Barbs everywhere in PTW

[whodat]

I started my first game of PTW last night. I started on Regent roaming barbarians using the Vikes. I am at about 400 AD now and barbarians are worse than I have ever encountered in Civ 3. I had 8 horsemen rushing my capital which is well defended, 3 roaming outside my borders, and 4 rushing a minor city. Barbarian camps keep appearing also. I have a few warriors roaming around taking out camps, so I do get 25 gold every once in a while. Anybody else had a similar experience?

[sealman]

Barbarians... gotta love them.

[whodat]

Another strange thing about the same game. Since Vikes are expansionist I expected many techs from goody huts but only got ceremonial burial from huts. I received about 6 or 7 skilled warriors and gold from a couple huts.

[NHJ BV]

Gotta love them "skilled" warriors...

Conscript warrior skilled? Now if they would give me an elite warrior...

[sumthinelse]

Originally posted by whodat
Another strange thing about the same game. Since Vikes are expansionist I expected many techs from goody huts but only got ceremonial burial from huts.

What size map? What difficulty level?

[Drakken]

I was playing as the Aztechs with Barbs set to raging. I always play with them set to raging so I have a good frame of reference. However in PTW the barbs went nutzo.

I was on an island continent full of mountains, hills, and 1 other civ. The terrain slowed the settlement of the territory so that may have helped spawn more barbs. When they had a massive uprising all hell broke loose. There were I believe 5 camps that each released 8 to 12 horsemen. Holy shmoly! I had only just researched ironworking. There was utter chaos. workers had to be protected by atleast 2 spearmen to prevent capture.

The barbs also seemed smarter to me. No longer did they waste themselves on my spears in the cities. They roamed around waiting for targets of opportunity. It was wacky! Thank god for all of the gold I collected from them or all would have been lost!

I think they adjusted the setting for PTW, and to be honest I like it. In the past raging meant really very little as they never created a challenge like this game had.

[joycem10]

I really like the new barbs in PTW.

Like mentioned above they are alot smarter than in the past. Instead of beelineing right for the nearest city and wasting tmeselves on gortified defenders they roam around the board. They will avoid difficult targets like spearmen fortified on hills and mountains. They also seem to pillage quite a bit more than in the past.

[CurtSibling]

In the editor,
decrease your unit's power versus barbs, for each dificulty level...
Our white garbed pals become a royal threat to all and sundry,

I had a city with 6 spearmen in defence and the barbs made mincemeat out of em!

Trust me, it's a nightmare!

[DaDoo]

I think the fact that now barbs just won't march into the closest battle like lambs to a slaughter house is a huge improvement. Also because of that, it'll appear we have more barbs around since many of them are roaming around looking for a weak target instead of going on a suicide mission. It's now quite dangerous to have settlers unescorted walking around with barbs now literally "roams" around the map. Sometimes even the workers near cities need escorts. It's a major improvement and I like it.

[tcjsavannah]

I noticed the "uprising" means there's a ton of barbs in ALL camps on the continent, not just one.. that was a major pain in my first PTW game.

Took me down from ~750 gp to ~150 in like two turns..

[Le Petit Prince]

Are they much more or just intelligent....

[cgannon64]

So, you were in 400AD? Remember, whenever a second civ enters the Midevial ages, there is a worldwide barb uprising. That is probably what happened.

CG

[Padma]

Originally posted by Le Petit Prince
Are they much more or just intelligent....

Firaxis said they tweaked the AI so it won't simply suicide against your fortified troops - they will split up, and search for your weak points.

Definitely "more intelligent".

[Chieftess]

I was playing a standard earth map (modified scenario with correct starting locations), and the Americas had TONS of barbs roaming around. (which prevented Japan from colonizing it, and making contact with the rest of the world!). It probably kept their techs down low... (430AD, and most are in mid-antiquity). I'm in the mid middle age. I guess it's a bit realistic in a way...

[Sparrowhawk]

The more barbarians the better, as far as I am concerned. I've edited my games so that they get less of a handicap. It's a great way to temper AI expansion.

I'm also thinking of replacing the standard Horseman unit that they get with a 3/2/2 White Dragon. That should make things interesting I figure that mythical dragons go along well with mythical 'barbarian' cultures. Besides, the way I set up the dragon a/d/m, they won't be destroyed easily until the advent of Knights.

[Silverflame]

Usually the barbarians are smarter in PTW. However, I have found one encampment do something stupid. My warrior was roaming around dispersing encampments, then I was two squares away from one. There was a Celt warrior next to it that was about to disperse it. Then the huge stack of doom came. But instead of attacking the Celt warrior, they all went some other direction, leaving no one but their warrior to defend their home. The Celts quickly got it. Man, if I were those barbarians, I would have sent half the horsemen to kill the Celt warrior and the other half to kill mine. This is strange...

[whodat]

Originally posted by sumthinelse


What size map? What difficulty level?

Standard, Regent level. Normal climate. Pangea. 70%.

[Bamspeedy]

Prima's strategy guide says that now the barbarians will not attack if they have less than a 20% chance of winning the battle. That is why they seem to be smarter and don't attack spearman on mountains for example. The higher levels you play, the less combat bonus you get vs barbs, so you will probably see barbs attacking more often (instead of wandering away, probably going after some AI worker off in the distance) , the higher level you go.

I haven't really noticed a difference in huts for expansionists. Playing with 30 civs (huge pangea map, but with that many civs, it's kind of crowded) and building a bunch of scouts I got over 10 techs. on Monarch. I don't like getting the cities from huts, I prefer the settlers. I hate getting a city 1 tile away from a coast , but I guess it is a little better than no city/settler at all.

[sumthinelse]

Originally posted by whodat


Standard, Regent level. Normal climate. Pangea. 70%.

Subject: By 400 AD your scandanavian civ only got one tech from goody huts.

OK, how many scouts did you build? How many other civs were there, and how many of them were expansionist? If you opened 30 goody huts with an expansionist civ the odds of getting less than 2 techs should be about 0.00004, or 1 in 25000. If you only opened 10 huts by 400AD, the odds should be 0.09 (1 in 11), of getting less than 2 techs, which would be a lot easier to believe.

[Cantankerous]

Originally posted by cgannon64
So, you were in 400AD? Remember, whenever a second civ enters the Midevial ages, there is a worldwide barb uprising. That is probably what happened.

Are you being serious, or is this an inside joke? (I'm asking seriously.) I've never heard of this. Is this something new for PTW or is it something that I've just been oblivious of all this time?

__________

Regarding the new barbarians actions in PTW, I like their new ways as well. Less predictable means more challenging and more interesting outcomes.

Funny thing though, a barbarian horseman went out of its way to attack a healthy veteran Numidian Mercenary (not fortified) in a forest when there was a fortified Horseman with only one hit point in a tile adjacent to the barbarian.

I thought that was odd.