I've just started a Monarch game (Terra/Epic) and in 2325 BC I get the "Attila the Hun is leading his troops into battle" random event, result in the following situation:

http://img2.freeimagehosting.net/uploads/th.937400ca73.jpg (http://img2.freeimagehosting.net/image.php?937400ca73.jpg)

I have New Random Seed on Reload turned on, luckily, so I hope reloading will avoid this. Because otherwise I might just have to restart...

Did you guys get this often? I think it's pretty ridiculous at this point in time, there is NO way you can be prepared for that unless you beeline Archery and spam defenses just in case, keep them in your capital as well... even then things don't look pretty, with the HAs being immune to First Strikes and all.

:mad:

siggboy,

I find the Great Wall helps out quite a bit for situations like that. It turns a negative into a positive. Watch as the barbarians annihilate the nearest enemy's city. Follow it with a warrior or axeman or something. Typically "event" barbarians won't leave garrison in the cities.

This is turning into a story :)

Instead of going for my only city, they targetted a nearby warrior, which was fog busting in preparation of expanding. As it happened, the Warrior already had Woodsman I and got attacked by a lion, winning the fight, so I could promote to Woods II...

Now Attila's horde (which doesn't seem to be the smartest of them all) is chasing around my warrior through the forest, which is rather pointless since he can outrun them :D.

http://img2.freeimagehosting.net/uploads/th.8c62f43454.jpg (http://img2.freeimagehosting.net/image.php?8c62f43454.jpg)

If I don't get eaten by a bear I might kindly show them the way to the nearest AI.

Edit: I think I've read somewhere that before a certain point in time (or expansion), barbs won't enter your cultural boundaries. This might have prevented the horses from capturing my city. Unfortunately it will also mean that they won't take out Winnetou for me. I think I will lead them as far away as possible with the warrior and hope for the best.

siggboy,

I find the Great Wall helps out quite a bit for situations like that. It turns a negative into a positive. Watch as the barbarians annihilate the nearest enemy's city. Follow it with a warrior or axeman or something. Typically "event" barbarians won't leave garrison in the cities.

This is 2300ish BC. There's NO WAY you have the Wall at this point. Plus, Masonry is not exactly on the early tech path, even less so if you don't start with Mysticism.

A bunch of Archers, maybe, but FOUR HORSE ARCHERS right next to your only city is quite stretching it.

Go to worldbuilder and delete em. I did this before and I don't even consider it cheating cause of the situation.

They might as well have a random event in the later eras like this

"A Malinese spy has assassinated you! Game over!" HA HA HA!!!

The horde has disappeared behind the horizon for now, possibly wreaking havoc elsewhere.

In my aggravation I had a settler and a warrior eaten by a lion though. :hammer2:.

Probably they absolutely can't enter your boundaries at this point, picking the next legal target instead (my jungle fighter in this case).

As mentioned above, I've read somewhere around here that you will have a "built-in Great Wall" as long as the number of cities on your continent is less than number of civs times two. Seems to be correct (there was a lone archer a few turns later which spawned out of the fog and that one also did not go for my city).

Edit: I think I've read somewhere that before a certain point in time (or expansion), barbs won't enter your cultural boundaries. This might have prevented the horses from capturing my city. Unfortunately it will also mean that they won't take out Winnetou for me. I think I will lead them as far away as possible with the warrior and hope for the best.

This is 2300ish BC. There's NO WAY you have the Wall at this point. Plus, Masonry is not exactly on the early tech path, even less so if you don't start with Mysticism.

A bunch of Archers, maybe, but FOUR HORSE ARCHERS right next to your only city is quite stretching it.

siggboy,

What you're thinking of is the N+1 rule. The humanoid barbarians won't enter your cultural boarders until after there are N+1 cities on the continent, where N is the number of Civilizations on the continent.

