Barbarians

[quasarsphere]

More realistic, or just a pain in the arse you don't need?

I'm in two minds on that one, personally. It irritates the hell out of me to have to constantly rebuild all the farms and mines, and sometimes they'll come at me in groups just large enough to take my capital, as just happened now. So I sent an axeman down from my other city, he got creamed by the Barbs in my (MY!!) capital (BASTARDS!!) and that was it for my military.

On the other hand, I feel like such a wuss if I turn them off. It feels almost like cheating.

What say you good people?

 

[Refar]

I'm in two minds on that one, personally. It irritates the hell out of me to have to constantly rebuild all the farms and mines

How about trying something new, and having troops of your own ?

If you have strong units of your own (Axes, Chariots) you can just intercept incomming barbs. If lacking ressources you should use Archers fortified on Hills in key positions, to suck up some incomming barbs.

Also Fogbusting (putting units on hills outside your boarders, to prevent Barbs from spawning) does help...

There are some maps however, where all of the above is hard - large, massive land maps, ith few Civ's on them - too much space to fogbust... On those the Great Wall is your best friend...

On the other hand, I feel like such a wuss if I turn them off. It feels almost like cheating.

Finally, if you feel, Barbs are no fun, turn them of without any remorse.

 

[quasarsphere]

How about trying something new, and having troops of your own ?

If you have strong units of your own (Axes, Chariots) you can just intercept incomming barbs. If lacking ressources you should use Archers fortified on Hills in key positions, to suck up some incomming barbs.

Also Fogbusting (putting units on hills outside your boarders, to prevent Barbs from spawning) does help...

There are some maps however, where all of the above is hard - large, massive land maps, ith few Civ's on them - too much space to fogbust... On those the Great Wall is your best friend...

Finally, if you feel, Barbs are no fun, turn them of without any remorse.

I had a chariot on the way when my capital got taken. It was defended with archers, but not enough to cope with three axemen simultaneously.

Fogbusting was something I simply hadn't thought of! I'll be doing a fair bit of that in my next game.

I'm still playing vanilla, so there is no Great Wall for me. I'm getting the expansions in the next few days, and I'll be going for the Great Wall ASAP.

Cheers for the tips

 

[Endure]

I had a chariot on the way when my capital got taken. It was defended with archers, but not enough to cope with three axemen simultaneously.

Fogbusting was something I simply hadn't thought of! I'll be doing a fair bit of that in my next game.

I'm still playing vanilla, so there is no Great Wall for me. I'm getting the expansions in the next few days, and I'll be going for the Great Wall ASAP.

Cheers for the tips

What difficulty level are you playing at?

I've never played past noble myself (only had the game a few weeks) but only time I saw that much of a rush from barbs at one city was when I had it set to raging barbs.

 

[TheMeInTeam]

Fog bust. If you fogbust, only that tacky barbarian uprising event can do any damage at all. You won't get things pillaged, and barbs generally won't enter your borders. Barbs don't spawn in areas you or the AI can see. Take advantage of this.

Even archers can mop barbs. Just fortify them in hills or trees to fog bust. You will almost never lose them.

 

[Pitman]

More realistic, or just a pain in the arse you don't need?

I'm in two minds on that one, personally. It irritates the hell out of me to have to constantly rebuild all the farms and mines, and sometimes they'll come at me in groups just large enough to take my capital, as just happened now. So I sent an axeman down from my other city, he got creamed by the Barbs in my (MY!!) capital (BASTARDS!!) and that was it for my military.

On the other hand, I feel like such a wuss if I turn them off. It feels almost like cheating.

What say you good people?

Barbarians are just one of a number of aspects of Civ 4 that have the effect of slowing down expansion and slowing down conquest. In addition to a too-heavy maintenance/upkeep, too heavy unit costs, molasses-slow movement in enemy territory, lack of tech acquisition by conquest, deliberately slow recovery of captured cities, battles that favor the defender, severe war weariness, and other aspects, we have waves of barbarians thrown in to boot.

Just another thing to screw with conquest-oriented 4x gamers.

 

[Pitman]

What difficulty level are you playing at?

I've never played past noble myself (only had the game a few weeks) but only time I saw that much of a rush from barbs at one city was when I had it set to raging barbs.

