Barbarians help!

[Cornhog]

After the move up to Emperor, I can win roughly 50% of the time. The only real problem I have is the damned barbarians. Winning usually depends on getting the Great Wall.

I know that sounds stupid. How does everyone else deal with the barbarians? I'm determined to win without the Great Wall. If I take it slow or build lots of fog busters, I end up behind in expansion. I can't manage to expand, defend myself and stay competitive all at the same time.

I'd turn them off but it'd feel like cheating. Frankly I think it's stupid that a city can just form if I'm not looking there. I hate running a fog buster back to a city to defend against a mass of archers only to find a city pop up instantly where I was fog busting.

How does everyone else manage to deal with them? I never see threads about them but (and I know this sounds stupid) they are, by far, the hardest part of the game for me.

 

[Refar]

You could try build some chariots for active defence, instead of fogbusters. Thank to theyr mobility, you should be able to protect your borders with fewer of them. They do good against Archers and Axes, which are the most 'popular' barbarian units.

 

[xanadux]

Are you playing large or huge maps?

On standard and small maps, I don't have a problem with the barbs on emperor ... just get horses or copper and build a few chariots or axes.

 

[gallego]

I don't seem to have a problem on huge maps even, and I usually don't get the GW. Archers are cheap; just stock your cities with them so you can have some posted on the frontiers. Often I find that barb cities spring up in good positions and it gives my ground troops good exp to take the cities which I later keep. If you do this while the barbs still have archers only, you probably won't lose any of your swordsmen, so it's pretty much a free city + gold.