The Barbarian Challenge

[Gamma]

2nd try:

(this time I kind of cheated and changed the BARBARIAN_MAX_XP_VALUE to 50, instead of 10)

Spoiler :

I survived the whole time, but very soon my economy was completely crashed (at some points losing money at 0% research). I finally got 2 more cities founded, which protected London somewhat so I could start building improvements.

Liberalism was discovered in 680 AD, when my tech situation looked like this:


Even more pathetic is this:

I'm researching mysticism and the kremlin has been built People already have communism!


Strangely, after about 1250AD, the barbs just stopped coming. I seized this chance to build a lot of improvements and explore a little.

I finally gave up in 1555, when the pentagon was built and I was still researching masonry.

my economy wasn't getting any better, there were barbarian longbows and maces wandering around (I still had archers/axes), and I was getting unsolvable unhappiness for not having emancipation.

 

[kossin]

You do need to focus on economy. I'd suggest not crashing your economy on Archers early on... researching Alphabet/Currency to build wealth before it happens helps greatly.

 

[Mikehendi]

Because a lot depends on the early game, I tried to make a very detailed report.

It turned out more extensively then I thought, so I cut it in two. It almost became sort of an article on drill VS CG. I happen to like drill a lot, so I hope I can share some insights on this subjects and convince some of you CG-lovers about the advantages of the Drill Promo's!

This is until T20 (3200BC), next post is up to T50 (2000BC).

Spoiler :

Turn 1, I settled on the PH wine, for a 2/2/2 city tile. This allows building warriors in 3 turns while working the plains hill forest (PHF from now on). I worked the PHF for quite some time, as you'll see.

Research is set to hunting-archery, while I start to explore to the west.

Spoiler :

Turn 7, I produced 2 warriors, for 3 total and I start production on a 4th. Some of them will make it to medic, some will die trying or get disbanded later on, when units start to cost money. The second warrior started exploring to the east. the 3rd warrior fortifies, to build up an extra 25% defense bonus, as will the 4th.

Spoiler :

Turn 10, my 4th and last warrior is complete, and I start a work boat, still working the PHF. Hopefully at least 1 of the exploring warriors will make it back to the capital. 3 warriors should hold off barbs until I get my first archer.

Turn 11, Buddism FIDL, I'm about done exploring until spies or axemen.

Spoiler :

Some thoughts about early commerce:

Early commerce will be hard on this map. A 2nd city cannot be settled along the capital's river, so no river trade routes. The river to the south has no hill to settle on (50% extra defense bonus for archers is almost required to hold of axemen and swordsmen later on). Hopefully there is seafood @ the furs to the north, or I'll probably go sailing to work coast tiles with lighthouse.


Having said that, I decide to explore 1 more turn with my warriors.

Spoiler :

Hello mr. Archer! Fortunately, he moved next to me, instead of me ending next to him. No need to explore further and die now, I start rushing back to the capital to help defend it until I have archers.

Turn 15: Archery is in! Even though the fishing boat is 1 turn from completion, I start an archer. I want to keep working the PHF until my first archer is done anyway. My first archer will be ready in 5 turns, if I can keep the PHF free of barbs. Also, I'm about to have my city attacked by a warrior.

Spoiler :

Turn 16: First blood is drawn!!! Let's check the odds here:

Spoiler :

Even on Deity, we recieve a bonus against Barbs: an extra 25% Barb City Defense bonus! Added up, our warrior has a 120% defense bonus, meaning even quite favorable odds against archers!

So, I don't agree to the general thoughts here of warriors playing no role at all.

Also, you can see my warrior is hit twice, bringing him down to 1.5/2.0 health, but he will immediately heal 20% damage, so he'll be at 1.9/2.0 health when it is my turn again.

Turn 18, I win the 2nd fight, getting my first promo towards medic, namely Combat I.
A barb archer is approaching, but my archer will be ready just in time (inbetween turns, my unit is produced BEFORE enemy units can attack.

Spoiler :

Turn 20, the first archer attacks. Protective archers on hills, even without XP, already have a whopping 165% defense bonus!

Spoiler :

He didn't stand a chance. Well, at least not on his own. Did I mention I like drill promo's? Here's why. Look at above picture again.

You see, even though the attacking archer had 0.0% odds, he actually DID do damage to my archer. even with a strength ratio of 2.65 : 1, my archer is at 52 / 100 HP, leaving him at 1.5 strength.

