Encampments ?

[rschissler]

Once you have city walls, you can shoot units from both the encampment and your city.

A lot of people have mentioned this here, but if you are a warmonger there is little benefit for this, right? If your empire borders keep expanding with newly conquered cities , your city walls can't keep up with the same pace.

 

[KrikkitTwo]

A lot of people have mentioned this here, but if you are a warmonger there is little benefit for this, right? If your empire borders keep expanding with newly conquered cities , your city walls can't keep up with the same pace.

Late game city walls are automatic (civil engineering civic)

 

[ThomasClark]

A lot of people have mentioned this here, but if you are a warmonger there is little benefit for this, right? If your empire borders keep expanding with newly conquered cities , your city walls can't keep up with the same pace.

Well, perhaps you can't expand on all fronts simultaneously...and building an encampment near a particular choke lets you expand in another direction with the bulk of your primary force.

 

[Magil]

If I recall right, the encampment buildings also add small amounts of production (for all things, not just military), and the barracks/stable/academy all provide housing as well, so they'll aid a city even when it's not actively pumping out military units. The amounts are small enough so that it's more of a nice side benefit, you'll probably still only want them in cities actively producing units, but they're enough that you'll probably notice them.

 

[Kouvb593kdnuewnd]

Encampment tile can be worked for +1 production +1 culture making it one of the few ways to boost culture before theater districts. Barracks and military academy give +1 housing each.

 

[ExemplarVoss]

If I recall right, the encampment buildings also add small amounts of production (for all things, not just military), and the barracks/stable/academy all provide housing as well, so they'll aid a city even when it's not actively pumping out military units. The amounts are small enough so that it's more of a nice side benefit, you'll probably still only want them in cities actively producing units, but they're enough that you'll probably notice them.

Yeah, encampments and its buildings add a lot: Housing, production, culture, bonus experience, great generals, reduced resource cost, extra bombardment and a fortified point that has to be broken down like a city.
Harbors are similar. In many ways the opportunity cost for these two districts are less, because they provide a lot of ancillary benefits.

They also don't have to compete for the all important adjacent to city center slots.

 

[Kouvb593kdnuewnd]

They also don't have to compete for the all important adjacent to city center slots.

Only aqueduct need to be adjacent to the CS.

 

[Promethian]

Only aqueduct need to be adjacent to the CS.

City center counts for district adjacency bonuses.

 

[homan1983]

Building a lot of early units could be a problem or just a delay.

Not true, units are cheap, especially early ones. In fact one of the drawbacks when I was considering Samurai strategies is it's cost. Unit's ramp up depending on era:

Warrior is dirt cheap: 30
Swordsman is expensive: 90
Samurai is very expensive: 180

Also:
Slinger: 25
Archers: 50

Considering a legion is 40str, even if it's a little more expensive than a normal swordsman, it's still much better than 180p for samurai for 45str. Also remember higher units costs more upkeep.

It's cheaper than buying fresh units. Building them is totally different and overall much easier than upgrading.

Actually, upgrades are always cheaper than building the units. Let me give you real world example:

Slinger is 25p but costs 90gold to buy
Archer is 50p but costs 30gold to upgrade.

You're paying 30gold for 25production. That is far below price. A gold is typically 2:1 for production/food though it's actual value is even below that (example trade city states give a flat 4gold, whereas military or industrial city states give +2production only to either units or buildings (conditional))

Another example: Warrior -> Swordsman is 60production, you're paying 80gold. Again you're getting a MASSIVE discount. And on top of that, it's impossible to exchange goldroduction at a 2:1 ratio, so most people jump at the chance to exchange their pgold into production even at 2:1. There's also policies that reduce upgrade cost by half etc...


Summary: The point stands, upgrading units is already very good, upgrades should not be allowed unless you can build the unit in at least 1 city in your empire (that is already very generous), if you don't have an encampment you should not be able to upgrade to swordsmen with just 1 iron and you shouldn't be able to upgrade to knights from chariots with just 1 horse.

 

[KrikkitTwo]

Not true, units are cheap, especially early ones. In fact one of the drawbacks when I was considering Samurai strategies is it's cost. Unit's ramp up depending on era:

Warrior is dirt cheap: 30
Swordsman is expensive: 90
Samurai is very expensive: 180

Also:
Slinger: 25
Archers: 50

Considering a legion is 40str, even if it's a little more expensive than a normal swordsman, it's still much better than 180p for samurai for 45str. Also remember higher units costs more upkeep.



Actually, upgrades are always cheaper than building the units. Let me give you real world example:

Slinger is 25p but costs 90gold to buy
Archer is 50p but costs 30gold to upgrade.

You're paying 30gold for 25production. That is far below price. A gold is typically 2:1 for production/food though it's actual value is even below that (example trade city states give a flat 4gold, whereas military or industrial city states give +2production only to either units or buildings (conditional))

Another example: Warrior -> Swordsman is 60production, you're paying 80gold. Again you're getting a MASSIVE discount. And on top of that, it's impossible to exchange goldroduction at a 2:1 ratio, so most people jump at the chance to exchange their pgold into production even at 2:1. There's also policies that reduce upgrade cost by half etc...


Summary: The point stands, upgrading units is already very good, upgrades should not be allowed unless you can build the unit in at least 1 city in your empire (that is already very generous), if you don't have an encampment you should not be able to upgrade to swordsmen with just 1 iron and you shouldn't be able to upgrade to knights from chariots with just 1 horse.

I disagree mostly because
1-upgrading Should be better than fresh building
2-adding additional "hoops" for upgrading is a bad idea (especially micromanagy hoops like move it into city center/encampment)

#2 because
-its annoying to humans
-its harder for AI to handle it (and its really bad when AI doesn''t upgrade their troops... it cuts into immersion as well as AI ability)

 

[Promethian]

I agree with Homan that upgrading units that require a resource should require 2 unless in an encampment. It just makes sense that upgrading should have the same requirement and it undermines one of the main benefits of an encampment, the ability to get resource requiring units with 1 copy of a resource.

