Barbarians:good for you or the AI?

[splunge the 2nd]

Regarding barbs-is there a general consensus whether they are worse for the player or the AI?
In a lower level conquest/elmination sort of game, I'd imagine they'd help the player build more elites. I would expect they'd be better for an expansionist civ than others.

Does the AI get an advantage in barb killing like the player? Is it level dependant?

Unrelated, do barbs need horses to make horsemen?

Thanks all!

[Spoonwood]

Generally speaking, if you play at a lower level barbarian units can provide more advantages for you than they do the AIs. Also, you'll want to consider sedentary barbs, which can work out as sufficiently useful for the human player on any level, except for Deity and Sid with non-expansionist tribes, and Sid with any tribe.

Originally Posted by splunge the 2nd

I would expect they'd be better for an expansionist civ than others.

Generally speaking yes.

Originally Posted by splunge the 2nd

Does the AI get an advantage in barb killing like the player? Is it level dependant?

AFAIK no.

Originally Posted by splunge the 2nd

Unrelated, do barbs need horses to make horsemen?

AFAIK, no, they do not.

[nyarmondt]

There is offcourse the huge exception to that. There is 1 tribe in the game which can turn a stack of barbarians in a HUGE advantage. Yes, I am speaking about the Maya tribe with their UU the Javelin thrower.

[Verarde]

Originally Posted by nyarmondt

There is offcourse the huge exception to that. There is 1 tribe in the game which can turn a stack of barbarians in a HUGE advantage. Yes, I am speaking about the Maya tribe with their UU the Javelin thrower.

This is very true.

I like playing with barbarians, because goody huts are always helpful (except for the certain occasions), and it is always nice to have an elite warrior running around.

[Raliuven]

I'd say up to and possibly including Monarchy they are a distinct advance for the human. I'd say it is a break even around the emperor/demi-god difficulty.

The barbs tend to be a wild card that requires some planning and foresight to marginalize and those are things the AI is generally bad at. For example, rather than sending a defending unit out to protect a worker or a valuable tile, the AI will cancel the worker actions and retreat them to the safety of a city or let the barbs just move uncontested onto a tile to pillage it. This flaw strikes some AI's harder than others. For example I've seen a game where the Greek with their might 1/3/1 hoplites have been pillaged by raging barbs all game long. The AI would not use the hoplites to cover improvements and works and wouldn't use them to attack either. On the other hand, the Iroquois would probably fare much better (assuming they have horses nearby).

One thing that I suspect hurts them is their driving desire to hunt down every stray barb. They scatter their units across the map hunting these units down and when a barb hut spawns in their immediate area they are unable to protect their lands from pillaging.

Once the barbs start to pillage the AI it is very hard for them to come back. The AI workers are scattered and few, they have conflicting priorities and handle them inefficiently. The AI has a hard time replacing military units and paying for upkeep. Without protection the barbs continue to pillage. It is a vicious cycle.

As the difficulty rises the land improvements become much less important. With less food and shields required to create what they need a pillaged/unimproved tile matters less. In addition, they can create more units, workers and cities to hedge out the barbs, kill them, or replace what was destroyed.

[Theov]

Originally Posted by nyarmondt

There is offcourse the huge exception to that. There is 1 tribe in the game which can turn a stack of barbarians in a HUGE advantage. Yes, I am speaking about the Maya tribe with their UU the Javelin thrower.

Because they can enslave the barbarians having a 1/3 chance of turning the poor bastard into a worker.
(worker or slave? Doesn't say and I can't recall from the top of my head. Yes, I've quit drinking already.)

[MarkK]

Splunge, excellent question. Thank you.

[splunge the 2nd]

Thanks; never hurts to look at what I'd normally take for granted.
Now to start a Maya game with raging barbs!

[MysteryX]

I feel that barbarians start hindering humans more than AI starting at Monarch difficultly. At that difficultly, the AI has a production bonus advantage over the human, and can get a head start on countering the military threat barbarians pose while the human needs to build a production base. The AI also starts with more units, which is an advantage to pop barbarian huts faster. And the AI gets better chances of getting something worthwhile from the huts than humans at that level. Special circumstances my change the equation (such as the strategy with Mayan javelin throwers); otherwise, including barbarians at Monarch and above just add more difficultly/challenge for the human player.

[MarkK]

Just for me, I guage what kind of challenge I'm in the mood for, and what kind of idiotic surprises the AI, as a whole, might present to my settings. I like a good challenge, but I don't consider a deck loaded against me as much of a game. The bottom-line becomes the fact that I'm playing against myself, with Civ3C as a sort of referee. It keeps the game FUN, which is why I bought it.
I always try to remember that if I try to "cheat", I'm only delaying my own grasp of the game.
The bottom line, for me, is having fun at my chosen level and settings.