Raging Barbs in Fire

[Sarisin]

Is anyone using the Raging Barb option in Fire?

I stopped using it (and Marathon speed as well) when it seemed like the counter was moving too fast for me to keep up. Getting constantly pounded by barbs held back my research, growth, etc. and I was dead meat when the Horsemen appeared.

Anyway, I went back and just started 3 Raging Barb games on a huge Fantasy Realm map at Epic speed. Here are some observations on those 3 games. Your comments are welcome.

1. My first game my starting screen had FIVE barrows. Not a single goodie-hut - I'm not sure if there is a relationship or not. However, I decided there was no way I would be able to get all of the Barrows before they were protected (see below). Exit to Main Menu, start a new game.

2. In my next two games before the yr. 10 one AI civ was eliminated. It could only have been Skeletons, right? Maybe the Dirge dropped a few right next to a civ's only city. I think some AI civs explore and leave the city without a defender. Even so, one Warrior likely without promotions will get killed by one or more Skeletons. I had it happen to me once.

3. In my other games I moved my Scout/Warrior to take out a Barrow close to my city. I was shocked when a Skeleton guard spawned in yr. 4 to protect the barrow. No way my Scout or Warrior is going to win that battle. This means Skeletons will be spawning from the Barrow close to my city until I can get a unit strong enough to kill the Skeleton Guard. Note: the same thing happens with Lizardmen and their Ruins. I thought yr. 4 was a little early in an Epic game to have Skeletons spawning. But, then again, you get the Dirge in yr. 1!

4. Schizophrenic Lizardmen. Has anyone been able to figure out their behavior in the early game? I haven't. I saw one right next to an AI Scout with only Combat II - an easy kill. The Lizardman moved away. However, next turn he killed my Warrior!! Sometimes they just buzz around, sometimes they attack, sometimes they just guard their ruins. How can you develop a strategy against these whacky creatures?

5. In both games there were plenty of Lizardmen and Skeletons buzzing and attacking before the orc spearmen and goblins appeared. These are Strength 3 units and you have warriors and scouts. It can be tough unless you manage to get promotions before your units are killed. Also, I noticed in both games when the spearmen and goblins came, when you add in the Skeletons and Lizardmen, the animals had completely disappeared from the map. Capturing animals, if you had a chance, was no longer possible. You had to wait until you could build Nature's Revolt in mid-game.

6. As expected swarms of raging barbs appeared and attacked me for about 50 turns before moving on to attack some other poor civ. This prevented me from advancing in the game much - no improvements, slow techs, no additional cities and I fell behind 5 other civs who had not been swarmed by the barbs.

7. The counter was moving at a hasty clip - up to 20+ before turn 175. I was just getting Hunters and ready to settle my second city.

Conclusion: I think Fire is fantastic, but you still cannot play it using the raging barb setting with Epic or Marathon speed.

PS. One question: The barbs come in Epic around yr. 72. In Marathon, they come around yr. 114.

However, in both speeds you get the animals, most Skeletons, etc. in yr. 7, Why isn't there an adjustment made to Marathon as in the case of the barbs?

 

[[NWO]_Valis]

Normal speed, map huge, raging barbs, Fire 0.20h: All seems ok. Some times an AI gets obliterated in first 70 turns after Ortus has spawned or Acheron but nothing too serious like in a 4th turn. The first swarms start to appear when I am going to build my 1st or second settlers and then it is a rought battle for survival, very flavorwise.

It seems that only the other speed settings are jinxed althou 0.21 might change something there I am not aware of.

 

[Sureshot]

might be nice if ruins and barrows spawned animals until barbs appeared.

 

[cvlowe]

I play huge- epic and haven't noticed that problem as severely. Yeah- the unending stream of goblins/orcs requires at least 2-3 defenders per city by around turn 50-70, and an active defense to protect workers and improvements. Fortunately I find I can still expand at a decent clip- new cities only require a single defender on fortify until I get arund to sending workers to it to start building improvements, at which point I can usally shift an experienced warrior/swordsman from a city less likely to be attacked directly.

Granted there is still the bad luck chance of barrows/dirge, but that has been in FfH since I started playing.

might be nice if ruins and barrows spawned animals until barbs appeared.

Ruins- Rats, and Barrows- bats! Both str 1 non-capturable barb animals. Sounds like a good suggestion, and fits the fantasy theme

BTW- the first ever game I played of Fire, I saw a gorilla on a jungle covered island, but never managed to get over to fight it. I have never seen another one in any of my games since. In fact now I think of it, I haven't seen the Toads resource in my last couple games either. Were these removed?

