barbarians nightmare: new patch problem or marathon problem?

[Cappella]

I have the feeling that I'm getting much much more barbarians than before the new patch. Now could it be because I play in marathon mode? If so, it's totally insane!

By the year 1060BC, I have been attacked by 64 barbarian units, mostly on 2 of my cities (2 to 3 new barbarians popup / turn). Moreover, in marathon mode, tech are coming slow, and I get archer barbarians when I'm just researching my second technology.

Another thing I find a bit unbalanced, is that in marathon mode you need to spend up to 15 turns for improving a land square, and a stupid barbarian can destroy it in 1 turn! Pillaging should take more than 1 turn, and depend on the improvement being pillaged.

Anyone else got the same feeling?

I just gave up a nice game, because it was too much, I opened it in worldbuilder and I saw that AI players also got serious troubles with barbarians, I even saw an AI city encircled by 7 barbarians units, 4 of them being axemen. Any "free" area were infested by barbarians, and I saw many city ruins, probably AI losing cities...

I might be wrong, but I thought that in the fix list of last patch, they made the barbarians less frequent.

 

[Fanaza]

I've noticed this too, but on marathon mode. Late in the game the surviving civilizations usually have at least 2 ruined cities from barbarian attacks, and as do I. It was pure insanity and forced me and the AI to build up a huge military, and early conquest of other nations was impossible. You were just too busy dealing with the hordes of barbarians.

Though I notice that on standard map and below this barbarian problem is not as intense, and usually the land is filled up before it can become insane. But on a large or huge map... watch out!

Anyone also notice the amount of oil placed on the map after the patch has almost been cut in half? I'm actually having oil wars now.

 

[Cappella]

Though I notice that on standard map and below this barbarian problem is not as intense, and usually the land is filled up before it can become insane. But on a large or huge map... watch out!

I don't know much about standard map as I only play on huge map, but barbarians got much worst since new patch/marathon mode, I would have to try a game in epic mode to see if the problem is with marathon or not. If so, I guess I'll have to make some changes in the game, otherwise I can't play anymore

In my last game, before I gave up, I was unable to build anything else than military units beside some workers/settlers, couldn't afford to spend time building anything to get culture, or science.

 

[Errata]

I noticed it in all modes, not just marathon. I initially associated it with marathon since thats the first thing I tried after the patch, but then after switching back to other speeds I still noticed it. In my epic game I had a new barb invading my borders every turn, at one point I had about 5 barbarians attack my holy city at once, from 4 different directions (one stack of 2), with 2 more attacking the city on the opposite side of my empire. These are mostly archers and axemen, since fog of war was lifted by the time higher tech was achieved. And this was normal, not raging mode, on Noble difficulty.

The barbarians also build a lot more cities post patch. Before I only rarely saw barbarian cities on my starting continent, they were mostly limited to unpopulated continents and undesireable tundra, but post patch, the unsettled areas all around my civilization quickly become infested with barbarian cities. Thats not such a terrible thing since if you build a small invasion force of swordsmen and axemen, it can save you from building a lot of settlers, and you'll still get more use out of the military in the long run and you will still grow while producing them.

The main gameplay difference for me has been that in the early game I need 2 or 3 defenders per city instead of just 1 (one spare while the other is healing, and one to prevent unhappiness from not being defended, since I have one or two outside the city responding to attackers as often as not), and this makes expansion much much slower since insufficiently defended cities will just be destroyed. It has less impact on the AIs performance since the AI likes to build multiple defenders anyway. The patch seems to have been aimed at slowing early expansion in a number of ways, and a slower start generally makes the game more difficult all around. Paradoxically, I find I need fewer defenders around the time that civs borders start clashing than I do before then, because the barbarians are so much more aggressive than the other civilizations.

I'm pretty sure the patch has increased the default barbarian difficult across the board, its just a coincidence that lots of people are also trying out marathon for their first game after the patch. I don't really mind, but it would be nice if barbarian difficulty was a seperate drop down configuration with shades of difficulty between none, default, and raging.

 

[Stinson]

Are you guys sure it's not the difficulty level you're on? Because I play on marathon speed with the 2nd difficulty level, and rarely see any barbarians.

 

[vbraun]

Proper Scouting and placment of scouts will lower the amount of barbs that come your way. Sometimes scouts are more worth a build then a warrior.

 

[Errata]

Stinson, I'm sure Barbarian prevalence is linked to the game difficulty, but I'm observing it while only playing on Noble, which is not considered a hard difficulty level.

 

[potatokiosk]

How are barbarians going to have more advanced units than you? That's not very realistic.

 

[Artanis]

Yeah, Barbarians are linked to difficulty. You'll see a LOT less on Chieftan than on Noble, regardless of what else has changed.



