(3-13a) Proposal: Authority (2/2) - Replace Militarism's Garrison bonus with Barracks requirement

Stalker0

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Proposal: Change Authority's militarism policy.

Militarism
Old: Each city with a garrison gives +1 happiness and +2 culture. -15% to Unit Maintenance, -50% to road maintenance.
New: Each city with a barracks gives +1 happiness and +2 culture. -15% to Unit Maintenance, -50% to road maintenance.


Rationale: There is nothing wrong with a garrison bonus in general but its not suitable for Authority's playstyle. The tree greatly encourages you to have your military units either hunting barbs, shaking down city states, or being engaged in active war. Having to hold your units back from those activities to gain the bonus is the exact opposite of what you are otherwise encouraged to do, and so the tree conflicts with itself.
This version still maintains the theme of "military police maintaining happiness and culture in your cities" but doing it in a way that encourages military buildup and utilization, rather than discouraging it.


Note: I have placed another change to Authority here: https://forums.civfanatics.com/thre...-2-swap-some-imperium-tribute-bonuses.681464/
If you wish to push Authority further, feel free to vote for either of these policies, or both.
 
suits aggressive warmonger having inner core cities ungarrisoned good call on that !

dont know if the old Militrism policy suits a more progressive playstyle? again is that OP?
 
Not a fan of this approach. Moving a unit with a new settler gives you these yields immediately; delaying them until barracks is certainly good for your core cities but for the expansionist tree that wants to trigger border growth, it's a relatively long time before you get paid off for a barracks when setting up cities.
 
What if it was either/or but not double credit for both? (Each city with either a garrison or a barracks gets +1h/+2c.) Is that even possible to do?

Or maybe we could use the code coming for that new belief instead and say "Each city with strength above X gets +1h/+2c", so a garrison could be replaced by walls eventually,
 
As I stated in the original discussion thread of this, I am strongly opposed to garrison bonuses going fallow in exchange for a plain building bonus. The garrison bonus must be deployed somewhere else in order for this not to be a loss. I have proposed a bonus reshuffle in this post:


This unstacks policy bonuses to 3 buildings and rescues the garrison yields from the toy box.
 
so the tree conflicts with itself.
I am not viewing this as a conflict, but as diversity. Players can gain Authority bonuses by using units to attack (perhaps with their best units) and/or to garrison (perhaps with their weakest units, or units that are healing).
In my last Authority game, I tried various things, for example:
  • forgoing the garrison bonus whenever I felt I would gain more by having my units elsewhere;
  • building roads that went directly from the war front lines to (at least one of) my cities, so that I could rotate my units between attacking and coming back to my cities to heal and collect the garrison bonus;
  • buying free company units to sit as garrisons.
Although I never really found a very effective approach, I nonetheless feel that Authority could be less fun to play with less diverse bonuses.
 
As someone mentioned in other discussion, the garrison bonus is more fitting with Progress or maybe Tradition when you want use units more for defense than offense.
 
I have never once used the garrison bonus (and I pick authority 100% of games) because the opportunity cost early-game of having a unit sit out is *very* high when supply is <30.

In late game, I generally don't need the +1 happiness even though I typically have more supply then I absolutely need. If I am desperate I'll do it, otherwise I use my units for war/barb hunting like they are supposed to be used.
 
For me, if you don't plan to use all supply for warfare, I'd just build scouts for garrison bonus.
 
Proposal: Change Authority's militarism policy.

Militarism
Old: Each city with a garrison gives +1 happiness and +2 culture. -15% to Unit Maintenance, -50% to road maintenance.
New: Each city with a barracks gives +1 happiness and +2 culture. -15% to Unit Maintenance, -50% to road maintenance.


Rationale: There is nothing wrong with a garrison bonus in general but its not suitable for Authority's playstyle. The tree greatly encourages you to have your military units either hunting barbs, shaking down city states, or being engaged in active war. Having to hold your units back from those activities to gain the bonus is the exact opposite of what you are otherwise encouraged to do, and so the tree conflicts with itself.
This version still maintains the theme of "military police maintaining happiness and culture in your cities" but doing it in a way that encourages military buildup and utilization, rather than discouraging it.


Note: I have placed another change to Authority here: https://forums.civfanatics.com/thre...-2-swap-some-imperium-tribute-bonuses.681464/
If you wish to push Authority further, feel free to vote for either of these policies, or both.
Great proposal. I would be glad to see the garrison bonus being slashed and replaced by a plain building bonus. Authority wants those units in the field, not in cities.

If people like to keep the garrison bonus somewhere in the game, I support PDan's idea from his policy post: move it to imperialism where you also get free maintenance for garrisons. Personally don't like this mechanic, because it is micro intensive, but does not have deph and challenge. But if people miss it, put it to imperialism. At that point in the game, you have enough unit cap and spare units (from authority and from vassals) to put them in cities.
 
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Great proposal. I would be glad to see the garrison bonus being slashed and replaced by a plain building bonus. Authority wants those units in the field, not in cities.

