Anyone else frustrated by Barbarians naval units?

[carstuar]

I just finished playing an Ice Age game with wide continents. While I enjoy the barbarians in the early game, it can get so incredibly frustrating and time consuming to deal with them in the modern era. I had a huge tech lead, but as soon as I got the technology for destroyers and infantry, the barbarians started spawning those units like mad. The rest of the world was using musketmen and caravels (At this point I had conquered most of them and crippled the rest). On certain map types (especially ones with many islands or uninhabitable areas) the barbarians never start spawning because some parts of the world will always remain uncivilized. It just seems like an unnecessarily time consuming annoyance to have destroyers randomly blockade your cities in the late stages of the game, and not get any experience for fighting them.

I'm looking for suggestions on good ways to deal with them without disabling barbarians, as some civilizations and policies depend on them, and it wouldn't be fair.

 

[Rathelon]

Build some submarines. They are substantially better than the subs in Civ IV. Subs have ranged attack of 60, and nuclear subs are 70. And they are 3 range, so they can usually get the first shot before the barbarian has to move in close.

 

[Danceofmasks]

One way to deal with 'em is to play Ottomans ... ...
Free destroyers ftw .. wait, better than free. They pay you.

Seriously, though ... barbarian camps only spawn in dark places .. i.e. places you don't have vision of.

Destroyers with their large vision range, just park them in strategic places to prevent barbarian camp spawnage.

 

[IgnatiusTBarfat]

What determines the tech level of barbs?

I.e. how did they get to have destroyers?

 

[Sainhann]

What determines the tech level of barbs?

I.e. how did they get to have destroyers?

I believe that they are coded to at times match the tech of game.

I have had them spawn Infantry then right after I killed that they spawn brutes.

 

[r_rolo1]

And people thinked barb galley spawn in BtS was bad [/TMIT]

Yup, barbarians have the techs of the most advanced civ around. It is perfectly possible to see barbarians stomping tech lagging civs with high tech units if there is one very advanced civ.

 

[carstuar]

And people thinked barb galley spawn in BtS was bad [/TMIT]

Yup, barbarians have the techs of the most advanced civ around. It is perfectly possible to see barbarians stomping tech lagging civs with high tech units if there is one very advanced civ.

Yeah, this is the problem. As soon as I even finish researching a high military tech, barbarians (and city states) start pumping out high tech units, even though I haven't had time/gold to upgrade my own units to that level yet. If it weren't for the many social policies and civ abilities that are tied into city states and barbarians I would just play with them disabled.

Seriously, though ... barbarian camps only spawn in dark places .. i.e. places you don't have vision of.

Destroyers with their large vision range, just park them in strategic places to prevent barbarian camp spawnage.

Except I need to destroy the camps that have already spawned first (with ground units that are vulnerable when embarked and take ages to get across the map). I also can't afford to have units spread out across the entire map to prevent every hex from being in fog of war. This is obviously not a problem on Pangaea maps since the whole world ends up filled with cultural borders, but when half the world is Ice or small islands there will be plenty of camps.

 

[Danceofmasks]

Well .. err .. I just run with more ships, and actually capture the barbarian camps with spare workers.

Shh ... nobody tell the workers that's what I'm paying them to do.

 

[carstuar]

Well .. err .. I just run with more ships, and actually capture the barbarian camps with spare workers.

Shh ... nobody tell the workers that's what I'm paying them to do.

That's actually a decent trick. I always end up with too many workers anyway, and this way I don't have to spread my ground forces too thin.

 

[dfn]

Yup, barbarians have the techs of the most advanced civ around. It is perfectly possible to see barbarians stomping tech lagging civs with high tech units if there is one very advanced civ.

Does this happen on each difficulty level?

 

[r_rolo1]

AFAIK yes, it is like that in all levels.

 

[Fizpez2]

I believe that they are coded to at times match the tech of game.

I have had them spawn Infantry then right after I killed that they spawn brutes.

Yeah the "Barbarians" and One City Wonder Civ States are always immediately on par with the most advanced military on the planet - they must have one HELL of a spy network.

Also despite the fact they are living in mud huts the barbs can spawn a destroyer every 5 turns.

It seems like it was part of the code that was slapped together to get something out there while they were game testing and they never had time to revise and refine it to anything other than what was initially coded.

I mean I can see how a barb horde might occassionally capture a more advanced unit - like a caravel that had to beach in a storm or something if you need a more "realistic" interpretation - but to have have a collection of huts crank out a modern military unit in a time frame faster than all but the most production heavy industrial powerhouse is just silly.

 

[IgnatiusTBarfat]

Yeah the "Barbarians" and One City Wonder Civ States are always immediately on par with the most advanced military on the planet - they must have one HELL of a spy network.

Also despite the fact they are living in mud huts the barbs can spawn a destroyer every 5 turns.

Both good points. On the CSs, they really don't seem to obey the production laws of the game. But of course if they did, they couldn't feed my 30 city ICS empire so...

Mud hut destroyers is goofy too. Didn't barbs go away after a certain date in Civ 4 on the default settings?

 

[elthrasher]

I find barbs to be less problematic in Civ V than Civ IV. The barb galleys in Civ IV were a real pain because you'd have to tech the expensive Metal Casting (not always on your tech path) to get triremes to deal with them. Now you can just bombard them from land with your cities or archers.

I haven't seen barb destroyers in any quantity. My guess is you aren't covering enough of the map if it's getting to be that big a problem.

 

[Rathelon]

Barbarbian units with modern weaponry is perfectly reasonable. They would represent modern day pirates or revolutionary groups, which are also quite abundant. Just because the barbarian camp graphic never changes from the mud huts, doesnt mean that's what they are all through time.

 

[Fizpez2]

Barbarbian units with modern weaponry is perfectly reasonable. They would represent modern day pirates or revolutionary groups, which are also quite abundant. Just because the barbarian camp graphic never changes from the mud huts, doesnt mean that's what they are all through time.

There haven't been pirates with roughly equivalent ships/cannon since 1720 or so and that was when confronting armed merchant ships - they still ran like hell from anything approaching a front line warship.

Would make a certain sense for any post galley ship to present as a privateer, but even that should end before destroyers make their debut in the game - in a nutshell I don't think any military unit post combustion should have anything to fear from a barbarian ship.

 

[CrimsonEdge]

I believe that barb and city state tech only reflects AI tech and not your own.

For example, I had riflemen while my enemy had longswords. I did not see a single rifleman being produced until well after my AI had them. By that time I had mechanized infantry.

ETA: This did not seem to include allied militaristic city states. They gave me the most modern unit I had.

 

[HermannLombard]

Barbarbian units with modern weaponry is perfectly reasonable. They would represent modern day pirates or revolutionary groups, which are also quite abundant.

Modern light weapons, certainly. Modern warships, no way. Things are dangerous off Somalia, but not *that* dangerous!

 

[dfn]

I asked about the difficulty level because on prince, I have never seen barb huts spawn anything better than a caravel. I've seen decent land units occasionally, but never a modern sea unit.

 

[bryanw1995]

Barbarbian units with modern weaponry is perfectly reasonable. They would represent modern day pirates or revolutionary groups, which are also quite abundant. Just because the barbarian camp graphic never changes from the mud huts, doesnt mean that's what they are all through time.

last time I checked, the modern day pirates were using mother ships and speed boats to go after oil tankers. they don't have anything remotely like a destroyer.

however, I like the barbarians in ciV. we were warned that they would be out there for the entire game. if you don't want them to blockade your cities just leave a battleship or two in the critical harbors, they should take out a random destroyer without much problem.