barbarians nightmare: new patch problem or marathon problem?

[Admiral118]

I'm playing a huge Earth map, Noble difficulty, normal speed.

Seriously, this is bullfeathers. Around 3000 BC, Washington and New York were EACH facing around four or five new barbarian units per turn, mostly archers, but some axemen.

I like challenge in the early game, but this was a slaughter. I couldn't build units fast enough to protect my EXISTING cities, let alone found new ones.

 

[gettingfat]

All these arguments for or against the increased barbaric activities. I still don't understand why the game designer not simply allow more levels of barbaric activity, say from 1 to 5 or 10, instead of only three (no, default, raging) in the so-called custom setting.

Some people here keep saying other players have to adjust or adapt. If the game setting forces everyone to use a similar approach to start a game, this is not a good game to start with.

 

[Wodan]

Yeah, it's just that with me, more barracks means a greater willingness to make military units and of course the extra experience. With a barracks built archer, it's surprising how many times the attacking babr axemen are defeated by an archer. If the archer survives his first battle, he can thereby, while in a city, have two defend city promotions, thus rendering any attacking axeman, and likely most barb horse archers, defeated. It makes my skin crawl to think that people would wait 5 defensive battles (I think attcks give you 2 exp. pts. while defends give you 1 exp pt) to get those two promotions. The time it takes to build barracks is sort of skin-crawly too, but at least I'm used to it and reap a good reward. Every unit, promoted once, and one battle later, another promotion. Experience can do what numbers can, and cheaper too.

Maybe I wasn't terribly clear in what I was suggesting. At the start of the game, you don't need a Barracks. In the time it takes to build a Barracks, you could have an extra 3-4 Scouts or Warriors, which are much better used to fortify on forests/hills in the wilderness, which prevents Barb spawning.

My current game has me in an isolated area. For the longest I had only 2-3 units which were reserved for coming out of cities to attack them... I don't care any for trying to patrol all that area. I'd rather let them spawn till expansion and then bring them death (and experience for me).

Are you complaining there's a Barb problem? If so, with these tactics, I can see why.

If you're not complaining, then I think you've arrived at the tactics which are guaranteed the maximum number of Barbs in your game.

Wodan

 

[Wodan]

Ya right ... so instead of at least having A CHANCE at winning with a warrior in the forrest hills against an axeman , with a scout I have none.

I would suggest building 2-3 Scouts. During the time you have animals, the scouts can fight them just fine. By the time you have Bears, the Scouts will have Wilderness II and/or whatever combat promotions you prefer, and they have a good chance of even beating a Bear or Warrrior barb, as long as the Scout stays in forested hills.

Bears are the time to start building Warriors. You should have time to get 2 or 3 Warriors before you get better units.

Wodan

 

[Wodan]

Basically, the whole Barb "problem" can be boiled down to two waves.

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One wave is at the start of the game, when there are Animals and Warriors wandering around.

To combat this wave, you don't need a Barracks. A Barracks is an un-needed expenditure and is in fact counter-productive. Any Barb will always fight your adjacent unit, even if it's also adjacent to a wide open (ungarrisoned) city of yours. Simply fortifying a few of your Warriors on forested hillls will get them to 10 XP, which is the max you can get from Barbs. If you skip the Barracks, you can build an extra 3-4 Warriors. If you build a couple of Warriors that you would have anyway, plus the 3-4 from skipping the Barracks, that will give you 7-8 total.

In fact, I would leave ALL of your cities ungarrisoned. Send your Warriors and Scouts out into the wilderness. 7-8 units is easily enough to put a shell surrounding your borders, which will prevent spawning in a HUGE area.

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The second wave of Barbs is when they get Archers, followed by Axes, then Swords.

To fight this wave, you DO need a Barracks. However, by this time, you have an early-warning system of 10 Warriors, which will tell you immediately as soon as the first Barb Archer shows up. Your Warriors will each have 10XP or close to it. A Warrior with those skills should be able to beat a Barb Archer, no problem. Just leave your Warrior fortified in the hills, which is where you have had him most of the game so far.

The key here, though, is that it's time for you to start building a few better units. Axes/Archers/Chariots... they each take different tactics. e.g., your Archers you have to leave in the forests and let the Barbs attack YOU (just like you've been doing with your Warriors). Axes and Chariots you can be more aggressive.

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I have been playing a Huge games on Monarch since 1.52 came out and have had absolutely NO problem with Barbs. It hasn't even inconvenienced me, even when doing a builder strategy.

Wodan

 

[Screw Flanders]

Another thing you can do is build in the direction of a neighbor. Their line of sight counts for eliminating barbs and the barbs DO attack them too. Also there are a couple of civs that are hell-bent on killing barbs (germans and mali come to mind) and they will spend all of their military power attacking them sometimes. Playing with the rocky option on helps too as sometimes there are more bottlenecks, forested hilltops in good places, and natural mountain walls you can build your civ on. And if you build your cities in a triangle or square, there should be one side of the city thats reasonably safe from pillaging. Sometimes I turn 'em off if I dont feel like dealing with it too, they can get ungodly strong on huge maps and I've seen barb cities of size 15, with huge cultural borders.

 

[Yosh]

I've played several games after the patch and enjoyed all of 'em. Maybe it's because I'm extremely militaristic in the start of the game, but I've never had a problem with barbarians. I always kill their roaming units prior to them reaching my city borders and just love it when I see a black border. Free city!!