Barbarian Balancing

[PurpleMentat]

The barbarians seem great about 70% of the time. That other 30%, you have a horse camp right next to you on turn 3. Dealing with Horsemen and Horse Archers when you have Warriors and Slingers is a setback. If you don't have a good defensive position for your capital, it can be a fight for survival as you try to get Spearmen and Archers online. I think that mounted barbarian units are the major issue. Most complaints I see are about the horsemen, not the warriors and slingers.

One potential solution would be to prevent barbarian horsemen from spawning until someone in the world researches Horseback Riding. Players still have to get a military together, but they won't be smashed by horses before they can even research mining.

 

[Frank327]

One potential solution would be to prevent barbarian horsemen from spawning until someone in the world researches Horseback Riding. Players still have to get a military together, but they won't be smashed by horses before they can even research mining.

Before someone researches horseback riding, the horseman barbarians only have 20 combat strength, equal to a warrior. So the really early horsemen actually shouldn't be a problem but because they've got the same horsemen icon people are probably more scared of them than they should be.

Also something that's never really explained in the game.

 

[SheckyS]

I think a lot of it is just luck. I've played a half dozen or so games where the barbs were aggressive and challenging, but okay. But every so often I start a new game and I'm right in the middle of a large landmass with no other players around and at that point, I might as well just start over because I know there are going to be a dozen barb units descending upon my capital in about 30-50 turns. If I build nothing but warriors and slingers, I might be able to fend them off for a while, but I will be so crippled and so far behind the AI players by that point that it's just not worth continuing.

 

[qadams]

My only real complaint about barbarian camps is that it's so hard to tell where they might be under the fog of war. With the FoW's muddy brown coloring the camps look too much like a clump of woods. Tough to identify.