Barracks, Armories, Military Academies... are they worth it?

[Crafty Bison]

It's become a luxury to ask this question now with the pacified early warring, which used to answer the question for you as you knew you'd need several archers super early.

For me, no, I rarely build any early, because you can either farm barbs for the first 30, or if you actually need them there and then, well that's exactly when I wouldn't have time to build the barracks/armoury anyway.

Heroic epic regularly tempts me to get barracks up if I'm going tall, but I generally regard it as I luxury I can't afford as there are always more important things to build, especially if I'm doing so poorly that I have few enough cities to realistically consider this.

Later on, sure, if there is nothing better to be building, or if you go Brandenburg (again, the 3 promos off the bat are tempting for GWBs, but it's not that far to go if you don't, and I usually want to focus on something else better), but I rarely spend more than a couple of turns on them.

In conclusion, the best help for an army is a strong economy and productive cities, not explicit military bonuses.

 

[GoStu]

I'm torn on whether or not to build these. In fact, I have so many arguments in my head over the logic of making these, and whether or not they are worth it, that I regularly just ignore them given how complicated the problem is.

CONFLICT #1: Are they worth the cost?
The first debate in my head is whether or not they are worth their cost in hammers and maintenance. Is it better to just built another unit with the hammers and maintenance?

CONFLICT #2: When to build them?
The second debate is over when to build them. Should I build them early, before I even have an army, to maximize the potential XP gained? Or should I build them AFTER I've built the core of my army, at which point I again ask whether it's not better to just build another unit?

CONFLICT #3: The Heroic Epic
Probably my most hated building is the Heroic Epic. Now you have additional layers of complication. Do you train all your units in this city, or just accept that your army is going to be mix-and-match with regards to the 15% Morale combat bonus (not gainable by promotions). Do you slog through hard-building and rush-buying Barracks first BEFORE training a crack-army with the HE? Or do you just gradually replace units without Morale with HE-build Morale units through disbanding and rebuilding those units? Or just leave your vanilla units standing?

CONFLICT #4: Which empires benefit the most?
My last conflict is over what type of playstyle benefits the most from these. It would be logical to conclude a warmonger gets the most out these buildings, but it perhaps makes even more sense for small, peaceful empires (who do not have to build many buildings to get the Heroic Epic) to keep a small but highly-trained force for defense, since their unit's effectiveness is multiplied in critical situations like defending chokepoints and cities, where only one unit has to fight the often superior numbers of a warmongering foe. In contrast, warmongers might just be better off spamming vanilla units and not bothering with Barracks since they get so much XP anyway (and since they often prefer to exploit the easy "Instant Health" promotion often with their cannon-fodder units), whereas the only option for peaceful empires to get any sort of XP on their units is to use these buildings.

ARGH. This is an infuriating conflict that I need clarification on, because I'm sick of wondering about all this. Ignore these buildings as a peaceful civ? Is the HE worth the grind + additional headache? Do I build these early, in the middle of a war, or after there's nothing else to build? Don't even get me started on Brandenburg and Alhambra. I also play a lot of MP so advice in that direction is also appreciated.

My position on these buildings is that it's usually not worth it for the early-game, where adding another unit is much more valuable than the value of adding a promotion or two to a unit (which is really the XP Barbarian-clearing can give you anyway).

When I'm playing as my favorite warmongers ever, the Aztecs, I generally wait until I've completed Honor before putting a Barracks in every city. Honor is typically my second tree; policies go Honor Opener, full Tradition, then back to Honor. This greatly reduces the Production time of the individual buildings. Then, I build a Heroic Epic in my best-production Coastal city, and an Armory and Military Academy when possible.

My overarching though process is that getting more land forces out and murdering promotes them quickly and gives me culture. They'll get the +15 XP by doing their job barbarian-hunting, and a few Barracks are prohibitively expensive early on. Waiting for the Epic to build your ground forces just delays the army too much for a theoretical-at-best promotion. Get your units out and fighting faster and their increased promotions more than make up for the +15%. Later, I'll need to build a navy and this is where the Heroic Epic shines for me. This is an entire group of new units with limited time to hunt Barbarians. Starting them 2 promotions up and with a 15% combat boost is big. Also, the Barracks come at half price and aren't hard to build at that time anyway. Any reinforcements I need to my ground forces also come from this city. Units that work roughly as well regardless of promotions (Siege units come to mind) can be built/bought as needed almost anywhere.

Later game, if I go Autocracy, I'll put Armories and Military Academies everywhere for the Happiness. Otherwise, I ignore them. The Heroic Epic puts you at odds with the idea of building these buildings everywhere: you really want to build troops only out of that city, but somehow you've got to put XP granting buildings in every city? The only real use I get out of extra Armories/Military Academies is mass-producing a round or two of Air units, which don't gain anything from the Heroic Epic.

I know that's a lot of text, but hopefully it addresses all your concerns.

 

[Acken]

Yes they are worth it for heavy fighting as long as you have time to build them before fighting. Getting free 15XP is worth 4 to 5 turns of attacking with a unit, you're that much closer to logistics or range promotions.

 

[tetley]

I think that unless you're Zulu, there's a crossover point somewhere in Medieval Era where Barracks starts to become worth it. There is the barb farming, true, but also Barracks costs 75 hammers. Catapult costs 75 hammers. Do you get the barracks, or just build another cat? I'm getting another cat, heck yeah.

 

[reddishrecue]

I think these buildings are worth it because they go with the autocracy social policy that gives 2 happiness per military building... the promotions for the troops are not that bad either if you want to make new units.