Militia and ROW are mostly useless, some ideas to improve

This site uses cookies. By continuing to browse this site, you are agreeing to our Cookie Policy.

  • In my opinion, militia are best used to meat shield. If there is a large enemy stack moving towards you, you could produce a few militia. Once the enemy stack reaches the militia, they will stop to attack them. This is where you send your rockets. Or, if you need to stall an enemy stack from advancing so your reinforcements can defend a strategic point, militia can block them for a few precious hours.

    Militia are better than other cheap units like AT at meat shielding, because of their enormous hills/forests buff. They're also cheaper, require only a simple barracks to build, and more versatile. Of course it's stupid to mass-produce militia. But it's stupid to mass-produce any given unit. If you're smart, you will naturally understand the best ways to use a troop. If you're not, you complain about it while you do your best to dodge solutions.
    "That's impossible! The Americans only know how to make razor blades."
    "We could do with some of those razor blades, Herr Reichsmarshall."
    Hermann Goring and Erwin Rommel
  • iDragons wrote:

    In my opinion, militia are best used to meat shield. If there is a large enemy stack moving towards you, you could produce a few militia. Once the enemy stack reaches the militia, they will stop to attack them. This is where you send your rockets. Or, if you need to stall an enemy stack from advancing so your reinforcements can defend a strategic point, militia can block them for a few precious hours.

    Militia are better than other cheap units like AT at meat shielding, because of their enormous hills/forests buff. They're also cheaper, require only a simple barracks to build, and more versatile. Of course it's stupid to mass-produce militia. But it's stupid to mass-produce any given unit. If you're smart, you will naturally understand the best ways to use a troop. If you're not, you complain about it while you do your best to dodge solutions.

    I disagree, militia units are mostly useless, they prevent much needed research, they are slow moving, costly to manpower and if a large moving stack was headed your way, spending manpower on a militia movement will only limit your capability for any effort to strategically defend, especially due to the fact that they are so slow moving. Sure they cost less food, but if you are at war, you would regenerate food, supplies, as the casualties mount.

    AT are much better on terms of defence, i would build as many as possible if a large enemy stack was poised to enter my nation, they might be no good at defending aerial assault, but keep building them anyway, such a tactic will bring out the enemy airforce locations and that just might be enough to make a counter attack possible, also subs are great for seeing coastal provinces and work as a buffer, much the same way an AT can.

    The post was edited 1 time, last by bigboss_ironfist ().

  • _Pontus_ wrote:

    bigboss_ironfist wrote:

    militia units are mostly useless
    Yes, mostly; except for i.e. the situations described before.Only militia or only AT or only AA is no solution. A few militia alongside a few AT and AA, however, forms a excellent and very cheap and fast produced defense force against an infantry, armoured, air or combined attack.


    Duely noted, militia do make a descent add on to an AA or AT defensive line. However, to make operate manourvres to compensate key strong points with militia is weak and slow. Militia are best suited to large nations during the early stages of the game, but still even then, they are slow to take up position and cannot always be relied upon alone to hold ground. They are a weak strategy....

    I once played a game as UK, a amassed a huge airforce, over 1500 strength (coined) plus the rest. I smashed apart a strong alliance that assumed all of Africa. I took on the whole world against texas and argentina coiners. Kentucky player with North USA alliance tried to assist the African defence with a massive amount of militia, again they were obliterated and i forced peace on them.... They are easy to out manourvre and just non essential to COW strategy mostly.

    I did lose that game, but during such time, 60-70 days , the militia units were overall ineffective.
  • Thank you thats a pefect example of how NOT to use militia. Unfortunately you drew the wrong conclusions from your experience. According to what you related militia could not hold their own against a massive airforce. A cursery look at their stats tells us as much without actually having to test it out like you and your allies did.

