don't build enough of them to fend off the numbers that any civ can spam, without any unique abilities. The warrior rush is risky even on low difficulty, though, because you have to ignore all those other development priorities to spam all those warriors and archers. It's not easy to get the balance right, but it's quite rewarding if done right, in a setting that makes it doable. If it fails, you find yourself in a forever war and behind in development.

Some civs have uniques that help the sort of swarm tactics that a spammed numerical advantage involves. They get no advantage creating the swarm, they just benefit from mob tactics.

Gaul gets extra combat power from being next to friendly units. So, the more units you spam, the bigger the rabble you hurl at your victim, and the more this ability benefits you. It's warrior replacement gets extra strength against cities, so that's nice, but it costs 50% more than warriors, so that's not spam-friendly. It also gets a weird bonus against units with higher strength, which helps your low-quality rabble remain competitive into the swordsman era.

The new version of Saladin gets extra support and flanking bonuses, nice for spam swarms in the open field, but those bonuses are not good against cities, where extra strength would be most useful

Some civs have advantages to creating more units than standard civs, but only for specific units, later in the game (not available at the start, like warriors), or requiring infrastructure you can only access later in the game, but none of them get to just spam all unit types for cheap.

Scythia gets two-for-one (buy one, get one free!) but only for light cav and its unique saka archers. It has to unlock those units by researching horseback riding, which is three techs in. Then, those units become largely useless for taking cities after your victims get walls, so the window of opportunity for them can be narrow.

Basil can get a heavy cav unit for free with each entertainment district and its buildings that it produces, but needs to secure a religion, and then needs to build a lot of entertainment districts, neither of which are otherwise priorities, at least early in the game. Basil is alos pretty incentivized to hold back from getting heavy cav early, because the freebie might as well be his knight replacement rather than the heavy chariot he gets if he cashes in the entertainment district or building early. Strategics can limit the ability to pump out a lot of some units quickly, then support them, and Basil has no such limitations for his freebie cav.

Similarly, Lincoln gets the latest version of the melee line for free with each IZ and its buildings. He also gets freedom from strategic resource limitations for these freebies. Well, it's still one per IZ and its buildings at a time, and the IZ isn't available until the Medieval era, though it is of more general use than the entertainment districts Basil is stuck spamming.

Any civ can get an instant army by levying city-states. You have to be their suzerain, and you have to pay gold, more required if the city-state has many and high-quality units. A really powerful army requires a lot of gold. You get a discount if you choose the foreign ministry for your second-tier govt plaza building, plus your levied units get +4 combat strength. The downside is that these units you levy are just rented, going back to the city-state when the lease is up.

Gilgamesh, Matthias and Varangian Harald get a 50% discount as well, and it stacks with foreign ministry. Matthias and the Varangian also get other neat bonuses making their rented units more useful.

Sorry, no simple answers here. No civ is set up to just allow you to simply and directly get more units of all types more cheaply. But that's Civ6 all over, no simple answers. You can spam armies as a viable strategy, but if you want to spam armies you have to put together a combination of factors to make that strategy possible and useful.

[Heimdall]

If what you are looking for is an early military rush, these are my usual choices, either because they have production bonuses, stronger early mlitary units, other advantages or good spawn bias:
Rome: Free monument + good start bias with woods, you can reach agoge fast and spam military very fast
Nubia: Stronger Archer replacement and production+exp bonus for ranged units
Mongolia: Very strong if you go for horses (Gengis almost guaranteed has 1 or 2 horses near spawn)
Sumeria: Strongest early military unit. Quite expensive, but it can take down an early city on its own if played right. Lots of bonuses from clearing barb camps
Hungary and Norway (Varangian): Bonuses for renting units from suzerains. It requires developing a bit of an economy before going full strength but they can amass ridiculously huge armies. Hungary also can move faster with rented units too so better at exploring and chasing down units = faster expansion
Maori: A bit more rng dependent because of ocean spawn and it can take a bit longer to get settled, but extra production from woods, and a versatile swordsman alternative gives it a very powerful melee game
Persia: very powerful unique archer/warrior hybrid and +2 movement on surprise war gives a lot of momentum
Zulu: Very poweful pikeman + free corps and armies when conquering cities. One of his unique units turned into an army can put later era units to shame

You can make others work too but those are the ones I usually go for if Im going for that kind of game

[Rift]

Originally posted by Heimdall:

Rome: Free monument + good start bias with woods, you can reach agoge fast and spam military very fast

Unfortunately, Rome has no start bias, which is weird considering they need a river, lake, or mountain for their UD.