 

[Sureshot]

gorillas are only in jungles, so it really depends on the map type, and toads are only on hell terrain, so they dont show up to later if at all

 

[Corm]

I play on pretty much the same settings and find I have had to restart about 50% of my early games because of Barrows being nearby but if they arent it has normally lead to me getting a butt load of Experienced units early on that always works to my advantage whether im playing to up AC or reduce it.

Edit: When I say nearby I mean within my first 5 turns I have spotted more than 1 barrow. I can normally deal with 1 or even 2 as you can build enough warriors to wear down the early Skelly that pops before a 2nd appears without ******ing your start too much.

 

[Lord Vermillion]

might be nice if ruins and barrows spawned animals until barbs appeared.

Now that, IMO is one helluvan idea!

 

[onedreamer]

I use it consistently (but not on very big maps because it slows the computer too much) and it doesn't affect the AC in a really significant way. I play normal speed though, I think the other speed settings are not balanced (not a FFH problem only). You really should avoid them IMHO.

 

[anisotropy]

not to hijack the thread, but how are the other speeds unbalanced? I play only on marathon speed (sometimes with raging barbs, but it depends), prince difficulty and I have never had issue with too many barrows/ruins or the AC going up too quickly.

 

[Nimai_R]

I'm playing Noble, Epic. It was always a fun challenge keeping my cities alive, every now and then you'd have 5-6 jump you. I pretty much had to put a horse on each of my worker stacks for protection. Basically if you keep a few scouts around your city it tends to be okay because the vision keeps them from spawning and when they come you quickly knock em off before they hit your city.

The main problem I'm having is there will be 1 black spot and chariots suddenly pop out, move onto an improvement, and destroy it in one turn. Hella fraustrating.

Though on my like 5th turn once I had a skeleton come from nowhere walk to my city kill the bloodpet and take it. I don't think it needs so much tweaking, just requires a bit more luck I guess.

 

[Sarisin]

not to hijack the thread, but how are the other speeds unbalanced? I play only on marathon speed (sometimes with raging barbs, but it depends), prince difficulty and I have never had issue with too many barrows/ruins or the AC going up too quickly.

I'm not sure if you get more barrows/ruins in a raging barb game. These were just three games I cited that I tried to play recently. Maybe just bad experiences.

However, with the first version of Fire I gave up on about 6 games at Marathon, Raging Barb/Agg AI, Monarch setting.

The problem I was having with the counter moving too fast - maybe this os onedreamer's unbalanced statement which I tend to agree with.

With raging barbs you spend more time in a defensive rather than expansive mode. You are slower to get the techs, wonders, etc. as you have to protect your one or two cities as the barbs get after you.

The barbs take down cities and one good strategy is for you to take down barb cities when you can. In both cases the counter will likely advance.

I was finding the counter hitting the 60s and bringing the Horsemen when I only had Tier II defenders, in some cases without Courage. It wasn't pretty.

So, I started playing at Epic without raging barbs, but still Agg AI to keep the game interesting, and had no problems with the counter. It seemed to move just about right.

 

[Sarisin]

I'm playing Noble, Epic. It was always a fun challenge keeping my cities alive, every now and then you'd have 5-6 jump you. I pretty much had to put a horse on each of my worker stacks for protection. Basically if you keep a few scouts around your city it tends to be okay because the vision keeps them from spawning and when they come you quickly knock em off before they hit your city.

The main problem I'm having is there will be 1 black spot and chariots suddenly pop out, move onto an improvement, and destroy it in one turn. Hella fraustrating.

Though on my like 5th turn once I had a skeleton come from nowhere walk to my city kill the bloodpet and take it. I don't think it needs so much tweaking, just requires a bit more luck I guess.

That's an interesting strategy of using Scouts to surround your city to keep the barbs from spawning near you - especially if you can find an Ancient Tower or two to help with the sight. Of course, having Scouts raises your maintenance costs and they are not good defenders.

Yes, the Goblin Chariots and Worg Riders are the biggest nuisances when it comes to protecting your improvements.

One thing I have seen in raging barb games is that the barbs will target a particular city. Then, if you open the World Builder, you will see them lined up from far away in a conga line approaching your city. In this case, I'm not sure your Scouts would be much help and they would be the first to go.

Still, I will try your strategy in one of my games. Thanks.

 

[Sureshot]

the scout strategy is more effective if you grab hunters right off and use them, and then work towards rangers. by the time you get rangers you'll have Sentry hunters too, they can really scope out the area, and once you get rangers you can put them on mountains so most barbs cant take them out.

also, putting a sentry2 unit on a tower gives massive line of sight.

