Barbarians - What The?

[Lorax]

Are barb uprisings more intense in Conquests?

In Civ3 PTW I never had an issue with them - a few warriors or one spearman could handle them pretty easily....They were a nuisance but sometimes interesting to deal with....

But I started a game with Conquests and once I entered the middle ages - there were two stacks of 10-15 horsemen to deal with....With concentrating on expansion I hardly prepared and thoroughly enraged to have to deal with this.....If I had known to expect something like that, it would have been fine - but I have never seen anything like that...

Was this an isolated incident? Or does Conquests make barb uprisings a serious force?

 

[ybbor]

you may have just turned it up a setting, or left it on something when you set up the game, but now that you mention it, they do seem more frequent...

 

[Pook]

Yes, the barbarians are definitely tougher. I always play with the "raging hordes" version of barbarians for my own masochistic purposes. Whenever you see "Barbarian uprising near (city)", it means that 24 barbarian horsemen are on the loose. They may not be visible for a few turns, but they are definitely out there.
First thing I do is deplete my gold, either by rushing improvements or changing the tech slider. I do this because if the barbarians make it into one of my cities, they take almost all my gold- the less I have, the less they can take. The good news is that after a barbarian enters a city, he disappears.
After depleting my gold, I've only come up with two approaches to handling barbarian uprisings: 1) fighting hard with defensive units and 2) running away.
Approach 1) is to put walls and as many spearmen as I can muster in nearby cities, and hold on for dear life. Please note: the barbarians don't necessarily come after the city named in the "Barbarian uprising" text.
Approach 2) is to move all my military units away from whichever city they approach, counting on the fact that the barbarians will disappear after they plunder. Don't "abandon" the city, because the barbarians will just look for another target.
Personally, I've found it a waste of time to try to fight the barbarian hordes with offensive units, as they get overwhelmed by sheer numbers.
Any better suggestions out there?

 

[Svar]

Originally posted by Pook
Personally, I've found it a waste of time to try to fight the barbarian hordes with offensive units, as they get overwhelmed by sheer numbers.
Any better suggestions out there?

Try playing the Mayans. A well placed stack of Javelin Throwers will generate a number of barbarian slave workers if your stack surivives.

 

[jm chen]

In Conquests, I've actually had a much bigger problem with a bunch of barbs just sitting wherever they're spawned.

I mean, it's nice that they're not killing me, but it looks kinda silly with a huge stack of barbarian horsemen hanging out on the tundra patiently during the nine turns it takes to get a warrior up there to deal with them.

 

[DS_Legionary]

I've also had that problem. I'll pop a hut and none of the barbs will attack me. They just fortify. It bugs the heck out of me.

 

[stivomali]

You can avoid the giant stack attack by patroling and taking out barbarian villages before they build up. The barbs spawn one per turn until they have a good sized stack. You need to find them early and get your 25 gold.

The chance of a megastack is not directly affected by the map, but certain conditions help. If you have a map with large land percentage and less than max number of civs, its more likely that there is unclaimed land well into the game. In fact, when I get thumped by such a stack, I take it as an indication that I'm not expanding fast enough.

 

[CIVPhilzilla]

I used to have barbs on raging now I have it at restless. TI was tired of my scouts getting killed because of their stupidity to walk next to a barbarian.

 

[Svar]

Every time I think 2 civs advance to the next era all existing barbarian villages spawn a stack of horsemen predetermined by the barb level set for your game. I have even seen this happen when going into the modern era when I'm milking the score and there are lots of uninhabited areas from destroyed civs.

 

[Amask]

Sometimes (in jungle or hills and mountains) you can use a warrior or another cheap unit to lure the horde away from you, preferably into enemy territory. If you have a horseman then you can do it even on grassland, plains, etc. I've done this a number of times in vanilla civIII, but in Conquests not all barb. horsemen follow. It is particularly useful on higher levels where there is no bonus against barbarians and there are more of them.

A quick question: is there a negative bonus against barbarians on Sid level? I once attacked a barb. warrior with my own, and lost 7 times in a row (I reloaded, because I persoanlly don't think that it is very fair - he was standing on a regular plain) without removing a single hp.

 

[Bluemofia]

was preserve random seed on?

 

[Amask]

no. I never turn it on

 

[The Last Conformist]

In Vanilla, Barbarians occasionally wrecked havoc on Raging. In PTW, they almost never did anything beyond getting you scouting warriors. In C3C, they rarely even do that, and the Massive Uprisings are totally neutered. I think this is a very wrong development.

On the whole, I think C3C was a big improvement, but as Barbarians go, it's the worst version yet.

 

[Amask]

Originally posted by The Last Conformist


On the whole, I think C3C was a big improvement, but as Barbarians go, it's the worst version yet.

I totally agree. They were supposed to be made smarter by changing their behaviour so they don't attack the nearest target under ALL circumstances, but instead they rarely attack at all, and when they do it's not in groups. I once popped a goody hut with a vet. warrior and got barbs. The first attacked, and lost, but dealed 3hp of damage. The other two instead of finishing me off just fortified. I healed my warrior while they were just standing there, and killed them one after the other,\.

 

[Duke Togo]

I find the mass number of barbarians in C3C stacking up and just sitting there very perplexing.