    Its like saying you know what I am going to use a spoon to kill an elephant, and then saying spoons suck!! Well in my opinion spoons may suck at killing elephants but are pretty awesome for eating soup.
  • bigboss_ironfist wrote:

    the militia units were overall ineffective.
    any unit used in the wrong way and/or for the wrong purpose will be ineffective.
    militia is a def-unit, not very suited for attack.
    however in def, minding sbde, i dare any player to overcome my defense by AT, AA, artillery and militia with their regular troops, whether it being tanks, inf or planes.

    it is all about how you use the unit.
    in my examples the militia provide the much needed HP (equals time!) to make AT, AA and Arty so much more effective and have reinforcements move in.
    in your example, the enemy send militia in large numbers as an expeditionary force: 'nuf said.

    no-one will win a map with militia as mainstay (well, one could, but I for one won't afford the time to do so), but they remain the fastest built and cheapest unit around providing a lot of HP.
    they are simply a good choice for a thought-through defense (that means: not only militia; but that goes for every type of unit, bc mono-culture leads to unnecessary high casualties).
    and militia are simply not a good choice for offensive groups.

    but then again, as said before: militia are not an offense unit, but a defense unit. used in that role, there is little to complain about.
  • bigboss_ironfist wrote:

    Kentucky player with North USA alliance tried to assist the African defence with a massive amount of militia, again they were obliterated and i forced peace on them.... They are easy to out manourvre and just non essential to COW strategy mostly.
    If I am attacked and my coalition member decides to assist me with masses of militia, I'd be pretty annoyed. Counterattacks are indeed not what they are for. I would advise my team mate to either send a balanced set of armored units or airplanes if he wants to help fast. Or not send any at all.

    They are way better at waiting around with support equipment in a province where an enemy HAS to go through, IF this province happens to be a forrest/hills. If this is not the case, I will probably rather have team mates spend their manpower elsewhere.
  • Edepedable wrote:

    Would love @BeerBelly to let us know his in game name so we can check your ranking. Wonder how all us noobs compare to you according to our profiles.


    Put a "1" after my name if you insist on finding out how much more experience in this game I have over you. You really don't get the point of my post, neither does Kanaris or Pontus. I hope I see your maxed militia in a game...it is always a good laugh when I know I have won even before I act.

    The walls of text defending militia are funny.
  • BeerBelly wrote:

    Put a "1" after my name if you insist on finding out how much more experience in this game I have over you. You really don't get the point of my post, neither does Kanaris or Pontus. I hope I see your maxed militia in a game...it is always a good laugh when I know I have won even before I act.

    The walls of text defending militia are funny.
    I like how instead of trying to disprove the "walls of text defending militia" you just say "hAHa fUnNy!11!!" like ??? Hello? Last time I checked, you win an argument by defeating the opposition's arguments, not calling them names and flexing about how much quote "experience" you have.

    Also, you used "laughing at my opponent" at least five times in this thread. If you're gonna insult instead of argue like a civilized person, at least be creative.
    "That's impossible! The Americans only know how to make razor blades."
    "We could do with some of those razor blades, Herr Reichsmarshall."
    Hermann Goring and Erwin Rommel
  • atreas1 wrote:

    I agree with that.

    On the other hand, I am still waiting for a serious argument in favour of UPGRADING Militia, and I havent heard a single one.
    You won't. Very small minds are defending the use of militia in very specific and micro managed situations. Their ONLY use is to slow down the enemy in forest/hills (pointless if enemy has bombers) or add hp to a stack (but they will slow down the stack by a whopping 10 kph once the other non-oil units hit 25 kph).

    Nobody realizes that it takes time/resources/manpower to build these underwhelming units. I am trying to help noobs but it appears, many of them are reading this thread and defending one of the worst units in the game and avoiding or simply ignoring the research/resource issue. Again, if players waste time/effort/research/resources on militia in the early game, you will lose to players that know not to bother investing in them.

    The post was edited 1 time, last by BeerBelly ().

  • Yet, we are in the Suggestions area, so here are my suggestions:

    1. Cut down the number of upgrades to three maximum.
    2. Each upgrade level has the same strength characteristics but different HP. 15/20/25.
    3. Each level has a different requirement in food (1300/1500/1700) and adds a bit of speed, to reach the speed of AA/AT etc.

    I would again avoid researching Militia Lvl1 early game, but might get tempted later...
  • atreas1 wrote:

    Yet, we are in the Suggestions area, so here are my suggestions:

    1. Cut down the number of upgrades to three maximum.
    2. Each upgrade level has the same strength characteristics but different HP. 15/20/25.
    3. Each level has a different requirement in food (1300/1500/1700) and adds a bit of speed, to reach the speed of AA/AT etc.

    I would again avoid researching Militia Lvl1 early game, but might get tempted later...
    Don't make it easier to research a terrible unit...bad idea. If you decide to research militia mid/game, that is even worse than doing it early game. Again, while you waste time researching a bad unit, your enemy has max bombers and tanks.
  • atreas1 wrote:

    I agree with that.