 

[Nimai_R]

Haha I'll have to check the congo line that's hilarious, but I don't doubt it for a second when for a few turns they just pile into my city area. Ya the one game with the horses my jaw dropped when I got horse back riding from a hut, made my life extremely easier =P

But yea, the thing is barbs only spawn in fog of war, so a lot of the time I don't really fight barbs but fog of war. I should of said I put bloodpets on hills, or even horsemen, because yea when they come I like to instantly take them down and put them back into outpost position, so I like sending out units that can fight barbs. Also, ships on the coast do great wonders for getting rid of fog, and can't be attacked. Sadly, I also end up building cities close by just to get rid of fog and make other cities safer.
Edit: I also play on Noble, but I'm bumping up to Prince this new game coming so I'll see how it is. I assume barbs are easier in Noble, might explain why I'm not having so much difficulty yet. Except for a skeleton ending my civ in 5 turns ><! =P

I do like Sureshot's idea though. That's a great strat too.

 

[Seont]

2. In my next two games before the yr. 10 one AI civ was eliminated. It could only have been Skeletons, right? Maybe the Dirge dropped a few right next to a civ's only city. I think some AI civs explore and leave the city without a defender. Even so, one Warrior likely without promotions will get killed by one or more Skeletons. I had it happen to me once.

or the AI went to a goody hut with a non scout and it went hostile on him. usually after which the barbarians, fresh from a kill, come after me. I imagine this happens most often to khazad, since as i recall, they get no scout, only 2 warriors to explore with. But I've seen it happen a few times, stupid AI.

3. In my other games I moved my Scout/Warrior to take out a Barrow close to my city. I was shocked when a Skeleton guard spawned in yr. 4 to protect the barrow. No way my Scout or Warrior is going to win that battle. This means Skeletons will be spawning from the Barrow close to my city until I can get a unit strong enough to kill the Skeleton Guard. Note: the same thing happens with Lizardmen and their Ruins. I thought yr. 4 was a little early in an Epic game to have Skeletons spawning. But, then again, you get the Dirge in yr. 1!

A warrior fortified in a city gets 25 fortified plus 25 city for 50% to his 2, for 3 total, making him atleast a match for the skeleton, and after 1 battle he usually has combat 1 for an extra 20. while i don't play on epic, i like to leave the barrows alone and rack XP especially since skeletons can't pillage, and i've never seen them go for my workers, they beeline right for the city.

I won't argue with you on the lizardmen, words cannot express my hatred for them. Atleast they don't pillage either, but it matters little since you can't build anything while they are around.

4. Schizophrenic Lizardmen. Has anyone been able to figure out their behavior in the early game? I haven't. I saw one right next to an AI Scout with only Combat II - an easy kill. The Lizardman moved away. However, next turn he killed my Warrior!! Sometimes they just buzz around, sometimes they attack, sometimes they just guard their ruins. How can you develop a strategy against these whacky creatures?

I've only ever seen them leave one guard on a barrow. And if the lizardman sees a city it considers vunerable, or certain other high value targets, i've seen it often bypass my troops no matter how weak, or wounded, or oppertune. A cheap tactic i occasionally use to save a wounded warrior, or a worker even, when i see a lizardman, assuming he's out of range of the city, is to move most or all my defenders out, he goes for the city, i move the defenders back and hopefully get my guy to safety. course he sometimes kills him anyway if its on the way to the city.
I can't explain all their behavior, but i guess thats because some of what they are reacting to is out of my visible range.

6. As expected swarms of raging barbs appeared and attacked me for about 50 turns before moving on to attack some other poor civ. This prevented me from advancing in the game much - no improvements, slow techs, no additional cities and I fell behind 5 other civs who had not been swarmed by the barbs.

Something i noticed a while back, the closer i am to the equator, and the closer i am to the center of my continent, the worse it will be, to the point that the one time i started dead center in both, it was just stupid ridiculous, they even walked right past lightly defended cities of other civs just to fight me. I've struggled to find an explanation for this behavior, thats all i can come up with. They just didn't like me being in the middle.LOL.

 

[Sarisin]

Many interesting points, Seont, thanks!

I always wondered how Khazad was able to get Runes of Kilmorph so early. In my last game, he got Pact of Nilhorn around yr 112 (Epic speed) and ROK about 20 turns later.

I know some have said the elves have an advantage in getting FOL because they have those 2 elven scouts. But, with two Dwarven Warriors you really have to wonder how Khazad is able to get Cartography, Mining, Mysticism, and Ways of the Earthmother with only one city and two warriors this fast!!!

When I send a warrior out exploring, I almost always get a hostile reaction, as you mentioned, lose the warrior the next turn and then have a couple of orc spearmen wandering around the map.

