[vanilla] What Happens When Barbarians Take a City?

Thormodr said:

I like that Barbs can capture workers and settlers though. That is an improvement I'll admit.

Click to expand...

I'm not sure Barbs captured workers/settlers in Civ 3, but certainly they did in Civ 4...
where's the improvement?

Yeah, you really have to be very passive with your city defense that barbarians actually get through your defense. 3 or better 4 barb units are at least needed for any attempt at all. That most likely only happens if you have at least 2 camps nearby; raging barbarians game option especially helps too to make this happen.

A unit invading successfully the city steals 200 gold from you and is disbanded afterwards.

Babri said:

Here is one fun picture for you.

Click to expand...

Before an update to World Builder you could start cities for barbarians.. And ally them with teams, such as citystates.. And give 20 cities to a citystate, tons of units, permenant war, and try to survive the onslaught with raging barbarians when the barbarians are on the same team as the citystate. (Why would Sid patch that?? Who the hell likes rules when creating their own world.)

Also the fact that this picture is from Civ 4.

Now all you can do for barbs is create encampments and units. And if you create a ton of encampments to create a CIV "Nazi Zombies" type game, none of the encampments spawn zombies -.-

I LOVE civ 5, but Sid really should not limit the uses of World Builder!!

Barbarians will raze any city they capture as soon as possible.

I like that Barbs can capture workers and settlers though. That is an improvement I'll admit.

I've liberated a few settlers and workers myself, not always my own.

I also remember you could capture the barbarian leader (way back in Civ I) and get a ransom.

But all in all, Barbarians are little more than an opportunity to boost your XP and gold up a little, kinda like goody huts with teeth, though not very sharp.

When barbs take a city, you get an achievement!!!

They actually can take a city? I want proof of barbarians taking control of your city and razing it, screenshot will help me. Oh and screenshot must be civ 5 where barbarians is puny and weaklings compared to civ 4 barbs.

Only time i've ever "lost" a city to barbarians is when i took that defector general policy in fall of rome scenario, it spawned like 8 barbarians, half of them legionaires at fulls trength, they didnt' even suffer strategic resource penalty because they don't have access to iron xD and my whole army was away fighting all the barbarians and conquering their cities. At first i was scared but then i moused over the unit's icons, it said Barbarian Legion and i went -.- ugh


Way to break immersion firaxis in ur bestest scenario. Eitherway, it attacked the beejuzus out of city of najar something between france/spain. After its hp get reduced to 0, the barbarian will raid the local city treasury for 200g, and somehow, that single city holds all the gold in my empire xD

Retreated few legions to dispatch em barbarians and away they go.

If barbs take a city from you, you have to pay a ransom to get it back. The one time it happened to me, I had to pay a ransom of like 22 gold because that was all I had.

I have heard reports, but never seen, that barbarians have totally annihilated weak AI civs. They have never kept those cities in my games. Only ashes remains when I finally discover the location.

CS have never conquered a thing in any of my play throughs. Very seldom do they send troops out, even though they on paper participate in wars quite frequently. They neither capture, nor raise cities in my experience, don't seem to have the ambition, but I am glad to hear that they could if they decided to. Only wish that they would just do it.

I spawned a Barbarian Giant Death Robot in the Ancient Era to see what would happen. It attacked a city, reduced it to 0 health, and then the unit just disappeared. I also flooded some city states with Barbarian X-Com Squads, same thing happened with each one that delivered what should have been a finishing blow. So there's the answer: it is not possible for Barbs to capture cities.

Of course, there is IGE. Select Barbs as the active Civ, and transfer cities to their possession, or place a Barbarian unit directly in a city. The city will be Barbarian (Black filling, red city-blip) and it'll start building stuff, mainly Barbarian units.

I'm more interested in what happens when someone necros a 15 month old thread. I hope a kitten dies.

I_qua_I said:

Barbs don't capture; they plunder. Rather than gaining control of the city a good deal of your gold goes missing. I once stuck a city way out in the middle of nowhere to get the +10 natural wonder and kept wondering why my treasury was so low since I was raking in the dough. I was ignoring the pop-up things on the side and it turns out Medina was totally flooded with barbs. When a warrior attacked I lost gold but the city stayed.

Click to expand...

Not true. I was playing Civ 5 last night and barbarians puppeted an Egyptian city. Lol I was wondering who had it at first because I hadn't scouted that land yet. I was shocked to see the barbarian city of Memphis!

My city was taken by Barbarians once. Shortest game eva! I learned after that to protect my cities.

Not true? Well.. Maybe things change in 4 years? ^^

Horizons said:

I always wanted to know what happens if one city-state captures another, because city-states always raze any city they capture, yet city-states themselves cannot be razed.

Like you said, I think these situations (barbs taking cities or city-states capturing each other) are probably impossible.

Click to expand...

I have seen a city state capture and raze another city state before. It was a sight to behold.