Dealing with Barbs

[gmaharriet]

I'm interested in how some of you deal with barbs. I've always classed them right along with cleaning pollution as a nuisance, but I generally play with sedentary barbs for the possibility of a tech or gold from a GH.

That worked pretty well at Warlord and Regent, but I'm trying to move up to Monarch. Barb strength is increasing as the likelihood of good things from huts goes down, and I'm tired of losing my warriors.

Do you avoid the huts until you have archers? Do you just build more warriors and hope they'll get promotions? Do you turn off barbs completely? Do you find them fun and set them to raging?

Since it's only going to get tougher as my playing level goes up, I'd be interested in hearing a variety of strategies and your reasons for what you do.

[Theoden]

I usually set them to roaming or restless. I want some goody huts but not too many barbs.

Warriors are still your best bet for exploring. Just build more of them, they only cost 10 shields after all.

When it comes to huge barbarian uprisings, I sometimes just trade away all my gold, move the single warrior out of the city, and let them pillage to get their 6 gold

[Aegis]

I prefer to turn Barbs off so the tech pace is not determined by popping goodie huts. As such, I almost never play with Expansionist civs. I really do prefer the games where most ever civ is researching their own tech instead of stumbling upon it.

[Evil Tyrant]

I set barbs to raging, it's more fun that way.

[Ansar]

Sedentary when Im not Sumeria, Raging when I am Sumeria .

[gmaharriet]

Thanks for the replies. I guess there's no way to get what I really want, which is tech/gold from every hut and no barbs ever at any level.

Maybe I should go back to Chieftain.

[Own]

I always set at sednetary (unless sid). I used to think it was cheating to do that, when someone mentioned it's not fair for you to lose a settler or building cause of bad luck early on, I changed my mind. Barbs from hut aren't that big a deal.

[SJ Frank]

Originally Posted by gmaharriet

Maybe I should go back to Chieftain.

Or you could move up to Emperor

It may sound crazy but it's true, dealing with barbs is easier at emperor+. With their extra starting units, the AI's can do a pretty decent job of barb hunting for you. What you need to do then is to focus your warrior on just protecting your settlers, plus maybe taking some shots at barbs on flat lands, while leaving most of the tough barbs to the AI's.

And here are some more experiences that I had:

- you could fortify a warrior on a high tile in the region that you're sending settlers to. Barb camps can't spawn on tiles that is under watch by a military unit.

- remember that every tile, even the flat tiles, has at least 10% defense bonus, sometimes the best course of action is to retreat to a good defensive location, and let the barb attack you.

- you could watch the movement of AI units. The AI can see all units on the map, including barbs. If an AI unit is moving away from a region, then you could be pretty certain that there isn't any barbs there.

- you should have your escort warrior walking ahead of your settlers. This way, if a barb horse comes out of nowhere and slaughters your warrior, you settler still has enough time to run away.

[gmaharriet]

Originally Posted by SJ Frank

Or you could move up to Emperor

It may sound crazy but it's true, dealing with barbs is easier at emperor+.

Those are some VERY good ideas SJ. Thank you.

I've noticed that things like trading are more interesting with an improved AI at Monarch, and better barb suppression and even better trading opportunities might make it worth the additional difficulty at Emperor. I surely can't do much worse than I have been lately. I read a lot of SGs, and it really is a completely different game at higher levels.

[tao]

Many experienced players see barbs as a resource, not as a problem.

1. Dispersing barb camps give 25g. Especially early in the game quite a lot of money.
2. Units can promote in fighting barbs; i.e. you get elite units capable of generating Great Leaders.

Of course, in between dispersing camps, you have to withdraw your units to enable new barb camps to appear.

[Charles 22]

I at first started playing with the default level of barbs, whatever that is, then I had so much fun with them I went to raging and have stayed there since. It does make you a little more honest about your REX'ing and no matter how little money I have I fight them to the death because I have no intention of letting them even harm as much as one road. This is all the more difficult because a lot of times one or two other civs are laready at war with me by that time, and of course it frequently cocicides with me going into revolution for republic.

On a sidenote I must say that not having them at all does intrigue me, as i have wondered how I could slow down techs, only getting a bunch of techs early was the main reason I started doing, and I just hate the idea of settlers roaming about with no danger. Where I want the techs slowed down is where barbs can't help anymore, in the latter ages.

I will say, back to the idea of battling barbs, I can't contemplate why somebody would use warriors. I do use some of them that pop out of huts, but they are fairly useless except for exploring. Since I pay the same amount of maintenance for warriors as for spearmen or archers I'm coming out ahead using the finer quality units. I also use soldiers built from ONLY barracks (unless I pop warriors) so that's more quality. The number of quality units I lose to barbs in any huge random game is approximately 1-2 units, but the ratio of warriors I lose is close to 75% of them (largely due to their starting out with a mere two hit points). Some of you warrior users must lose 5-6 of them to barbs a game. I can't remember the last time I got one of my popped warriors safely back to camp after the exploration was over (though a good number of them fall to other civs or being cut off through expanding borders).

One last thing I try to do. I try to have between 8-10 units combing the countryside, while I have usually 2 units per city in the first age. That is usually enough units to keep any barb invasion from getting even just a road (I'm willing to strip cities down to one unit to destroy them in certain circumstances) and hopefully by that time I have 2-4 horse units. The horse units make a huge difference, and I would use them for practically everything early on, but everyone knows how hard it is to get that resource in many games.

[Ansar]

Also, somehow, with Barbs, you promote faster, like, i mean it takes less victories...

[tao]

Originally Posted by AnsarKing101

Also, somehow, with Barbs, you promote faster, like, i mean it takes less victories...

No. Quite the opposite. See here.

[Own]

Originally Posted by tao

Many experienced players see barbs as a resource, not as a problem.

1. Dispersing barb camps give 25g. Especially early in the game quite a lot of money.
2. Units can promote in fighting barbs; i.e. you get elite units capable of generating Great Leaders.

Of course, in between dispersing camps, you have to withdraw your units to enable new barb camps to appear.

I don't think occasionally losing a settler, as well as having to escort settlers, is worth those two things. Unless you can have a 4 turn warrior/settler factory, which is rare.

[gmaharriet]

Originally Posted by Charles 22

I will say, back to the idea of battling barbs, I can't contemplate why somebody would use warriors.

Because unless you play a civ that has the tech to build scouts or archers from the beginning, you need a couple of warriors to do the scouting, and they run into barbs.

[Ansar]

Thats why I like enkidu warriors, easy escort. And if not, just send a Archer or spearman to put the goody huts.

[Bluemofia]

I usually set them on raging, so I can have barb huts to get money, and so my units have someone to fight. I deal with them by having sentries at certain points in my empire, usually fast units, and they guard that area from barbs.

[Charles 22]

Originally Posted by gmaharriet

Because unless you play a civ that has the tech to build scouts or archers from the beginning, you need a couple of warriors to do the scouting, and they run into barbs.

There'a always spearmen, but although that narrows the warrior-only field it doesn't eliminate it. I've often debated with myself which is better for exploring, the spearman or the archer, going in the my CIV3 gaming days to just spearman, but now I mix them. Considering how the other civs are more fearful of offensive units I throw a few more archers than seem wise from just the tactical standpoint. I don't give in to threats from other civs, so I have to build a good amount of offensive units to discourage them from doing it in the first place.

[Charles 22]

Originally Posted by Bluemofia

I usually set them on raging, so I can have barb huts to get money, and so my units have someone to fight. I deal with them by having sentries at certain points in my empire, usually fast units, and they guard that area from barbs.

Yeah, that is an aspect I usually don't think of. I appreciate getting more money, but I hadn't thought that if there were no battles going on early it would make things significantly duller.

[Heroes]

Originally Posted by Charles 22

There'a always spearmen, but although that narrows the warrior-only field it doesn't eliminate it. I've often debated with myself which is better for exploring, the spearman or the archer, going in the my CIV3 gaming days to just spearman, but now I mix them. Considering how the other civs are more fearful of offensive units I throw a few more archers than seem wise from just the tactical standpoint. I don't give in to threats from other civs, so I have to build a good amount of offensive units to discourage them from doing it in the first place.

Even spear needs a tech, bronze working. Besides warrior, no unit comes for free, and at harder levels, human has little time and money to research any 1st order techs other than pottery