We turn off Random Events and Huts, why not Barbarians? (TMIT video gets me thinking)

[bhavv]

Originally Posted by skyclad

I play with random events on because i think they are fun and I reload if I get vedic aryans or something ridiculous like that. Barbarians off would be too "nooby" in my opinion, it's part of the game that the world is periolous, even if it's not always "fair" when several people play the same map.

Funnily enough though, Firaxis must have found Barbarians to be overpowered in Civ IV because they massively nerfed them in Civ V.

Vedic Aryans were awesome when they happened in one of my recent games, as I had built the Great Wall so they attacked an AI

I dont find barbs fun, and I dont think they provide fair gameplay between different games.

Originally Posted by Um the Muse

Well, I guess now would be the perfect opportunity to go for an Espionage Economy, right?

And after you piss off all of your neighbors, you can fight defensive wars and get +100% GPP. Now, wasn't that worth building the Great Stall?

Yep, I've done this lots of times with Sumeria, early Zigs for more EPs, and tech steal Machinery + Engineering for Protective Crossbows and discounted Castles (more EPs, and all the other bonuses are nice even if temporary).

In fact, barbs on + building Great Wall provides the player with an even bigger advantage than turning barbs off, funny how no one even thinks of that.

[GA econ FTW]

Another defense for barbs: Barbarians in civ 4 do what barbarians used to do IRL....Piss civilized people off. I bet 99.4% of you feel a rage when your best plans, no matter what, and the best way to deal with, barbarians are frustrated by ....exactly what the barbarians do, pillage and destroy. I am definitely in that 99.4%....I'll have units with more than 10 experience points on recon ANNIHLATE local barbs for no reason what-so-ever when some stupid warrior barb takes out a hill archer with a 0.2% combat probability....even more when they capture one of my cities...even MORE when they raze it. I would claim that whether you play with barbs on or off, raging or normal, barbarian HATE is the attribute shared most by all civ gamers, skilled or unskilled, role-player or Competitive master. I realize that most of you, if you want to be stressed out and pissed off, well, just go to work more often or talk to the significant other....but for me, I guess I like SOMETHING in the game to be....completely infuriating...and fun to SQUASH when it finally gets me to that point.

[plasmacannon]

Originally Posted by bhavv

...
In fact, barbs on + building Great Wall provides the player with an even bigger advantage than turning barbs off, funny how no one even thinks of that.

Exactly!
That's why I prefer to not do that. It is such a cheesy strategy.

I had an 'Always War & Raging Barbs' game where Khmer built the Great Wall. I had streams of barbs heading into my territory as they went around his. I was gaining so much xp so fast, it was getting hard to build new units fast enough to swap out the full 10xp ones for. Some of the full xp ones had to do some of the killing themselves.
Eventually, the AIs borders and mine got closer, so, the barbs went away, but it made for a very exciting game.
I went on to conquer Khmer and now I have the Great Wall.

Barbs are not difficult to deal with. They are part of the fabric of the game. My Chariots were excellent barb killers and shot up to 10 xp fairly quickly.
Not having them in a game would deprive us from this free xp and the fun challange of defending our territory from the barbs. If I wanted a dyll game of just hitting enter several times, anyone can do that. I want the challange of trying to deal with an unexpected situation. How I handle each encounter could determine the fate of my empire. It teaches you to have enough fogbusters and what units work better than others.
I don't see them often, but I have had the Vedic Aryans attack me (if that is the mini-stack of 5-6 HAs). I had my own mini-stack of Janissaries and earned some xp from that random event.
It was nice to get a couple of promotions before I finished building my stack to attack my neighbor.

[happyturtle]

In further defence of barbs, the game I accidentally played barbs off, it felt just wrong having a settler or a missionary wander off without an escort. Convenient, but wrong. There ought to be some danger in the world, yes?

[bitplayer]

I'd think about turning barbs off if it wouldn't turn off the barb animals as well.

[happyturtle]

Whenever I go into WB, I always seem to accidentally add an animal to the map that's assigned to a civ. That'd be awesome to have your own lion or bear mascot, except that they can't move within culture. If I accidentally spawn one within my own borders, it just sits there, unable to leave its tile... FOREVER!

[plasmacannon]

Originally Posted by happyturtle

Whenever I go into WB, I always seem to accidentally add an animal to the map that's assigned to a civ. That'd be awesome to have your own lion or bear mascot, except that they can't move within culture. If I accidentally spawn one within my own borders, it just sits there, unable to leave its tile... FOREVER!

Caveman to Cosmos does that. http://forums.civfanatics.com/showthread.php?t=288570
If you fight an animal, you have a chance to subdue it. It turns into a unit under your control after that. You can bring it back to one of your cities and build some unique building, something like a trophy hunt. I forget the name, but there is one for like 5-6 different animals. Each building generate culture for you. I guess because you became famous for being this great hunter. It is mostly during the early BCs timeframe.
That mod even has neanderthals in it. They did a good job combining several mods into one.

[Cristoval]

I feel barbs are an important feature same as espionage without either your game is incomplete imo. Also without barbs there'd be no point in the great wall wonder and the AI will build it no matter what so it's kinda a cheap move.

[Htadus]

For what its worth another 5 cents here. I think all checkerboxes are fine for your single player games as long as you do not want another player to shadow your game. This is where the random events, goody huts and barbs take the game away from player skills and toward Murphy (bad) and Fairy Godmother(good) land.

Having said that, with a little experience and understanding of barb behavior, the affects of them can be effectively minimized by making reliable choices. Early spawn busting and Archery comes to mind. But the thing is that some time warrior are just too overwhelmed and luck takes over.

And having said that, I find barbs to be pain in the you know what since it seems nearly every encounter with a barb nonwolf has killed my poor warrior/scout in difficulties above monarch.

So
barbs=bad,
copper popping in my grass hill mine = good (and it is not a random event)

[happyturtle]

I wish there was a way to turn off barb galleys but leave land barbs.

[r_rolo1]

Originally Posted by bhavv

In fact, barbs on + building Great Wall provides the player with an even bigger advantage than turning barbs off, funny how no one even thinks of that.

People don't say that exactly because of the same reason you neglected to mention barb cities or guarded huts: if it doesn't enter your borders it supposedely doesn't matter It is the same kind of mentality that gave that suposed help in the load screen that says that a event that is bad for your neighbour is good for you automatically ...

In other words, because of barb garrisoned huts and the barb cities , GW is not necessarily equal to no barbs option , and this is even without counting with the cost of actually beating the AI to GW ( both in oportunity costs and in hammers/beakers ). and , as usual it gets lopsided for the AI side as the levels progress ...

[TheMeInTeam]

Yeah..."stealing" gwall from civs that start with archery, archers, and produce the archers for less than warriors cost you hardly seems like a big screw-job.

Barbs are at their worst when they hinder/kill your initial scouting unit and it changes your strategy because you can't see anything for too long.

[Rusten]

The less random factors the better.

Having barbs off changes playstyle more than any other settings though, so I can understand people wanting it on. You won't settle 4 cities and have settlers running around without protection with barbs on, even with the great wall built.

[TheWilltoAct]

Could I trouble a mod such as r_rolo1 to fix TheMeInTeam's abbreviation in the title? It's a very minor thing, but it's bugging the heck out of me!

[r_rolo1]

Moderator Action: Done

[mizzile]

My friend once got hosed by them... One came from top of city, 2 from right side, 2 from left, constantly spawning.....