Why do barbarians never take AI things?

Jaymax

Chieftain
Joined
Jul 20, 2013
Messages
27
So I've noticed on Deity that the barbarians completely ignore AI workers and stuff like that, even when it can steal multiple workers in a single turn. I'm confused why this happens. I understand that on Deity the AI gets tooons of bonuses, but why is it exempt from barbarians?
 
Lucky... I lost at least 2 workers to barbarians if i am not paying attention.
 
They really don't take civilians at all anymore. I don't think I've lost a civilian at all since BNW.
 
I'm playing on Prince BNW with Raging Barbarians setting, and the barbarian does take workers and settlers from the AI. Apparently, Prince AI are very careless about moving workers and settlers and they got caught too often. Last game, I captured a total of 5 barb workers in the first 50 turns.

Also, I've seen barbarians attacking AI capital. Last game, two barb camp spawned next to an AI capitol Athens and they assaulted the city.
 
Few weeks ago people complain about the fact that barbarians were not interested by unescorted settlers. Is it a bug?
I heard that barbarians can now heal, that's good (don't have BNW yet).

I always also wonder why they never take benefits from the ancient ruins.. Maybe because they didn't discover reading!
 
They do take workers. Just you don't know when.

In the last few games I deliberately keep them working on tiles despite barbarians. A handaxe took my worker and there was at least 3 other barbs in a narrow pass that prevented me from getting my worker back.
 
I freed two workers from barbarians belonging to the same AI Civ last night (Emperor, Large). So, barbs do take things from the AI.
 
Sometimes it's annoying when they ignore my workers and go straight for the most annoying thing to pillage.

That might in fact be the reason why they do it :)
 
Few weeks ago people complain about the fact that barbarians were not interested by unescorted settlers. Is it a bug?
I heard that barbarians can now heal, that's good (don't have BNW yet).

I always also wonder why they never take benefits from the ancient ruins.. Maybe because they didn't discover reading!
That was true in the beginning but I've seen them taking mine and others their workers/settlers on multiple occasions. I guess it has quickly been fixed.
Barbarians don't heal. But as soon as they get horsemen they start to get really annoying. They now seem to be better in grouping and attacking settlements.

And barbarians are there for the annoyance factor, making your first eras more challenging ;) ancient ruins are there for you and the AI players to get.
 
Is this a difficulty thing? Perhaps on Deity, Barbs dont attack AI just like they dont attack humans on Settler.
 
their number 1 priority is plundering your trade routes which will give them an extra unit, very often being a horseman. So protect your caravans, folks :)
 
We'll be updating to fix this and a few other critical issues soon. The bug is a logic bug. The barbarians are actually tasking their warriors to capture unprotected civilians, but are not selecting the closest unit for the job. As a result, it appears that your civilian is standing next to a barbarian, and he never runs over to capture it.
 
I freed two workers from barbarians belonging to the same AI Civ last night (Emperor, Large). So, barbs do take things from the AI.

It's probably the AI walking their civilians into barbarians rather than the barbs going hostile towards the AI. They'd never do that^^

My theory: As long as any unit of the player is within 10 tiles of a barb unit (even if it cant see your unit) that barb unit is automatically allied with any AI civ and starts to move straigth towards your unit turning around and leaving all unescorted AI civ civilians alone.
 
I think it's only for settlers. Barbs have taken my missionaries for sure. (I'm so cavalier sending them out four tiles at a time.)
 
I don't know if this was already addressed, because last time I experienced it was in G&K before the last patch, but I find really annoying that while getting an AI's Settler from barbarians and not giving it back it turns into a worker (which is fine), the opposite is not true: I once lost a settler to barbarians very close to where I was going to settle, and then an AI spearman killed the barb, got the settler and the AI immediately used it settle a new city.
 
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