Grmpf.

My first word on these forums was "grmpf". Great...

Right, to the point: Barbarian supremacy. :deadhorse:

Don't misunderstand me, I don't think the barbarians are difficult to deafeat or dangerous. At all. But, they are extremely annoying. And in many games they play a major role in who gets a good start and who does not. They are simply a too dominant factor in many games. This annoys me greatly. Especially in multiplayer where fighting barbarians while others build up their infrastructure is a good way to lose the game early. And I tire of fighting off hordes of seamingly random amoeba roaming my country from all sides from 1500 BC to 500 AD. It is boring.

Yes, I know there is a switch to disable barbarians. But that is no fun, it is too extreme. The munchkins are cheering for it!

Yes, I know you can fill up the map with other AI to the point of you throwing up because there is a chinese, french, zulu or marsian every 10 plots from your capital city. I want a little lebensraum!

Yes, I know you can choose small islands knowing everything in advance, etc. where everybody play a Financial leader and bumrush for all coastal wonders and astronomy. It is like fondling your buttocks with a pitchfork.

What do I want exactly? The answer is simple: balanced barbarians. :deal:

Is it possible to turn down the insane spawn rate, but still have them around? Why must the barbarians have an army 10 times greater than the mongolian hordes? At this point in the game, the barbarians are either: Simply not there, religiously annoying or the omnipresent spirit of the land.

Can we have 25 % spawn rate? 50 %? 10 %

Is there any secret stratigy, hidden deep within scary vaults, I am not aware of? Any tips or stratigies to help reduce this problem without "misusing" game settings to fit my needs where I get the sour taste of cheating in my mouth?

I would most likely worship the dirt walked on by the person who can direct me to a toggle somewhere inside a xml-file which can allow me to play the game the way I want without feeling gay. :bowdown:

the Great Wall will stop them. In MP take Babylon- good barb killers and can take on enemy melee. If neither of those suggestions strike you then beeline to archery and spam archery fog busting guerilla promoted sentry attack units.
if this is insufficient then get to Horseback Riding asap and use thse to attack barbs, gain experience and march against your human opponents.
In Attacko's guide to Multi-Player he suggests playing against real young inexperienced players that want a peaceful building game, and you pretend to play along saying stuff like , the Collossus is a cool wonder to build, but really your building a giant stack and start killing everyone and watch them
quit.

It is like fondling your buttocks with a pitchfork.

That is all.

PS: Simple, useful and clever options are not game designers' forte.

I think faster speeds make it easier.

the Great Wall will stop them

I always play with raging barbs and beeline masonry to get the GW, that way the A.I. can see what a barb attack is like since they like to just pass up on A.I. cities to attack me

I think faster speeds make it easier.
Yeah, i by accidentally did quick once instead of my usual marathon and i saw few barbs, a big waste building the GW this time

I always play with raging barbs and beeline masonry to get the GW, that way the A.I. can see what a barb attack is like since they like to just pass up on A.I. cities to attack me
That's almost cheating. Doesn't stop me from doing it though.:mischief:

Chariots My Friend, Chariots

Hell, even archers. Just make like 3 and put them out there. Lots less hammers than a GW, and the forward garrison troops can eventually be used either for new cities or HR :).

What barb unit beats a fortified archer on a hill?

If you're me, a warrior attacking you at .07% odds, but otherwise you're usually golden with a couple fogbusters.

If you start SURROUNDED ON ALL SIDES BY NOTHING BUT OPEN LAND, I'd recommend the GW, and making sure you remembered to put AIs in your game.

An axe can beat your fortified archer on a hill some of the time. A sword or HA can do it most of the time. Takes a bit for those to show up but still.

An axe can beat your fortified archer on a hill some of the time. A sword or HA can do it most of the time. Takes a bit for those to show up but still.

The only time those show up before I tend to get boxed in by the AI is in isolated starts, and even then pretty rarely. I think I tend to settle or capture cities faster than you as I usually hate making wonders though, so that could factor in.

If it comes to an AI city with 8 units vs another barb horse archer, I'd generally pick the horse archer. Those go away.

Besides, an archer with 3 promos will still fare ok, and they often have them ;). HA's are a pain though. I hate that barb event, but not as much as I hate game-breaking imba barb archers pre-3k.

