Barbarians, worth enabling or not?

[rylasasin]

I have to wonder, do people here find enabling barbarians all that useful for anything? I know there seems to be a lot of people and let's players that insist on having them on, but I'm starting to have bigger and bigger doubts about keeping them on since all they ever do is kill my units when they suddenly spawn from camps and irritate the piss out of me.

Maybe it's just me, but I just don't see the point in playing with them on.

 

[Trickster7135]

If you can't prepare for barbarians, you arn't prepared for civs to DoW either. I play with the raging since it's more fun and more exp that way.

 

[Infantry#14]

could be a hassle if you are caught off guard. Maybe you should keep 1 or 2 units in your cities. Barbs are not too bad, they give easy exp and a few gold for camps. Also, CS will give you quest for killing barbs.

For raging barb, it is a different story. I play the Earth map with rage barb once and I was overwhelmed (king level). Didnt have gold to rush units and my worker got stuck in the capital for 10 turns.

 

[Polycrates]

They force caution and restraint in your expansion
They force retaining a military presence at home to protect your workers and improvements
They give your initial units some experience for when the real enemies come knocking
They can provide a nice relationship boost with city-states
They require active, offensive military effort to stop the flow
They add a bit of risk to scouting
They provide some actual conflict in isolated starts
They can provide a (minor) threat from unexpected angles
They're tied to some civs/social policies/pantheon belief
They have cool-looking camps
They make the early game more interesting

I love barbs - I'd have raging barbs permanently on if it wasn't that the AI players can't handle them that well. They make things more fun and they also give that extra sense of minor risk that keeps you on your toes for when Monty comes knocking.

 

[Esperr]

I wish somebody would make a mod to turn them off once you hit the renaisance or something. Otherwise there staying off. All they are is a nuisance, and I hate it when they randomly sack spawn right next to a worker(of course they always do).

 

[rylasasin]

If you can't prepare for barbarians, you arn't prepared for civs to DoW either. I play with the raging since it's more fun and more exp that way.

Hence why I try to wipe out opposing civs on the continent as soon as I'm able, and all barbs do is get in the way....
Thing is I actually DONT wanna play agressive most of the time, but since the ai is SOOOOOOOOO inclined at warmongerings, I HAVE to. And barbs just distract and eat my units when they could be wiping out cities while my opponents are still weak.

could be a hassle if you are caught off guard. Maybe you should keep 1 or 2 units in your cities. Barbs are not too bad, they give easy exp and a few gold for camps. Also, CS will give you quest for killing barbs.

Again, units that COULD be killing cities instead

They force caution and restraint in your expansion
They force retaining a military presence at home to protect your workers and improvements
They require active, offensive military effort to stop the flow
They add a bit of risk to scouting
They provide some actual conflict in isolated starts
They can provide a (minor) threat from unexpected angles
They have cool-looking camps
They make the early game more interesting

I fail to see how any of these are good things.

 

[jasper]

some civs benefit from barbs. if you play aztec or songhai you get extra stuff all game long.

 

[Hambil]

Hate them, find them useless, always play with them turned off. Two levels of promotions for all the annoyance and worker stealing, not worth it.

 

[Callonia]

I always have raging barbarians enabled ^_^

And today recently on civ 5, I went back to an old barbarian encampment to see if the ancient ruin there isn't claimed already, and ended up privateering a ship after ship lol, it spawned like 8 ships each one in each turn and I had caravels/ privateer working together to capture them xD It single handlely fixed my navy problem on west ocean because I was too busy getting factories and workshops set up before I could spam the ships. galleys, triremes, galleasses, caravels got captured by me, and more recently, like four privateers that was wandering the oceans, I chased and captured them xD

Shortly after I gotten several privateers captured, I settled a city on where the encampment is. That was fun, but all good times come to an end eventually.

