How often do you need more than one Barracks?

[Krom]

I was curious the other day. Every time I see MP games replays I never see 2 Barracks placed.
How often do you build a town with more than one Barracks in it? What would be the advantages of having for example 2 Barracks?

[thunder]

Hey!
-I think to the second barrack used for as an barricade bulding. Hard to destroy it or need lots of time to do it. This is tipical on one entrance locations as loc4 on the BitD.
-some mounth ago I had a great idea for the second barrack, I made a test game for it also which could be interesting idea(if find the replay i will upload to this post). My only problem was with this the players cant manage the recruits to go to the 1st or second barracks. So back to my idea to use a barrack as a trap or active defence building. This idea came up after i got a rush from the smallest bridge on New horizon. So I built a barrack next to the bridge and filled up with some pikes. Next to the barrack i had some (2-3) towers. The enemy had vision there. He dont see any ware's moving to that barrack so he could believe this barrack is just a fake or empty barrack and used as a barricade building. So the enemy just made rush with small amount of knights. When these knights arrived next to the barrack I trained 20pikes and destroyed the barrack. So knights were catched and killed immediately by the pikes.
But this is happened only in a test game, and I can't imagine will anybody do this in a realy game because hard to manage it because cant set the recruits exactly. But as trap could work.

[thunder]

And finally I found this replay also. Its made with r6619.

abullshitidea GG.zip

[sado1]

Other than barricade or making the enemy think that you have your barracks on the frontline (so he destroys them potentially not invading your city properly), second barracks are never used at all. With an exception of a rare tactic when you make the first barracks on the frontline, to trick the enemy into destroy them, then you release all the troops from inside (most likely ~100 militia or sth like that) so when the barracks get destroyed, the spam comes out everywhere, and you can fight the enemy in very tight and difficult to fight (when unprepared) space. If you make your city well, leaving good spots for archers, this might be interesting. However, we didn't use this a lot outside of trolling randoms, because this is quite a risky tactic.

Anything you want to do with second barracks when you try to use them the way the barracks were intended to be used, is difficult, because (as Thunder points out) while you can block certain wares in barracks (so you can release iron only in 1 and leather only in the other, for example), you cannot control the flow of recruits an easy enough way (you'll end up with too many recruits in one, and too few in another). Making schools close to barracks is hardly a solution, since leather and iron don't have the same pace of production.

It'd be nice, actually, if you were able to set an amount of recruits and maybe even wares, that you want to be brought inside the barracks. This way, thunder's tactic might be easier to pull off.

[Nibo The Destroyer]

Only when i have got too much serfs in my city and making to much weapons. The traffic jam is just too horrible and you can't get recruits and weapons into your castle and soldiers out which leads from a pile-up into a bigger pile-up and before you know you go from hero to zero.

Then i usually make a 2nd barracks just for either iron units or just archers. No more traffic jam and your serfs obviously have more time for other stuff to do.
Costs pretty much time to do it though and you need to focus so you won't mess up:P

It is indeed horrible that you can't manage your recruits to go to castle nr 1 or castle nr 2.

[Jeronimo]

I see 2 potential double barracks ideas:

1) Iron soldiers in first barracks, and Leather soldiers in second barracks.
2) Leather+Iron in first barracks, and only Militia in second barracks.

Of course this is only possible in locations with lots of space... and games should last longer than 1:20:00, in order to validate the usage/necessity of a 2nd barracks.

The recruitment management is not a heavy problem. You need to relocate schools.
Build 2nd barracks in a considerable distance from 1st, and build near it 2-3 schools (recruits will go straight to that barracks).
If you want more base management... close 1 of your schools near 1st barracks so it doesn't get more gold chests, and thus the furthest schools get resupplied faster.

[thunder]

What do you think about Recruits as ware settings? I mean as manage the ware under F2 menu. ITs like priority setting.
You got your barrack list and set every 2nd recruit goes into the 3rd barrack:
1st barrack-------> 2
2nd barrack-------> 2
3rd barrack-------> 4
4rd barrack------->3
...
.
.
.

I know this isn't idea topic

[thunder]

Oh and I almost forget it.
What about the Barrack's backdoor whis is minimum two tiles.
Seems some players frequently have late trafficjams infront of the barrack because the huge unit spams in and out. Of course this is when the city isnt starving:D
But Nowadays ive seen lots of maps with full barracks...train 1000soilders and destroy it....Good fashion:D

[Ben]

Thunder, you've asked this so many times and it's been shut down every time. Just don't put your barrack in a silly spot and you'll be fine.

[Nibo The Destroyer]

Hehe thunder, i think a backdoor to a building would ruin the concept of the game. Nevertheless it would solve the problem.

What i like to do is make my castle, 1 road leading to it for weapons and armor, on the other side 1 road for recruites en 1 /2 road leading down to my other buildings.
This way i always try to make a nice parcour for them to follow so u got pretty much all the traffic going 1 direction.

And the thing that goes wrong with many people is that they start recruiting too late.. I guess around 23 min before pt u can start recruiting without them getting hungry after pt soon.

[Ben]

If you make just one road to your barrack then you don't need to worry about serfs coming from both directions and thus you will be able to have soldiers leave one way and serfs+recruits enter another. This will alleviate most if not all your barrack traffic problems.

[Nibo The Destroyer]

Thats true... espacially with offical match settings when u dont have 3 millions serfs.. But in 90 minute games my serfs just block up because of walking back again. I just think sometimes the barracks just reaches its limit and the only thing u can do is produce less weapons or recruit less serfs.. Either way if it happens to you, you havent build your city right.. Thats what it all comes down to

[Michalpl]

AI did build 2 barracks one time one for leather one for iron and school to each one

[Bludmaster]

Actually there is strategy where you build 2 barracks. Its when you want to rush (specially with longer PT). I used it myself almost every game against randoms

[The Dark Lord]

Actually there is strategy where you build 7 barracks. Its when you want to troll (specially with April Fools). I used it myself against noobs.