In a terra game, I sent three combat-two infantry to get a foothold in the new world on a terra map. I took a barbarian city, which was on a hill. The barbarians started sending maces and horse archers at me, but they sent so many that they actually killed all of the infantry. I wasn't paying attention because I thought they wouldn't have a problem so I didn't see how many, but seriously, how many maces and horse archers must it have taken to kill three promoted infantry in a hill city?

A lot. They've come close to forcing me out of places too.

Just send a small army rather than two guys.

If you're playing a Terra map, send a literal army of Soldiers after Astronomy. Build 15-20 Galleons, stocked with Rifles, Cavalry, Grenadiers, Workers, and Settlers. I advise the domestic units so you can raze cities to prevent barbarian revolts in the city, but they're not necessary. Your forces over 5 points: North and South, East and West, and Barb "capital". If you have Communism, send a couple Spies as well to find which cities have wonders, etc.

Once you knock out the main cities, clean up with the Cavalry. Fortify units on hills as fogbusters. Preventing other Civs from settling to secure the continent. I also suggest saving Versailles or Forbidden Palace till the New World is secure.

If you're playing a Terra map, send a literal army of Soldiers after Astronomy. Build 15-20 Galleons, stocked with Rifles, Cavalry, Grenadiers, Workers, and Settlers.

My problem is that I'm usually still conquering on the first continent and I can't spare that many troops to go overseas. Knowing how fast the AI upgrades units (on warlords at least), I have a hard enough time on Monarch/Emperor (huge maps, as well) just making enough troops to defend myself and conquer my neighbors, let alone make 20(!) ships full of soldiers to conquer the new world. On huge maps, simply defending yourself from the giant AIs on the other side of the continent means keeping at least 2 or 3 production cities making units all the time in peacetime, and all the cities with decent production (8-12) during wartime. It's hard to find the troops necessary to send over. Right now I have one city on the new world stocked with 9 infantry/marines and it gets hit by stacks of ~12 riflemen/grenadiers every other turn.

If you have Communism, send a couple Spies as well to find which cities have wonders, etc.

Wonders in barbarian cities?

The barbarians are, roughly speaking, another Civilization. They have some penalties, and there are some things they can't do (build a Palace, for example), but functionally they can operate like a normal Civ, if they get the chance. And on a Terra map, they do get that chance.

So when you are looking to "Colonize the New World", approach is as if you were trying to colonize another continent occupied by a single Civ. A single Civ that happens to be at war with you. So plan accordingly. :)

Bh

15-20 ships is excessive, one good solid stack (12-20 units depending) can land and soak barb attacks for a while. Basically you need to land, capture or build a city, then sit in it for a while as waves of barbs come at you. 2-3 units will be annihilated, but if you have a good number then you will likely survive without losses. After you've sat in your city for a while, the barbs will have thrown their entire accumulated mobile army against your stack, and you can then move on to conquer/colonize the whole continent and only need to worry about occasional new units instead of huge waves.

Barbs rarely use seige weapons, so whipping walls, theatres to get some cultural protection up quickly is also a good idea.

I would think 2 galleons of crack offensive troops (rifles/grens/inf), 1 of defensive troops (same but CG promoted) and 1 of mobile troops (knights/cavalry) would suffice.

If you want the whole continent, save FP for here as advised above.

Wonders in barbarian cities?

in early vanilla they could build wonders, and maybe even found religions. i laughed so hard i scared my dogs when i captured a barb city that had the pyramids. i even doublechecked the .xml city list to verify it was originally a barb city :lol:. they took their wonder-making abilities away in a patch tho /sigh.

note that using spies to examine cities from the inside works only in vanilla and warlords. if you play BtS, spies can't tell you anything about barbs, since you can't invest EPs in them. which is a bummer. barbs are fun to snoop on, so non-BtS is better than way imo!