I need serious help on how to cope with barbarians! I still have warriors, and they have axemen and archers, and they keep coming from everywhere! My units keep dying to them, and its really starting to piss me off. I must have seen 20 barbarians so far in my small area. <sighs>

Are you playing with aggressive barbarians by chance? I didn't turn that option on and by the time I saw axemen and archers coming at me in my game I had axemen and archers of my own. But as of yet I haven't seen a massive uprising.

For defenders it's important to fortify for a few turns! Furthermore you should be able to build archers yourself and if you wanna explore use scouts or if there are too many barbs around, axemen.

Maybe your tech expenditures are too low?

No more ICS - gets you in toruble and slows down your tech-search!

I need serious help on how to cope with barbarians! I still have warriors, and they have axemen and archers, and they keep coming from everywhere! My units keep dying to them, and its really starting to piss me off. I must have seen 20 barbarians so far in my small area. <sighs>

Sounds like they may have set up a "barbarian civilization" (AKA city/spawning area) somewhere near your borders. This happened in my last game, and I lost a dozen phalanxes until I figured out that a) Axemen get +50% vs my phalanxes and B) that thing that looked like a a black film in the fog of war was a black culture/border for the barbarian city. It sucked. Maybe try taking a scout down to see if that's what the problem is.

Oh, and if you don't get a metal and metal units by the time the barbarians do, you're going to be in a lot of trouble anyway.

I've been having problems with them too. The barbs have more advanced units than me! :eek: I was fighting Axemen, power=5, with my chariots, power=4.

Maybe too few civs on your map? I've only played once and had 2 neghbors close so maybe I didn't have room for an uprising....

I've been having problems with them too. The barbs have more advanced units than me! :eek: I was fighting Axemen, power=5, with my chariots, power=4.

Yes but at least the axeman won't get his +50% bonus since your chariots are mounted and not melee. Also, your chariots can get a promotion that makes them immune to first strike which will be good for fighting the barbarian archers.

In my game I just founded a new city in a great spot and started to work the area. I have one warrior fortified in that city and another one 2 turns from being ready. I have slavery but only 1 population in that city so I can not rush it. Since it is a new city, the road to my capitol is not complete yet. There is a barbarian axman ready to attack me on the next turn. Even with my fortify bonus, the axeman supperior strength and his +50% vs melee means my lone warrior does not stand a chance and I am going to loose my new city. :sad:

What type of maps are you guys playing? I'm on custom map (continents), noble difficulty, I have barbs, but no aggressive ones. I have yet to get overrun by wild barbarian hordes. I'll lose an occassional unit to a lone barb, but have yet to see a barbarian city spring up. Maybe I need to switch to aggressive barbs so I can see one! :D

I was unlucky enough to find a barb city just south of my newest city. It had 2 archers and a warrior for defense. The problem was that as soon as I killed one they'd have another born. I ended up loosing about 6 or 7 units before I took it out. Luckily I got the swordsmen tech and was able to get them to the fight just in the nick of time.

The only advice I can give is to make sure you spend more time making defending units, archers are nice with a barracks and the +20% city defense, as opposed to early expansion with settlers if the barbs are out in force. The second thing is to get to swordsmen as fast as possible because I haven't seen a barb swordsman yet and I'm in 1390 AD.

I think barbarian cities are a lucky find. You can take them over and get some unit XP in the process.

lol, i wish thay whear more agresive.

how do u change barbs to make therm more agresive *not the civ ai, but just the barbs*

lol, i wish thay whear more agresive.

how do u change barbs to make therm more agresive *not the civ ai, but just the barbs*

It's an option, if you go into a Custom Game, you can click on "Aggressive Barbarians" or something to that effect.

lol, i wish thay whear more agresive.

how do u change barbs to make therm more agresive *not the civ ai, but just the barbs*


More aggressive? Yeck... I'm on noble... and there's lots of area around me. huge map, all 18 civs. I've got 3 barbarians a turn entering my lands. faster than I can create troops. It always seems to be like this, unless I can somehow view every single area. THey generate constantly in fog.

It sounds like you're far behind the AI in tech. I don't think the barbarians can build more advanced unit than the most advanced civ in the game.

