Strategic Military Nuances: Battle engine & Armies

[Azede]

This thread is made to focus on the military nuances of the game.

While waging war in previous Civ games, you'd usually just compare the size of both stacks, compare the properties of the units, maybe consider which other units were nearby, and then decide to attack or not. This was always the most boring part of the game for me (safe of the satisfaction of beating your opponent back to the stone age). I think there's certainly room for improvement here.

From what I've read, the developers are already busy 'upgrading' military features. But that doesn't mean we can't make any suggestions for improvements.

I think having the options of making 'army units' instead of stacks, could increase military strategy:
1. Since you cannot attack a separate unit inside an army, a well organized army is always stronger than a similar stack of units - the sum is greater than the parts.
2. How you man your army can also have important consequences: defending against an army of 6 warriors, with four warriors and 2 archers; the archers can attack your opponent even as your warriors haven't finished fighting.
3. You can decide to make armies to focus your strength - possibly not having enough units to spread over a large territory - or you can organize your units in small stacks for guerrilla-like warfare exposing and attacking weak spots - spreading out to cover a large territory.
4. In addition armies can make the managing of a huge military force easier.

Which other ideas are out there?

[B-29 Bomber]

Yeah I like that. I always hated the fact that It took a military leader to make an army or you would need a military academy which you can build only after getting a tech in late middle ages(this is based off of civ3). And you couldn't upgrade units in an army. I suggest that you can build 1 army for every LAND MILITARY unit. This ratio is decreased with the National Wonder military academy to 1/8 and with pentagon to 1/9. Any armies you have over that are deleted in order of most obsolete. These are the equivalent of Generals. These guys could have personalities. Like Religious Piety and Administrating Ability. These will determine wether or not you would make them Mayors. You could have a new organization of empires: States/Provinces. Generals can be made into state governors. Then you can also have Fleets. These would be commanded by Fleet Commanders. Fleet Commanders would also be able to become Mayors and State Governors. These guys could be fired or reconverted back to Generals and Fleet Commanders. When you have democracy the people fire him and you decide wether he is deleted or converted back to an army commander. You could also do the same thing with the air force. When units join an army they are no longer counted as one unit. That means 7 units becomes one when it comes to unit funding. That would be an economic incentive to build armies.