    On the other hand, I am still waiting for a serious argument in favour of UPGRADING Militia, and I havent heard a single one.
    There are not many situations in which you will. But if you start with 20 militia and 1 infantry unit (nationalist china historical map) I think upgrading militia is a very good option. All the terain around is forrest and they get to their higher level pretty quick. Point here is that you work what was given to you. Replacing all the mlitia in this situation by infantry will cost 30k of manpower. Thats not doable anytime soon. So upgrading militia is your better option.

    BeerBelly wrote:

    Don't make it easier to research a terrible unit...bad idea. If you decide to research militia mid/game, that is even worse than doing it early game. Again, while you waste time researching a bad unit, your enemy has max bombers and tanks.
    You seem to be having some trouble reading.

    - You can not max research bombers AND tanks while someone else only researches militia.

    - No one here said that you should maximally upgrade militia and then be on your way to a sure win. Everyone here defending militia says that it is NOT a useless unit. Quite the difference from what you take from this thread.

    - Checked out your ranking, level 125, 447 maps played, 43 solo wins, 26 coalition victories. That means that you won 43 + 27 = 69 maps out of 447. That puts your win percentage at 69 ÷ 4.47= 15.4% . I am not impressed.
    That means you lose 85% of the maps you play. Including whatever you might consider your learning fase that is part of that total. Also, your statistics show that you defeated more of every unit that you play with except for tactical bombers and submarines. This all shows me that you are more of a specific unit type spammer than a strategical mastermind.

    You talk around what militia does and can do. If someone makes a good point your response is "but while you do that I will do all these other things". Well sure, but while you do "all those things" your opponent will also be doing things. Instead of talking about the subject at hand, militia being useless or not, you just avoid talking about it by diverting to whatever way you can think of to defeat militia. Thats not what it is about, you can rant on about any unit and say how to defeat it. It is not what this thread is about. Militia is NOT useless and there are plenty of situations given by a variety of players in this thread that show why.
  • The main point is everyone plays the game with their OWN style.
    I can drop on the backside of someones territory - grab a lvl 5 IC - build a barracks and start spitting out Militia like newborns in low-income housing. How many Militia can be produced in the time it takes to build an Infantry!
    Imma gonna spawn like roaches march them into the woods and with some AT create havoc.
    "Es gibt keine verzweifelten Lagen, es gibt nur verzweifelte Menschen" - There are no desperate situations, there are only desperate people.
    General Heinz Guderian (Schneller Heinz)

    Kenny says - You've got to know when to hold 'em, Know when to fold 'em, Know when to walk away And know when to run
  • Not only that. The simple but unpleasant truth is that after a (not so difficult) point all air battles with the current mechanism end with a stalemate if both players are good, so the most amusing argument for me is this repeated non-existing statement about the almighty planes.

    I am not even implying that Militia should be in the game (same case as the nukes and the paratroopers). I am only saying that, since they are, make them something with interesting properties, instead of creating a manpower trap for the newcomers.

    Otherwise i will wait to play China in the historical map in order to see a Militia in my army.
  • BeerBelly wrote:

    Put a "1" after my name if you insist on finding out how much more experience in this game I have over you. You really don't get the point of my post, neither does Kanaris or Pontus. I hope I see your maxed militia in a game...it is always a good laugh when I know I have won even before I act.
    The walls of text defending militia are funny.
    Funny how with all that experience you are flaunting, clearly you learned all the wrong lessons. For the record and for the 4th time I never said militia is the end all be all unit in CoW, I just said it has its uses.

    Trying to have a constructive discussion with you is pointless however... So I wish you luck with your LT/Tac spam strategy and hope you run into those who understand how to exploit SBDE combined with unit diversity and melt your lt/tac stacks with disconcerting ease.

    Cheers
  • atreas1 wrote:

    On the other hand, I am still waiting for a serious argument in favour of UPGRADING Militia, and I havent heard a single one.
    there are plenty of dead spots in the development timeline, where one can spend some 14 hours on a militia level. However, their purpose is not to be excellent fighters and one need not even max them out to be useful in the roles described.
  • Why not just remove militia entirely? Why not make them upgrades to provinces? So when any unit is defending that province, they get +X amount of defense points or something. That way you don't have any of that to worry about in the first place.
    "ANU! CHEEKI BREEKI IV DAMKE!"