And never underestimate a SE player's desire to get Masonry when Stone is nearby. Sometimes it's the first tech I go for (even before The Wheel.) ;)

You've been lucky. Look the screenshot below : extermination by barbarian archers at turn 57.

http://img521.imageshack.us/img521/5747/4mnhp8.th.jpg (http://img521.imageshack.us/my.php?image=4mnhp8.jpg)

They first crushed my neighbor, and I wasn't paying attention, so they came for me. No "N+1 cities" rule applied, since it was Marathon speed and nobody had another city settled yet.

interesting. The event is there, all know it is there, so one would think that knowing this one would be prepared and - as stated- beeline for archery and have a defense. Using the world builder and then saying its not cheating is delusional. :scan:

Go to worldbuilder and delete em. I did this before and I don't even consider it cheating cause of the situation.

They might as well have a random event in the later eras like this

"A Malinese spy has assassinated you! Game over!" HA HA HA!!!

Same to me. This is one of the few rare situations I don't feel guilty at all pressing ctrl+W. Random events should not be game-breaking to start with.

Seriously, I think there should be an option to disable all random events before 1500BC. One time I drew 3 slave revolts within like 20 turns, which totally killed my early game.

This is 2300ish BC. There's NO WAY you have the Wall at this point. Plus, Masonry is not exactly on the early tech path, even less so if you don't start with Mysticism.

A bunch of Archers, maybe, but FOUR HORSE ARCHERS right next to your only city is quite stretching it.

Not true, Masonary is an early tech. The way I play on Monarch with raging barbs.

Building queue
1. Build Warrior
2. Build Worker
3. Build/chop next worker
4. Chop Wall

Research queue
1. Mining
2. Bronze working
3. Masonary

Yes, its tech number 3, not a whooping distance into the tech tree, tech 2 if starting with mining. Not having the wall at that point in the game is sloppy, especially since you already have spend time into getting these techs:
Wheel
Animal Husbandry
Farming
Mining
Fishing

Two might be starting techs, but that means you researched those other 3, with pottery almost done. Had you gone for masonary immidiately the wall would be standing. This random event and raging barbs convinced me to make wall a prio :D

Hope this helps

interesting. The event is there, all know it is there, so one would think that knowing this one would be prepared and - as stated- beeline for archery and have a defense. Using the world builder and then saying its not cheating is delusional. :scan:

Pointless statement.

This is basically saying 'Dont bother with any other strategy, go for Archery first on the low% odds that this event pops up'.

That said, I play multiplayer with my friend and any time this event has popped up, I have been stung by it every time. Usually they are no more than troublesome, but I've had 6 Horse Archers pop up and just take my Capitol in the same turn. Trying to out-expand the AI, and keep every city guarded to take on 6 horse archers is nigh impossible.

Pointless statement.

This is basically saying 'Dont bother with any other strategy, go for Archery first on the low% odds that this event pops up'.

That said, I play multiplayer with my friend and any time this event has popped up, I have been stung by it every time. Usually they are no more than troublesome, but I've had 6 Horse Archers pop up and just take my Capitol in the same turn. Trying to out-expand the AI, and keep every city guarded to take on 6 horse archers is nigh impossible.

Anyway, I think it's meaningless to talk about "cheating" in single games.

I rather enjoy the random events; if one of them kilsllme off, then I can just start a new game.

IIRC, the random events involving the barb stacks have in game requirements. If the barb stack is archers, then at least 2 of the civilizations must have archery. If the barb stack is axemen, at least 2 civs must have BW. If the barb stack is spears, then the requisite is 2 civs with bw and hunting. I presume that in order for the barb stack to be HAs, then I would presume that at least 2 civs have hbr and archery. I've popped hbr from a hut at least once, and I know that certain ais will research it pretty early, but its fairly expensive. Soooooo... most of my analysis is based on speculation, but it seems unusual to get that many HAs that early. Or maybe it just seems like it because I almost never research hbr early on unless I have ivory, and even then I wait until I have construction.

Okay why do people even turn on random events when playing multiplayer? Isn't it a bit... ummm... too random? In fact you should turn off barbarians too.

The Vedic Aryans event should definitely be fixed though. At least there shouldn't be any organized barbarian stacks attacking you before 2000BC. Historically fitting too.

And that's conservative.

Just turn the annoying barbarians off and enjoy it. It's fair for everyone. Do you all use world builder if they kill your neighbor instead of you ?