Look into CIV4HandicapInfo.xml and modify some of the following values for your difficulty level:

Settler:
<iFreeWinsVsBarbs>5</iFreeWinsVsBarbs>
<iAnimalAttackProb>0</iAnimalAttackProb>
...
<iUnownedTilesPerGameAnimal>100</iUnownedTilesPerGameAnimal>
<iUnownedTilesPerBarbarianUnit>150</iUnownedTilesPerBarbarianUnit>
<iUnownedWaterTilesPerBarbarianUnit>3000</iUnownedWaterTilesPerBarbarianUnit>
<iUnownedTilesPerBarbarianCity>160</iUnownedTilesPerBarbarianCity>
<iBarbarianCreationTurnsElapsed>50</iBarbarianCreationTurnsElapsed>
<iBarbarianCityCreationTurnsElapsed>55</iBarbarianCityCreationTurnsElapsed>
<iBarbarianCityCreationProb>4</iBarbarianCityCreationProb>
<iAnimalBonus>-70</iAnimalBonus>
<iBarbarianBonus>-40</iBarbarianBonus>
<iAIAnimalBonus>-70</iAIAnimalBonus>
<iAIBarbarianBonus>-40</iAIBarbarianBonus>

Deity:
<iFreeWinsVsBarbs>0</iFreeWinsVsBarbs>
<iAnimalAttackProb>100</iAnimalAttackProb>
...
<iUnownedTilesPerGameAnimal>20</iUnownedTilesPerGameAnimal>
<iUnownedTilesPerBarbarianUnit>25</iUnownedTilesPerBarbarianUnit>
<iUnownedWaterTilesPerBarbarianUnit>1000</iUnownedWaterTilesPerBarbarianUnit>
<iUnownedTilesPerBarbarianCity>80</iUnownedTilesPerBarbarianCity>
<iBarbarianCreationTurnsElapsed>10</iBarbarianCreationTurnsElapsed>
<iBarbarianCityCreationTurnsElapsed>15</iBarbarianCityCreationTurnsElapsed>
<iBarbarianCityCreationProb>8</iBarbarianCityCreationProb>
<iAnimalBonus>0</iAnimalBonus>
<iBarbarianBonus>0</iBarbarianBonus>
<iAIAnimalBonus>-70</iAIAnimalBonus>
<iAIBarbarianBonus>-40</iAIBarbarianBonus>


<iBarbarianCreationTurnsElapsed> and <iUnownedTilesPerBarbarianUnit> are probably the ones to tweak and still feel like a man.


My favourite way to handle barbs are sentry promoted Chariots on hills (out of barracks they only need one successful fight). Those bust the most fog (49 tiles in open terrain).

I want a little lebensraum!

Upon rereading my post I thought it was too condescending, so I edited it. I'd just like to point out that the word lebensraum carries, at least for some people, a strong connection with the group of people who first used it. As I assume that nobody wants to be associated to the Nazi's, using this term has its demerits. In particular, reading this sentence upset me personally (though I do not want to exaggerate, it was not that bad), and I would not assume this was the purpose of the OP. This was also the reason of the first somewhat exaggerated response. (Note to self, never post when emotionally upset).

As for Firewind's response below: The problem with the term is exactly that it is the German word. If the OP had used a direct English translation (living space or breathing room or some such, which are just as convenient), I would never have been reminded of Nazi Germany and its horrors.

As for barbarians: you do realize what brought down the roman empire, don't you ;), so barbarians being a pain is not that unrealistic.

Just a quick point, aimed at Celebithil in defense of the OP, 'Lebensraum' means literally 'Living space'. It's hardly offensive.

What Hitler did to get it was offensive, yes, but then if you're going to make tenuous links like that, well Hitler breathed, so we should all stop. :crazyeye:

As for the topic at hand: Barbarians are irritating, yes, but I find them to be handy now and then. Say, training targets for my growing stack of doom.

Barbarians do not scale well with longer games. I find they spawn at about the same interval on marathon as they do on standard. Really annoying. Other than editing the .xml files, no help here.

Oh, and welcome to the forum.

As said before, fogbusting helps. REXing might to some extent (Rapid EXpansion), since you will then be covering more land. Else, try picking a leader with one of the following traits: Aggressive, Protective, Creative.

Or ofcourse, the GW.

No personal offense meant, but please read http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lebensraum and don't use the word lebensraum in this sense anymore. I know you probably don't mean it that way, but using one of the excuses for one of the most horrible plans humans have ever contrived as something you want, is bound to offend some people.
Well, I'd say the usage is correct. After all, we are expanding our own empire at the expense of others (barbarians or other civs).

