Barbarians balance

First there are 2 defenders in the city (one spearman and one archer) and in my game I lost something, must be a bug specialy preogrammed for me.
Second researching masonry was not a priority (I play William and my priority is to improve resources I can exchange and I have no marble).
Third it was just an example to say that they can move and loot without having be seen before and said at this level it's my fault.
 
Strec said:
First there are 2 defenders in the city (one spearman and one archer) and in my game I lost something, must be a bug specialy preogrammed for me.
Second researching masonry was not a priority (I play William and my priority is to improve resources I can exchange and I have no marble).
Third it was just an example to say that they can move and loot without having be seen before and said at this level it's my fault.
Click to expand...

I meant defender as in a unit standing in front of the city. providing ZoC so the horseman can't run up to the city.

I personally usually go for masonry as soon as I've grabbed relevant resource-revealing techs. Walls are great both for reducing unhappiness and for scaring off attackers. Stone-works is also pretty damn good assuming you have any resource that allows building it.
By the way, how did you manage to improve that quarry northeast of your city without masonry?

Also how could you possibly have two defenders in one city when there is a one unit per tile limit in the game? :D
 
I agree, and said it, it's my fault on this action, I would have the spearman in front of city, I did set it in town because it was very damaged on my precedent attack but I would have put it outside at 2/3 healed.

I use Howard 3 units in town.

Concerning the masonry I did take it after all the others I did need to improve my resources (the gameplay of William is based on trading resources).

I repeat that it was just an example to show how you can be surprised at begining. At this step of the game I've no problem to manage this attack.

Note for Gazebo : it's an extreme situation and will rarely happens, I did add a lot of disavantage :
  • Poped on a big island without city-state to be attacked by barbarians
  • 2 camps on the 2 opposed extremity of the territory with 10 hard terrain between them and me
  • No neighbors on the island so no contact to exchange ressource and no gold income

But I persist to say that barbarian evolution is not enough linear, too strong at start and not enough later :)
 
Try this:

Huge map
Raging barbs
Terra
Marathon
Polynesia

First turn, embark your settler (reroll if off coast), set sails to new world.
Then you have a couple hundred turns of chasing barbarians across the continent. Chosing might is very much advised...

If you pick might, you will get much more value out from killing barbarians than they could ever do harm to you. Heck, they don`t even pillage your tiles any more, they just loot your cities for neglectible amounts and just vanish.
 
Strec said:
The second point is that I think they may begin to take sea control (so construct naval units) before, maybe as soon as first civ discovers fishing. It would counter the scout facility to move from land to an other and give a risk on that sooner.
Click to expand...

Naval barbs are the bigger balance issue, IMO. It takes awhile to get even a couple naval combat units out because building up some land units to protect your workers and settlers will always be the first priority. Combine that with the fact that you shouldn't build fishing boats until you have some naval units to protect them from being pillaged by a stray barb ship, and it can take, IMO, a lot longer than it should to improve sea resources around your capital. This gives land resource heavy starts an intrinsic edge over sea resource heavy starts.
 
As I said, barbs don`t tend to pillage improvement. Usually they just pillage your cities and disapear after that. In the rare cases where they surbvive, they are so damaged, that the city can finish them. It´s true for water tiles as well.
The only thing that is really vulnerable are external trade routes.
 
With CBP I've never seen a fishing boat pillaged and I not often seen a tile pillaged. It seems the first goal of barbarians is to loot cities.

So the situation is worst because it's very hard to defend coastal cities.
 
Strec said:
With CBP I've never seen a fishing boat pillaged and I not often seen a tile pillaged. It seems the first goal of barbarians is to loot cities.

So the situation is worst because it's very hard to defend coastal cities.
Click to expand...

Barbs can't pillage fishing boats.
 
I do love the mental image I have of barbarian horsemen. Frequently, they'll come from out of nowhere and pillage something and then plow themselves into the capital, killing themselves. It's like they're meteorites of meat and horse coming from out of the sky to mess your day up.
 
Finbez said:
I do love the mental image I have of barbarian horsemen. Frequently, they'll come from out of nowhere and pillage something and then plow themselves into the capital, killing themselves. It's like they're meteorites of meat and horse coming from out of the sky to mess your day up.
Click to expand...

That's how I feel as well, but that's a perfect metaphor there
 
Finbez said:
I do love the mental image I have of barbarian horsemen. Frequently, they'll come from out of nowhere and pillage something and then plow themselves into the capital, killing themselves. It's like they're meteorites of meat and horse coming from out of the sky to mess your day up.
Click to expand...

Hahahah great comparison indeed :D

Barbs can't pillage fishing boats.
Click to expand...

Oh, that's huge. This means that after you use fishing boat, your improvements are safe from barbarians?
 
Finarvi said:
Oh, that's huge. This means that after you use fishing boat, your improvements are safe from barbarians?
Click to expand...

Barbs couldn't pillage fishingboats in vanilla either from what I remember, not really that huge considering how expensive waterimprovements are compared to landimprovements.
 
I did have an idea about defensive structures (walls, barracks, castles, military academy, etc..) they each add +1 tile range where barbs can't spawn camps near your city outside of your line of sight. Gives you more time to prepare (your borders are better patrolled) and if your neighbors didn't build those structures well they can enjoy that.
 
Hawawaa said:
I did have an idea about defensive structures (walls, barracks, castles, military academy, etc..) they each add +1 tile range where barbs can't spawn camps near your city outside of your line of sight. Gives you more time to prepare (your borders are better patrolled) and if your neighbors didn't build those structures well they can enjoy that.
Click to expand...

Sounds really complicated, is it just based on the city's vision or based on units spawned from that city. If the unit is between two cities and one of them doesn't have walls, which range can't the barbs spawn from?

However, maybe walls and castles should give you extra sight from city? that would solve the problem, at least somewhat.
 
Hawawaa said:
I did have an idea about defensive structures (walls, barracks, castles, military academy, etc..) they each add +1 tile range where barbs can't spawn camps near your city outside of your line of sight. Gives you more time to prepare (your borders are better patrolled) and if your neighbors didn't build those structures well they can enjoy that.
Click to expand...

That's unfortunately untenable from a performance standpoint. That'd be so many plotdistance checks...

G
 
I noticed today that barbarian archers that are stationed in the villages (stay-put, not roam) (possibly hand-axes I didn't check) get to shoot you AND heal each turn. Normally if you take an action/move you don't get to heal. I'm fine that barbs get to heal, for example, when that barb spearman is just chilling out fortified in the camp. But getting to shoot me and heal is bogus. If they get the first shot, they'll actually kill your archer on a blow-for-blow shoot-out. If you get the first shot, you'll barely survive with a few HP remaining. Ugh!
 
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