Barbarian pillage?

[Grotius]

In my current game, I set Barbarians to Random, and I must've gotten Raging Hordes: they're everywhere. Anyway, about 20 Barb horsemen decided to attack my newest city -- a size-one or -two outpost in a distant jungle, established solely to claim nearby dyes. My lone defender, a Spearman, defeated about 10 attackers in a row before he finally succumbed.

Then each of the remaining 10 Barbs proceeded to pillage this little city -- and each got about 50 gold for his efforts. I lost 500 gold out of one poor city, whose income was barely 2 gold a turn? Is this how it's supposed to work? If so, I don't think I'll play with raging hordes any more.

BTW, that Spearman became elite after the second battle or so, and he never produced a great leader, despite a number of victories. I've had about 25 battles with elite troops in this game; not one leader. OK, I'm Iriquois and thus not militaristic, but jeesh. I know the odds are around 1/12 for non-militaristic civs, but in all my games, involving probably hundreds of victories by elites, I've produced exactly one leader.

 

[Goldfish27]

Just a little side note to the example you mentioned:

It is not possible to produce a Great Leader by killing barbarians with an elite unit. It must be a unit from another CIV.

 

[Grey Fox]

As I recall it, the chance to get a leader is 1/16, and 1/12 with the Epic...

 

[Grotius]

OK, thanks for the info on leaders. But how about pillage? I'm still steamed that I lost 500 gold when one little size-one city on the edge of my empire was pillaged by multipled Barbs. Is it supposed to work like that?

 

[Grey Fox]

Yea, I know that's a little strange, but how much the barbarian takes is up to how much your civilization has in gold... not what that city generates...

I had my capital ransacked once, it was a Size 7 city... and I was building the Hanging Gardens... afterwards it was a size 2 city, I lost all my work on the Hanging Gardens, and I lost about 200 Gold...

 

[zero]

Those near-infinite stacks of barbarian horsemen taught me to garrison every city, even the new ones, with 2-3 defensive unit. Coincidentally, this contributes to a larger army, which the ai civs will respect.

Now, I am wondering, if the perfect build order in diety doesn't go something like
5 warriors, then settler
4 warriors, then settler

 

[eyrei]

I wouldn't have even let the spearmen try to defend the city. When I saw the horde coming, I would have moved the spearman out, and tried to find some way to spend most of my gold - buy techs, maps, anything to keep the barbarians from getting fat and drunk.

 

[Magnus]

I believe with no money to take, they would simply destroy improvements and carry of a bunch of the population.

side note: It saddens me to see the Mongols reduced to paltry barbarians in Civ3...

 

[Quokka]

I do just what eyrei does when the hordes come around, especially if its a new city and the defender is the only one for miles around. Buy anything, hurry improvements(somewhere else), pay the outrageuos amounts the AI wants for a tech or resource. Don't forget to move the defender out too and keep just enough gold to give them 1 or 2 each.
IMPORTANT. If you run out of gold then the city will be destroyed.
Learnt this the hard way after 4 Raging Hordes attacked on two consecutive turns, with two stacks targeting an important link city that went from important to razed. After losing the defenders in the new towns and about 600 gold the first turn, I reinforced and upgraded the units in Tsingtao and then spent the rest of my gold upgrading a lot more units until I had only 18 Gold left. Three Pikemen can take a lot of attacks but 50 horsemen was just too much and 28 made it through. Lost Temple, Barracks, Granary, work on Marketplace, 3 Pikemen, 18 Gold and then ultimately the city.
Best defense is to have roving patrols through the wilderness regions especially mountains and tundra. Tsingtao was built as to control a pass through mountains and I never patrolled the mountains around it after I had mapped it all. ALL of the hordes came out of villages in mountains. Sucks that they can camp on mountains and we can't. Didn't really think about it until happened this time and now I patrol all the time, lets you kill the camps before they spawn the hordes, trains troops and is a good source of early game income.

 

[Quokka]

Played the above mentioned game again last night and it wasn't the Barbarians that destroyed the city it was an American Horseman that came in right behind them. Handy for the Americans that a stack of Barbarians happened to flatten the city right before they got there but didn't attack them. The new realisation is hardly comforting in this situation but at least it wasn't the Barbs that did it. I must away I am being personally attacked over at Apolyton.

 

[Ironikinit]

Once in a while you'll get a message from your milit. advisor that says "Barbarian hoard reported near Osaka!" or something similar. When that happens, every active barbarian village (the ones that produce barbs) will get about 10 horseman conscripts and a conscript warrior. This includes active villages near AI cities. Two spearmen might handle them, but don't count on it. The barbs are programmed to attack cities, so it's not surprising that they didn't go after the yank.