20-05-2004 04:23									#1
	Garrisons Browse Apolyton AD-FREE

Throughout my long civ experience spanning civ, civ2 and civ3 (and also colonisation) I have always stuck to the boring two-per-city garrison formula. While this works well, i've decided to explore some new strategies that might proove interesting.

The first idea I had was to save on military spending by reducing the garrisons on central towns. I also considered moving the garrisons around to have 1 in inner cities and three in outer ones. Losing out on the military police was not an issue at the time as i had a lot of luxuries.

I also considered having some towns act as defensive centres with 3 units garrison and siege weapon (+fighteres and AA in modern era), and reducing the garrisons in surrounding cities.

Before exploring all the possibilities i thought I'd ask around to see if anyone had any experience or any interesting alternatives to the tried-and-tested two per city garrison.

	20-05-2004 07:39									#2
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In single player two per city works just fine. It's also preferable to have a counter-strike force of fast units (like horsemen in the ancient age) centrally located.

In multiplayer things change a bit...

	20-05-2004 07:52									#3
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It all depends on the level you play at as well if your point is about happiness

	20-05-2004 09:43									#4
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quote: Originally posted by kobo1d In single player two per city works just fine. It's also preferable to have a counter-strike force of fast units (like horsemen in the ancient age) centrally located.

I also prefer lightly defended cities with highly mobile reserves (especially with Railroads).

	20-05-2004 13:21									#5
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quote: Originally posted by Nuclear Master It all depends on the level you play at as well if your point is about happiness

Well nowadays i mostly play LAN tourneys (4-6 ppl) which usually centers the games on war. While war should equal larger garrisons, having a lighter garrison, especially in a big civ, can mean more men in the field.

	20-05-2004 14:49									#6
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I rarely have much in the way of garrisons in inner cities, in particular after RRs.

	20-05-2004 19:00									#7
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In SP, if you are a republic or Demo, what would be the point of having units in your core? Maybe a token amount on the off chance of an AI amphibious invasion (Ah.. I guess I leave one unit in costal cities). If the AI were to try this, they normally drop off one or two units. If you have a small Rapid response force (say about 4-5 fast movers) with a couple of well placed navel scouts, you could conceviably defend 50% of your empire with just these units.

	20-05-2004 21:57									#8
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In SP, I typically leave one unit per city once RR is discovered - unless the AI can reach and attack the city in one turn. I also typically leave one city completely undefended. The AI will usually beeline for it so you'll always know the attack route they will take. Along the way I build barricades for free ZOC. Stack your excess defensive units and artillery in the barricades and the AI will leave them alone. Use the artillery to get more free hits on the stack. Finish them off with whatever attack units you have. Once you survive the initial SOD onslaught, the AI from then on will only send units out piecemeal - easy pickings.

	20-05-2004 22:23									#9
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Depending on terrain, my city spacing is generally fairly tight, so there is not a great deal of space to move into my core without passing close to a city. So I keep token garrison (one, sometimes none) in the core with the best defensive units pushed out to the border towns. I also place fast movers in these towns to attack anything that tries to move between cities, or to weaken stacks before they attack a border city. If the Vikings are in the game, I use two defenders for sea side cities (I’ve been burned). If not, I keep fast movers in range of the coast.

The only time I will keep more than one garrison per city is if I am forced into an ROP after RR. If I have no ROP after RR, I have quite a few empty cities on the inner ring.

Edit: Where I will most often get caught with my pants down, so to speak, is not placing proper garrison (in number or latest upgrade) in far flung small island cities. Once in a blue moon the AI will land a surprisingly large number of units and burn me.

Last edited by TheArsenal on 21-05-2004 at 01:46

	21-05-2004 01:40									#10
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I hate any government besides Republic up until the Industrial Age... particularly because I hate having to waste units garrisoning inner cities.

	21-05-2004 02:01									#11
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In SP games, there is no need to defend your inner core cities.

With MP games, you need to be very careful once your RR system is completed. Sneeky human player can use marines, multiple combat settlers, and worker gangs. It is surprisingly easy to break most well defended boarders.

	21-05-2004 02:17									#12
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What's a "garrison"?!

	21-05-2004 02:22									#13
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quote: Originally posted by Dominae What's a "garrison"?!

Units which you put inside cities.