Nazi Germany did some horribly offensive things. "Expanding your empire through bloodshed, rape and plunder" isn't one of those things, though. It's been done by almost all successful empires throughout history for chrissake! (It's offensive, but not more offensive than when the Persians or Romans or English did it; certainly not to them, possibly to us)

Of course, if anyone think the OP selected the word "lebensraum" instead of "expanding your empire through bloodshed, rape and plunder" because he wanted to include the connotations of Holocaust, I believe that person would be... wrong.

Lebensraum is simply a one-word shorthand of writing all of that, that's incredibly convenient to use.

Especially since this is a game! I don't think anyone playing it believes real people suffer, so let's keep the hyperbole and the real-world analogies to a minimum?

Thanks :cool:

Get bronze working. Build axemen. No copper?
Get animal husbandry and the wheel. No horses?
Get archery. Or if you're playing at a higher level start by getting archery then try for one of the others... it's good practice to start building lots of units early anyway.

Well, many good ideas here. Thanks.

As mentioned, I am aware of and can handle barbarians quite well. I just find it extremely annoying and uninteresting as well as too unfair and random in multiplayer games.

Thus, editing the xml-file is exactly what I wanted. Thank you very much! I hope you don't live in Norway since mopping up the dust where you step might be nearly as annoying as barbarians in the long run..

Upon rereading my post I thought it was too condescending, so I edited it. I'd just like to point out that the word lebensraum carries, at least for some people, a strong connection with the group of people who first used it. As I assume that nobody wants to be associated to the Nazi's, using this term has its demerits. In particular, reading this sentence upset me personally (though I do not want to exaggerate, it was not that bad), and I would not assume this was the purpose of the OP. This was also the reason of the first somewhat exaggerated response. (Note to self, never post when emotionally upset).

As for Firewind's response below: The problem with the term is exactly that it is the German word. If the OP had used a direct English translation (living space or breathing room or some such, which are just as convenient), I would never have been reminded of Nazi Germany and its horrors.
Lebensraum is not a nazi word, its a german word. Big difference.

Im danish and my old granpa helped the resistence fight the nazis all those years back. And we use the occasional german word in my family in some situations.

To me "lebensraum" has a distinctive meaning that works better than "space" or "breathing room". Its one of the words i might use myself in real life. Why does it upset you so much?

Upon rereading my post I thought it was too condescending, so I edited it. I'd just like to point out that the word lebensraum carries, at least for some people, a strong connection with the group of people who first used it. As I assume that nobody wants to be associated to the Nazi's, using this term has its demerits. In particular, reading this sentence upset me personally (though I do not want to exaggerate, it was not that bad), and I would not assume this was the purpose of the OP. This was also the reason of the first somewhat exaggerated response. (Note to self, never post when emotionally upset).

As for Firewind's response below: The problem with the term is exactly that it is the German word. If the OP had used a direct English translation (living space or breathing room or some such, which are just as convenient), I would never have been reminded of Nazi Germany and its horrors.

As for barbarians: you do realize what brought down the roman empire, don't you ;), so barbarians being a pain is not that unrealistic.

This must be the least scary looking troll I have seen in years... :trophy:

Well, many good ideas here. Thanks.

As mentioned, I am aware of and can handle barbarians quite well. I just find it extremely annoying and uninteresting as well as too unfair and random in multiplayer games.

Thus, editing the xml-file is exactly what I wanted. Thank you very much! I hope you don't live in Norway since mopping up the dust where you step might be nearly as annoying as barbarians in the long run..

Now I don't actually know how the Civ MP games work, but often, if both parties don't have the same files, MP games just don't work.

So be absolutely sure to take back-ups of the edited files.

The Barbarians could definitely be improved: before the civs are established, they tend to be an ever-present danger, threatening to extinguish them. Later, not so much. (it overdoes the Barbarians of e.g. the Greek Archaic period, but Civ Barbs would never destroy the Roman Empire..) Even Aggbarbs on Terra maps will often result in nothing very much in the new world.
Aggressive Barbs do not really help - more dangerous in the beginning, a bit more nuisance later.. And the Barbarian events of BtS are pissing people of (esp. in MP).
It would feel better, if barbarians would only really appear in masses, when civs are established (esp. having had a chance to reach metals without rushing for them)

Considering the Lebensraum term: Although it has been defiled by the Nazis to a degree (and would'nt really fit there in a German context either, breathing space/ Luft zum Atmen would be preferred).
I find it funny that people are complaining about the term, when it is used as a game reference - the same people will probably rush their neighbours while in slavery to gain control of this/their living space.. (and in this sense, it is very much the meaning that the Nazis gave the word :rolleyes:) Using such a word in an otherwise English text only amplifies the irritation, btw..

