How do Barracks Work?

[sticky]

Sup Guys!

So I'm at the point where I can afford barracks and some soldiers but how do the mechanics on these work? I see there's a flag combat area which I've been trying to use but do the soldiers just go to that point and..........wait? It seems like they go to the flag but give no chase to the raiders if they've passed the flag area? Or do I have to select the group of soldiers and click raiders one by one to kill them? It would be nice if these auto triggered on raids and the soldiers came out looking for some combat but it doesnt look like this is the deal. Also if I produce a bunch of weapons, armor etc who actually uses those? Will the regular villager equip themselves too? Or is this gear only for the soldiers? Thanks for any help :)

[grungydan]

My gameplay style: My soldiers chill out garrisoning the barracks unless there's a raid going on. When there is, I use the combat flag to zone them to the bulk of the raiders or to a particular structure I want to try and defend. Once your soldiers make contact with the enemy, they will engage in combat without you micro-ing them, even chasing raiders around the map. I keep a general eye on them, only manually moving the combat flag if I deem it strategically beneficial.

As to gear, as soon as you make someone a soldier, they will seek weapons and armor if they are available. General villagers will not equip armor or shields. Hunters will equip the best weapons, ranged and melee, that you have available.

[Furin]

Barracks are in essence free towers, towers cost maintainance, regardless of soldiers inside or not. Barracks on the other hand are free besides material upkeep for repairs. They are prohibitivly large though.

So watcha do is this, put some barracks on chokepoints and leave em empty, in the year when the raiders come you'll begin manning them in early spring, so by the time the raiders show up they'll be manned and ready. Like this you save roughly 3 years of tower upkeep. Leave troops inside until the end of autumn, raiders sometimes like to show up delayed. When winter comes it's pretty safe to put the soldiers back into the workforce.

Have some towers for spotting (empty crap ones for removing fog of war, no man inside means no stocking but still 5g cost/year). Have a few good towers too to cover the barracks (like infantry does a tank). If you build a road, which raiders will use, you can place a tower a little bit farther away to "peel off" guys from the main force.

This is all for normal difficulty, might be different on ruthless or whatever it's called.

[grungydan]

That's a really cool strat. I tend to leave them garrisoned year round out of laziness. :)

[Furin]

Yep, but then you end up with costs and drunken soldiers slaughtering your peasants. Well almost like in real life. But you gotta have a feeling for when the raiders come, because nothing worse than putting aside half of your pop for garrison duty just to have the buggers NOT show up. It's mostly every 3 to 4 years, the "to 4 years" being the problem.

Guess you could save scum the heck out of it but it's much more fun to be caught with your pants down.

Also, as the wainwright and the miners are always somewhere out and are prime death candidates when the raiders come, in a raider year you empty the mines and unemploy the wagon guy, so they'll be safe and armed in the barracks, as soldiers. Like this no deaths besides the occasional hero hunter and the oblivious fisherman or herbalist.

[RonEmpire]

Barracks no longer decay so no materials needed to upkeep.

[Furin]

Oh so that's what they meant with no upkeep in the patch notes, thank's man didn't know that.

[grungydan]

Eh, my villagers are cattle not pets. I'm cool with small pop fluctuations if it means less micro.

[sticky]

Great advice. Thanks for the strategies and explanations of the mechanics. I really appreciate it!

[Cotaks]

Originally posted by Furin:

Barracks are in essence free towers, towers cost maintainance, regardless of soldiers inside or not. Barracks on the other hand are free besides material upkeep for repairs. They are prohibitivly large though.

Free? 95 gold is not free, and 25 recrutement cost as well.