Just turn the annoying barbarians off and enjoy it. It's fair for everyone. Do you all use world builder if they kill your neighbor instead of you ?

afa2000,

I'm not 100% sure, but I believe you can still get Barbarians through random events and goodie huts even with "no barbarians" ticked.

interesting. The event is there, all know it is there, so one would think that knowing this one would be prepared and - as stated- beeline for archery and have a defense. Using the world builder and then saying its not cheating is delusional. :scan:
Using the World Builder is always cheating, I concur with that. But at this point in time, you can not have appropriate defense against an army of four strength 6 mounted units while playing out a reasonable early strategy at the same time.

I probably could have gone Hunting->Archery, then Archer-Archer-Archer instead, but in this scenario my city would have been smaller, and no tile improved yet. A significant setback considering how important those first few turns are for the later development of your empire.

Research queue
1. Mining
2. Bronze working
3. Masonary

Yes, its tech number 3, not a whooping distance into the tech tree, tech 2 if starting with mining. Not having the wall at that point in the game is sloppy, especially since you already have spend time into getting these techs:
Wheel
Animal Husbandry
Farming
Mining
Fishing
Fishing and Mining were starting techs.

My early research was Farming -> AH, to be able to immediately improve two juice tiles in my BFC. And it's very reasonable to do so, since the city could grow very quickly to size 5 that way, becoming a worker/settler pump from
then on for quite a few turns.

Getting the Wheel was the way to go, since I have Horses very close and a Chariot rush on the Native American is possible.

Pottery is debateable, actually I have delayed it for a few turns in favor of Archery in this case.

Two might be starting techs, but that means you researched those other 3, with pottery almost done. Had you gone for masonary immidiately the wall would be standing. This random event and raging barbs convinced me to make wall a prio :D
I do not deny that the Great Wall is a superb wonder, but it should not be mandatory for success. I don't play with Raging Barbarians for a reason (it adds way too much randomness to the game in a phase were every single unit counts).

Actually this game is supposed to be a shadow test for madscientist's planned Joao scenario, where you are supposed to branch off into the New World (Terra map) as soon as possible, making your old world lands a colony. I really don't need the Great Wall for this...

If I chop the Wall I waste a lot of production in my capital right now that could be used to produce Workers/Settlers and rapidly get my early economy going. I need to snatch copper quickly unless I want to go all in with the Chariots and try to take Winnetou's capital.

Okay why do people even turn on random events when playing multiplayer? Isn't it a bit... ummm... too random? In fact you should turn off barbarians too.

The Vedic Aryans event should definitely be fixed though. At least there shouldn't be any organized barbarian stacks attacking you before 2000BC. Historically fitting too.

And that's conservative.

As I said, I think the Vedic Aryans are fun, and if you don't like it, turn off random events.

Go to worldbuilder and delete em. I did this before and I don't even consider it cheating cause of the situation.

I do this all the time with that event and I don't think it is cheating

Do you all use world builder if they kill your neighbor instead of you ?

I start a new game if this happens.

As I said, I think the Vedic Aryans are fun, and if you don't like it, turn off random events.

I really like all of the random events but this barbs rising event. I do not want to turn off random events just because of one event it is easier to just delete them.

afa2000,

I'm not 100% sure, but I believe you can still get Barbarians through random events and goodie huts even with "no barbarians" ticked.

I'm 100 % sure - it doesn't happen. I always play this way.

If my neighbor wanted me to help em when they have an invasion they should just contact me in the diplomacy screen.


"Hey we'll give you all our techs if you go to worldbuilder and delete these things" ;)

If my neighbor wanted me to help em when they have an invasion they should just contact me in the diplomacy screen.


"Hey we'll give you all our techs if you go to worldbuilder and delete these things" ;)

Then again, you could always just gift yourself every tech there is in 4000BC with WB mode.

"A Malinese spy has assassinated you! Game over!" HA HA HA!!!

I second that suggestion!

Trying to out-expand the AI, and keep every city guarded to take on 6 horse archers is nigh impossible.

Then stop out expanding the AI. It's easier to conquer the cities anyways.

I'm 100 % sure - it doesn't happen. I always play this way.

Actually, barb activity is mainly designed to target human players, as the AIs have insane bonus against the barbs and they start with archery and a free archer on higher levels. So by turning off the barb activity, you're actually playing an easier game.