 

[Laniko]

They force caution and restraint in your expansion
They force retaining a military presence at home to protect your workers and improvements
They give your initial units some experience for when the real enemies come knocking
They can provide a nice relationship boost with city-states
They require active, offensive military effort to stop the flow
They add a bit of risk to scouting
They provide some actual conflict in isolated starts
They can provide a (minor) threat from unexpected angles
They're tied to some civs/social policies/pantheon belief
They have cool-looking camps
They make the early game more interesting

I love barbs - I'd have raging barbs permanently on if it wasn't that the AI players can't handle them that well. They make things more fun and they also give that extra sense of minor risk that keeps you on your toes for when Monty comes knocking.

there is your answer

 

[black_kitten]

If you don't adopt a very aggressive playstyle from the beginning and try to wipe out every other civ as soon as you meet, barbarians add some risk to the early game and prevent the game from feeling too easy, even more with an isolated start or on an archipelago map (little to no risk from most other civs at least until optics).

Since there are no more animal units in CiV, I also feel if I turned barbarians off I could simply send settlers out on their own, or use workers as scouts when I'm done with the initial rush of improvements. Of course, an AI civ could go insane and declare war only to capture my poor little settler, but I find this very unlikely, and would always take that risk.

 

[StrideColossus]

Almost always have raging barbarians switched on:
- only way to get some early XP for your military units in the ancient area
- killing barbs and clearing camps is a great way to get early CS relations
- keeps you on your toes in the early game

Yes it can be slightly annoying sometimes, but then it's a cruel world in 4000BC.

One of the recent GOTMs was with the Iroquois - it was great fun playing bait the barbs with my worker and having to forgoe exploration and rush my warrior/scout back home when I saw wave upon wave of brutes approaching my capital. Only after I'd completed the game did I realise that raging barbs has been switched on!

 

[Louis8k8]

I play with barbarians defaulted. I feel raging barbs gives me an advantage (which I don't like). From Settler to Diety, the AI seems to have a much harder time with them than I am. And I'm the only one that benefits from killing them since AI cheat anyways.

Since Immortal/Diety AIs are unreasonably aggressive, they usually DoW me early on but their army just gets shaved by raging barbs. So I play with normal barbs.

The only time where Raging Barbs doesn't make the game easier while more fun is multiplayer.

 

[Bibor]

I'm finding myself enabling raging barbs more and more. More fun, gives me 2 promos and makes me build units early too, which "feels" more realistic somehow. They are not that much of an advantage on high levels tho, as units eat into gpt quite heavily and you can't defend against pillage with city walls only. And its fun to do as Rome, as that's exactly what they did.

 

[duxup]

They can provide a nice relationship boost with city-states

They make the early game more interesting

Amen. Those two in particular are nice.

In fact I often turn on RAGING Barbarians and wow there is a lot of combat early on. Then I open up the Honor tree and if you play your cards right you can farm the barbarians for culture. Very nice.

 

[Polycrates]

I fail to see how any of these are good things.

Well, each to their own, I suppose! I enjoy the early conflict, but it sounds like it's not your thing, so by all means turn them off

I'm finding myself enabling raging barbs more and more. More fun, gives me 2 promos and makes me build units early too, which "feels" more realistic somehow. They are not that much of an advantage on high levels tho, as units eat into gpt quite heavily and you can't defend against pillage with city walls only. And its fun to do as Rome, as that's exactly what they did.

I love love love raging barbs, but I was having the problem others reported of AIs not expanding much in G&K until I switched them off, and I suspect that was part of the problem. I dunno, I could be off base there though.

 

[Bibor]

I love love love raging barbs, but I was having the problem others reported of AIs not expanding much in G&K until I switched them off, and I suspect that was part of the problem. I dunno, I could be off base there though.

Expansion works quite well for AIs in my games. Maybe it's map script specific?

 

[Ceterius]

Getting a free worker from a barb camp is fantastic in the early game.

 

[RedRover57]

I play with barbs enabled, but the fact is that barbs make it more difficult for the AI, and since the AI is already not so good this cripples them even further. Barbs can stop the AI from expanding and improving tiles, making them even more of a pushover. So if you want a more challenging game it would probably be better to disable the barbs.

 

[Bibor]

I play with barbs enabled, but the fact is that barbs make it more difficult for the AI, and since the AI is already not so good this cripples them even further. Barbs can stop the AI from expanding and improving tiles, making them even more of a pushover. So if you want a more challenging game it would probably be better to disable the barbs.

On lower diff levels perhaps. On emperor they happily clear out camps, often with 3-4 units, sometimes even with horsemen