If I promote him up the city garrison (CG2/CG3/Guerilla1) line, the strength ratio's will become

2.65 : 1 @ CG1
2.90 : 1 @ CG2
3.20 : 1 @ CG3
3.40 : 1 @ Guerilla1 + CG3

So all this promorions do, is increasing the 165% defense bonus to 240% defense bonus.

Vs a strength 3 Barb archer, his strength will be 10.20. That means, the attacker will have 0.0% odds to defeat our archer.... wait... didn't he already have 0.0% when he was just CG I??? But he still came out of the battle heavily damaged! If there had been a 2nd barb archer, his strength would have been 1.5 * 165 = 4. While still favourable VS a strength 3 archer, I wouldn't want it to be my last line of defense!

Now check out what Drill IV would have done here (in this particular fight):

With all of drill I, II, III and IV, you have +3 first strikes, and +3 first strike CHANCES. Together with the archers free 1 first strike, he'll have 4 to 7 first strikes. This is determined randomly, I believe each of the possibilities (4,5,6 or 7 first strikes) have equal odds of happening, 25% each.

Now look at the screenshot again. It looks like my archer lost battle rounds 1,2, then won the 3rd, lost the 4th, won the 5th, lost the 6th, and then won the 7th and 8th and defeated the Barb Archer.

This is not entirely true. To have one first strike (remember, our archer is unpromoted) means, that he CANNOT be damaged in the the first battle round. He can still LOSE the first battle round, doing no damage to the enemy, but he WILL NOT take damage from losing that battle round.

This means our defending archer actually DID lose the first battle round, but the combat log doesn't report that round, because no damage is being dealt to either archer!

So, in fact our archer lost battle rounds 1,2,3,5 and 7 before eventually defeating the enemy. Since our archer has 1 free first strike (which has nothing to do with the drill promo's, we'll ignore the first round.

So, our archer took 4 hits, losing 48 HP, half his strength. Had he have been Drill IV, He would have had (1 +) 3 free strikes, meaning he wouldn't have taken damage in round (1 and) 2 and 3. So he would have at least ended up with 88 HP (about 2.6/3 strength). There is even a 33% chance he would have defeated the barb archer WITHOUT TAKING A SCRATCH!

He'd be in way better shape to face additional attackers then a CG3 archer! It's almost comparable to a defensive blitz promo: Can defeat multiple attackers per turn!

Convinced already? Let's continue with the game, shall we? Let's see how this Drill thing plays out into practice.


Our archer has defeated the first barb archer, but there's another one coming up. I'm afraid my 1.6 str archer might be selected to defend over a 2 str. warrior, so I move him out of the city:

Spoiler :

This means, our combat 1 warrior will be facing the barb archer. While it might be dangerous, there are 2 more (unpromoted) warriors backing him up. Go get him, boy! We'll wait over here, behind this wall... right... Lets see how hee fares:

Well, that shall be the cliffhanger for the next episode!

next part:
http://forums.civfanatics.com/showpost.php?p=9172105&postcount=54

 

[Mikehendi]

2nd try:

(this time I kind of cheated and changed the BARBARIAN_MAX_XP_VALUE to 50, instead of 10)

I've been looking all over on how to change this!!! In what file is this line of code?

EDIT: And do you also happen to know where to find and edit the settings so that you do get Great General points from barbs?

 

[Mikehendi]

Continued up till 2000BC

Spoiler :

We left off while our C1 warrior faced a barb archer:

Spoiler :

11.8% odds is not negliable, but we have to take some risks to get medics! But, Warriors are defenitely are not defenseless here!

Meanwhile my work boat completes, and, being my 6th unit, here comes...

Spoiler :

Unit maintenance! It will be gone next turn, when the boat improves the crab.

On turn 22, I move a second warrior on the PHF (plains hill forest tile next to capital). I want to keep working it. My capital defense is now a 2.0 str archer and a 1.8 str warrior with 3XP. They are up against 1 archer and 1 warrior. I hope they both defend once, so I can promote both next turn.

But...

Spoiler :

The archer defends twice, and almost loses at 1.4% odds, only 1 HP remaining!

Next up is one barb archer. I didn't promote the archer yet, I want him to target the C1 warrior. And...

Spoiler :

Finally! But, no seafood near the furs...

Spoiler :

Turn 25, I move off the PHF, since the archer completes this turn, and I won't be working it soon anymore. Next turn will be the FIRST turn I work anything other than the PHF!

Spoiler :

Turn 26, the Bringer of Bad News (regarding no seafood up north) is sentenced to Death! That's what happens to uncapable servants! Well, that, and unit maintenance is back again. You can only have 5 free units, that's my capital stack, 2 archers and 3 warriors at this point.