The so-called "fairness" is actually a more complex issue than what people believe. People claim they will just restart another game if their games are terminated by a random event for the sake of not cheating. That's fine, but to me and probably many players the ultimate goal of playing a game is still to have fun. I don't see any fun if I play a chess game in a place with a silly house rule allows 3 additional opponent queens to randomly pop up near my king. If you enjoy games like that then go ahead.

Actually, barb activity is mainly designed to target human players, as the AIs have insane bonus against the barbs and they start with archery and a free archer on higher levels. So by turning off the barb activity, you're actually playing an easier game.

I would say, a less difficult game. If I turn it off, there are no barbs for everyone. Yes, that's fair. More fair for them because I wont rush great wall just to let weak AIs get owned by barbs. More fair for me, because I wont get my country pillaged while some of them are easily promoting their troops. I'm pretty sure a lot of people here play with raging barbs on only because they will rush great wall asap. That's almost an exploit.

The so-called "fairness" is actually a more complex issue than what people believe. People claim they will just restart another game if their games are terminated by a random event for the sake of not cheating. That's fine, but to me and probably many players the ultimate goal of playing a game is still to have fun. I don't see any fun if I play a chess game in a place with a silly house rule allows 3 additional opponent queens to randomly pop up near my king. If you enjoy games like that then go ahead.

Do you have fun if, instead of you, it happens with your opponent ? I dont. That's why I turn it off. Taking risk is sometimes part of the fun, that's why I turn the random events on. But I cant accept the risk of ruining my game just because the barbs feature is unbalanced.

Good point there about Raging Barbs + Great Wall. Nobody fights them the "hard way", because that would mean you lose, at least on higher difficulties (maybe unless the map is crowded and not much fog left after a short while).

I still play with normal barbs and random events, because I think it adds some flavour to the game. The only reason why I was writing about the Horse Archer event here was because I think it happened way too early to be manageable; I was just lucky of not having founded my second city yet at that point.

Having animals and barbarians on the map forces you to guard your settlers, and at least build some minimal defense. If you turn them off completely expansion becomes too easy in my eyes. The AI is very reliable not to attack early, so you can skip military almost completely until a well defined point in time when you have to start guarding against neighbouring civs.

Another point about the Great Wall, by the way: certain tactics involving GP generation do not work if you build the Wall early. For example, if you want to generate an early Great Engineer (to build an expensive Wonder or get early Machinery, for example) you must avoid getting an early Great Prophet (or Great Spy). Your first Great Person must be an Engineer (otherwise you delay the process by too long and the tactic becomes far weaker).

Actually, barb activity is mainly designed to target human players, as the AIs have insane bonus against the barbs and they start with archery and a free archer on higher levels. So by turning off the barb activity, you're actually playing an easier game.

<snip>

Barb activity targetted the human player all the time pre-BtS, however this was changed with BtS making the barbarians much fairer. Plus, the bonuses AIs get against barbs are (as far as I know) equivalent to the bonuses humans get on Noble (excluding the free archer/archery)

I have a question here, and maybe it is answered by the fact you are playing monarch. Don't two other civs have to have knowledge of the tech before that event can happen? I don't really play cov anymore, so I can't remember what they start out with on monarch. That usually stops most gamebreaking things from happening. of course the archer one sucks, but the rest I never had a problem combating.

Then again, you could always just gift yourself every tech there is in 4000BC with WB mode.

Or, go into WB at 4000BC, gift yourself three cities, pump them to legendary culture, BOOM. Turn 1, game over you win. This game is just too easy sometimes.

interesting. The event is there, all know it is there, so one would think that knowing this one would be prepared and - as stated- beeline for archery and have a defense. Using the world builder and then saying its not cheating is delusional. :scan:

I usually just start over, but it's a bum event, IMO.

The opening that allows someone to survive a barb uprising is very, very far from optimal otherwise. Archery SHOULD be gotten somewhat early on higher levels, but before either BW or AH? Usually you'd take one of those first.

The real problem is, though, that while the human might build all-out to stop a potential barb uprising, the AI NEVER will. (on higher difficulties, it's starting bonuses can trump the archers somewhat, too). The AI doesn't care if it loses, it will play the same way and potentially outrun a player who grabs tons of archers before worker techs.

