Barbarians dialed up to 11?

[SheckyS]

I noticed there was a small update on Tuesday. And since then, I don't think I've been able to get past the first 100 turns of a game because the barbarians are just swamping me every time. I'm basically doing nothing but building warriors and slingers and yet I am totally unable to keep up with the sheer number of barbarians the game is producing.

Before the patch, the barbs were aggressive, but this is just ridiculous. There's literally no way to win.

Anyone else noticed this?

 

[SheckyS]

Actually, it might not have been the patch, I think it might just be the starting location I get. If I am on a small island with only a few access points I can defend my city. But if I start in the middle of a large landmass, I might as well just forget it.

 

[variantobjects]

Yeah, barbs now are pretty much raging by default without an actual raging barbarians option.

Unless they add an option for that; that'd be hell.

 

[Apoll]

Also is very broken on Epic & Marathon speeds. They spam cavalry units, while we struggle to build a warrior or slinger in 7-9 turns.

Same applies to AI Civs. Which makes Epic & Marathon speeds, unplayable.

 

[Sascha77]

Yeah, barbs now are pretty much raging by default without an actual raging barbarians option.

Yup. I think I mentioned this in another thread, but I'll repeat it here:

Playing on King, I tried to clear out two barb-camps around turn 80-90 (standard speed). Both were hard to get to due to jungle/forest-tiles, so I had ample opportunity to observe the camps' "behavior". The first one spawned one horseman per turn for 4 or 5 turns in a row while I was moving in on it.
The second one was located on the coast and spawned a quadrieme per turn for four turns in a row.

This does indeed feel like raging barbs is activated by default: I've seen AI players getting crushed by barbs and unsettled/isolated lands are usually jam-packed with barbs when you first explore them around turn 70 - 100 or so.

 

[oklibrarian]

UGH--same here! Been playing on a tiny map at a lower difficulty just to get the feel for the process of a Science victory. Cleaned out my continent, my only other AI opponent is England on the next landmass over. I embarked a few spare knights over there just to see what i could see, maybe farm a few barb encampments for extra XP. Poor Vicki (just now limping into Medieval era with me at Industrial) was SURROUNDED by Pikemen and Muskets, and the seas are teeming with caravels. Lost two unit, limped home with the other Knights and picked up a whopping one worker for the trouble (Barba had captured like 4 of the things), Currently updating my army to the current era and spamming out some naval units to clean house. ...at least it'll keep me from getting bored clicking next turn over and over? I don't know if this is the intended behavior, but I do know that on lower difficulty levels the barbs may be a greater challenge than the AI. I wanted to work on my combat skills, but yikes.