 

[ExemplarVoss]

Only aqueduct need to be adjacent to the CS.

Yeah. But 'need' is hardly the reason to do so. The best way to get a district adjacency bonus triangle going is to build off the city center.

Aqueducts are feeling more and more like a waste of a tile. There are much better ways to get housing... including encampments.

 

[spfun]

Yeah, encampments and its buildings add a lot: Housing, production, culture, bonus experience, great generals, reduced resource cost, extra bombardment and a fortified point that has to be broken down like a city.
Harbors are similar. In many ways the opportunity cost for these two districts are less, because they provide a lot of ancillary benefits.

They also don't have to compete for the all important adjacent to city center slots.

The harbor and encampment are the better 2 districts to build? That's what I'm taking from 'less opportunity cost', I disagree. Not counting unique district civs, you can only have 3 districts in a size 7 city. To reach 10 or 13 pop you are severely limited by housing until mid-late game, unless your playing Germany/Kongo or a Unique District civ. Most late game cities I have seen are only 16-20 pop each. Give me an early industrial/commercial/campus any day, the archers I rush out in the early game I can still have around in late game as its 1UPT and the AI have no clue how to play by this ruleset. If i want to conquer another civ I don't need help from encampments/harbors, these can be better utilized to provide more science/gold/production etc... Commercial and campus get some crazy strong policy bonuses in the mid game, and I'll need production to build anything so the industrial is important with the regional effects they provide. And these provide great engineer/merchant and scientist points respectively, which are normally quite strong. While the Great general/admiral have specific use for war unless retired, war again something competent human players won't need bonuses for.

We'll wait and see what the meta becomes, but I very much doubt the encampment will be a part of it.

Edit. I just hope the best way to play isn't spamming trade routes, this TR city spam absolutely killed beyond earth for me.

 

[homan1983]

2-adding additional "hoops" for upgrading is a bad idea (especially micromanagy hoops like move it into city center/encampment)

It doesn't have to mean "move to a city with encampment", it could just require at least one encampment in the entire empire to upgrade into units that require strategic resources. The point is simple: they obviously decided that 2 required is their design point, reduced to 1 once you build the district.

This is not adding additional hoops, ironically its the opposite, it's losing a loophole that can be used to bypass the normal rules, similar to how starbucks and other countries abuse loopholes to change their tax rate to near 0% when they should be paying far more.

1-upgrading Should be better than fresh building

I disagree. In my opinion, on both a game design and balance point, and realism, upgrading would be more expensive.

In the real life: if you're upgrading from F16s to F35 aircraft, you don't pay the difference between what you paid to build the F-16 and what you need to pay to get the F-35, you need to build it from scratch.

In terms of game design: If upgrading WAS the same price, dare I say even more expensive, it would still be useful because:

a) You can recycle the production you used on the previous era unit
b) You can transfer the experience to the next unit
c) You're using gold, rather than time-sensitive city production time

Now you won't see me complaining that upgrading should be made more expensive, I am a big proponent of making gold much more useful and impactful in the game. But that certainly doesn't mean that "upgrading should be cheaper than building fresh"

 

[Zaarin]

The harbor and encampment are the better 2 districts to build? That's what I'm taking from 'less opportunity cost', I disagree. Not counting unique district civs, you can only have 3 districts in a size 7 city. To reach 10 or 13 pop you are severely limited by housing until mid-late game, unless your playing Germany/Kongo or a Unique District civ. Most late game cities I have seen are only 16-20 pop each. Give me an early industrial/commercial/campus any day, the archers I rush out in the early game I can still have around in late game as its 1UPT and the AI have no clue how to play by this ruleset. If i want to conquer another civ I don't need help from encampments/harbors, these can be better utilized to provide more science/gold/production etc... Commercial and campus get some crazy strong policy bonuses in the mid game, and I'll need production to build anything so the industrial is important with the regional effects they provide. And these provide great engineer/merchant and scientist points respectively, which are normally quite strong. While the Great general/admiral have specific use for war unless retired, war again something competent human players won't need bonuses for.

We'll wait and see what the meta becomes, but I very much doubt the encampment will be a part of it.

Edit. I just hope the best way to play isn't spamming trade routes, this TR city spam absolutely killed beyond earth for me.

Harbors increase your trade route cap, which is a huge reason to build harbors if for nothing else. Harbors also provide food, gold, and production to cities near ocean. As a near-pacifist player, I doubt I'll build many encampments, but I think there are very compelling reasons to build harbors that have nothing to do with navies.

 

[spfun]

Yeah but when, when can you afford to build the harbor, when the game is nearly over?

 

[chrisgatt7]

You need to think of an encampment as a military base. Very rarely are military bases are in huge cities. Oh wait I can't name one

 

[homan1983]

Yeah but when, when can you afford to build the harbor, when the game is nearly over?

why?
You saw from the stream today that they could build the districts in 5-6 turns. And harbours come very early in the game, you get them as a 2nd tech.

 

[spfun]

I'm talking about the 3 pop per district limitation, not the time to build your first district on quick speed...

 

[Furycrab]

I'm talking about the 3 pop per district limitation, not the time to build your first district on quick speed...

That restriction doesn't seem to kick in nearly as often as you would think. More often than not, you are struggling to find the time/hammers or the right spots/tiles to build them.

That still leaves the opportunity cost of not getting something else first, but it feels like you get a lot of good stuff and could make up for it in saved production for units, fewer units needed to defend, great generals, active research, or housing.