I always feel sorry for the poor barbarians. They are a pushover at all times. Its annoying when you think of the Barbarians sacking Rome in antiquity reduced to meandering goons who cant hit the side of a mountain.

Whats the best way in the civ editor to give them some "oomph" but not totally unbalance the game? I've never used the editor but this is annoying me. :D

I assign the Swordsman unit as the default foot barbarian and the Knight as the default mounted. I then reduce the attack bonus against barbarians from 800 to around 400.

Have fun!

If you have PTW, I use the medieval infantry as the basic, the Keshik as the mountedI and the privateer as the sea unit.
I couldn't be happier :)


Oh, in the editor, under general settings, you'll see a list of drop down menues. This is where you select the barbarian units you want :)
I'm not sure if you have to but it's a good idea, in 'units, to highlite 'barbarians' in the 'available to' list.

Originally posted by COAtlantis1745
I assign the Swordsman unit as the default foot barbarian and the Knight as the default mounted. I then reduce the attack bonus against barbarians from 800 to around 400.

Have fun!

Better yet, create a new unit that's only available to the barbs. You can give any stats you like without unbalanceing the other units.

Originally posted by Willem
Better yet, create a new unit that's only available to the barbs. You can give any stats you like without unbalanceing the other units.

That's my favorite solution. For a while I was playing with dino barbs using the Extra graphics from PTW. Gallimus for the warrior, Parasaur for the horseman, and Anklyosaur for the galley (yeah, it has legs but it's the flattest of the bunch ;))

Thanks for the tips. Are there more units you can assign to them like Artillery? Or is it just the three types, footman, horseman and sea vessel?

Insert plug for my unit here <-

The Tusken Raider would make a great unique barbarian footman. ;)

Originally posted by Greyhawk1
Thanks for the tips. Are there more units you can assign to them like Artillery? Or is it just the three types, footman, horseman and sea vessel?

In terms of random game-generated barbarians you are limited to the 3 kinds (2 types of land units and a sea unit). When creating a scenario, though, you can place pretty much anything you want on the map as a barbarian. The only caveat is once they die, they're gone for good as only the previous 3 spawn randomly.

Since the 'advanced barbarian' (horseman) apparently doesn't appear until least 2 civs have Horseback Riding, you could maybe create greater distance between the 2 barbs in tech level and maybe have a guerilla as the advanced barb.

It shouldn't appear until at least 2 civs have Replaceable parts if I'm not mistaken, so there wouldn't be a prob with guerillas takin' out your spearman.

This is just a conclusion from what I've read about the trigger for appearance of barb horseman, so it may not work.http://www.emotipad.com/emoticons/Ponder.gif

Interesting on the appearance trigger. Unfortunately, for me at least, modern barbs are useless because aside from one game early in my civ3 career where I decided to raze all the AI cities in quest of a conquest victory without pesky domination showing up, I don't see barbs much after 1 AD...

I love the idea of Barbarians that are a major feature of the game. In SMAC the 'Planet' hidden civ remained a pain in the butt all the way through to the end of the game. In Civ3 they are a minor annoyance in 4000BC and disappear entirely before long.

I want Barbs to be able to capture cities! Use sophisticated weaponry later and be a genuine threat to a civ's survival. In the modern age replace 'Barbarian' with 'Terrorists' or something similar.

In the final years of the game I want at least one random barb camp to have a Tactical Nuke in a one of a kind attack on a random civ! Just for the added tension :D

I like your ideas Greyhawk! Did you play the GOTM for Rome last month? If you didn't, maybe that could give you some ideas for 'game balance'. In that game, Barbarians had horsemen, warriors, jaguar warriors, and squids as their units, and it added for some more interesting gameplay. Made the middle 'divider' continent rather difficult to tackle until you had Musketmen or better (which I never did because I started losing too soon :( ).

Originally posted by Greyhawk1
Thanks for the tips. Are there more units you can assign to them like Artillery? Or is it just the three types, footman, horseman and sea vessel?

The only choices you can have will be found on the General Settings page of the editor. But that's limited to just three selections, by default the three types you mentioned. They're labeled "Basic Barbarian", "Advanced Barbarian" and Barbarian Sea Unit."

Originally posted by pdescobar


That's my favorite solution. For a while I was playing with dino barbs using the Extra graphics from PTW. Gallimus for the warrior, Parasaur for the horseman, and Anklyosaur for the galley (yeah, it has legs but it's the flattest of the bunch ;))

Doing that also has the advantage of letting you see clearly that they're Barbarians, and not some other civ's units.

Originally posted by Greyhawk1
In SMAC the 'Planet' hidden civ remained a pain in the butt all the way through to the end of the game. In Civ3 they are a minor annoyance in 4000BC and disappear entirely before long.


Unless you were playing as Gaian, then they were more of a "recruitment challenge". I agree with you though, I think the Barbs in Civ III should have been more of a force to be reckoned with. As it is, they're more of a nuisance than anything else.

i think the barbarian camps should upgrade whenever you make contact with them.

Ex: a camp produces warriors, then when you discover the camp it begins to produce archers, next time horsemen, then knights, and so on.

this way camps on remoted islands wont get advanced, and camps near you borders will become a serious threat.

I'd like them to be able to do exactly what AI and Human civs do, right down to building 'bases' rather than cities. Even strengthening them and fortifying them much like the advanced players here play the One City campaign. Just the one base on a far island thats had a few thousand years to develop before you encounter it!

Imagine coming across a barb camp with a ring of heavily defended forts surrounding it with artillery and all the bells and whistles :worship:

That'd certainly put the sh!ts up some smart alec civ on the hunt for 25gp heh heh... :mwaha:

I'd like them to be able to do exactly what AI and Human civs do, right down to building 'bases' rather than cities. Even strengthening them and fortifying them much like the advanced players here play the One City campaign. Just the one base on a far island thats had a few thousand years to develop before you encounter it!

Imagine coming across a barb camp with a ring of heavily defended forts surrounding it with artillery and all the bells and whistles :worship:

That'd certainly put the sh!ts up some smart alec civ on the hunt for 25gp heh heh... :mwaha: