Barracks Strategy

[BigFurryMonster]

In my Civ3 SP games, I usually build barracks in one or two cities, that provide for all of the units I build.

I found that in the C3DG, people tend to build them all over the place. I think this is a waste of money.

I started to play a game against a human opponent in PTW, and found to have more than enough barracks - I built around 5 (in border cities and in cities with a lot of production).

What are your thoughts?

[punkbass2000]

I agree with you. I'm all for city specialization during the ancient age. Typically 2 settler farms, a worker farm, and a military camp. Often I make my capital the military camp and then later do a palace jump.

[Jon Shafer]

I concur as well.

City specialization will be a good way to cut down on costs.
One thing that I think we need to do is to build offensive units only from cities with barracks... defensive spearman who are regulars are fine, but on the offensive we'll need every advantage we can get, and that's one way to obtain it.

[statusperfect]

Agree.

[Zero]

Interestingly I do that as well. I actually produce defensive unit in the barrack city as well if I have queue free. Since the city is usually inside the empire, what I would do is to move the fresh unit to the nearest city and fortify it while that unit thats fortified in that city moves out to another nearest city etc etc. Its like a chain movement and once they are all reached its destination, The New unit seemingly moved mutiple folds of square than it could.

I still build barrack if I have queue available. Barrack also gives healing power to the units in city so It is not totally useless. But I try not to build barrack if I have other work that needs to be done.

[Zero]

Originally posted by punkbass2000
I agree with you. I'm all for city specialization during the ancient age. Typically 2 settler farms, a worker farm, and a military camp. Often I make my capital the military camp and then later do a palace jump.

everything you said I have to agree except about settler/worker farm. All cities should be a settler/worker farm. Once they hit 6, theres no more growing, so all the surplus food goes into waste if we can reduce the population for some kinda benefit. Typically I prioritize settler/worker production in ANY city once they hit 4 or 5 during REX phase. Usually wonder cities end up getting stuck at 6 due to the long time it takes for the city to grow, but other than that I rarely keep my city level at 6.

[punkbass2000]

I was actually talking about the first four cities, but in any case, I don't really let my cities grow to six, even. By 'farm', I mean that my settler building cities produce virtally nothing but settlers and don't grow beyond size two. My worker farm tends to be my fourth city because it's usually the first city without any nice bonus squares and often has a bit of corruption, so often it builds workers every ten turns, which is the same rate it grows at. If it's too quick (ie. produces two shields) I will alternate between producing workers and warriors.

[WarriorPoet]

I expand in waves. One city produces a few settlers, then quits, and focuses on improvements and units. This goes on as long as I have space. This gives me allot of money and production for improvements, science, and my military. Wonders, at least some of them, are worth the effort. This will automatically force you to have at least 3 out of your 15 first cities sitting at size 6 or 12, depending on whether they're on a river or not.

Plus, these larger cities can crank out your military like no one's business!