Edit:
Like vbraun says, you need to scout. If you're fighting from within your cities, you've already largely lost the fight, regardless of the casualty rate. Try to ring your territory with units to push back the Fog of War - thus giving you early warning and forcing them to spawn further away - and plop Archers down on Hills to act as Barbarian traps: the Barbs can't resist a fight, and a fortified Archer on a hill will take down anything short of a Swordsman.

 

[logical_psycho]

I definitely experienced a lot of problems with barbarians, but only on difficulty levels above Noble, these barbarians actually forced me back down a notch... I started playing on Noble again, because the barbarians were really giving me a hard time. Having them attack my cities with only one archer each with stacks of 3 or 4 axemen isn't exactly good for my civ-ego. You can hardly focus on expanding your empire because most of the time you're busy building an army just to destroy those barbarians.

 

[potatokiosk]

Which is redundant because settler factories have already been stopped by maintenance costs.

 

[Errata]

vbraun, its true that eliminating fog of war with unit placement is essential for surviving barbarian onslaughts, but I don't think scouts are the best suited to the job, because on a big map with a barbarian problem, those barbarians will still be coming at you aggressively, and whatever units are patrolling need to be able to survive it. Axemen can at least handle archers, swordsmen and other axemen, so they're pretty good at handling early barbarian problems, so I try to put a ring of them around my borders to keep away fog of war. On a small map, sure scouts might be the best way of dealing with it since you can feasibly map out the whole fog of war and they wont have to deal with any barbs.

 

[Zurai]

Edit:
Like vbraun says, you need to scout. If you're fighting from within your cities, you've already largely lost the fight, regardless of the casualty rate. Try to ring your territory with units to push back the Fog of War - thus giving you early warning and forcing them to spawn further away - and plop Archers down on Hills to act as Barbarian traps: the Barbs can't resist a fight, and a fortified Archer on a hill will take down anything short of a Swordsman.

Not workable on Marathon. Barbs start popping up in Marathon before most people have even founded their 2nd city, let alone hooked up any resources or been able to produce enough military to push back fog.

 

[Artanis]

Not workable on Marathon. Barbs start popping up in Marathon before most people have even founded their 2nd city, let alone hooked up any resources or been able to produce enough military to push back fog.

I'll take your word for it then...I'm 200 miles away from my own computer, so I haven't gotten to try out 1.52 yet

 

[Smidlee]

Which is redundant because settler factories have already been stopped by maintenance costs.

The increase of city maintance with 1.52 seems to slow AI producing cities as well which would in turn increase barbs and barbs cities since there's more empty land for longer periods of time. So bigger the land mass and slower the game (also less civs) means more barbs.

 

[vbraun]

Not workable on Marathon. Barbs start popping up in Marathon before most people have even founded their 2nd city, let alone hooked up any resources or been able to produce enough military to push back fog.

What do you build in between the beginning and your settler? A worker maybe? Try building a warrior, then like 3 scouts, then progress with your normal build pattern. Sure you might not get that second city up as quick, but its better then loosing your second city. Also keep building scouts.

If you can find a good spot to fortify a scout on you will be able to see any Axeman or Archers coming through, and be able to force it to chase your scout away from your cities into enemy area. Of course scouts can only give temporary protection, you will need Horse Archers or Chariots to better keep up the scouting. 1 move units would work, but not quite as well. Also getting Sentry could help out a lot.

I've played Multiplayer Games on Raging Barbs and rarely have a problem with this while lots of others struggle to hold their cities.

I have never actualy tried Marathon (Just don't like really long games, so I usually play on Normal) but you should be able to deal with barbs a little better then you have been with building scouts.

 

[Xavier Von Erck]

I'm getting the same intense amount of barbarians now that I got before. I rather hope they don't give in to pressure and lessen the amount of barbarians, otherwise the game would be way too easy at the beginning.

 

[Archbob]

The barbarians are insane on the new mode and all other modes after the patch, they seriously need to tone it down.

 

[Smidlee]

I agree with Xavier , barbs seems the same except for the fact Firaxis seems to increase civics early on which slows down expansion including AI. This in itself leaves the map empty a little longer. This also mean pushing out workers to start chopping trees early comes with a price now (weaker defense). Barbs are not that bad if you build two-three archers before a settler. Those who want to build a worker first thing and start chopping probably want barbs tone down on marathon/huge maps.
Barbs are nothing compared to multiplayer which you better have your cities defended early.
IMO if barbs isn't going to be a challenge then might as well turn them off.

 

[Thormodr]

I agree 100% Smidlee. I think most of the complaining (but not all) is from people that are not willing to adapt their strategies. They like the worker/chop fast expansion style. As a consequence that leaves them weak on defence. Can't have everything. No strategy is perfect.
As you said, if Barbarians are too much of a challenge, turn them off. Simple really.