Lake Barbarians

Kev

Hired Goon
Joined
Feb 23, 2001
Messages
1,895
Location
Ringwood, NJ USA
I had something happen in a game of mine recently that made me giggle.

I had the barb level set to "raging hordes", but I had no idea that they could be so creative.

On my main continent, I had a few places where I had "lakes" - you know - one square of water that is totally surrounded by land. There was no possible way to get a ship there, but wouldn't you know it, a red frigate just popped up there in the lake and proceeded to offload dragoons right next to a city and attack.

What did these guys do, rise up from the bottom of the lake like the Loch Ness Monster or something?

I hadn't seen this in a long time, but I know it's happened before. Anyone else think it's pretty silly?

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Diplomacy - the art of
saying "Good Doggie"
until you can find a rock
 
Finally, could this be an explanation for ai "pond fish"? They *obviously* build ships in pond-side and leave them stranded in one-tile ponds to protect from those barbarians! All those who thought the ai was stupid don't realize the true depth of their strategy.
 
I've had the same "lake attack" before... haven't apent a great deal of time with it, but I once took a look at a game from the barbarian's point of view to see if an obvious pattern was particularly obvious in the map of the known 'barbarian world'... after a few minutes, no pattern was evident and it wasn't important anyway for my own style of play, so I haven't revisited it.

Considering how wild the AI is with attacking units and cities with the Frigate... I don't think I've ever noted the barbs to use a Frigate to shell a city, nor even a unit along the shore. Anyone noted a barb Frigate shelling before?
 
I once had a barb frigate attack a settler unit that was working along the coast.

The lake barbs are acctually highly advanced and use transporters to move from their secret shipyard to the lakes within your borders.
 
It just goes to show with the barbs - make something Foolproof and they will make a better fool

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- Greenie

" Let us take by
cunning what we would
take by force"
 
What's even more amusing is when this happens before 1 a.d., and there isn't even a city close enough to trigger an unloading of the barbarians. Then about 1900 years later, you build a city close enough to trigger an unloading, and you have a couple of Armor units at the ready to defend against those nasty red legions! An example "pond fish" en extremis
 
There are barbarian "spawning" squares. I don't know if there are any changes over the course of the game.. but unless you cover it in some fashion they will continue to respawn there.

Dog
 
Put a road and/or irrigation on potential or proven spawning squares. I've never seen a brab come out of a roaded square, and I think I've seen a post from someone else observing the same thing, too.
 
I have had single island cities bombarded by the barbarian frigates. However, they lost and the 4 or 5 units on board sank too.
 
I remember many, many months ago when this happened:

There was a 4-square lake, surrounded by mountains, on my western frontier, in which a barbarian trireme appeared and unloaded two legions.

I killed the legions when they came close, and proceeded to explore.

I found two funny things:
1) That lake wasn't connected to the ocean, and was, in fact, several squares from the nearest lake.
2) I was in a high level game and the barbarians were smart enough not to attack any units on the adjacent mountainside!

After several hundred years, I got fed up with that trireme waking up units that slept by the lake. So, I went and built a city on the shore.

I bought an ironclad.

I kicked the trireme's submerged butt.

I disbanded the city (after all, it was in the mountains.)

I laughed.

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It's simply too complicated.
<u>I DON'T LIKE RAW FOOD! </u>
I am not liable for any silly mistakes I make here.
Feel free to PM me if you have any questions.
 

After several hundred years, I got fed up with that trireme waking up units that slept by the lake. So, I went and built a city on the shore.
I bought an ironclad.
I kicked the trireme's submerged butt.
I disbanded the city (after all, it was in the mountains.)

It would have been much faster and cheaper, but probably not as fun, to just bribe the trireme & disband it. But it sounds like you had a great time with it!
 
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