[Heimdall]

Originally posted by Rift:

Originally posted by Heimdall:

Rome: Free monument + good start bias with woods, you can reach agoge fast and spam military very fast

Unfortunately, Rome has no start bias, which is weird considering they need a river, lake, or mountain for their UD. :meepmad:

Really? I havent checked the files in a while but I always get good production tiles and usually woods with them. I would swear he had at least some river and iron bias values.
In my personal experience Rome gave me most reliable decent start areas on average.

To OP: forgot to add Aztec. A bit like Sumeria, expensive but extremely poweful warrior on turn 1 (which you get for free for a good head start clearing camps reliably without unlocking the +5 against barbs yet). Bonus strength for improved luxuries and chance to turn killed units into builders. You get the ball rolling quick too

[Copernicus]

Here's a bit of a bank shot: I managed to get a game where I was playing Mali and became suzerain of Ngazargamu. Massive gold plus ultra-cheap military units. :)

[plaguepenguin]

Mention of Rome prompted me to widen the concept of ability to churn out a lot of units quickly beyond the constraints imposed by limited production points, gold, or faith. If you go in for a swordsman rush, the big limit may be iron. You may have all sorts of gold on hand, or several cities with enough production that they could churn out swordsmen quickly, but you also need to expend 20 iron up front to build or upgrade a warrior to a swordsman, and iron can be scarce in your part of the map.

Well, all five of the civs with a unique unit that replaces the swordsman get a discount on iron. Rome and Persia need only 10, Macedon and Kongo only 5, and the Maori don't need any iron. These discounts are especially important because men-at-arms and crossbows are not very far up the tech tree, so a swordsman rush has a limited time window. Getting past an iron deficiency problem is huge, so all these unique units, betides their other advantages over vanilla swordsmen, tend to prevent iron deficiency getting in the way of spamming out enough units quickly enough.

Rome and the Maori also give their unique swordsman replacement the ability to sidestep production or gold limitations to churning out units, because both have chops that can be used to rush production on more units. Caesar also has the extra gold he gets from taking barb camps and cities to feed into buying more units.

I also left out Ngazargamu, which gives a 20% discount on gold and faith purchases for every encampment building in a city. You can get up to 60% off, but that's only after you unlock and then build a military academy, which only comes pretty far into the mid-game. The 20% discount in the early game from barracks or stables is still nice, and the early game is when you need any help you can get much more than the late game. By the late game you have had many turns to build an empire that can spam whatever you need without any special help.

[Pumpkin man]

Sorry for late reply, I think I have to rephrase it a bit. I was looking for a civ that maybe encourage horde based combat? Out-numbering opponents with sheer number I suppose.

[plaguepenguin]

Gaul gives a +2 combat strength bonus for every unit adjacent, which encourages horde tactics.

Sultan Saladin gets double flanking and support bonuses. These bonuses are pretty marginal at regular strength, but doubled they definitely make it worthwhile to maneuver as a horde.

I only played as Gaul once, and haven't given the Sultan version of Saladin a try, so I can't say for sure, but I have seen it claimed that flanking and support bonuses to do not apply to attacking cities or defending from their ranged attacks.

Since taking cities quickly is much more important to conquest than fighting in the open field, support and flanking bonuses are much less important if it is true that they don't apply to city attacks. This is why I haven't tried out the Sultan.

Gaul, on the other hand, has its benefit from being next to other units described as +2, and not in terms of support/flanking, so it should apply to city attacks and defense. Also, their warrior replacement, the gaesetae, get a bonus attacking cities, so there's that.

Beyond these two civs/leaders, there are civs that have unique units that reward friendly units adjacent or at least near them, or penalize enemy units that are adjacent. This effect encourages mass. However, as with all unique units, the effects tend to only be relevant for a limited time, until the unit becomes obsolete because more powerful units enter the game. Also, if you depend on a unique unit to base horde tactics on, it may be quite late in the game before it becomes available, so no early hording.