Well, I see major barbarian incursions (even ones not formally labeled as such) all the friggin time, and I don't play with raging barbarians.

 

[ZeroM]

Barbarians are just one of a number of aspects of Civ 4 that have the effect of slowing down expansion and slowing down conquest. In addition to a too-heavy maintenance/upkeep, too heavy unit costs, molasses-slow movement in enemy territory, lack of tech acquisition by conquest, deliberately slow recovery of captured cities, battles that favor the defender, severe war weariness, and other aspects, we have waves of barbarians thrown in to boot.

Just another thing to screw with conquest-oriented 4x gamers.

It can't be a conquest if there aren't things to conquer

 

[Leodavinci]

I love barbarians. Really. For my role playing purposes.
For example in my last game at the end there were only 3 truly independent powers in the world:
The Holy Empire of Japan (rules over 70% of land)
Ancient Sumer Civilization (is not destroyed by Japan, yet)
and
Free city of Zapotec.

For me as a member of small and proud nation, it matters

 

[Bradlius]

Don't forget that Barbarians are a nice, easy way to give your units experience. Park an archer on a wooded hill, let the warriors and archers come, and boom! You've got a level-five archer. Move him back to your capital, replace with a new archer unit, and repeat!

 

[Endure]

Don't forget that Barbarians are a nice, easy way to give your units experience. Park an archer on a wooded hill, let the warriors and archers come, and boom! You've got a level-five archer. Move him back to your capital, replace with a new archer unit, and repeat!

Don't barbs stop giving exp after you hit level 3? (or maybe 4)?

 

[Gumbolt]

Max out at 10xp points for me.

 

[bentley004]

I wouldnt feel like youre cheating if you turn them off. Remember, they hassle the AI civs aswell. I personally love them for the free promotions and those rare times that they actually plant a city in a great spot which saves you from building a settler.

 

[kopfschuss]

About the only thing I hate about barbs is when there is a barb uprising when I've only met 1 or 2 other civs early in the game, and they destroy a third one that I didn't even know about yet. I usually restart a new game since I'd like to meet everyone at least once before they start getting wiped off the map.

 

[Jerrymander]

The major annoyance with barbarians is the style I play. I'm an early conquerer, but if I want something other than an early conquest, I often have huge tracts of open, fog-covered land that no civilization has laid claim to, since I razed all their cities. Barbarians spawn out of these like crazy, and I often have 5 archers coming at my cities on any given turn.
It did, however, teach me how to defend my cities. A horse archer, two axemen, and a longbow. The best defence in this situation is to intercept the incoming barbarians. Fortify an archer or two with the hill defence promotion on hills where barbs seem to come at you most often.

 

[feelfreetodie]

I am playing at noble level, I cant believe all the barbarians attacking!!!
I kill a barbarian and the next one that comes (usually within 3 turns) is an archer barb that kills me, so i make an archer to handle their archer. Then i make chariot to kill their archer and the next barb that comes is axeman and swordsman barb!!!
Everytime I kill a barb they come at me with the same unit or stronger unit.
I am stuck building units just to stay alive, forget about building improvemants or expansion. I still dont see where I can turn off barbarians, there is no setting to turn off barbs when setting up a game.
I can handle the barbs but fall way behind the other civs while doing it, there has to be another way?!?!?!?

Why is it that the same unit fighting a barb, the barb will win most of the time?

 

[Crowqueen]

Feelfree - go to Custom Game rather than Play Now. There are options to turn off barbarians as well as make them even worse.

 

[emes]

When playing with Persia or especially Mongolia, you may search&destroy the barbarians to promote your early mounted units to be real killers. Keshiks can pursue barbs even in jungles and with few good promotions they can simply wipe your neighbours off the map.

 

[Pariah]

Don't barbs stop giving exp after you hit level 3? (or maybe 4)?

True - but if you play as a protective leader, your archers start out with 2 promotions, so accumulating the maximum of 10 XPs from barbarian engagements will indeed get them up to level 5! Then they will be pretty unbeatable city defenders, even if you lack strategic resources; better still, you can later upgrade them to longbows, and ultimately to infantry...

 

[Pitman]

Feelfree - go to Custom Game rather than Play Now. There are options to turn off barbarians as well as make them even worse.

I'd rather that the game itself had fewer barbarians rather than me have to do some custom setting of no barbarians at all.