NEVER Build Barracks!

Nopeola. No barracks! Nyet. That's because you can spend the shields on units instead. You can use those units to discourage attackers, beat back attacks more effectively, and go on the attack.

Meanwhile, because all civs expand, at least at the beginning, you end up having to build barracks in over half the cities to be effective. And in the part of the game where they most matter, barracks are much more expensive than units. And you can't use them when you go on offense, which you need to do to win a war. Historically, the biggest barracks were failures.

Even for places like Istanbul, I'd rather spend the effort on naval units or armies than barracks. You don't need no stinking barracks if both sides of it are your lake.

When I stopped building them, back in civ2, my games went much better.

Just think about it! How many times did you get all those shiny promotions and find out you STILL came just short of taking that last city? How many times did you realize, IF ONLY I HAD ONE MORE stinking unit instead of a barracks... I could have captured that city.

NEVER Build Barracks!!

This reminds me of the article about beating difficulties below normal...

The "take their argument, switch one word" as an illustration of how ridiculous their argument is (in other words, a non-argument) seems to be a familiar tactic though .

It's a good point though. A lot of threads that have long-stood in strategy articles are pretty questionable, from a gaming and effort perspective.

Some of the old/weak threads that make the war academy vs some of the ones here that are better probably does raise some eyebrows. My rookie time wasn't so long ago that I've forgotten how I had to filter through all the nonsense, while still trying to learn the game.

Fortunately, at some are poorly constructed enough that competent (or potentially competent) players realize to steer clear from following their advice immediately.

Nopeola. No buildings! Nyet. That's because you can spend the shields on units instead. You can use those units to discourage attackers, beat back attacks more effectively, and go on the attack.

Meanwhile, because all civs expand, at least at the beginning, you end up having to build buildings in over half the cities to be effective. And in the part of the game where they most matter, buildings are much more expensive than units. And you can't use them when you go on offense, which you need to do to win a war. Historically, the biggest buildings were failures.

Even for places like Istanbul, I'd rather spend the effort on naval units or armies than buildings. You don't need no stinking buildings if both sides of it are your lake.

When I stopped building them, back in civ2, my games went much better.

Just think about it! How many times did you get all those shiny stuff in your cities and find out you STILL came just short of taking that last enemy city? How many times did you realize, IF ONLY I HAD ONE MORE stinking unit instead of a building... I could have captured that city.

NEVER Build Buildings!!

lol @lonewolf. Splendidly stated. Perfect.

I find the "don't build barracks" argument nonsensical. I tend to possess small, highly promoted armies that win simply bcz they possess more promotions. I lose more battles, hence wasting hammers, when my units come out unpromoted. A promotion is usually the difference between winning and losing a battle. Losing battles (bcz your unit is an unskilled doofus) is a greater waste of hammers than building a barracks.

If you couple a barracks with a GG, then your units will possess a significant advantage. New units will emerge with 2 promotions as opposed to one, and it is in those second promotions where the real power can be found. If I'm trying to beat back a large number of barbarian axe or AI axe, then having units that start out with C1 and shock result in less wastage of hammers through battle casualties.

To achieve the same without barracks would require settling 3 GG's, which would then equate to a true travesty of Great General waste. In a war with me, if your military city only possesses 1 GG (without a barracks) and mine possesses 1 GG with a barracks, my 8 double-promoted units will utterly smash your 10 single promoted units. And if you come at me with a stack of totally unpromoted units, then my 8 can defeat 16 of yours, AND I'll have more xp bcz I'm winning at a higher clip and will therefore generate GGs more quickly.

When your unpromoted stack of axemen attack my smaller stack of CG2 archers, I will laugh at you as your casualties mount at an alarming rate while my archers amass xp and continue to advance in promotions . Later, when my small stack of CR2 Swordsmen approach your unpromoted archers, I will again chuckle.

For further insight, consider the following. If you settle 3 GG's in your miltary city (so that you can produce dp units), then I will have 3 cities with GG's and barracks producing dp units, while you possess only 1 and your other cities are fielding axemen with axes made from reeds and tin.

You exaggerate the significance of lost time in building a barracks, you only have to build a barracks once and its effects remain permanent (without needing to upgrade or rebuild the barracks as in previous versions of civ), it's not like you have to rebuild them before every construction of a unit either.

This is just asinine. Better promoted units survive battles at significantly higher rates than unpromoted units. If you're indeed coming out with doofus units, than you'd sure better have a dozen more of them.

At higher difficulty levels, the mantra of "doing more with less" is critical. You must win battles with superior quality, because you will never achieve superior quantity.

If you are bemoaning the fact that you simply needed 1 more unit to complete your conquest, than truly you have simply demonstrated that you were impatient and attacked without possessing sufficient arms to win, and really, you probably would have won if your units had possessed the proper promotions to complete the job.

Creating mixed stacks with mixed promotions is a fine art, and properly achieved will result in staggering dividends.

Please read the never build walls post. Lol. Ok I lolled at this one.

The Snug, you are a prime reason as to why some of the utterly poor trash articles are still indexed around here.... and taken seriously by some.

obsolete said:

The Snug, you are a prime reason as to why some of the utterly poor trash articles are still indexed around here.... and taken seriously by some.

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Yeah, ok, that's real fine politicking there. Truly convincing arguments that helped me to see the light. Your sagacious wisdom, so cleverly stated, has converted me. Come on, man, try to use an argument rather than resorting to baseless personal retorts. The very fact that you resorted to such an underhanded tactic serves to illustrate the truth that you don't actually possess a real argument.

I would suggest re-reading my post too, I added more detail to it to help clarify the folly of your position.

