It seems that encampment and its building still not worth building

[myclan]

I try to conclude why we need encampant and its building:
1. For eureka or inspiration, we just need 1 for most of them, and later we may need 3 but I prefer to research it directly.
2. If we just have 1 stratagy resource and need to build a lot of that unit.
3. May be we need to build a army in later game? With military academy it will be cheaper.

Usually I just found out that I would rather build the unit itself instead of building a encampment.

 

[historix69]

You need the encampment for some wonders like Terracotta Army and Alhambra.

With city walls, the encampment provides a 2nd ranged attack and protection for your units.
When placing multiple cities and encampments close together with overlapping range, you can create death zones for enemy units.

 

[Victoria]

For eureka or inspiration, we just need 1 for most of them, and later we may need 3 but I prefer to research it directly.

Which needs 3? 3 spaceports? that's a lot of military academies.
There is quite a few eurekas that need one or the military engineer from one.

 

[TomKQT]

Bonus production.
Bonus housing.
Great engineer points.
Faster XP for created units.
Faster unit creation with City State envoys.
Bonus trade routes with the Carthage City State (is this suzerain bonus still valid in R&F?).
Encampment often is a City State quest.

 

[HyJinkx]

No to Carthage in R&F. It just makes buying troops cheaper now. No more extra trade routes.

 

[Hammurabbit]

I think it's more difficult to settle strategic resources in R&F due to loyalty mechanics, meaning i more often have a need for a couple of encampments to build units depending on a missing resource.
As a defensive mechanism its more "good to have" than necessary,.

 

[Datian]

I haven't looked in details the Carthage bonus (its formulation doesn't make sense to me), but it's a huge discount : buying a modern armor for 360 gold is much cheaper than upgrading.

 

[myclan]

Which needs 3? 3 spaceports? that's a lot of military academies.
There is quite a few eurekas that need one or the military engineer from one.

For totalitarianism, 3 military academies. Yes, and 3 spaceport also need it, I forgot. Many need one indeed.

You need the encampment for some wonders like Terracotta Army and Alhambra.

With city walls, the encampment provides a 2nd ranged attack and protection for your units.
When placing multiple cities and encampments close together with overlapping range, you can create death zones for enemy units.

Yes, very very useful in a scenario that need to fight off a great wave of barbarian. But seems not so useful just facing the AI.

Bonus production.
Bonus housing.
Great engineer points.
Faster XP for created units.
Faster unit creation with City State envoys.
Bonus trade routes with the Carthage City State (is this suzerain bonus still valid in R&F?).
Encampment often is a City State quest.

Of course they can make better units, but it cost production to do so. If I need to lauch a war soon, it seems better to build the unit itself directly. If I'm planning a war in the future, I think I will just choose Academy/Commercial Hub to produce advanced units faster.

 

[Victoria]

totalitarianism

Ah, Ok, not my cup of tea, that’s why I was missing it. Thanks.

 

[HyJinkx]

I haven't looked in details the Carthage bonus (its formulation doesn't make sense to me), but it's a huge discount : buying a modern armor for 360 gold is much cheaper than upgrading.

20% cheaper for each encampment building is ok but as an example, with a armory and Ordu I still have to pay 430(720 without encampment) for a knight which isn’t cheap at that point in the game. I could upgrade several troops with that much and the 50% card. I would much rather have the extra trade route to build cash with for the entire game.

 

[Disgustipated]

I generally only build one military encampment if I'm going for Alhambra. Most often I just conquer one, but my current game I did my conquests early and no encampments were up, I only picked up a campus and 2 holy sites. And I did manage to build Alhambra my current game. I don't care for Terracotta army all that much.

I tend to build my "new" troops from there, but honestly the bulk of my army are units I made in the first 100 turns of the game without an encampment, they will be upgraded and have one or two promotions and they will be there until the end. I may buy units to combine with them into armies, but the original unit is still the lead.

 

[HyJinkx]

I generally only build one military encampment if I'm going for Alhambra. Most often I just conquer one, but my current game I did my conquests early and no encampments were up, I only picked up a campus and 2 holy sites. And I did manage to build Alhambra my current game. I don't care for Terracotta army all that much.

