Barbarians a little...overpowered

[Dumanios]

An important tip. Playing Clan for Chary means no worries about early Barbs. You can explore dangerous dungeons, activate Pristinus Pass and not have to worry! You can also use the For the Horde clan ability(especially on Raging Barbs) to get many units, which you should have been building to benefit from the very war-lenient civs. With your new units, you can then go out and Zerg Rush the other civs. The Clan also has Rantine, who can take Barb cities if he's the strongest unit within.

 

[Emptiness]

Dungeons (as well as other explorables like Lairs and Goblin Forts) cannot be explored by civilizations that are at peace with the barbarians.

 

[Jarrema]

Vladesch

In addition to what Emptiness said, I think that You have a little too many cities... Brakkah is no-good, You could live without it (and without replacemoent).
If You had less cities, You will not need city states and can run GodKing effectively.
Also, effort put into getting settlers could be invested in warriors or hunters... which can ATTACK barbs and get promotions - in my opinion not getting enough promotions could be one of the biggest reasons of You'r hard situation

 

[Vladesch]

Thanks for the analysis of my game
Yes I sort of figured that people would say that my SW city was a waste, and I have to agree. Its just that Id already made the settler and sent it off to about where the enemy city tot he north was (it was open land then), but the enemy settled it a couple of turns before I got there.
I guess I should have held the settler in limbo, but I was greedy and wanted to grab some land before anyone else got it
hehe
I guess i did rather overexpand. I need to adjust from paying lanun, where I have bucketloads of money rolling in from the coves.

I started another game with svar, but this time I got a stupidly good start with 2 gold mines, a happiness calendar and 3 flood plains in my first city, and ended up getting eduation quite late. All my cities have inspiration, and Im building up some more adelts/illusionists as well as money changers and public baths currently.

The barbarians are not even at the stage of being annoying, I am so strong, and the frostlings were just an xp fest.

There is definitly room for some improvements in my previous games, but I think I was knackered anyway in that last game, sandwiched between the jungle and 2 opponents, without any early happiness resources.

Ive been wanting to beta elemental, but FFH just draws me in

 

[Breunor]

No doubt about it, the starting location can be a big deal. I've had a few games where I lost because Acheron spawned nearby, cutting off my natural expansion, and then sending 4 warriors constantly. Like your earlier games, I could hold off the attacks but the problem was I used so much production/resources to do it that it stymied me.

Yes, and other games you start so rich that you have a huge advantage. In games where I can generate a lot of gold from mines, wine, etc. I often hold off on education and go for mining to boost production.

Some maps (like plains and highlands) seem to get more barbarians.

Anyway, I'm glad it went better this time.

Best wishes,

Breunor

 

[Zechnophobe]

I started a new game. About turn 40, a specter (9 attack, 100% strength) wanders into my kingdom of 5 cities and quickly destroys two of my cities. I gather an army of warriors and try to attack the specter but they're "afraid" and won't attack. The Specter takes turns taking a city, while my stack of warriors follows it around to take them back. Yay fun! I like a challenge, but this is stupid. I'm starting over and setting it to "No Barbarians".

No barbarians isn't going to help you from that by the way. That wasn't a random spawn or anything, that was some nasty thing that you likely found in a dungeon.

Dungeons are really NOT goodie huts. You will need to be very careful when searching them, since they are rather likely to create nasty threats as much as cool bonuses.

If you really don't like barbarian concerns... play as them! The Clan of Embers are At peace with the barbarians, as is Charadon of the Doviello.

 

[Lord Chambers]

Don't attack the barbarians just for experience. The experience of your warriors is less important than the early hammers you might be wasting by attacking with them. Always seek the best combat odds.

 

[Zechnophobe]

Don't attack the barbarians just for experience. The experience of your warriors is less important than the early hammers you might be wasting by attacking with them. Always seek the best combat odds.

Unless you are playing Sidar . XP = Great People!

