The Barbarian Challenge

[kossin]

Hate barbarians? I promise you'll hate them even more if you try this little challenge I've prepared.


Settings
Difficulty: Deity
Map: Continents (2 landmasses)
Speed: Normal
Leader: Churchill of England (Cha/Pro)

Special Settings
-No huts
-No events
-Raging Barbarians
-You are alone on your continent, no helpful AI to help you fogbust
-AIs will not settle on your continent, they are locked away by a strange mountain barrier
-The Great Wall is disabled

Victory Condition
Domination Victory only, all others are disabled.
Your landmass is large enough to win... you just have to fill it out.

Alternate Victory Condition
Since Domination can be very long to achieve, you can declare yourself victor upon these conditions:
-no barbarians left on your landmass (this includes those pesky barb galleys!)
-entire landmass fogbusted to prove your superiority on barbarians (this means you see every square, this is not spawnbusting 5x5)

The start


Post your results and let's see how early someone can win this!

~~~

Below are my tips. They're spoilers obviously but they can help you a bit.

Mild spoilers
#1

Spoiler :

Don't settle in place.

#2

Spoiler :

Only settle hilltops.

#3

Spoiler :

Use border pops for fogbusting.

Spoilers
#4

Spoiler :

You don't have easy access to Copper.

#5

Spoiler :

You don't have time to wait for Copper, Archery is mandatory.

#6

Spoiler :

You need several level 4 units to expand.

Large Spoilers
#7

Spoiler :

You have 13 turns to be ready.

#8

Spoiler :

Don't bother building warriors.

#9

Spoiler :

You have Horses and Iron nearby.

#10

Spoiler :

Settle on the Wine and start expanding in only one direction. Your crab is safe from galleys.

~~~

Regarding worldbuilder save:
-The Great Wall has been given by default to a foreign AI (founded a city and put it there, removed a settler... not that it changes much)
-you must add Hunting, Archery, The Wheel and Agriculture to barbarians in worldbuilder. Otherwise you won't have much of a challenge compared to the real die hards out there

 

[lymond]

This should be veddy eenteresting

 

[Manco Capac]

I'm totally in; can't wait to die!
Great Idea, Kossin.

 

[drlake]

Put it up at Monarch and I'll give it a try.

 

[Manco Capac]

Thirteen turns! Gulp..

 

[Sian]

hmm ... actually think Churchill of Celtia would have been a better match for this one, since i expect to have to be using a LOT of Guellia promoted Archers

 

[Manco Capac]

Oh no!! I died! Time for a second round. Won't bother moving my precious warrior.

EDIT: The second attempt is quite different: by the time I discover Archery, only one warrior barb appeared. Last time, it was three archers!

 

[kossin]

Put it up at Monarch and I'll give it a try.

That'd be too easy now... don't worry about tech rate or Liberalism, they're useless here

 

[Sian]

okay ... after a few false starts i think i have an idea till how it can be done

Spoiler :

Settle Wine hammering out a Workboat asap while researching towards Archery

As Soon as Workboat is done start work Crabs (even though they're not effective till next turn) building an warrior ... timed right the Warrior should be done same turn as Archery ticks in

Build Archers (interrupted by a Wall from Early Masronry) till Size 6

Send two trains of a couple of Archers and a Settler south and east ...

Easten city should now be relatively safe and able to start producting infrastucture and other goddies while you slowing push your borders southwest

 

[kossin]

okay ... after a few false starts i think i have an idea till how it can be done

Spoiler :

Settle Wine hammering out a Workboat asap while researching towards Archery

As Soon as Workboat is done start work Crabs (even though they're not effective till next turn) building an warrior ... timed right the Warrior should be done same turn as Archery ticks in

Build Archers (interrupted by a Wall from Early Masronry) till Size 6

Send two trains of a couple of Archers and a Settler south and east ...

Easten city should now be relatively safe and able to start producting infrastucture and other goddies while you slowing push your borders southwest

Spoiler :

Yes, that's a way to start off. But you're not out of the woods yet... the barbs get big and start teching!

 

[budweiser]

So all I have to do is deafeat the barbs and I win?

Piece o cake.

