barracks use

[gdgrimm]

OK, I come from a long background of playing Civ2 (never really liked Civ3 at all). In Civ2, I usually played with a barrack/city ratio of about 1/3 or 1/4, sometimes going close to 1/2 if I was being a war hawk.

That was basically how I balanced out their high cost and need of being rebuilt multiple times, with their huge 50% boost in prowess.

I'm curious at how people are handling barracks in Civ4.

Their cost seems to be less, and they never need to be rebuilt. So maybe you treat them like granaries and/or libraries and just build them in almost every city?

But they give you at most 1 promotion, which is only a 10-20% boost in combat. Perhaps it's kind of a waste to build them at all, unless you're planning on going to war, and even then, just confine them to only the few high production cities that you plan on churning out offensive military with?

[Cort Haus]

I think you'll find the promotion worth it. I haven't heard many players making a point of building inexperienced units, other than in an emergency.

1:3 is probably not uncommon, and many players specialise barracks-only cities that only build production improvements. Others players generalise and build barracks everywhere, but I think a good unit-pump early on is a popular priority. The capital usually gets one too, I expect.

[bonscott]

It costs nothing to maintain. Build them in every city eventually. There is no reason not too.

[Crossfire]

My big early cities get them at the start so I can make troops early. Later I move troop production to the outskirts so my biggest cities can pump wonders so those cities get them too. Besides, they are dirt cheap.

[Bogdanovist]

Remember that the combat calculator is different in Civ4 as well, giving a greater weight to differences in combat strength. A 10% difference in Civ4 gives the same win odds as a 100% difference did in Civ3 (or so I believe), not sure about Civ2 but the fact is that the free promo from barracks in crucial.

[cal_01]

If you have both Theology and Vassalage, you'll have a whopping +4 bonus -- which turns into +8 with Barracks.

[Simon Appleton]

Yes, build them in virtually every city. Promotions are deceptively important - even combat 10% increases your odds of wining an otherwise even fight to 68%:

http://apolyton.net/forums/showthread.php?s=&threadid=144702

In the very early game, I only build one barracks as I don't plan on building many troops. Later on, I try to specialise troop production in a military city with the Heroic Epic and West Point. But still, I find it is too much of a bottleneck. And by the gunpowder era, a barracks often takes only around 4 turns to build.

[MoonWolf]

Agree with thoe saying they should be built in cities where you are going to build military units. With barracks, your unit is only 1 XP from the next level. Combined with some civics, aggresive trait, west point and pentagon, your units will be real proffesionals at their birth

Hmm, come to think off that my next game I maybe want to try this, a totally military path!

[Arrian]

If I intend to build units in a city, I build a barracks there. So, early on, perhaps it's 1/3 or even 1/2. Later, nearly every city will get one (sometimes much later).

In my current game, both my 2nd and 3rd cities were barracks towns to pump out troops. The next group(including 2 barb towns I captured) were not. I'd say about half my cities now have barracks... maybe a little less (14 total cities, maybe 6 barracks).

-Arrian

[Cort Haus]

Originally posted by bonscott
It costs nothing to maintain. Build them in every city eventually. There is no reason not too.

Even in a two-hammer commerce city? That's a good reason not to build barracks.

[Cort Haus]

Originally posted by MoonWolf
Hmm, come to think off that my next game I maybe want to try this, a totally military path!

Don't forget to bring some commerce, though.

[The keeper]

Originally posted by MoonWolf
Agree with thoe saying they should be built in cities where you are going to build military units. With barracks, your unit is only 1 XP from the next level. Combined with some civics, aggresive trait, west point and pentagon, your units will be real proffesionals at their birth

This strategy works extremely well. In a previous game, I had a city with barracks, west point, running a theocracy (even late into the game). Units were coming out of this high production city with +10 experience points. This was equal to 3 promotions.

It could pump out a cannon every 2 turns. A cannon with drill 3 is nasty - Retreats often and is victorous about as often as it dies. Drill 3 turns siege weapons into powerhouses, not just throwaways.

Noone could stand up to the strength of my army. As a side note - Most of my cities were producing units at 6xp due to theocracy and barracks.

[Hauptman]

Originally posted by MoonWolf
Agree with thoe saying they should be built in cities where you are going to build military units. With barracks, your unit is only 1 XP from the next level. Combined with some civics, aggresive trait, west point and pentagon, your units will be real proffesionals at their birth

Hmm, come to think off that my next game I maybe want to try this, a totally military path!

I did this a while back, Napoleon. From the get go i KNEW i was out to dominate. Standard Continents, ended up beeing 2 continents and 1 sub-continent with the russians all by there lonesome.

Bee-lined gunpowder, became friendly with Saladin (my only neighbor on my continent. He had NO resources that i did not, But Russia... He had 5 cities, 4 on the coast, Moscow landlocked in the center. Gunpowder comes, begin UU crankage. And i got slapped in the face with the most obviose but completely un thought about path to world domination. Napoleon = agresive, free combat 1. Barracks + vassalage/theocracy = 2 promotions... AMPHIBIOUS MUSKATEERS WOOT!!!!one1.

Russia fell in mear turns completely unable to counter my threat, frigates acted as catapults and the muskateers and grenadiers attacked right out of the boats. He could not weaken my stack before I hit him. He couldnt "see" my units coming thus know where to send his counter units. I almost fealt sorry for him.

Then that bastard Ghandi built a wonder out from under me.... Ohhh that makes me so angry. Whats this? a fully trained amphibiose invasion force completely unhappy with their garrison duties... ohhh ghandi built his cities on the coast....


Barraks rule, that is all.

[Arrian]

Barracks + vassalage/theocracy = 2 promotions... AMPHIBIOUS MUSKATEERS

Smart play there. Were you running both vassalage and theocracy for 8XP (w/barracks) or just one for 6XP. Both provide the 2 promos, but the former means 1-2 battle wins and you get your third promo. I was pondering the usefulness of that last night...

-Arrian

[Blake]

Barracks are especially nice for Agressive. Win just one fight with a melee/gunpowder unit, and you can pick up heal1 and march. I happen to really like March for anti-barb duty, as the unit can just keep moving to intercept more barbs, and ofcourse it can still heal other units (and a heal unit will heal other units on the turn it moves, as long as the other units didn't move). Also I find March hard to beat for Spearmen, so they can keep moving to intercept mounted units, since they already have +100% bonus, another +10% or even +25% is pretty marginal, but being able to heal every turn really increases their utility.

Another thing is to harvest barbs, by letting each unit kill a barb then send him off elsewhere, thus each unit has 5-6 exp and can get 2x city raider promotion.

Now the main question for me, is when to build the barracks. Well for aggressive civs it can work to build it right at the start, but for others it's a serious investment. It IS however an always available build which allows growth to continue, but this must be weighed up vs four warriors, which can reveal a lot of fog or quite securely garrison a 2nd city, doesn't matter how much the barb archers hack, they have trouble killing 3 warriors.
Anyway, I usually seem to end up building a barracks somewhere after my 2nd or 3rd archer, that city is then devoted to troop pumpage.