Drill I or City Garrison I?

[ggganz]

You have a Barracks. You build an Archer or Longbowman. It has one promotion available. The question: do you go with City Garrison I or Drill I? I usually go with City Garrison I, but I used to use Drill I. Which do you recommend?

 

[Sjaramei]

Building axemen.

Is this a trick question?

(to be a bit more on topic, i use drill the few times i build archers of any sort, so they are good to attack with. Defending with archers is not my favourite strategy, pillaging sucks)

 

[svv]

I agree about the axemen (or catapult). But, if forced to build an archer or longbow, I'd do city garrison unless I thought I'd need it for offense (shudder).

 

[ggganz]

What? Archers and Longbowmen are my heroes! And what else can you do with Archers besides defend?

 

[oyzar]

the question is ofc what you are gonna use them for. I prefer not to use any upgrades whatsoever before i get use for them. If i have a stationary hill archer it get guirrila(forest get woodman etc etc), if i am doing archer rushing they usually get combat 1 (though with protective they would get some specific promotion instead most of the time and you seoldom rush with archers unless your proctive). Afaik almost noone build normal non-protective archers outside of multiplayer(or for happiness boost post HR) so this question need to be more specific. If i just have stationary city defenders then city garison is obviously miles better.

 

[Defiant47]

You have a Barracks. You build an Archer or Longbowman. It has one promotion available. The question: do you go with City Garrison I or Drill I? I usually go with City Garrison I, but I used to use Drill I. Which do you recommend?

It's a double-trick question.

First of all, none of your units should ever have any City Garrison promotions unless the random leader turned out to be protective. If you're defending your city, something has gone terribly wrong. Better to have offensive attackers instead of defenders, unless you like your land pillaged.

Second of all, you should not promote in the first place! Always reserve your promotions until they serve a purpose. For example, an axeman with already +10 strength promotion, with another promotion available, you should do nothing.

If you come upon a situation where you really need to beat an archery unit, you get the archery promotion. If instead you come upon a situation where you need to beat an easy to beat unit, just to make sure get another strength promotion. If your axeman happens to be part of an invasion force, get city raider.

Don't limit your options by promoting early. Wait at least until you have a battle.

 

[Dan Quale]

I can't really help you here. I dont build lonbows, or archers for that matter. Always on the offensive seems the best way to go, Construction units over longbows. But a cg is stronger than a drill unit. Although drill units have a higher resistance to collateral.

 

[oyzar]

i have actually used longbowmen(from feud off oracle) and crossbowmen(chonokus at least) quite effectivly as offencive units(mostly in combination with catapults) with protective leaders. Seriously ppl there are more ways to play the game than singleplayer. Of course it is VERY rare that you ever build archers in sp but in multiplayer they are actually quite decent at what they do...

 

[JackOfClubs]

I was just thinking about this issue in my current game. I generally try to use axemen in the early game, but when there is no nearby source of either iron or copper, archers are a much better alternative than warriors. Generally I set archers to City Garrison, but having to deal proactively with barbarians, I find that one or two should have Drill so that you can station them outside of the city as lightning rods.

The rule that you don't select promotions until you need them only works for offensive units. Defensive units need to be fully promoted so that they are ready if taken by surprise. The obvious response, of course, is, "Don't get taken by surprise." But seriously, who hasn't dropped the ball once or twice? I find having a Drill archer is the most versatile defense, and sometimes it can be useful when defending against multiple opponents, in that the archer doesn't take any damage on a given engagement.

 

[futurehermit]

nothing wrong with building archers as a garrison. you need to leave at least one unit in a city and the best bang for your buck is an archer. however, it can be good to leave a spearman as well or instead to take out pillaging horses.

 

[Defiant47]

The rule that you don't select promotions until you need them only works for offensive units.

I still disagree.

Defensive units need to be fully promoted so that they are ready if taken by surprise. The obvious response, of course, is, "Don't get taken by surprise."

Still no, because defensive units cannot be taken by surprise. If you're defending, that means you're more or less in your city walls. Most of the time (and you'll know when it's not), an enemy can't just waltz in without giving you at least an opportunity to promote.

So leave that city garrison promotion until you see the enemy actually start entering your borders. Maybe they never do and you end up upgrading the unit to a rifleman that will serve offensively.