If they get to be a problem I make a horse archer and keep him in the middle of my empire. He can get to where I suspect the barb is going and kill him before it does any damage. The vedic aryan uprising is all you have to worry about, and if you get it, you won't be worried for long. They'll just kill your only city and you lose.

If they get to be a problem I make a horse archer and keep him in the middle of my empire. He can get to where I suspect the barb is going and kill him before it does any damage. The vedic aryan uprising is all you have to worry about, and if you get it, you won't be worried for long. They'll just kill your only city and you lose.

I'm pretty sure the archer uprising will own you in 3000 BC. I DARE you to have horse archers by then somehow. If you can do it tell me because I will win on deity routinely if there's a way to do that!

I'm pretty sure the archer uprising will own you in 3000 BC. I DARE you to have horse archers by then somehow. If you can do it tell me because I will win on deity routinely if there's a way to do that!

:agree:

How about Attila? My god, I would like to see you defending your empire against those 6 Horsearchers with one yourself.

Upon rereading my post I thought it was too condescending, so I edited it. I'd just like to point out that the word lebensraum carries, at least for some people, a strong connection with the group of people who first used it.

There is a common moral fallacy that if someone uses a term like lebensraum, in its nazi context, that that person must also be a nazi - absolute idiocy.

Any use of the word lebensraum in civ is used in exactly that context, and rightly so. You are conquering territory for population which was Adolfs stated aim when he used the term (although he was not the first - German people spoke German long before he was born).

In fact I would be worried at anyone who did NOT see the nazi context of expanding territory to allow increased population. There are clauses in the Geneva Convention that specifically recognise the sheer nastiness of occupying someone else territory with your civilians.

Civ is a war-game, not war, and anyone getting these confused needs to check themselves out.

(Note to self, never post when emotionally upset).

Always a good idea... I'll get around to that myself one day :D

Hitler was not the first to use the word lebensraum. it was coined in 1897 by Friedrich Ratzel and was one of the main objectives of the Germans in WW1 let alone WW2.

Try to think of the Barbs as just free exp points, which are there so that your early units would sufficiently promoted by the time of your first war.

As for the more intriguing discussion in this thread, I for one find it surprising that the English language does not have a good word for "lebensraum" and has had to incorporate this German expression.

It must be that the British Empire was really created as an accident, by peaceful sailors who roamed the seas playing harmonicas - partly out of innocent curiosity, partly because they really wanted to get away from the ugly broads waiting for them at home? :hmm:

Well, at least they invented the term "concentration camp". :splat:

Or maybe we should find the word "Manhattan" offensive? Think of all those poor Japanese civilians...

I am not sure where I want to get. I guess it just pisses me off that some people feel self-righteous enough to be upset when being simply reminded about some historical period - even if said "reminder" is free of any specific attitude or context.

I'm personally of the opinion that the stance 'That's connected to the Nazis and the Nazis were horrific so don't even speak of it!' is just a step away from censoring the war entirely.

'Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it.'
-George Santayana

Yes. WWII was horrific.
Yes. The Nazis were bad people (or rather, they turned into bad people).
Yes, Hitler was a nutcase (or rather, turned into one; he was a brilliant leader when he wasn't, y'know, killing the Jewish and such)

Should we thus forget WWII ever happened and hope to move on? No.

Success only comes from good experience, which only comes from bad experience. If we can allow this generation, and the next generation, and so on and so on to learn from past generations' mistakes, maybe there'll be a little hope for the future.

*/soapbox*

Sorry, I think I've been hanging around my political friends too much :crazyeye:

'Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it.' one of the most over-used and incorrect phrases of all time. right wingers in america are fond of saying it. It should state "we are doomed to repeat it"

'Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it.' one of the most over-used and incorrect phrases of all time. right wingers in america are fond of saying it. It should state "we are doomed to repeat it"

Well I'm neither a right-winger nor an American, so I don't know the state of play over there, but far as I'm concerned (and have been taught), learning from mistakes lets you grow stronger and wiser. *shrugs* If you can learn from somebody else's mistakes, then you save yourself those problems.

I only used the quote because I considered it fairly relevant; I wasn't trying to attach any special significance to it beyond exactly what (I think/thought) it means(/t).

What is the problem with barbarians? All you need is extra military.

Although I do admit, I would like to see some barbs acting more intelligently -- makes the game interesting.