If people like to keep the garrison bonus somewhere in the game, I support PDan's idea from his policy post: move it to imperialism where you also get free maintenance for garrisons. Personally don't like this mechanic, because it is micro intensive, but does not have deph and challenge. But if people miss it, put it to imperialism. At that point in the game, you have enough unit cap and spare units (from authority and from vassals) to put them in cities.
I do think imperalism is probably the best home for it. I think its the "weirdest" tree right now that probably has some room to snip out a few loose mechanics and bring in others, the garrison being a great one.
 
From a game flow perspective, I think this is the exact opposite of good design for warmongering. Authority asking people to pick wars in Ancient sets them up to be hated for the entire game, and puts all of the success on whether they can knock other players out in the opening stages of the game. If they're unsuccessful, there's very little they can do to recover.

On the other side, Imperialism is the stage of the game where you have enough information about your opponents, their goals, and the resources you have to leverage to win the game. This is the time when you should be deciding "Yes, capturing capitals is a viable plan" or "I need to start leveraging my army to knock out some key players".
 
I would rather like to see the garrison bonus in Progress, as a requirement for the bonuses from the happiness policy (equality) there. This would discourage progress players to play offensively, which is too easy currently with progress. Progress is intended to be the peaceful tree, as opposed to authority, but a reason to stay peaceful when playing progress is currently missing.
 
I don't like how the current Authority has a major War focus since the only good source of science is from killing units and conquering big cities (science from settling cities is a terrible source compared to what Tradition/Progress give). Instead of shifting the tree to focus on certain building(s) like other trees, we can give it more Unit focus, like science per X units you have.
 
If people don't like the garrison bonus then I think it would be better to simply remove it (as this proposal proposes) rather than moving it somewhere else.
 
If people don't like the garrison bonus then I think it would be better to simply remove it (as this proposal proposes) rather than moving it somewhere else.
Just stack it with imperialism garrison bonus so it becomes a real factor.
 
I think the garrison bonuses are just intrinsically defensive and thus unsuitable for policies that promote and reward aggressive play. Imperialism's is just as forgettable, Martial Law already adds happiness to constabularies, and the culture yield would need to be hiked to remain relevant on an industrial era policy.
I would rather like to see the garrison bonus in Progress, as a requirement for the bonuses from the happiness policy (equality) there. This would discourage progress players to play offensively, which is too easy currently with progress. Progress is intended to be the peaceful tree, as opposed to authority, but a reason to stay peaceful when playing progress is currently missing.
Putting it in Progress would be a slight nerf to the tree(justified, it's very strong right now) but might run a little counter to the intended flavor of Equality. Tradition seems most suitable thematically but it hardly needs the boost.
 
TL;DR: A boost to garrisons belongs on Authority:
  1. Authority builds more units so it can support garrisons better than Tradition and Progress.
  2. Garrisons with yield boosts are not wasted units, they are unique buildings that can shape-shift into units with no build time.
  3. Tradition and Progress citizens by definition to not find military might culturally appealing, so a garrison bonus is anti-thematic for them.

I would encourage anyone at odds with the concept of having a single unit left behind in a city to consider the following:

Tradition and Progress play wants to build literally anything other than military units as much as possible. For them, each unit is precious, and keeping a unit garrisoned in a city is wasted value on the map, or at least a cost-benefit decision.

Authority has no such problem, it already incentivizes building multiple units, and it even gives you free units to boot. So not only is a single unit per city a smaller portion of your total army than with Tradition and Progress, Authority's units are also able to fill a unique role: their garrison units are actually buildings that provide value. You can buy them outright instead of only investing them; during the early game they are extremely cost-efficient, and they help take over needed resources quickly from the extra border growth; and if things around the city get dicey you can immediately convert this building into a unit to attack, then convert it back to a building when the threat has passed. All of these traits scream Authority, not Progress or Tradition.

Tradition and Progress are already content to leave their units at home and wait for threats to emerge. You'd be rewarding them for doing something they already want to do, and pretending like it's thematic. I'd argue having a garrison bonus is exactly anti-thematic for Tradition and Progress. If you saw a bunch of soldiers sitting around your city doing nothing, just being a drain on state resources, would you feel more or less culturally empowered? It would only feel empowering if your cultural philosophy revolved around extolling and rewarding military might. Authority is actually the only Ancient era tree it would make sense on, not the other way around.


On the other topic, Imperialism is the wrong time to start giving out garrison incentives. If you are aiming for aggressive play, the only thing a garrison does it boost newly-captured cities. Most of the time these cities are barely worth the land you can heal on, so a trickle of yields hardly means anything at all. Imperialism is the time of the game where you're really committing to an end-game, so it makes sense their policies would need the defensive chaff cut out. But Authority should not be an aggressive commitment in the same way. It's too early in the game to be going all-in on aggro. If that's your plan, I think relying on civ-unique components is better and healthier for the game than relying on a policy tree.
 
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I don't know, I'm pretty sure I'm losing this war anyway :)
Just thought I'd make the case the best I could and see how it turns out.
 
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