	21-05-2004 02:29									#14
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quote: Originally posted by Trip Units which you put inside cities.

Hm, it's been a while since I've done that...

	21-05-2004 02:54									#15
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No garrisons, unless I need happiness guards or it are extremely endangered border cities.

	21-05-2004 11:13									#16
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If you are between wars, then garrisons can be good when you have factories and metros. If the units were in city radius then they could be hiding (gasp!) pollution.

	21-05-2004 16:48									#17
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yea, i never put any garrisons in cities. unless i need the happiness booast.

becuase i tend to only play archipelo maps now i tend to leave a small stack on each island. possibly 2 depending on the size and its location in relation to my core. the closer to the core and further from the Front an island is means that less units are required. i try have it so that any and all of my cities can have some units in it by the end of the turn so that a small invasion wont work. not so uselfull if they land a large stack, tis only rarely they do that tho, they tenfd to concentrate on my front line.

after RR it gets a whole lot easier. depending on distance between islands i can get away with one stack defending most of my islands. may require using boats in a chain to accomplish this.

whats crucial to this is ofcourse having your fronline somewhere else.so effectively i am relying on the AIs dumbness at sea invasions.

	23-05-2004 00:58									#18
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On garrision units:

2+ in an interor non coastal city is a waste unless they are needed for happiness. Send them to the boarders and also in a few specific coastal cities on the other side of your empire. Concentrate them in cities that are right next to enemy enemies in times of peace so they'll be ready to escore in the attacking units when war comes.

If there are no happiness nor revolt worries and the city can't possibly be taken for free before another force can intercept any incoming threats, there's no need for defensive units there.

	23-05-2004 09:07									#19
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I'll try it that way in my current game. Its a variation on what I normally do anyway.

	23-05-2004 17:05									#20
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I've often left even coastal cities empty - I've never yet seen the AI make an amphibious assault.

	23-05-2004 22:54									#21
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What level do you play at? Usually at the higher levels like Emperor, the AI uses more amphibious attacks.

	24-05-2004 00:20									#22
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Monarch, mostly. Never seen any in my Emperor games, either, however.

	24-05-2004 03:50									#23
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quote: Originally posted by Last Conformist I've often left even coastal cities empty - I've never yet seen the AI make an amphibious assault.

I've seen many small scale invasions but the AI doesn't seem to like planning and executing those massive D-Day style invasions.

	24-05-2004 04:21									#24
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I meant I've never seen it doing an amphibious assault with marines directly into a city. Many a time has it landed troops, sometimes in respectable force, next to an empty city of mine, but they're usually wiped out before they can move, and if not, the city will be anything but empty when their turn comes around.

	24-05-2004 07:13									#25
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I've seem AI Amphibious Marine assaults plenty of times in C3C. Just not in any useful numbers. It's more like "hey I've got a marine....let's put him on a boat and send him off to commit suicide against a few fortified infantry"

	24-05-2004 12:33									#26
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Did they have Oil? I've got this impression the AI won't build Marines if it can build Tanks or MA.

	24-05-2004 12:46									#27
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I didn't notice.

	24-05-2004 13:27									#28
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In SP once I have knights I usually keep a max of 1 defensive unit in each city unless a city is on the front line in which case I garrison two. I then build 1 knight for each city and garrison them everywhere except the interior. I find that even with a relatively small army, if you have good roads, knights / cavalry can swarm any part of you empire within 1-2 turns and send the AI packing.

Don't know whether that would work in MP though??

	24-05-2004 16:56									#29
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I just finished a Monarch level game where I was fighting pretty much straight from the start of the Middle Ages through to the end when I launched my spaceship. Because of this I ran Fascism, and because I had lots of big cities, my allowed units # was in the mid-200's. Since Fascism allows up to 4 MP's, and since I never went over the allowed unit support, I had all my big cities garrisoned with 4. Not for defensive purposes, but because it allowed them to stay in WLTKD even as they grew up into the teens.

	26-05-2004 22:03									#30
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Teenager cities?

I got to wonder if you hadn't been better of cranking off the luxury slider and sending those troops to the front, but MP is indeed a valid reason for maintaining a considerable troop presence in an unthreatened heartland. And unlike frontline use, it doesn't require you to upgrade the units. (Don't ask how Warriors are as good at crowd control as Mech Inf!)