Lake Barbarians

[Kev]

I had something happen in a game of mine recently that made me giggle.

I had the barb level set to "raging hordes", but I had no idea that they could be so creative.

On my main continent, I had a few places where I had "lakes" - you know - one square of water that is totally surrounded by land. There was no possible way to get a ship there, but wouldn't you know it, a red frigate just popped up there in the lake and proceeded to offload dragoons right next to a city and attack.

What did these guys do, rise up from the bottom of the lake like the Loch Ness Monster or something?

I hadn't seen this in a long time, but I know it's happened before. Anyone else think it's pretty silly?

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Diplomacy - the art of
saying "Good Doggie"
until you can find a rock

[kundor]

Finally, could this be an explanation for ai "pond fish"? They *obviously* build ships in pond-side and leave them stranded in one-tile ponds to protect from those barbarians! All those who thought the ai was stupid don't realize the true depth of their strategy.

[starlifter]

I've had the same "lake attack" before... haven't apent a great deal of time with it, but I once took a look at a game from the barbarian's point of view to see if an obvious pattern was particularly obvious in the map of the known 'barbarian world'... after a few minutes, no pattern was evident and it wasn't important anyway for my own style of play, so I haven't revisited it.

Considering how wild the AI is with attacking units and cities with the Frigate... I don't think I've ever noted the barbs to use a Frigate to shell a city, nor even a unit along the shore. Anyone noted a barb Frigate shelling before?

[thedirk]

I once had a barb frigate attack a settler unit that was working along the coast.

The lake barbs are acctually highly advanced and use transporters to move from their secret shipyard to the lakes within your borders.

[Warlord56]

I once had the barbs as the most pwerful nation(I didn't see the list. but just by looking at the strength of their civ)

[greenie]

It just goes to show with the barbs - make something Foolproof and they will make a better fool

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- Greenie

" Let us take by
cunning what we would
take by force"

[Andu Indorin]

What's even more amusing is when this happens before 1 a.d., and there isn't even a city close enough to trigger an unloading of the barbarians. Then about 1900 years later, you build a city close enough to trigger an unloading, and you have a couple of Armor units at the ready to defend against those nasty red legions! An example "pond fish" en extremis

[Alan_Nicoll]

Seems like in a long game the barbs appear at the same spot on the map over and over again. Anyone know how to predict where they'll pop up?

[Dogberry_Old]

There are barbarian "spawning" squares. I don't know if there are any changes over the course of the game.. but unless you cover it in some fashion they will continue to respawn there.

Dog

[starlifter]

Put a road and/or irrigation on potential or proven spawning squares. I've never seen a brab come out of a roaded square, and I think I've seen a post from someone else observing the same thing, too.

[Magnus]

I have had single island cities bombarded by the barbarian frigates. However, they lost and the 4 or 5 units on board sank too.

[cichlid221]

I remember many, many months ago when this happened:

There was a 4-square lake, surrounded by mountains, on my western frontier, in which a barbarian trireme appeared and unloaded two legions.

I killed the legions when they came close, and proceeded to explore.

I found two funny things:
1) That lake wasn't connected to the ocean, and was, in fact, several squares from the nearest lake.
2) I was in a high level game and the barbarians were smart enough not to attack any units on the adjacent mountainside!

After several hundred years, I got fed up with that trireme waking up units that slept by the lake. So, I went and built a city on the shore.

I bought an ironclad.

I kicked the trireme's submerged butt.

I disbanded the city (after all, it was in the mountains.)

I laughed.

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It's simply too complicated.
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I am not liable for any silly mistakes I make here.
Feel free to PM me if you have any questions.

[starlifter]

After several hundred years, I got fed up with that trireme waking up units that slept by the lake. So, I went and built a city on the shore.
I bought an ironclad.
I kicked the trireme's submerged butt.
I disbanded the city (after all, it was in the mountains.)

It would have been much faster and cheaper, but probably not as fun, to just bribe the trireme & disband it. But it sounds like you had a great time with it!