 

[Jarrema]

Don't attack the barbarians just for experience. The experience of your warriors is less important than the early hammers you might be wasting by attacking with them. Always seek the best combat odds.

IMHO it is quite opposite...
I think that loosing about 40-50% of Your warriors in order to obtain several experienced units is a very good idea, thanks to the fact that promotion effects are doubled in FfH

 

[Cambysesu]

Hunting was mentioned for the svartalfar. Its also great because you can train Hawks that can easily scout out the map for you without much risk if you get a couple of open border agreements you can often explore the whole map at this point.

Also, an easy way (exploit?) for getting any early religion. Grab mysticism as soon as possible, build a pagan temple, switch to philosophy and god king, set a specialist as a priest. By the time you have researched Hunting (or whatever other tech is required) you should have a Great Prophet and can bulb the expensive religion. Or, if you are lucky enough to pick up a Great Prophet early due to a random event think about keeping it and use it to bulb the religion. If its VERY early, sometimes settling it might be better though...

Using this technique I always found the religion I want even on some of the higher difficulty levels.

Oh and on topic. Yeah 3 warriors/city minimum at the beginning. Combat I + Shock I makes even a warrior very powerful against barbs. Any further promotions and it becomes almost invincible. There is no need to stress about getting bronze. Experienced wariors, fauns, hunters etc are all quite capable of doing the same job.

 

[JonathanStrange]

No doubt about it, the starting location can be a big deal.

I agree. I agree in a big way: I can calculate tactics and strategy all I like for Svartalfars, Ljosalfars or Elohim choosing research orders and city sites but I always keep in mind that in the early game where I start usually is the biggest single factor in winning or losing. It's obvious yes but I think we can lose sight of that - I know I can - when we start to think mostly about researching this to get to that to get to this. I know I have an idea, for example, of how I like to play the Ljosalfars in terms of research and expansion but my Pangaea Start plays much different from my small continent start which plays much differently from an large island start which...

Sometimes those Pangaea starts with raging barbarians and bad neighbors next door just can't be won, only survived. Then again they're often the most fun too.

 

[Acheron143]

Avoiding getting barb rushed under. Is a mix and match of styles and strategies. I've been big on The Night Court lately, (Savaltfar) Basically you hope to start in an area where you have forested hills. Every city gets 2 fortified warriors and every hill top gets 2 fortified warriors (outside your Zone Of Control) The farther you can see the less you get hit by barbs. always take combat 1 then the anti warrior upgrade. Then woodsman for your hilltop defense guys. Or mountain defense.

Also avoiding adding in Barb Friendly AIs helps your defense against barb rush as there are more people to be attacked by the barbs.

Lastly, for late game use I usually don't settle the poles of the continent I'm on if there is more than one. So that the barbs can spawn late game and I'll go clear them out every so often for the free xp.

I usually play noble and win most games I don't get unlucky at. IE. Cardith Lorda starting in an area with like 15+ Flood PLains for his capital. Anything above noble is something I have to think harder at.

Lastly if you can help it every city should be on a hilltop so you get better defense.

 

[franconbean]

if you can help it every city should be on a hilltop so you get better defense.

Don't forget also, that if its a plains hill, you get an extra hammer for the city plot, so on top of the defensive bonuses (which can be increased exponentially if you invest in the hillman promotion for defenders), you have quite a boost to your early production (usually double, if you are going for growth)
edit: also, unlike the vanilla game, you no longer get the 10% bonus against barbs/animals with your warrior, so keeping them defensive is your best bet.

 

[cain3456]

An above post claimed that a player should have 1.5 workers per city. How can you keep them alive with barbarians getting in your business? If you build workers, you don't have enough warriors and vice versa.

 

[mcwill123]

An above post claimed that a player should have 1.5 workers per city. How can you keep them alive with barbarians getting in your business? If you build workers, you don't have enough warriors and vice versa.

You keep them alive by having the workers run away when barbarians show up.