London starts a barracks, no need to chop things yet, and don't want more units ATM. Every additional unit costs at least 1 beaker/turn now!

Spoiler :

Meanwhile, I try to promote more warriors to medic. If there's an oppertunity to move a warrior to a forest spot, where he can be attacked by only 1 barb warrior, I move him there.

Turn 29, behold the power of the mighty Drill!!!

Spoiler :

.

.

My drill III archer SINGLEHANDEDLY defeated 2 barb archers and 2 barb warriors, without taking A SINGLE SCRATCH! First strikes are immensely powerfull when you also have a big strength advantage. You see my point about "defensive blitz"?

Here he is, our hero...

Spoiler :

Turn 30, BW is in! Copper spotted on a tundra hill, still in kind of an awkward position.

Spoiler :

I'm doubting about a beeline to alphabet, settling 2nd city on the copper, or go IW too see if Iron is closer, better reachable.
I compromise, and go Sailing for lighthouse and working 2/0/2 tiles for commerce, then IW for military, followed by a writing-alphabet beeline. Did you know scientists cannot be pillaged? And they produce a Great Scientist, which provides a free 1 hammer and 6 beakers? Which also cannot be pillaged?

Hmmm... In retrospect I probably should've skipped sailing, and go writing-IW-alphabet.

On turn 31, My hero goes on a holiday to the forests north, so other fierce battlemen can also gain XP and promotions.

Turn 33, London grows to size 2, and I swap to more commerce:

Spoiler :

.

Turn 34: Hinduism FIDL!!! that's really late! 2640BC!!!

Turn 38: Using the same tactics as before, I manage to get my 2nd drill IV archer, and my second medic warrior! Defenses for a 2nd city are ready sir!

Turn 41: I notice almost all barbs come from the south, only a few from the copper's direction. I send out a scouting party consisting of a Drill IV archer and a medic I warrior. This leaves only 1 (!) D4 archer + 2 warriors in the capital to defend the city from the barbarian onslaught! Yes, I have THAT much confidence in drill!

I start on a lighthouse, swapping tiles for max production.

Spoiler :

And here's another advantage of Drill: Even outside of cities, same-strength units are no match for them on defensive terrain! Unscratched again!

Spoiler :

On turn 46, the lighthouse is whipped.

Finally, turn 50 (my single archer is managing things just fine in the cap), the scouting party is done. There is seafood, but it requires settling in a hard to defend position, so I'll probably skip on it.

Spoiler :

Finally, some standard 2000BC checkpoint stuff.

Spoiler :

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Next part:

http://forums.civfanatics.com/showpost.php?p=9172105&postcount=54

 

[Gotag]

Been years since I've posted here. Loved the first go round of this with Sirian. Most satisfying victory.

I believe there is an algoritim that limits barb density per available land/coast space. Imagine if this was not the case. Small islands with wall to wall barbs and galleys. In this case once the barbs get cities and load them with garrisons, there is no more room for random spawns. Kinda takes away from the end game.

Gotag

 

[Gamma]

I've been looking all over on how to change this!!! In what file is this line of code?

Its in GlobalDefines.xml (under Program Files/Firaxis Games/Sid Meier's Civilization 4/Beyond the Sword/Assets/XML) almost half way down:

	<Define>
		<DefineName>ANIMAL_MAX_XP_VALUE</DefineName>
		<iDefineIntVal>5</iDefineIntVal>
	</Define>
	<Define>
		<DefineName>BARBARIAN_MAX_XP_VALUE</DefineName>
		<iDefineIntVal>10</iDefineIntVal>
	</Define>

but back up the original file, or save your new file to custom assets.

EDIT: And do you also happen to know where to find and edit the settings so that you do get Great General points from barbs?

Its in the DLL somewhere, but there's a mod that does this, here (go to the last second to last page for the latest version)

 

[Gr8scott]

You do need to focus on economy. I'd suggest not crashing your economy on Archers early on... researching Alphabet/Currency to build wealth before it happens helps greatly.

I can't look at the save atm (mid reinstall), but how important are forts? I was thinking CG archers would help.

 

[madscientist]

Kossin, this is a wild and crazy game!

Spoiler :

Not really all that much of a plan except to slowly expand cities. Managed to get three on hills with woodsman II axemen while locking up the iron. Right now the economy crashed while teching AH and not sure I can recover but looking to get Beaver and silver on-line to work.

Nice Job!