Basil's tagma, a knight replacement, gives +4 to friendly land combat units for being near it.

The Greek hoplite gets +10 strength for being next to another hoplite, and +10 is plenty worth going for. It's also pretty early in the game.

Matthias gets a courser replacement, the black army, that gets +3 for every adjacent levied unit. He tends to specialize in levying, which tends to generate lots of units for you all at once, he can usually get a levied horde to accompany a few black riders.

Bolivar's llanero, a cavalry replacement, gets +2 for every adjacent llanero. Also, some of his commandante generales have an area effect on retirement, so there's that to encourage horde behavior.

Alexander's hypaspists get +3 instead of +2 support bonus, which is pretty marginal. They do, however, get a bonus attacking cities and encampments. Also, they are available pretty early in the game, and cost only 5 iron, which is nice for getting a mass of them quickly.

Unique units that penalize nearby enemy units also tend to encourage massing your own units around them, to attack a now vulnerable enemy, though the effect isn't as strong as that of a bonus to adjacent friendly units. Also, I don't believe that enemy city ranged attacks are penalized, so no help with the most important aspect of conquest

India's varu is the top of the line in this department, at -5 to adjacent enemy units. It's unlocked by horseback riding, so available reasonably early, and has an extended period of usefulness. It doesn't have to itself attack and take damage to be useful, and at a strength of 40 and an automatic -5 to any melee attack, it can survive attacks even on the front lines an era or two past its prime.

The Maori swordsman replacement, the toa, also reduces adjacent enemy units by 5. It requires no iron, which certainly helps you get a mass of them quickly. It tends to have a shorter useful life than the varu, however, because you tend to want to upgrade units in the melee line as soon as possible since they are your mainstay in attacking walled cities, at least until renaissance walls.

[plaguepenguin]

To take a step away from civ/leader unique units and abilities that act directly to make horde tactics work well, there is the indirect effect of generals at making it useful and even necessary to mass a lot of units close together.

Taking cities, and taking them quickly, is the most important element in conquest, and that task inherently requires you to get loads of units close to the target city, at least until you get bombers. Generals not only inherently encourage massing within two hexes of them to get their bonuses, but those bonuses help sieges most of all. It's the +2 movement, which both helps your units pillage or withdraw to safety if in danger of destruction, and, most crucially, allows your fragile siege artillery units to move and get in a shot on the same turn, before the enemy walls and ranged units get to respond.

Any civ/leader can get generals by prioritizing encampments or spending some gold or faith, but, indirectly, any civ that encourages encampments anyway, is going to give you great generals as a side benefit. So, Alexander, Shaka, Mongolia, and Vietnam indirectly make tossing hordes of units at your opponents' cities more effective, so there's that.

[plaguepenguin]

Originally posted by Pumpkin man:

Out-numbering opponents with sheer number I suppose.

That part of the horde effect, that you simply outnumber the enemy, not that you clump your units in great masses, I addressed above in my first response.

For sure, all three of my responses, and especially the first and the third, are quite lengthy. That can't be avoided in a proper response to what you seek, because the TL;DR here is that the game doesn't have any particular civ/leader combination specialized to pump out huge numbers of units as its unique superpower.

Any civ can spam units, but all have to pay the cost of failing to produce other needful things in order to spam units. Nobody gets spamming for free, or even at a very steep discount. A civ with that superpower could win too easily, so the devs didn't make such a civ.

Setting out the workarounds, the marginal ways that this or that civ/leader can get more units a bit easier than standard, and/or use sheer numbers a bit more effectively, takes a lot of words, because there are tons of such little workarounds -- but no one big workaround.

[Pumpkin man]

I don't mind the lengthy response. I actually enjoyed reading it because it gives me more insights to the game and I've always seen strategy games like Civ to have one of the most deep mechanics and gameplay.

Based on the readings, I'm definitely going to give the Gauls or the Zulu a shot and see if I fancy them. Maybe even Alexander because his bonuses sounds quite fun.