 

[michmbk]

This looks like a lot of fun - I'll have to give it a try. Scary though, wouldn't the deity barbs start showing some more advanced units after awhile. Was initially thinking to turtle in one city to feudalism, but that may not work if the barbs start getting nasty too quickly. Giving a go tonight.

 

[lymond]

played some

Spoiler :

After a quick failed first attempt, I figured it really boils down to getting out that first archer. (I finagled between coastal/land tiles to up commerce a bit to tech Hunting/Archery faster, then switched to the forest/plains hill to get archer out in time. However, it's best not the let that warrior venture too far out. Definitely not a worker first deal here.) Once you get that archer, it's still crazy, of course, but you can get him to CG3,G1 plus his Drill and he's invincible for some time. He rarely took damage at all from stacks of archer/warriors. I never built a warrior and actually deleted the first one after a bit, which I actually regret since I could have left him to fogbust the west coast. (A 1 tile fog was producing barbs in that area)

I thought Sailing was a fairly decent early move to make the coastal tiles more viable for commerce and food. Once Writing is in it should help a lot. Also, working toward HBR but haven't been able to improve the horse yet.

Basically, playing this almost like an OCC in the early game - really by necessity - but it helps keep tech up some, especially with all the fogbusters outside the borders.

I focused mainly on giving Archers the Guerrilla promo.

Should have 1st Settler out soon. I'm thinking of settling near the silver, copper, sheep for multiple reasons. Besides the good resources and commerce, few barbs have come from that direction where I have an archer posted.

Here's a view of what I've killed by around T70 (my stalwart CG3G1 city defender killed a large percentage of these units.)

 

[kossin]

After about 2 hours of lazy playing... (I'm automating workers and cities...)

~1600AD

Spoiler :

Around 1500AD the barbs start showing up with Grenadiers and Rifles. They get Axes/Swords around 1AD iIrc, Longbows ~600AD and Maces ~1000AD or so. Playing too fast to notice really... it'd be interesting to see with optimization how fast this can really be done.

Currently barbs are putting up Railroads and I'm finding Factories in their cities

Fun fun fun!

 

[DampRain]

BOO YEAH! Wanted something like this ever since I heard about that Rome epic.

 

[budweiser]

Impressions

Spoiler :

I was able to get a barracks and an archer up by using the 3H hill. I think 1 archer is all you need to defend London vs archers and warriors.

You can't leave town with just 1 archer though, you need at least 2 stacked together.

 

[kossin]

It took a while to get the required population but I've done it.

July 2028 (yea I know it's sloooooooooooow!)

Spoiler :

Settled on the wine... I put it there on purpose. Start on a workboat and work the coast to get Archery ASAP. Once it's in, the first Archer can be built just as barbs start attacking. Finish WB then Sailing>...>Writing to run some scientists.

My first city was west as few barbs came from that way and it gave me good commerce via silver and fur.

Expanded slowly south afterwards with Longbows... then all hell broke loose and Rifles+Grenadiers started showing up while I wasn't yet at Gunpowder...
Thankfully defending odds in cities were good enough to survive but I was pillaged to hell in 2 cities. To get to Rifling ASAP I built a lot of wealth after the first 4 cities (there aren't that many good spots right around).

With Redcoats+Trebuchets I took the ~10 barb cities and then spammed settlers while teching Communism/Biology/Physics [to scout and meet the others] -> turn up culture slider and automate everything+ enter many times.



It took way too long as I didn't have enough workers and I was realllly lazy.

The barbs never got more than Rifles/Grenadiers despite them having Railroads and Assembly Line.

@DampRain
The Rome Epic at RB is what inspired me to make this challenge
I picked Churchill instead however for better Archers and Redcoats plus Stock Exchanges... they were a great help.

 

[Inso]

This sounds like lots of fun, will be trying this tomorrow, looking forwards to getting absolutely battered

 

[Gr8scott]

Perhaps the race could be first to have the continent subdued (all barb cities taken + fog busted the rest)?

 

[kossin]

Perhaps the race could be first to have the continent subdued (all barb cities taken + fog busted the rest)?

Not a bad idea, I'll add it to the OP as a "side" victory.