I lost a game in yr 18 when two Skeletons killed my only Warrior defender. In Epic/Marathon games it can take 30+ turns for you to get that second defender. My Warrior was fortified, but had no promotions.

Interesting strategy on the barrows - leaving them around to build up XP. That is helpful particularly if Orthus pays you an early visit. I don't know, I just think they are disruptive like the Lizardmen when you are trying to build improvements.

I play almost all my games on a huge Fantasy Realm map. It is mostly land and scrolls. It always seems like the AI picks on me in raging barb games and this really slows down expansion, etc. However, I have to admit, in Light the AI was unable to handle the raging barbs and was often eliminated one by one leading to an early Conquest victory for me.

I am not seeing that as much in Fire as not only do the AI civs survive the barb onslaught, but also seem to expand at a good clip.

Still, I think the counter moves too fast in the raging barb games played at the slower speeds.

 

[Nimai_R]

Well Sarisin. I now have to sadly side with you on this one =P My first game in prince, in the first what 20-30 turns, 3 AI die, and then ONE skeleton runs up and slaughters my TWO freaking bloodpets -.<.

It seems MUCH better on Noble because your warrior generally almost always trumphs the skeletons, where as on Prince they generally get their asses handed to them, twice. I guess like someone else said, if you're going to play higher difficulties you need to play faster games speed =( So for now I'm sticking to noble, which sucks because I really wanted to up my gaming.

Oh and another thing, I saw my brother playing his first FFH game, and he built his city next to a burrow on the first turn, the next turn bam a skeleton was there. Not sure if the city triggered the defender, but that was pretty bad. I think hypothetically the problem is there might be a universal spawn time for defenders and skellies, when it needs to be extended for slower game speeds.

 

[Sarisin]

Well Sarisin. I now have to sadly side with you on this one =P My first game in prince, in the first what 20-30 turns, 3 AI die, and then ONE skeleton runs up and slaughters my TWO freaking bloodpets -.<.

It seems MUCH better on Noble because your warrior generally almost always trumphs the skeletons, where as on Prince they generally get their asses handed to them, twice. I guess like someone else said, if you're going to play higher difficulties you need to play faster games speed =( So for now I'm sticking to noble, which sucks because I really wanted to up my gaming.

Oh and another thing, I saw my brother playing his first FFH game, and he built his city next to a burrow on the first turn, the next turn bam a skeleton was there. Not sure if the city triggered the defender, but that was pretty bad. I think hypothetically the problem is there might be a universal spawn time for defenders and skellies, when it needs to be extended for slower game speeds.

I am still playing a Light game (I alternate days with a Fire game) at Emperor, Huge, Marathon, Raging Barb, Agg AI.

However, in Fire I had to adjust. I am playing Prince (and losing about 50% of the time!), without Raging Barbs (but still AggAI), and at Epic speed.

I agree with you that the slower speeds are VERY difficult in Fire because the counter moves basically at the same pace, but your growth is much slower. If you add in raging barbs, your growth really can crawl and you will be left wanting when the Horsemen arrive.

Yeah, I think something has gone haywire with the Skeletons in the early game. I definitely agree that some of those early game events (Sailor's Dirge, arrival of Animals/Barrow & Ruin Dwellers, etc.) need to be adjusted like the arrival of the barbs themselves. As it is now with the lengthy times to build that 2nd defender, you cannot stand up to 2 or even sometimes 1 Skeleton in the first few turns.

I guess its all about experimenting with the different game variables to see what works for you.

 

[daladinn]

few notes and tricks about skeles , lizards , and orcs ...

1 - skeles and liz wont pillage .... EVER .... many times you can ignore them and improve on the other side of the city

2 - typically skeles and liz will attack a lone warrior or a pair of warriors. find a forested hill just a ways out and fortify .... this makes your warrior a 4 and he will level nicely on these guys.

3 - its only the orcs that will walk around you to hit a city or pillage. fortunately they have a move of 1 and if you can place a defender in a forest close he can attack when the orc has no defensive bonus.

4 - if your having issueswith orcs or lizardmen , use the orc slaying promo , it effects both.

5 - a hunter with combat 2 and forest defence is elligible for forest stealth. this is a very strong promo as he cant be killed in forests (normally).

6 - iirc , forest defense applies to attack also

basicallly it comes down to knowing your enemy and using the terrain.

 

[onedreamer]

not to hijack the thread, but how are the other speeds unbalanced? I play only on marathon speed (sometimes with raging barbs, but it depends), prince difficulty and I have never had issue with too many barrows/ruins or the AC going up too quickly.

I'm speaking of the game, Civ4. It was built around normal speed, the other speed settings change the balances of the normal setting, especially Marathon.