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I was trying to put together axe-fighter strategies the other day. A problem that I kept running into was how difficult it is to produce large amounts of bowmen and axe-fighters without building three armory workshops. Perhaps this is one reason why axe-fighter and crossbowmen strategies are weak? It's just too hard to mass wooden shields without sacrificing some iron production to fit in an extra one or two armory workshops.

So I was thinking that maybe we could either make wooden shields faster to produce (so you need less buildings) or something quite different...

I would very much like to try playing some games with the armory workshops being unlocked after the sawmill. Maybe it would be a little abusive because of market trades (if so, maybe unlock the armory workshop after tannery?). This would enable players to start making shields right away. Then after the pigs start being slaughtered, production could switch to leather armor.

Give me your thoughts and flames on this

So what is exactly wrong with needing to build more workshops to be able to produce more wares and train more soldiers?

Because at one point you need to start massing both axes and shields, so you have to have lots of wood at one exact point of time, and lots of buildings built at the same time (both weaponmakers and armories) And to produce both leather jackets and shields you need like twice the amount of armouries needed for bowmen production.

@Sado: To me that sounds like a perfect RTS situation, where you have to place a bet into something sacrificing the other possibility, OR prepare a wood reserve in advance by building more woodcutters/sawmills.

Unlocking Workshop earlier sounds fair, cos Shields don't need to be postponed till after Tannery, right?

I got a perfect solution! Let's simply unlock armory after sawmill, BUT let's unlock the ability to produce leather jackets only after tannery...

inb4 devs complain that it's gonna be inconsistent since we don't block wares like that anywhere else... well I dunno. Axes to jackets seems like a more efficient trade anyway, so maybe it won't be so common to trade for leather rolls only...

LOL. I wouldn´t like to block the half of functions for one building at all. KaM was never a Game where you could make barracks but knights would be avaible after stables and milita after woodenworkshop or whatever!

I guess that´s the point. I know also that it isn´t really possible, but that´s why you have to make more armory workshops. If you watch games from players that are trying the xbow-axes strategy for a longer time, they make like 4-5 armory workshops at least. I make 3 if I do only bowmen + iron troops.

So the main point is, if you have like 5 armoryworkshops, 3-4 will work on leather AND shields and one will keep to make shields only. Except you have a huge leather production, but the solution is here also to add one more armoryworkshop.

In my opinion it´s also bad to change the unlock order, you just described yourself why and additionaly not only the market abuse, but it will be too easy. If some players have time problems, you see mostly that they start to build armoryworkshops way too late, well making them right after sawmills and build the tannery after that, would be quite crazy

Yep, thats nice option, it give you nothing more but opportunity to produce shields and axes parallel, so after about 20 min u have ~30 axes and shields, you can easily catch up with ~50 leather(leather armor) per 20 min, in total ~60 shields/axe and ~50 leather armor after ~45 min.
I think its risky strategy coz u lose a lot of timber(slowing your building efficiency) and your iron produce will be delayed coz u have to put some extra woodcutters etc. But it gives u a better chance to stand for the equal fight with sword/bow and etc

I agree with Pawel. Idea of unlocking leather jackets' production for Armory Workshop after some time is weird and inconsistent when it comes to game mechanics.

If you want more axemen, make more Amory Workshops. Yea, it will take more space and more time, but that's the risk you're taking going for mass anything (I think).

I think, that axemen+xbows strategy is rarely used, because of axemen's weak armour. And it's good, cause I think it's better to see more than 2 types of soldiers on the battlefield.

That's exactly my point. I was always frustrated that I couldn't use my timber for shields when a tannery is clearly not needed for them

I don't know why sado want's to block leather armor until the tannery is done...the only way it could be abused is if players trade wares for leather, and I don't see that as a problem.

I agree with the "unlock the workshop earlier" solution.

This though in my opinion begs the question: why lock buildings at all?

I mean, aside from new players that may find it confusing to have everything unlocked from the start, what's the point?

It's not like you're actually going to use the Tannery or the Iron Smithy (for example) even if you could build them earlier, but this might speed up the planning of your town and building of the first ones, and building Farms or Mines before having Stone and Wood production running is risky to say the least.

In my opinion it would just be more practical to have everything (except those buildings explicitly forbidden by the map maker) unlocked from the start in multiplayer and singleplayer games (campaign and tutorial maps excluded, of course)...

Even the "market abuse" shouldn't be a problem, since nothing stops you from building right next to your Storehouse what you need to unlock what you want and then immediately demolishing it anyway... also, abusing the market with everything unlocked just to rush your enemy should be nearly impossible, both thanks to the Peace Time and to the fact that your enemy has everything unlocked too, and can build a couple of early Watchtowers next to the most important parts of the town.

@Esthlos: Good point. I'd like to see counter-arguments to it

Hmm its skill thing, u can build 1 stone, 1 woodcutter and then 1 sawmill and fast Farm, so u can reach farm much faster than players who builds 4 stone/4woodcutters at start.
Also if u plan your town with all available houses at start u lose a lot of laborers and a lot of time for house sites and its easier to run out of resources (timber/stone) before u even build stonemason etc.
For TS players its no difference coz they know what they should build and play, but randoms, i think they will run out of resource of 15% games. out of resource = defeated ;D
There was a map with all houses available at start and no one plays it

I don´t understand that whole discussion at all. Only because a few people have problems with making leatherarmorworkshops in time, they want to let unlock a building faster.

Random already mentioned the point about random and ts players. If you want to add more buildings to the "fast build order" why not just to let all buildings be buildable from the beginning? That has nothing to do with the orginal KaM Building order, but who cares. In like each other rts game (starcraft,settlers,..) you can build all buildings whenever you want. You can build your barracks before school or ironmines before stonemeasons, no problem.
Like he said "Pro players will know what to build next anyway". (That´s the reason why the inn can be skipped also I guess). So randoms will get their goal suffused! Faster Games! Making iron in 5 min and then you can go for forester and sawmill.

Warcarft had unlocking buildings...

Imagine a no peacetime game with all buildings unlocked XD First pike wins?