Are you sure the barbarians don't focus on humans?

[ywhtptgtfo]

It appears every Monarch game I've played, I get swarmed by barbarians very early on. It's like every turn, there's at least 1 new barb coming into my view. Often times, I had to face spears before I got metal and some times even axe. Whenever I opened world editor and look at the A.I., they seem to have far less barbarians to deal with (and no axes). Are you sure the barbs don't focus on human players?

 

[The7Sins]

It appears every Monarch game I've played, I get swarmed by barbarians very early on. It's like every turn, there's at least 1 new barb coming into my view. Often times, I had to face spears before I got metal and some times even axe. Whenever I opened world editor and look at the A.I., they seem to have far less barbarians to deal with (and no axes). Are you sure the barbs don't focus on human players?

Unless you got a random event that spawns tons of Barbs (you'd know if this happened) no. Barbs appears out of the fog. If the AIs have less Barbs then they have less fog of war near them. You need to get some units out to spawn bust by fortifying them in key spots to get rid of most or all the fog. Or just build the Great Wall.

 

[Tristan_C]

Barbs are known to seriously hamper AI progress in my games by swarming the improved tiles and occasionally capturing cities. If you start in the middle of nowhere, though, and the AI's are a bit closer together to each other, you are in trouble, because barbs close on the closest civ. And sometimes routinely the RNG just likes to screw us over on the spawns.

 

[LegionSteve]

I think Monarch is where the AI start getting more free units (an archer) than the player? So unless you spam scouts/warriors early on, they will have more units wandering around near their cities, so less places where barbs can spawn.

Edit: Also I don't think barb spawn scales with game speed at all. So marathon speed, standard barbs is like normal speed, raging barbs. Marathon speed, raging barbs is insane. In theory that would affect the AI the same as you though. Yeah...

 

[arial_destiny]

Barbs like to swarm me on Monarch too, which taught me the valuable lesson of spawn busting. I find on Monarch, the AI builds a lot more units early on, which they send around to map territory and keeps barbs from swarming them, which is the major different between Prince and Monarch.

 

[Danelius90]

I had a game a while back as egypt and had the same swarming. Every turn was a constant barrage of barbs. My (probably subpar) spawnbusting mostly kept them at bay, but my opponents were quite far away, so thats why. Some monarch games I don't even see barbs if AI is close enough.
My friend had a game on noble with raging barbs on, and later found that an AI city had been captured, he tells me.
And since:

And sometimes routinely the RNG just likes to screw us over on the spawns.

Be sure to keep more than 1 unit in a city to avoid RNG screws! Its a pain, I know...

 

[LeHam]

What's the "RNG" stand for?

 

[sydhe]

What's the "RNG" stand for?

Random Number Generator

 

[The7Sins]

Random Number Generator

Or if your still in Paganism or in Hinduism or Free Religion it is the Random Number God.

 

[thecaesar]

The barbs just swarm whoever they swarm. I used to think they targeted humans more, then I thought they targeted the civ with the weakest military, but then I had one game where, on raging barbs, I was just playing as normal, killing barbs, and then I get this message:

The Greek Civilization has been destroyed!

This was in the ancient era, so, suspicious, I checked worldbuilder, and the barbs had taken both his second city, AND his capitol!

I don't mind getting swarmed by barbs, though, because usually I start with some kind of strategic resource, and I can get all my units up to 10 Xp thanks to the barbs, so...

 

[Yoshiegg737]

The Barbarians, for some reason, enjoy walking right through my city (like, walking beside my city), ignoring it completely, then walk over my AI neighbor where they get slaughtered by more advanced troops

So apparently, barbarians dislike my cities...

 

[Grassland Farm]

The Barbarians, for some reason, enjoy walking right through my city (like, walking beside my city), ignoring it completely, then walk over my AI neighbor where they get slaughtered by more advanced troops

So apparently, barbarians dislike my cities...

Same happens sometimes with he Barbarian uprising events. In my first games I got the Goth axemen one, I barely had archers and lacked copper/iron, I was bloody afraid of loosing all.

The 4 axemen just walked through my lands and attacked Lincoln, my neighbour.

 

[Danelius90]

I don't mind getting swarmed by barbs, though, because usually I start with some kind of strategic resource, and I can get all my units up to 10 Xp thanks to the barbs, so...

When I was newer to the game I never liked getting into war but liked to promote my units, so I loved barbs because it was something I could kill without committing to a war. Now I just love burning cities

 

[Dhoomstriker]

AI units also get hefty bonuses against Barb units. So, you can often see an AI Scout easily defeating a Barb Archer. With those kinds of battle odds, it's not too hard to believe that the AIs will have less Barb units breaking through their line of exploring units to get close enough to the AI Cities where the real damage can be done.

 

[thecaesar]

Same happens sometimes with he Barbarian uprising events. In my first games I got the Goth axemen one, I barely had archers and lacked copper/iron, I was bloody afraid of loosing all.

The 4 axemen just walked through my lands and attacked Lincoln, my neighbour.

I played a game of Rhye's and Fall where I was Rome, and I had the great wall, and got the Goth event, and the axemen just mixed with all the billions of swords and axes up in northern europe, with nothing to do because they couldn't invade me... they's crazy barbs up there.

 

[Ataxerxes]

I played a game of Rhye's and Fall where I was Rome, and I had the great wall, and got the Goth event, and the axemen just mixed with all the billions of swords and axes up in northern europe, with nothing to do because they couldn't invade me... they's crazy barbs up there.

RFC Barbs as Rome are bad enough without the Goth event. After you've got your cities up you don't want to go outside your cultural borders for a long time. The way RFC is set up, the Great Wall is very powerful for BC Starting Civs.

 

[thecaesar]

I hope they all killed Spain... I hate Izzy...

Or do they just disappear when all those annoying people appear above (or to the west of) Rome?

 

[Ataxerxes]

I hope they all killed Spain... I hate Izzy...

Or do they just disappear when all those annoying people appear above (or to the west of) Rome?

If Barbs are in the spawn area of France, Spain, Germany the Civ gets those Barbarians as extra soldiers. As you can imagine that's a very good RFC start (especially Germany). The others just outside the spawn area will attack the new Civ. Occasionally a Civ will get wiped out just after spawn by barbs. In RFC barbs appear at scriped times and not at other times. I think after about 1000 no new barbs appear. This doesn't apply to natives who constantly appear until you take their land.

It might be interesting to do a poll of players who hate or like Izzy. You hate her, I like her as a neighbor. As in dealing with a lot of women, you just have to agree with her.

 

[thecaesar]

As in dealing with a lot of women, you just have to agree with her.

Religion-wise, anyways...