The barbarians can get really nasty in this game over the previous versions. I've played through about 5 or 6 differnt maps on the huge size. Everytime around 200 BC to 900 AD I have to fend off a never ending horde. I sorta feel like the Roman Empire during the same period of history. I have noticed that they tend to build up when there are no other civilizations around you.

It really pisses me off when 3 barb units (usually archers, axemen, or warrior) pop up on a newly created city and all you have to defend it with is a lonly warrior or archer. I usually get trounced and my city razed.
I also noticed that the barbarians will go for your terrain improvements and knock those out till they get to you city. Most of the time they end up taking out my iron or copper resource and pretty much cutting me off at the knees and my ability to defend my cities with better tech troops.

Any one have a good stratgy for heading off the barbarian invasion (with out taking the play option off)?

Only thing I can come up with is just build good units and have enough of them to head out and take out the barb units before they become a menace.

Happened to me in one game. The barbs had a city that was hidden for ages, and by the time I found it I was too weak to take it out from all the damage they had done to me.

From then on, the first thing I did was send out explorers to find out where things are.

And then if I see a bard city anywhere near, first thing I work on is taking it out before it grows.

Hahaha, I had the same thing happen to me. I kept getting all these random barbarians, and lost a settler and a worker. I saw this black border I thought was a fog of war, but on closer inspection...ETRUSCANS!!! DIE DIE DIE!! It was especially cool to find them because I was Rome. Anyway, my very first Horse Archer used them for target practice. I got a city out of it too, and 84 gold. CHA-CHING

Okay, i'm STILL pissed at barbarians. I can cope well enough with them, but its just getting rediculous. The barbarians appear even without cities of course, and even the slightest square you cant see, it can gen one. I've killed about 300 barbarians so far, and I can't stop them because I can't expand fast enough to make sure all the terrain is visible. Its making me have to utilize a stupid strategy of sending out units to stand on hilltops all across the terrain, sending my profits sinking by unit support costs, just to try to stem the tide of the barbarians.

I'm getting so frusterated at just messing with these stupid barbarians, that everytime I see one, i'm logging into the world editor and editing it out. They gen like 5-8 a turn around my empire. Its STUPID. And there are no barbarian cities on the entire big island.

This is on noble, with NO rampaging barbarians. I'd hate to see how it is with rampaging barbarians. I mean, no lie... i'm getting 5-8 barbarians a turn... axemen, archers, swordsmen. With rampaging... who knows!

I understand your frustration, but there must be something wrong with your startegy.Barbs on noble aren't that tough...you get a decent combat bonus versus them, the first fights are guranteed to be won.

Whats your initial building sequence?
What is your tech route?
What units do you build?
What promotions do you choose for your units?

A few tips:

- Take an aggressive leader for the moment.The extra Combat I promotion helps a lot.
- Make sure to research Archery ASAP.This way you will have good chances to defeat animals and barbs up to archers.
- Don't start your first settler to early.Build some units first, clear out wild animals, get promotions.Fiddle in aworker, a barrack (a must, this way your units are much more durable!), then again units.The first settler can wait until your city is near the happiness "limit". (about size 4-5 in most cases)
- if facing barbs, take their suicidal behaviour and the terrain in account: They will always attack you, even if chances for them to win are near zero.Woodsman and Gueriella promotiona can be very useful!

Using Chariots and Horse Archers to clear swathes of fog also makes it easier to keep the barbs under wraps.

Oh, I can HANDLE the barbs... its just annoying to have to constantly pump out new units to keep em at bay, cause sometimes they get lucky, and an axeman kills an axeman of mine in the woods with my guy being the defender, full health, when my guy had combat +1 and vs melee +25%.

the last game i played (using the earth map included) had about 6-7 barbarian cities in n.america.

i was the first to "discover the new world" and i thought i'd easily expand across all this space. when i landed my unsuspecting settler and musket man and set up camp, i was in a for a bit of a suprise as literal hordes of barbarians swarmed in on me. i really enjoyed the fact that they included barbarian cities

I understand your frustration, but there must be something wrong with your startegy.Barbs on noble aren't that tough...you get a decent combat bonus versus them, the first fights are guranteed to be won.

Oh, yes.. they can be....

Especially on larger maps. I played a game on a Huge map last night, and had as many as 6 new barbarians per turn, and at times have had over 15 on the map in various spots.