My opening build is usually worker techs, then either archery or bronze, and I've been screwed by a 2950 barb uprising before...4 archers in 2950 BC is too early!!! I got archery before bronze working and still lost! (you can't whip w/o slavery!). RNG didn't help my cause, but still.

You can set the Vedic event to "0" percent chance of happening in the appropriate Events xml file and that should keep it from happening...

Barb activity targetted the human player all the time pre-BtS, however this was changed with BtS making the barbarians much fairer. Plus, the bonuses AIs get against barbs are (as far as I know) equivalent to the bonuses humans get on Noble (excluding the free archer/archery)

Not true. If you go to the xml, you'll find the AIs have 70% bonus vs animals, 40% vs barbs on all levels. Human players have 40/30/20/10/5% (noble/prince/monarch/emperor/immortal) bonus vs animals, 10/5/0/0/0 % bonus vs barbs. That's why you frequently see an AI scout defeats a bear, much less often for human players (esp. I generally play monarch). Two AI archer as city defenders can handle the barb event a lot of time.

In BtS, the barbs are smarter and they frequently walk past a fogbuster fortified on hill. A lot of time I have to attack the barbs instead of waiting for their suicides. The bonus means a lot.

Regarding the great wall/raging barb gimmick, I'm talking about barb activity in general, turning off barb activity generally helps human players way more. Raging barb are for players who want challenges, not an exploit. Choosing raging barb and then rush building the Great Wall is not much different from playing Huayna in a small duel map and then handpick a non-protective, non-creative AI and go for a quecha rush. Not much point even you get an immortal victory "legally".

I've just read that there is a grace period of 20 turns at the beginning of the game during which no random events happen, but this DOES NOT SCALE WITH GAME SPEED. So on Epic and Marathon speeds you get those events much earlier, on average, which makes some of the events (such as this one) rather unbalanced.

Probably I'm going to turn this event off in the XML, thanks for the pointer.

Not true. If you go to the xml, you'll find the AIs have 70% bonus vs animals, 40% vs barbs on all levels. Human players have 40/30/20/10/5% (noble/prince/monarch/emperor/immortal) bonus vs animals, 10/5/0/0/0 % bonus vs barbs. That's why you frequently see an AI scout defeats a bear, much less often for human players (esp. I generally play monarch). Two AI archer as city defenders can handle the barb event a lot of time. <snip>

I'm much more disappointed with BtS now...

I'm much more disappointed with BtS now...

I correct my post. :blush: After patching the AI animal/barb bonuses been toned down to 40/25% instead of 70/40%. Still quite significant if you play higher levels, but roughly more on a leveled field on noble.

I take my post back then! :D

yea, but remember, AI needs the help....AI doesnt know how to rush Great Wall, humans do

yea, but remember, AI needs the help....AI doesnt know how to rush Great Wall, humans do
That is not a valid reason. AI in warlords didn't knew how to break cultural defenses with siege... now it does ( now someone should teach them to not make a pro formae siege if the garrison is small enough to tacke :lol: ). Why not teaching AI to rush the GW? Far easier IMHO....

Why not teaching AI to rush the GW? Far easier IMHO....

If they did that, the game would be that much harder. Can't have that. :scan:

You can always lower the AI bonuses....

yea, but remember, AI needs the help....AI doesnt know how to rush Great Wall, humans do

If an AI that like building wonders starts with stone, how exactly do you propose a human is going to beat them to the Great Wall?

yea, but remember, AI needs the help....AI doesnt know how to rush Great Wall, humans do

They do too know how to rush the great wall. I see industrious ones get it in like 2500 BC.

They do too know how to rush the great wall. I see industrious ones get it in like 2500 BC.

Yep. Give Ramesses stone and he'll have both the Great Wall and Pyramids really early.

Not just industrious leaders, actually almost all peaceniks, esp Ghandi, Huayna, Ramses, Hatsy and Pericles would rush for wonders at the cost of building very few military units. Since when I start play "normally" (ie. build units early consistently, build enough workers) I have never been able to get Stonehenge. The AIs usually get it before 2800BC in most of my games