As to the articles, I wouldn't know, I never read any of them. Experience has been my tutor.

The Snug said:

Yeah, ok, that's real fine politicking there. Truly convincing arguments that helped me to see the light. Your sagacious wisdom, so cleverly stated, has converted me. Come on, man, try to use an argument rather than resorting to baseless personal retorts. The very fact that you resorted to such an underhanded tactic serves to illustrate the truth that you don't actually possess a real argument.

I would suggest re-reading my post too, I added more detail to it to help clarify the folly of your position.

As to the articles, I wouldn't know, I never read any of them. Experience has been my tutor.

Click to expand...

Actually the OP is more like a word-for-word copy of another non-article that has remained in the strategy articles section for years, swapping nothing but the words "barracks" and "walls".

Although barracks are certainly useful more frequently than walls, the quality of the two articles is identical.

This was considered an article? As was the "walls" version?


Are you insinuating that the OP was simply using sardonic sarcasm in pretense of defending an ideological position, that in truth, he does not actually subscribe to? Sorta like the guy who advocated building the WS in a cottage only city with science at 100% while building wealth and not running any merchants.

I don't know. It's weird. I'm always getting accused of insinuating this or that....

barracks whipping for aggressive civs!

Well, if you are Zulu you may want to build some barracks

[/blatant ripoff of other post in a similar thread]

@The Snug...

You completely forgot to mention the increased unit maintenance that he will be paying!

In my games at Emperor I will reach a point where I just cannot afford to build more units... if I keep on doing so my slider will fall even further down through the rex. Units cost gold, but promotions don't. I believe Barrack's is worthwhile if the cities to build 4+ units... before then save the hammers for an extra unit, but the differance between 10 axes or 8/9 + barracks is a massive advantage to the barracks!

The Snug said:

Sorta like the guy who advocated building the WS in a cottage only city with science at 100% while building wealth and not running any merchants.

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He he.

Who did that?

Anyway, I think the main point that obsolete is too lazy to reiterate is that by building barracks you often waste valuable time. These high level players have refined their strategies over a long period and I get the impression they have honed in on making the most of an opportunity in as short as possible a time.

For example, if you are going to rush an AI, it may well be better to have 5 unpromoted units and successfully take a new capital city than 3 promoted units and no capital city.

A similar argument is often used against people who like to bombard away defenses. Time is of the essence and while your units sit there bombarding, the enemy whips more defenders and gets more reinforcements from elsewhere. This is used to argue attacking cities either before the city defense is entirely gone (i.e. at worse odds which seems counter-intuitive), or going for a complete alternative and using spies for the revolt instead.

You'll find a similar thing with drafting use, and upgrades. All things where you need to use them almost as soon as they're available or else not at all.

A barracks is a no-brainer in a city that will produce many units, but in a city that is only going to build a few (where do you draw the line? 4 units?) it is not worth it.

In the early game I will build several units before a barracks, because it is often more important to just have a unit than have a well promoted one. This is especially true for city garrison units or the "spawn busters".

Anyway, any arguments in Civ that include the term "NEVER" are usually going to fail. The idea of building no barracks at all will work best in some circumstances but by no means is it a good general pattern to follow.

i wait until the middle ages before i start building barracks, and then only in two or three cities. but i lose a lot, so there you go.

my thinking is that you are building cheap cannon fodder anyway. the difference between a combat 1 warrior or a vanilla warrior is effectively zilch. they both suck. even with C5 it would still suck.

Actually a woodsman I warrior is favored against archers in forests...significantly so with fortification.

But it's not worth it early on. When you're using units to attack, however, it is.

TheMeInTeam said:

Actually a woodsman I warrior is favored against archers in forests...significantly so with fortification.

But it's not worth it early on. When you're using units to attack, however, it is.

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no way. maybe. woodsman gives you +20% and the forest gives you +50% in a forest, plus you get like +10% per turn that you spend fortified. it is pretty close. woodsman 2 yes, woodsman 3 definitely.

better attacking cities if you have good enough units. if you can field city-raider swordsmen, that's like strength 6 with +10% innate and +20% for city attacks. so, maybe there, but you are fighting, 3 strength archers with innate city defense +50% plus cultural defense and possibly walls? is this right, it seems like vanilla stats. i don't know. either way, i think that swords would generally beat archers even without promotions.

also, there is usually a bigger bonus with higher level promotions, so if you are running vassalage or theocracy then barracks make even more sense. so horse archers benefit from them more because with stables you can give them two promotions; flanking 2 HA get like 50% withdrawal odds.

anyways, i think that your main point is if you are attacking and want to win, you will need promotions. otherwise, the defenders will outclass you with terrain bonuses. not to put words in your mouth. but early game i get enough of a terrain bonus when i park warriors on forest-hills and other fortuitous terrains when fog-busting that really only axemen are a threat.

so i guess i do agree.

TheMeInTeam said:

Actually a woodsman I warrior is favored against archers in forests...significantly so with fortification.

But it's not worth it early on. When you're using units to attack, however, it is.

Click to expand...

The usual problem is how healthy warrior is left. it usually is no good to repeat that even if full fortify.

My build order in the capital is uaully worker, warrior, warrior, grow to size 3/4, then settler. After second warrior, when growing to size 3 or 4, I often part build a barracks. Unless I'm agressive it won't be finished by the time I start on the settler (sometimes not even then). But i've put a few turns/hammers into the barracks so it is a waste not to finish it. Therefore a barracks is often the first building in my capital.

Note, if doing a quecha rush I do not build a barracks until i have 9 - 10 quechas out. Point being, a super early rush means a barracks is out for me.