But seriously, who hasn't dropped the ball once or twice? I find having a Drill archer is the most versatile defense, and sometimes it can be useful when defending against multiple opponents, in that the archer doesn't take any damage on a given engagement.

Of course, you have to assume that you don't drop the ball at least not major.

For defending your land use offensive units that attack the enemy and prevent him from pillaging your land. For the optimal unit utility, reserve all your promotions until your first battle.

 

[lilnev]

you need to leave at least one unit in a city and the best bang for your buck is an archer.

Nah, the best garrison bang for your buck is a warrior. That's why you should avoid Hunting if at all possible when you have Copper (they eventually obsolete with Machinery/Iron for pikes, so you can't keep it up forever).

And there certainly are times when you want to defend. You should either be building active units to prevent pillagers, or CG units if your foe has overwhelming force and you need to break him on your walls. About the only unit that regularly gets Drill from me is the machine gun -- they can only defend, and they aren't eligible for CG.

peace,
lilnev

 

[Bhruic]

Nah, the best garrison bang for your buck is a warrior. That's why you should avoid Hunting if at all possible when you have Copper

If you don't have Copper, you need Archers. Otherwise, some lone Barb Axemen is going to waltz in and take out your capital, and all the defensive Warriors in the world aren't going to stop him (unless you sacrifice a few virgins to the RNGs).

Bh

 

[InvisibleStalke]

Nah, the best garrison bang for your buck is a warrior.

And when horse archers come knocking? I wouldn't like to run the risk of being in a war without hunting and the ability to build spears. Maybe on an isolated start, but you will probably still want hunting for the resources.

IMO the best "bang for your buck" defensive unit is a chariot. Its cheap, highly mobile which means defenders can rush to another city to help defend and it fights well against all the barb units you will meet early.

 

[Killroyan]

About city defenders and not promoting, I am not certain, but doesn't promoting remove the fortify bonus? If it does, then promoting defending units early is better.

 

[Welnic]

Upgrading removes the fortify bonus, promoting does not.

 

[Spammurabi]

I'll build these guys from time to time. Archery units are great for defending newly conquered cities from counterattack by enemy armies, and draw fire away from my city raider-promoted offensive army.

When defending cities from counterattack, I will use City Garrison. If they're going to be out in the open, CG is useless so it's Drill by default.

Echoing the comments of some previous posters, I leave my units as unpromoted as possible. If I am not expecting an attack on the next turn or attacking currently, I'll wait until I know what I'm up against to decide how to promote my units. However, I will promote units if it makes them heal faster (eg battle damaged units) or if it serves some other purpose (medic for other wounded units, woodsman II exploratory warrior, etc.)

 

[cabert]

indeed you can leave fortified archers (or spearmen) unpromoted and promote them on war notice (works for all non border cities).

I use archers for stack defense a lot(well, 1 per stack ), and CG doesn't help for this. And you never know if you're going to need this lowly unit for mop up duties . In this situation, I select :
- combat (If I attack)
or
- guerilla (if I'm attacked, I mostly move on hills)

Drills are good for "lone" defenders after CG I, II and III or for "lone", strong, stack defenders (crossbowmen).

 

[JimT]

To be more constructive than some. You do end up defending your cities from time to time. For example a recently captured city or one pressing up to your opponents cultural borders. Defending a border city can also be a very effective way of wiping out your opponents siege weapons before sending your SODs deep into enemy territory.


I'll assume your talking about defending cities, otherwise obviously you would choose drill.
Drill allows more flexibility in troop role (so it helps when killing pillagers). Some troops have immunity from first strike but you will probably be more worried about melee troops anyway.
CG is a catch all bonus but it improves your base stat (6 for longbowmen) by 20-25% (can't remember which) and that really isn't much.

The AI is pretty poor for knocking down defences so your longbowmen should have the edge. The main threat is collateral so I would have your strongest unit with CG promotions and the back up with first strike promos to reduce collateral damage so they remain effective when needed.

Archers should be given drill as their main use is against barbarians and you don't want them pillaging either. Also +25% on str 3 is still pretty dire.

 

[Murky]

The whole problem with city garrison is that it doesn't protect your resources. It just defends the city tile which doesn't mean much when all it's other tiles are getting pillaged. For longbows, I think it may be best to give them either bonus strength+speciality promotions or hills defense. With specialty promotions you can use them both defensively and offensively. With the hills promotions you can better protect resources outside the city tile.