It finally got so bad it was impossible to do any improvements - they were pillaging faster than I could build, and killing my units as fast as I could build.

So I finally got mad and used WorldBuilder to make some Modern Armor. And even then, with 6 cities I had to make about 10 tanks just to keep them away from my town areas. They were coming in hordes at that point - and it was not just me. I sent 4 Modern Armor out to explore, and found about 10 OTHER civ cities that had been taken over by barbarians. At least one civ had been destroyed by them.

So, in short, there ARE too many barbarians, especially on larger maps.

Poor Rome. I wonder if they complained when the Germans came... probably. Tough Luck, I guess. You can't win them all. Perhaps, concentrate on military more than religion or economy?

Poor Rome. I wonder if they complained when the Germans came... probably. Tough Luck, I guess. You can't win them all. Perhaps, concentrate on military more than religion or economy?

That is not the problem. The fact is, there are simply TOO MANY barbarians on larger (bigger than normal) maps. I have seen it get to the point where barbs had more cities than ALL civs combined did. A game last night I saw *12* barbarian cities, and they were churning out raiders like crazy. They were spawning faster than you could kill them.

So until I or someone figures out the tweak to lower the number of barbs, or it gets patched, I play on custom maps with barbarians clicked OFF.

The same happened to me. During the last game, it turned out that all civs were on a pangea-style map (I like to play with all the map options (that can be) set to random). The others civs were quite far away, maybe because there's a huge desert south of me.

The uninhabitated area is a barbarian madhouse! I have 4 cities and I'm constantly producing defenders only to keep up with them. My problem: meanwhile the barbarians have axemen and I don't have access to a copper or iron resource.

I have no idea how to turn it around and stop that constant waves of barbarians. :cry:

Barbs will consantly pop cities. On my last game I had 0 AI on the same landmass, and I'd take one city down, and they would spawn 2 more. Take note of the direction they are coming from, and send scouts in that direction.

You can't neglect military early game or you will get overrun really fast. I typically go for an early religion, then go for Iron tech to get swordsmen. This will let you have axes and swords, one good for taking on roaming barbarians, the other for dealing with cities.

Yes, more open space means more barbs.I still don't think there are too many, I even turn raging barbs on (playing Monarch) and have no bigger problems.However, here is another tips how to reduce frequency: Raise the sea level and/or increase the number of civs on huge maps.This should reduce barbarian activity a lot.

Note: This is a repeat from a similar thread in General Discussions.

Updated strategy that seemed to work for me pretty well was to seriously patrol the wilderness. As soon as hunting is researched build lots of scouts, depending on your starting position, maybe 4 to 10. Have these guys literally run back and forth in circles around your wilderness, the purpose being to not leave any tile 'in the dark' and not illuminated by one of your scouts passing by. Barbs seem to spawn on dark tiles that are left alone and merely having your unit patrol by and 'light it up' stops this process.

Any animals you kill and gain experience for use those points to upgrade to woodsman I & II. This will increase that unit's mobility and therefore its usefulness in patrolling.

IMHO it is much cheaper to build scouts and not have to fight than to wait and have to build stronger military units and lose them defending against a barb invasion of your homeland that could have been all but prevented.:)

Barbarians can be a problem for a while. Some things I have noticed though that help is HOW you deal with them.

Someone already mentioned that they will ruin improvements on their way to you town. Another thing they will do is attack pretty much ANY unit that is near them.

What I do is set up a place to make a stand. Forests are best I think with 50%, hills are 25% bonus. If you get lucky and have a Hills WITH Forest that's 75% defense bonus. If you have time to fortify that is 5% for each turn you have set up. (or if you must attack, do it when they are on plains or grasslands with no defense bonus).

With Roads around your town you can easily get a unit out on an intercept course and pick a place to have your unit defend on the best Terrain for the fight.

If you can do this enough times and LIVE then you will get some powerful units due the experience they will get, which will stay with them if you upgrade them as your technology increases.

Remember before attacking to hold down the ALT key and mouse over the enemy, it will tell you the odds of the battle and what combat modifiers are present.

Hope this helps!
Patrick

You want barbarians? I played 4 civs on a large map of islands. My island required galleons to get people off to colonize. By the time I hit the other islands there were 2 barbarians cities that had 8*pop. One had horses in a pasture, was using longbowman and macemen...even had a caravel waitng for my ships. I sent the settler back and took 8 units of military and took the city - instant infrastructure. I think that we have yet to see just how powerful barbarian cities can become.
ps just imagine if they can get nukes - lol.

ps just imagine if they can get nukes - lol.


