Barbarians

[Caradoc]

Orthus has the Loyalty promotion, anyway....he can't be captured, only killed, now.

But with a Mimic, you can steal his Hero promotion and pick up his Axe -- Orthus Junior!

 

[Ksi]

If you're evil (or neutral? I can't remember :/) get slavery via way of the wicked. The barbarians will make you insanely powerful. I usually play with raging and barb world on and can end up with 30+ slaves.

 

[DrStalker]

It would be nice if there was a way to turn them off without stopping lairs from spawning defenders, Acheron and Orthus from being created, etc.; or maybe a way to half their spawn rate.

HAving teh same desire as you I poked around and found the appropriate settings in CIV4HandicapInfo.xml

            <iUnownedTilesPerBarbarianUnit>150</iUnownedTilesPerBarbarianUnit>
            <iUnownedWaterTilesPerBarbarianUnit>3000</iUnownedWaterTilesPerBarbarianUnit>
            <iUnownedTilesPerBarbarianCity>160</iUnownedTilesPerBarbarianCity>
            <iBarbarianCreationTurnsElapsed>50</iBarbarianCreationTurnsElapsed>
            <iBarbarianCityCreationTurnsElapsed>55</iBarbarianCityCreationTurnsElapsed>
            <iBarbarianCityCreationProb>4</iBarbarianCityCreationProb>

Copying values over from regular BTS means I can play at a difficulty where I don't walk all over the AI, but without barbarians slaughteirng me in early game or forcing me to turtle as them swarm me.

 

[vale]

Something odd happened to me in my first 0.32 game (a patch).

Svartfalar, marathon raging barbs on. Sent my initial scout and warrior out to explore after settling in place. On turn 9 I was defeated by a lizardman 2 moving into my capital. It isn't even clear that if I had left my warrior back he would have saved me. It just seemed odd that real barbarians were entering my cultural boundaries or even existed that early.

And there are people who say marathon games take too long.

 

[KingOfLands]

Something odd happened to me in my first 0.32 game (a patch).

Svartfalar, marathon raging barbs on. Sent my initial scout and warrior out to explore after settling in place. On turn 9 I was defeated by a lizardman 2 moving into my capital. It isn't even clear that if I had left my warrior back he would have saved me. It just seemed odd that real barbarians were entering my cultural boundaries or even existed that early.

And there are people who say marathon games take too long.

I've found that idols get off to an even quicker start than barrows, but I haven't managed to lose one like that since .23 or so. I suspect you just got unlucky.