 

[lymond]

Spoiler :

Barbs win Space Victory in 1811AD

Spoiler :

Spoiler :

In all seriousness though, I don't think I've played the game where the Barbs get this advanced. I have Muskets but the Barbs have had Grenadiers for a while. My archers actually did okay against them for a while. I'm about to unleash a cannon holocaust on them.

 

[Etheric]

Ok once you survive to redcoats it is quite easy to mop up all the barbs. About 1400 AD they stopped attacking for a while. I guess when they get bedded down in cities they actually have to BUILD their units so stop.

I did nearly lose when about 5 riflemen turned up at once when I took my first barb city (that was to get 6 cities and was done with medieval units.), Thankfully cg archers are can manage if they outnumber the enemy.

Could not get close to the population requirement. It keeps going up and up. Is it dependant on the number of civs left? 64% of land seems doable, 68% of pop, especially with the horrible land we have in places I am a long way away from. And I am nowhere near biology. Running 90% gold, I am not going to get many more techs. Upkeep on deity is brutal.

Ah well I did the alternate victory condition anyway, settle the continent and clear the barb galleys. (3rd time )

 

[DampRain]

About 1400 AD they stopped attacking for a while. I guess when they get bedded down in cities they actually have to BUILD their units so stop.

This is the main reason I believe they stop zerging you.

With regard to those who are crashing economies and have difficulty recovering, etc. If you don't think you can defend improvements, then don't build a city that you'll need improvements to upkeep. This makes the wine starting city site and the city site with crabs east very powerful. Since with basically unpillaged sushi, you can run 2 scientists in both getting GSs to help tech and your 2nd city with light house can work quite a few shore tiles. This will give you the decent tech rate you need to explosively expand once the barbs stop being crazy.

While the above certainly loses to any proper cottaged cities, the difficulty in this is keeping those cottages . Although after alphabet you could no doubt build some mine cities to build research and that'd still work out, since even with pillaged mines, no growth time, higher initial investment, plus lets you spam the units to stop pillaging.

 

[yena]

Great game, Kossin

Spoiler :

I was doing great until 1710, and only three barb cities on the south coast remained. My stack of x-bows, trebs, HA and cats advance on the nearest one, and then I find that the barbs have upgraded to riflemen and grenadiers I made some bad choices early on and I'm a long way from tech parity. I guess I'll be retreating and try to kill them off with a huge SOD of trebs later on.

 

[Mikehendi]

2000BC - 1AD

Spoiler :

Turn 50, I started on a settler+archer, to settle on iron if available, or on the crappy city site on the foodles tundra copper. By settling on

the recource, it can't be pillaged, so I'll always have at least one city able to create metal-requiring units.

Turn 55, 1840BC was a productive year somewhere!

Spoiler :

Turn 60 IW comes in, there is Iron, but I can't settle on it!

Spoiler :

To keep it from getting pillaged, I will probably need 2 Drill IV archers on both hills. My second city will be settled on the tundra hill NE of

the Iron (can borrow the clams, so that one city builds units and one city will use clams + scientists). I change the build order to a worker,

3-4 archers, finish the settler. That Iron will be expensive!

Spoiler :

Research is set to writing through wheel-pottery

Spoiler :

T77, a barb city spawns on my border.

Spoiler :

Turn 85, Writing completes. I don't start working scientists yet, because I can overflow a granary in 2 turns instead of 9:

Spoiler :

.

On turn 93, 550BC, the first spear is spotted. Axes and swords would soon follow! The Iron is hooked up, and the second city is settled. London

is producing a great scientist, axemen are being built. Things start to come off!

Spoiler :

Research is shut off until academy is built.

Spoiler :

Turn 104, I lose my first unit! I attacked an isolated warrior with a wounded axe

Spoiler :

Turn 107, a swordsman attacks my drill IV archer on an open hill (iron resource):

Spoiler :

Even though he is stronger (6 vs 5.25), He still only has 35% odds, thanks to the first strikes. Even though the sword is a favourite to win

each battle round, thanks to the first strikes I manage to hit him 5 times before he is able to damage my archer!

I'm gonna need a defending axe there though.

Turn 110, the great scientist appears. 2 options:

Spoiler :

Academy:

or Settle:

at no gold deficit, each produces 6 beakers. I anticipate the science slider will go down further, thanks to more units to be build, while the

capital's commerce output will not improve much soon, so I opt to settle him.

Turn 113, alphabet comes in. If huts were on, I'd immediately rush a spy to pop huts, but his only purpose now is to safely explore, so he's

needed less urgent.