Oddly enough, isn't this one of our great fears in RL as well...

If you want to limit barbarian strength, do two things.

1) Don't play an island map. Play continents, Terra or Pangea - really, any map where you'll share a land mass with other civs.

2) Go to custom game and add extra civs to the map. If you're playing on a small map, put on as many civs as you'd see in a normal map. If a normal map, as many as are normally on a large, etc.

I've found that this keeps the barbarians around (and they serve as a nice barrier to growth), but they don't get outrageous (or send endless hordes after you) because the extra civs put a squeeze on the barbarian spawning grounds. Makes for kind of a fun game, actually, because after the barbs are gone, you find yourself squeezed in against other civs, itching for a chance to expand into their territory.

Okay, i'm STILL pissed at barbarians. I can cope well enough with them, but its just getting rediculous. The barbarians appear even without cities of course, and even the slightest square you cant see, it can gen one. I've killed about 300 barbarians so far, and I can't stop them because I can't expand fast enough to make sure all the terrain is visible. Its making me have to utilize a stupid strategy of sending out units to stand on hilltops all across the terrain, sending my profits sinking by unit support costs, just to try to stem the tide of the barbarians.

I'm getting so frusterated at just messing with these stupid barbarians, that everytime I see one, i'm logging into the world editor and editing it out. They gen like 5-8 a turn around my empire. Its STUPID. And there are no barbarian cities on the entire big island.

This is on noble, with NO rampaging barbarians. I'd hate to see how it is with rampaging barbarians. I mean, no lie... i'm getting 5-8 barbarians a turn... axemen, archers, swordsmen. With rampaging... who knows!

I laugh at your pain. :) Mostly though.. because I feel it too. I'
ve had my rear handed to me multiple times already by the psycho-rampaging hordes of barbarians when playing with that option turned off. I have had to face 3-6 barbarians entering my territory at a time. Its a real pisser.

I got up from my fourth game where the barbarians handed me mine. My wife asked what was wrong and I explained to her ever-so-calmly (right!) what my problem was. She went back to what she was doing and said, "Didn't the chinese and romans have that problem too?"

I sat back down. Reloaded from move 1 on the same map (I always save on the first move) and started again. I'm better than those stinking Romans.


But... however cruel, heartless, and insensitive her comments were to this frustrated civver... she's right. Now, I applaud the difficulty and realism of founding that shining civilization. I ain't no pansy... I refuse to drop below Noble to win.

On a note... I have beat it on Noble now. Having founded every religion but Christianity. With Ghandi. With a military victory. (mwahahaha) And I have to tell you. This victory was sweeter than almost any civ victory I have ever tasted.

I post a few units on hilltops in the wilderness areas I want to expand into, spreading them out so as to maximise their LOS and keep as much of the territory in sight as possible. The larger your landmass the more units you need, obviously, but this has worked flawlessly so far for me. Leave them fortified as much as possible.

If you want to lower the number of Barbs just edit the CIV4HandicapInfo.xml file.

I played a terra map where the one continent is civ free so it becomes barbarian land. They had huge cities and all of their tile improved. Taking these cities was a huge bonus for me.

Has anyuone else noticed that barb cities are always placed in good spots (blue circles, nicely centered in the middle of a couple resources)? I have been using that to my advantage by focussing on hitting their cities and making them my own. A nice side effect of killing barbarians is that you get money experience and a military good enough to keep other civs from messing with you!

People with barb problems need to add more civs to their maps. I play on standard size with 12-18 civs and I never have problems with barbarians besides a wandering warrior every now and then. Of course, it also means you have a lot more rival civs to deal with instead.

People with barb problems need to add more civs to their maps. I play on standard size with 12-18 civs and I never have problems with barbarians besides a wandering warrior every now and then. Of course, it also means you have a lot more rival civs to deal with instead.

Standard size with 18 civs, of course there's no civ problems... on pangaea, they all come in contact within a few turns. I play HUGE maps, with 18 civs. Where sometimes you are left on a huge island to yourself, that you cant possibly expand all the way around for like, thousands of years.