Barb Farm

As I told already in other fora, I found an interesting post in a german forum:
Put a settler on a ship, sail to an island, found a city, build a barracks but no defenders and let the city be sacked by barbs.
Take a diplo, put him on a "harvest" ship and bribe the veteran barbs ...
nice idea, isn't it?

Nice idea, but does it work? Also, how do the barbs get to the island. You need raging barbs, i suppose. But, a great idea nonetheless, if you're into barb bribing.

Hey, great idea!!!

And you can 'buy' the city back later

But is it worth it early in the game? A settler and a a trireme will set you back a fair bit at/near the start of the game...

I'd do that a little bit later in the game, as your 12th city or so.

It sounds like a fun thing to try! Barbs seem to gravitate and home in to undefended cities so it probably would not take long to lose it to them.

I routinely hunt and bribe and kill all the barbs I can, esp. land barbs (sea barbs I sometimes just kill on sight). By coincidence, in GOTM 16, the barbs had captured an AI city on a continent, so I kept a dip near it and bribed all the horsemen coming out. Their production rate seemed slow, probably because of small city size and undedeloped terrain. Anyway, it did supply a nice trickle of non-vet dragoons and cavalry as Leonardos upgraded my newly bribed barbs.

Once I hit Magnetism, all my carrying ships have at least one dip. When Barbs land to attack the AI, if a ship is in range, I rush over and bribe all the attacking barbs I can, and hopefuly kill the leader, which easily pays for the bribes.

In some undeveloped places, it seems the barbs come pretty often... if I find one of those spots (near the AI), I'll set up shop and collect lots and lots. I think that happened in GOTM 6 or so last summer (the one where the human was German, and began on the same continent the Zulus on a relatively small map).

So especially for Democracy/Republic, barb trolling can be both fun (like a "puzzle" within a game), and useful. Make lots of dips and spread out... you'll find them!

PS, Having a barracks might not guarantee vets, as improvements (either Group 1 or Group 2) are lost when the barb takes your city. In a small city, with only Barracks, there is a disposition to allow the barracks' Group to "win the toss" .... Other improvements in the Barracks' group (the "defensive group") include Library, City Walls, Bank, University, Colosseum, Stock Exchange, Coastal Fortress, Harbor, and a few more late game improvements.

At any rate, the barracks might not be that significant, since presumably the human will build Leonardos, which will upgrade the units by the time you pick them up and transport them somewhere .

If you're going to have one such city, why not try a "dense pack" of a bunch of cities (without barracks) and keep the supply coming steadily? . They'd be ripe for trolling every time the troll ship could make the round trip!

That's a cute way to get units! I'm not much into bribing, but I guess I should start. Do these Barbs get a home city, though? That would be useful to know.

The way to ensure a NONE result is to commit the bribe when closer to somone else's city than yours. It is measured from your bribe location, BTW. In Barb Trolling, I kill or pass on units that would be attached. When Trolling, I'm only interested in NONEs.... these are great choke point controllers in a Republic/Democracy, and can tie up mountain passes, etc. for centuries. Beware the Contact Bribe, however, and stack a diplomat or 2nd unit with units that really agitate the AI or your aggressively placed NONE will shortly join the AI's side .

Barb Farm is a great idea -- I did it in GOTM 16. I took two settlers (engineers at that point in the game) to start the city (I was afraid that there is a chance that a size one city would just disappear). Got a bunch of NONEs -- the elephants & archers were soon cavalry & rifles to match the rest of my forces.

Planted my new undefended city near an outbreak of Barbs & kept a few dips on the boat --

I can't see a reason to restrict your self to an island, though. In the game referred to above, I was the closest civ to the outbreak & any bought Barbs would have been 'supported by...' units. By founding Bab City righ next to them, these all became NONEs (oh yes, later in the game I bought my city back).

I only have two boats so far in GOTM 17 -- one is now on assignment for Barb trolling -- hopefully the dip aboard will get a NONE boat as well.

I wonder about making the barb farm on another civ's disused peninsula, and NOT buying the barbs. The barbs would be a real and entertaining nuisance. They'd be tactically equal to the AI civ, at least. I've seen a barb city survive for half a game beside a capital.

I prefer to win by stunting and crippling over outright conquest.

There's also the barb pen. That's where an unsettled peninsula juts in close to your cities, and breeds uprisings. The barbs can't cross water to pillage your lands, so they just roam and accumulate. I usually settle this land last, knowing that the AI civs will never hold it.

I love barbarians.