Turn 115, 1AD screenies:

Spoiler :

Units costing me almost 1/3 of my potential research power!



Techs (teching currency now, and building a settler for 2 TR / city)



Almost there!



.



Cities:



.



When the settler and library are complete, a 2nd great scientist will be generated.

Thanks gamma, looks very interesting. Unfortunately, when I tried the Mod, the game runs normal except the HUD/Interface/buttons or whatever it is called are gone! I tried ALT+i, but that also failed. Well, my biggest issue was wanting to know about the XP limits, thank you very much for pointing that out to me!

 

[Etheric]

Finally did it.

The population needed was weird. It went up to 67% then came down to 59% again. I am really curious how that is worked out. No way I would have made 67% in the time limit I think.

 

[cardassian]

decided to give this a crack even tho i'm only learning bts and playing on warlord (and i'm even getting my ass kicked on that). First time lost on turn 15 lol 2nd attempt and i'm up to turn 60ish. definately very challenging senario.

 

[Gamma]

Another interesting idea would be using the option in RevDCM where barbarian cities become full civs. This would be really hard though, I wouldn't try it at deity.


@Mikehendi - Hmmm, this might be because you have BUG installed and there are conflicting files. You could probably go into the mod's .ini and disable the customassets.

 

[kossin]

Congratulations Etheric on finishing

Very detailed and interesting report Mikehendi.

I'm glad the game is providing enjoyment... it makes for quite a distraction (I've been playing it for the last few days at the expense of the Daily Rounds...)

 

[Gotag]

Much has changed since vanilla.

Spoiler :

First go round I won in 2033 (meh, I am way out of practice) but I only needed 47% of the worlds pop. Looking at the replay, all AI Civs surivived, although they were tossing tactical nukes around. If I had needed 60%+ that would have been a tough go to beat the timer although I would have had Demo by 2035.

In addition a paratrooper popped from fog very late game thankfully he died to massed grens.

The variables in this are enormous!! I've tried a couple of other strats and had +5 emacipation anger by 1250 and that is a very tough row to hoe given the lack of religion, happy, trade and of course deity support costs.

Anyway, thanks for the memories Kossin, it was nice to revisit this.

Gotag

 

[barbertje]

I managed a domination victory in 1964.
Thanks for this great challenge that took me most of the weekend.
It's also my only deity win apart from a huyana vs. gandhi on a duel map.

Spoiler :

Getting started with scientist early is really the key here. I settled the first one in 1200 BC. I teched hunting - archery - AH - writing
I thinks it's also essential to improve the pig, and park a guerilla archer on it.
(This is much better than drill on a bare hill)
This will allow your city to grow to the happy cap while running 2 scientists all the time.

You actually need to build 2 warriors at the start, or you're just gambling. You can be atacked by 3 archers at once before you can have the first archer out.

If you don't fogbust to the northwest and east (or settle a city) you CAN get a barbarian galley.

2nd city found 525 BC to the east. I nearly lost it later when a group of axemen suddenly went east.

After teching writing, I went for bronzeworking. I settled a city on the copper to the west. That's a rather quiet neighbourhood for some reason. 2 axemen were immediately chopped over there.

With a shock axe fortified on the horse and two archers on the forested hill
to the south of it (so attackers had to go across the river to attack the axe)
I was able to improve and hold the horse tile.

I teched towards math-currency first and then with 3 cities and enough defenses,
towards construction and horseback riding, building wealth. I took the barb city to the south of the capital (in the same place at Etheric) in 860 AD with a stack of axes, horse archers
and catapults, this was just before the barbs got longbows.
This city was a great asset, since the barbs had 3 riverside villages already.
I made it my capital later. Taking it also removed all barb pressure from london.

Longbows, horse archers and maces appeared around 1000 AD, grenadiers
around 1600 and rifles around 1800. I mostly let them suicide against longbows
and then mopped up any that won. 3 longbows and a few elephants/knights was enough.
There was little pillaging of cottages, If they pillaged anything it was
mostly the resources.

The barbs also got railroad, but no machineguns or infantry were seen.

Once you get redcoats it becomes easy.

Emancipation unhappiness got to -7 in the largest cities. I got democracy in
1922 and immediately got an enormous tech boost.

At the end of the game my economy is completely hosed again, because I settled
near every tile not covered by culture. I ran out of english names.

The land threshold and the pop threshold were at 64%. I had no problems making
the pop threshold, even without large scale farming. I did get biology.

The german and ottoman civilizations were destroyed, I never met anyone.

The empire: