Quick question on starting conditions barbs/huts

Do you guys play custom in order to turn these off?

i play at emp/imm level and ive never turned either off but i took a brk from c4, came back and saw some posts saying goodie huts help the ai too much, and to turn off barbs, or to give them archery..

? info plz?

Turning off huts and events is a popular option (can be changed in the custom game setup menu). I think the main reason for this is that it makes comparisons between different players approaches easier, by reducing randomness. Also, there a lot of negative random events that seem pretty arbitrary and can be annoying.

On higher levels, AIs start with 2 scouts (I believe this is true of Immortal and above but somebody correct me if I'm wrong). As such, they tend to scoop up most of the huts before you can get to them, giving the AI a potential advantage above the ones they get from the difficulty level.

Turning barbs off is just a way of making the early game way easier. You can do it if you want, but I don't think anyone would take seriously an excited post about how you have stepped up your game by turning off barbs.

Giving barbs archery in the worldbuilder is just something you see in some of the games posted on the forums where people play at varying difficulty. Like if you want to play a Noble's Club game on Immortal difficulty, you can, but you will need to manually add archery so the barbs start with archers in their cities instead of just warriors.

JBossch said:

...on higher levels, AIs start with 2 scouts (I believe this is true of Immortal and above but somebody correct me if I'm wrong)...

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On Emperor and above;

JBossch said:

Giving barbs archery in the worldbuilder is just something you see in some of the games posted on the forums where people play at varying difficulty. Like if you want to play a Noble's Club game on Immortal difficulty, you can, but you will need to manually add archery so the barbs start with archers in their cities instead of just warriors.

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Unpack desired level save file and add:

• Monarch...Archery
• Emperor....Archery + Hunting
• Imm.........Archery + Hunting + Agri
• Deity........Archery + Hunting + Agri + TWheel

On lower levels just use Noble level save. And don't forget to select correct difficulty in Scenario options.

I turn off barbs solely to get rid of galleys. If I could get rid of sea barbs, and keep land barbs on, I would.

I like events. They add flavour to the game which I like.

Huts, I'm starting to turn off as I get to higher levels. It's just no fun having huts on and getting 1 at most because the AIs can beat you to them.

I actually don't remember the last time I started a game from 'Play Now' instead of 'Custom Game'.

I always start games from custom and i always have huts/events off. I always have barbs on.

Im still confused about the adding techs for barbs... why do this?

is the idea to play noble difficulty but give more starting techs to make it "like" a higher level

or to give barbs techs so that i dont get it

i dont understand why.... I can understand turning huts off at immortal +, because the ai already has a big advantage, why give them hundreds of free gold and techs from huts, but giving barbs techs on immortal would seem to make things worse for me more than for the ai..

Check out Opening posts of forum games like Noble's Club, Immortal University and others - in short, because saves they make are wb saves and this cannot be edited with editing tools, only in worldbuilder after you start the game. And those techs should be added to make each difficulty as it should be (as it is when you start normal game). They just make worldbuilder saves so people can start that game with their own preferred settings and/or mods, not to make the game harder or easier.

Edit: About question in your Opening post, these forum games kinda made unwritten standard which a lot of people accepted even when they're starting their own (forum) games; with no huts/no events being one of the most important.

Yes ive been reading some deity guides and things, and its all stuff i already know... which makes me wonder if theyve set up the maps to be ridiculously easy, like marathon duel with 5 pigs and 5 irons in the start or whatever. Add to that ive sat through 2-3 hours of watching replays only to confirm my suspicions in others' posts that it wasnt a deity game anyway.

People always want to get better at this game, but theres very few standards set... i read a score and have no idea how to compare mine to it..

I'm sorry if post #3 confused you, I was answering (or explaining in more details) JBossch's post #2. I should've said this applies to above mentioned forum games, but JBossch already said it and I quoted his statement before answering (or explaining in more details) so there's no confusion.

About your last post, I have no idea what you mean with first paragraph and second is already answered in post #2:

JBossch said:

Turning off huts and events is a popular option (can be changed in the custom game setup menu). I think the main reason for this is that it makes comparisons between different players approaches easier, by reducing randomness.

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And for comparing scores as well, if you will.

I play with barbs on (but not raging), but turned the huts off after I started playing Emperor. I was cheating with the huts anyway (re-loading if I got barbs or maps) and the start is difficult and often plain unfair enough without this element. I played with elements so far (but only recently switched to BtS), but I am somewhat dissappointed. Overall I think I did not benefit and never got anything interesting or funny. I got the Literature quest, lots of hurricanes and stuff sometimes destroying fully grown towns, some slave revolts and as positive events, a few windfall money (plows and diamond rings) and once a few beakers for an uninteresting tech (theology).
But I think I will keep playing with events for a while, because they could make the game after the first struggling period more interesting. My problem with all Civ games is that they are usually too hard early on and then get either too easy or boring or both.

I play with raging barbs, huts on. First wonder I built is The Great Wall, so the barbs won't attack me but my opponents.