Barbarians are laying siege to my city

[Haig]

Barbarians at the gate!

On my current game, I had lost my starting warrior and now three brutes advanced to my city, surrounded it and started to attack it!

In all my games before, barbarian units only pillage improvements and capture workers.
Cant remember a time when they actually try to siege a city..

Is it old news to everyone else?

 

[eazyseeker]

Indeed. There's even an achievement, 'He Threw a Car At My Head', that involves having a city of yours sacked by barbs (you won't lose it; you'll just lose some gold that the barbs take as 'ransom').

 

[King of Prussia]

I have never had a barb attack a city. I would like to see them attack. but I have seen city states in my last few games attack some cities.

 

[Gort]

Barbarians really need to be more aggressive when it comes to cities - I've seen them attack a city a few times, but they've never gotten close to taking even small ones.

 

[NotSure]

I've had the rebels shuffling around, getting bombarded and occasionally pillaging tiles. Had three brutes and an archer show up around my unprotected capital early in one game. I've never seen them attack a city. I think they should! They're going to die anyway. I'd love to see a barb city, or even a barb empire... not mine though.

 

[The_Quasar]

In my experience, this is what tends to happen:-

When you have the odd 1 or 2 barbs around a city, they will tend to pillage and harass... when 3 or more barbs are present, they will tend to change their behaviour and attack the city, until their numbers drop back to 2, when they will revert to their usual harass and pillage tactics.

Because it's not often that 3 or more are around, this behaviour is not seen very often. Beware in late game, when you're going for domination, and rebels spawn, I've had 4 Modern Armour spawn, and begin to attack my capital. Be prepared if you're going down that route.

 

[King of Prussia]

I have seen city states attack cities but can they actually take them or are they like barbs and ransom them?

 

[The_Quasar]

I have seen city states attack cities but can they actually take them or are they like barbs and ransom them?

They can take and keep them... but sometimes they raze them too...

 

[Xiao Xiong]

They can take and keep them... but sometimes they raze them too...

Can city states keep them?? I have only seen them raze.

Usually I see them razing cities when they are at war with an enemy of mine on another continent and I keep donating lots of modern armour to them.

 

[snoochems]

I usually play with raging barbs. So, I often see my cities under seige from barbs early in the game.

 

[The_Quasar]

Can city states keep them?? I have only seen them raze.

Usually I see them razing cities when they are at war with an enemy of mine on another continent and I keep donating lots of modern armour to them.

Most definitely they can keep them, I've seen a CS with up to 4 cities, but 2 is more usual...

 

[Ruler]

It happened here too, it was my first Immortal games.

 

[King of Prussia]

Most definitely they can keep them, I've seen a CS with up to 4 cities, but 2 is more usual...

Interesting. Well I hope in one of my games I will see them take a city. I still haven't got a barb to attack a city when four barbs were near. It was King difficulty.

 

[ense7en]

I've never had barbs attack my city that i can recall, but that is interesting.

I've seen city states take over other city states or cities though, which is always rather amusing. Usually they raze the other city state/city, but i believe in one of my games they kept the second one.

When i was newer to the game i didn't realize city states could take over other cities and actually lost one city to them. I was pretty unhappy and got it back soon after though.

 

[joncnunn]

The only time I've seen City States keep a city is if that city was another city state (which are not allowed to be razed)

I've not yet seen barbs actually attack a city tile in Civ V. Try to capture a worker in my territory, yup, and pillage a city improvement as well.

 

[King of Prussia]

Well in my last game I got a city state help me eliminate Frace with my support. Sidon captured 2 cities(1 puppet city state and Lyon) They razed Lyon to the ground.

 

[tithin]

Most definitely they can keep them, I've seen a CS with up to 4 cities, but 2 is more usual...

City states will burn to the ground any city that they are able to burn down, this excludes the original capital city of any civilisation, or any other city states (whos cities are functionally identical to capitals).

 

[Dedrytus]

BTW do you know what triggers "active" barbs? By "active" I mean those who can swim and travel to pillage your area? Some tribes never leave their terrain but some other do travels.

 

[tithin]

BTW do you know what triggers "active" barbs? By "active" I mean those who can swim and travel to pillage your area? Some tribes never leave their terrain but some other do travels.

No one will know for sure until the DLL is examined, however based on some observation it's dependant upon a few things

1) Level of tech. If the average level of tech is below embarkation, any spawning units will not have it.

2) Level of Civ activity in a given area. If there's a lot of Civs in a particular area then it's in the best interest of any barbarian to rove and pillage. This is why you'll often see, in the early game at least, roaming individual barbarians. It also makes it easier to pick them off individually.

If there's no actual civ activity close by, and they're not able to travel via sea to explore, then they're just going to accumulate until they have that tech. At that point they go exploring and eventually will find a Civ and pillage it until it's destroyed.

Bear in mind this is not word of god, this is passive observation.

 

[The_Quasar]

City states will burn to the ground any city that they are able to burn down, this excludes the original capital city of any civilisation, or any other city states (whos cities are functionally identical to capitals).

Agreed, the one I saw with 4 had taken over 1 capital, and 2 CSs.