I tend to build my "new" troops from there, but honestly the bulk of my army are units I made in the first 100 turns of the game without an encampment, they will be upgraded and have one or two promotions and they will be there until the end. I may buy units to combine with them into armies, but the original unit is still the lead.

It’s the same for me in almost every game. I rarely find that I’m afforded an opportunity where I can delay making the majority of my army until after building an encampment. I’m normally to busy building campuses and other districts on higher levels well already off conquering a few neighbors to start a snowball effect. In theory they seem like they would be nice to have but there’s normally another district I feel is more important.

 

[Victoria]

Early iron is an opportunity to sword rush with general, the Greek wildcard makes this +3/+4 to get the first, an early builder find and you can chop in the encampment in no time for that early eureka. By no means every game, just giving an example of when I might take advantage of it.
You can normally capture a few encampments during the game so it’s really about the early build opportunity. GG and horsemen as well as ironmongers. The +1 prod +1 culture speciality slot could be useful early but not really, too much else going on and you do need growth unless you have Magnus promoted so settlers to not drain life from a city
I have used one to get my troops over both mountains and waterways before but not something desperately needed.

Delaying early rush for sword/horse always seems to pay off if they are an option.

 

[Disgustipated]

I should add that 2 new civilizations give me more motivation for encampments, and to delay my initial conquests. Mongols and Zulu of course. It's definitely worth building at least one for those 2 civs.

 

[Scaramanga]

I mostly build for the eurekas. Armory for gunpowder, military engineer for two forts for ballistics.

 

[Victoria]

I mostly build for the eurekas. Armory for gunpowder, military engineer for two forts for ballistics.

State workforce, military training, Civil Engineering, totalitarianism, Rapid deployment, gunpowder, ballistics and combined arms.
You can capture rather than build of course.

1207.5 culture eureka for building an airstrip on foreign soil alone is impressive.
Flight is a busy time, damn biplanes.

 

[TheMeInTeam]

Great generals are still useful, and so is access to units requiring a resource with one copy.

It's not an "every city" district, same with most districts.

 

[Trav'ling Canuck]

Not working in a relatively early Encampment build is one of the weaknesses in my game. I'm off taking cities by force at the moment and have been trying to win as peacefully as possible, so I haven't been conquering any. It always seems like I have something more important to do than put up an Encampment, and then all those missed Eurekas go by that Victoria listed and I'm slowed down on the civics tree.

So, having played a few games in a row now without an Encampment, I'd say that getting one in the future is a priority for me. Figuring out when to do so will be the issue. I'm thinking I may still delay it in favour of Settlers until I've crammed as many cities as possible into whatever space my neighbours have left me, but possibly I should get it earlier than that. I'll try to pay more attention to the timing of when I'm missing Eurekas to assess when I should be getting the Encampment up.

 

[Victoria]

Figuring out when to do so will be the issue.

Well, as long as you are happy missing out the Military Training Eureka, slotting the Veterancy (not a real word) card does give your encampment 30%. Magnus will work with that nicely.

Even the techs in that list are useful, sure you can get a scientist to buff instead but hitting these means the scientists can buff the really hard ones to get.

If you leave it too late you know you never will and then when the need arises its too late. However the top few players have gone off the encampment now claiming about a 5-10 turn slowdown and getting an encampment by conquest is normally good enough.

To be real honest when I am pushing bronze working early that's when I am tempted to build it, and thats not the act of a peaceful person.

.Also building an encampment in the direction of the enemy saves a turn in movement as the units spawn there

One final note... if warring enough you can get your archers to double shot better with a barracks and the +1 housing of a barracks now helps out a little.

 

[HyJinkx]

I should add that 2 new civilizations give me more motivation for encampments, and to delay my initial conquests. Mongols and Zulu of course. It's definitely worth building at least one for those 2 civs.

I was trying last night with the Mongols when I found out about the Veterancy card/Ordu bug. I’m going to give it another go later on without the card but since I had waited for the increase it pretty much ruined that attempt.