Garrisoning units in your cities

[PlasmaGun]

What does garrisoning units in cities mean? I know it is to establish order after civil disorder, but can there ever be too many units guarding a city?

 

[kulade]

You may garrison units in a city to produce more happy faces at anytime. However, this does not work when you are a Democracy or Republic.

 

[civverguy]

You get 2 military police for despotism and 3 for monarchy and communism.

 

[gmaharriet]

can there ever be too many units guarding a city?

Yes, in some instances.

In Monarchy your unit support is 2 for a town (pop 1-6) and 4 for a city (pop 7-12), and you can use up to 3 for increased happiness. Even if all your cities are pop 7+, leaving 3 to garrison allows only 1 free unit to fight. If you have smaller towns and put 3 in the garrison, you are over support limit without anyone fighting your wars.

In Republic (C3C) you get 1 per town, 3 per city, and 4 per metro (pop 13+) and pay 2gpt above those limits. However, your towns/cities in the rear need no garrison at all, and most of your units are available to fight except for garrisoning border towns. In Republic you get a commerce bonus which is usually more than enough to support units over the free limit. Your core is often completely empty of troops, and there is no point in having any units in towns that cannot be attacked.

You also don't want to leave a large garrison in a newly conquered town after the initial turn in which you take it. The flip risk may be very high, and you'd lose all units garrisoned there. Better to put most of them right next to that new town/city and retake it if it flips.

 

[MAS]

What does garrisoning units in cities mean?

Garrison is just that, garrison, it will defend whenever an enemy unit tries to move its units inside your city.

You can not have to much defense, however, units cost upkeep to maintain and shields to produce,. You may wonder whether the value of a units being at a certain location is worth the upkeep and production it costs. (most of the time, units garrisoning a city are a waste)

I know it is to establish order after civil disorder

The way you say it appears to indicate a lack of understanding how civil disorder and happiness/contentness work.

A city will be in civil disorder the next turn if it has more unhappy citizens than happy. (content citizens don't matter, specialist are always content)
So if a city has 6 happy and 6 unhappy, its safe! If it has 3 happy, 6 content and 3 unhappy, its safe! If it has 3 happy 5 content and 4 unhappy, then it will be in disorder, unless you can resolve it before hitting the next turn button.
How you resolve unhappiness issues doesn't matter, except that one method is more efficient than an other, depending on the situation.

Under certain government types, up to a limit, units in a city provide 1 content face per unit. This is called "MP" (Military police)
This is just one of many ways to resolve unhappiness issues though. You can also add contentness-effect with temples, cathedrals, colloseums, and some Great wonders. Or you can add happiness-effect with lux resources, or withe the lux slider on the F1 screen.

In addition, military units can also squelch resistors, but this is an other thing entirely. Resistors are citizens in a city you just captured that don't do anything for you, prevent rush-building, and increase flip chance.
I don't know the exact formula, but leaving many units in a city will hasten their assimilation and acceptance of your rule. This has nothing to do with MP/

 

[Gaunt A. Rogue]

In Republic (C3C) you get 1 per town, 3 per city, and 4 per metro (pop 13+) and pay 2gpt above those limits. However, your towns/cities in the rear need no garrison at all, and most of your units are available to fight except for garrisoning border towns. In Republic you get a commerce bonus which is usually more than enough to support units over the free limit. Your core is often completely empty of troops, and there is no point in having any units in towns that cannot be attacked.

Huh??? that must be in the expansions, I only have vanilla 3...

What does garrisoning units in cities mean? I know it is to establish order after civil disorder, but can there ever be too many units guarding a city?

You can garrison as many units as you like in a city, though only if you are, as everyone else has said, in a Despotism, Monarchy, Communism ( and apparently Republic)

 

[Rising Star]

@GAR: Harriet did say it was in C3C (Conquests) that Republic had some unit support. It doesn't have any in PTW either. And your comment about garrisoning units in cities shows a misunderstanding of unit support.

Yes, you can garrison as many units as you like in cities, but should only if you need to. But a government's unit support isn't how many units they can garrison, it's how many units your civilization can have before they have to pay for them.

Example: you have two size one (pre-aqueduct, under six pop) cities (AKA, towns). Your unit support is one per town. Therefore, you can only have two units before it starts costing you gold. Alternatively, you have five size three cities (metros, pop 13+), unit support 4, three size two cities (cities, pop 7-12), unit support two, and ten towns, unit support one. Total unit support:

Metros; 5*4=20
Cities; 3*2=6
Towns; 10*1=10
Combined; 20+6+10=36

Therefore you can have 36 units before you have to start paying gold upkeep for them.