Barbs - Love them AND hate them - at the same time..??!!

[KingLoraxII]

I cant get myself to turn off barbs - I have an affinity to them that just wont allow me to turn them off - but they drive me crazy - sort of like dating certain girls - love them and hate them at the same time.

That little bit of anarchy & wild card aspect is too fun to turn off - even if they drive me crazy at times ....

Likes:
* They are easy promotions for my units - since in my level they come steadily but in small numbers - they just allow easy experience points for my units
* They will harass other AI's too
* They sometimes settle areas I really want but the maintenance will kill me - and I can take easily when things are under control

Annoyances:
* When I am preparing for a war - it seems they show up on the horizon, just enough to make organizing forces much harder.
* Barb spearmen really cheese me off - its easy to take a mounted unit for barb control - quick to move and fight off any minor invasion but the spearmen sort of force you not to have one all-inclusive unit. Ok except when you chariot rushed and have chariots around and axemen arent yet online yet - yikes...!!!
* Sending a minor stack to pillage or statis a neighbor and run into barbs - forcing another 6 turn heal process

I wont ever play no barbs - more likely to try raging barbs I think. But man, their timing is terrible - sort of makes some areas of time - 2000-1000BC tougher to war.

 

[Jewman]

i never war in the BCs, barbs and settling preocuppies me too much.
i gotta say tho, building the great wall makes barbarians so much fun, all those massive armies that spread thin to attack both me and my neighbor, well they only attack my neighbor now forcing him to build big armies if he wants to expand, and even then his expansion will be slower than mine.

 

[Justin Somnios]

I like the barbarians. They're a reminder that I need to maintain a strong military, which pays off in the end. But, I agree, building the great wall and watching barbarians surround your borders is fun.

 

[Cynovolans]

I consider barbarians just ways of promoting units, and when they create barbarian cities I just attack and take control of the city much more easier than building settlers to me.

 

[Ai Shizuka]

I like barbarians. They force me to keep building units and provide easy promotions. But I FREAKING HATE barb galleys, especially on pangaea/big continents maps. They basically force you to adapt your tech path just to deal with them. And galley vs galley sucks, so metal casting becomes a very high priority tech. Luckily, I like researching MC early anyway.

I really hate those things.

 

[Joshua368]

I like barbs, they keep the early game interesting if AIs are more spread out.

Once I had a barb city spawn way in the ice to the north, nothing up there worth settling so I just ignored it. Then I watched in awe how Charlemagne from my south marched a massive army of like 20 units through my territory to take on the poor three archers inside. Overkill?

 

[mechaerik]

Once I had a barb city spawn way in the ice to the north, nothing up there worth settling so I just ignored it. Then I watched in awe how Charlemagne from my south marched a massive army of like 20 units through my territory to take on the poor three archers inside. Overkill?

Ha. Once there was a barb city in the desert, and i completely ignored it, and it was there until like the 1800s, when Shaka, from the other side of the continent marched a huge stack of rifles and infantry to capture it, utterly devastating the archer and axeman within. It was almost sad.

 

[Bonescorpion]

I like barbs, but sometimes you just keep getting attacked from all angles for no reason.

 

[thadian]

i love barbarians, but sometimes im not in the mood for them. i believe they should be turned off in competitive play, gotm or hof. i also hate the "raging barb/great wall rush" strategy.

 

[Gothic_Empire]

i love barbarians, but sometimes im not in the mood for them. i believe they should be turned off in competitive play, gotm or hof. i also hate the "raging barb/great wall rush" strategy.

How to win on immortal:

Outside the game, raise the barb spawn rate by a factor of 100.

Start a new game and select an Industrious civ. Use advanced start, and buy masonry.

Reload the map until you start next to stone.

Buy a quarry and few population points.

Build the great wall in approximately 15 turns. <3

Win a conquest victory after the barbs burn the world in 2990 BC.

 

[Danielos]

I love the unpredictable nature to the game and barbarians just add to that. Now, if only we could get back the sea pirates of Civ 1-2 that launched coastal invasions and built some pretty advanced ships I would be in barbarian heaven...

 

[Yngvi]

My only real complaint about the barbs is that they seem to ignore the AI, on normal activity anyway. I have seen them walk right past AI units, with my units nowhere nearby to tempt them. I've even run city builder checks when I've had seven or eight of them surrounding my early three city civ, and the AI civs are barb-free. On normal activity they are easy enough to handle, and they give your units some quick promos, but they should pay a little more attention to AI civs.

 

[Joshua368]

My only real complaint about the barbs is that they seem to ignore the AI, on normal activity anyway. I have seen them walk right past AI units, with my units nowhere nearby to tempt them. I've even run city builder checks when I've had seven or eight of them surrounding my early three city civ, and the AI civs are barb-free. On normal activity they are easy enough to handle, and they give your units some quick promos, but they should pay a little more attention to AI civs.

They certainly do bother the AI. On rare occassions I've seen AIs lose cities or even be wiped out by them. (and not an event either)

 

[mechaerik]

I saw the Khmer Empire wiped out by barbs once. He was in a poor region (desert) and was kind of isolated. Then suddenly BAM: The Khmer Civilization has been destroyed. I sent some scouts to check it out, and their city had been captured by barbs, on normal barb activity (non-raging, non-modded).

 

[KingLoraxII]

I see barbs take AI cities as well. Thye also destroy civs - Zara was destroyed by barbs in one of my games....

Also, recently, barbs were in one area of the map I shared with Japan and the barbs were harrassing the heck out of the japs and leaving me right alone - much to my surprise. So close I could see the battle results. Easily swooped in and took the city after the barbs wore down the defenses.

There may be some randomness as to why they might attack one civ/city and leave another alone - not sure there...But I am pretty convinced its not just to bug the humans only.

 

[astrodog]

Barbarians should be enjoyed in moderation!
I like them, as they give me the odd little battle here and there whilst I'm building up my empire.... the odd extra city too - I took a size 3 barb city last night, it had corn resources and cattle - turns out to be one of my better cities.....
They suck if you've lagged behind in tech and can't find copper, and have a pair of barb axes pillaging their way to your capital......

 

[PreLynMax]

No barbarians? Wusses.
I enjoy the challenge of barbarians for the very pros you enjoy them.
Oh and raging barbs kick butt... they always seem to take out at least one noob AI before coming after me.

 

[Danielos]

If you want a nice barbarian challenge. Play with only a few civs on a huge pangea map with raging barbarians on Marathon. Enjoy...

 

[QuixotesGhost]

Barbarian Story.

Alright, I had just taken HC's capitol with a stack of swords,cats,and axes. They heal up and are ready to go. They take one step outside of the capitol and guess what should appear?

Barbarian Invasion - 4 Horse Archers; just barely outside out of HC's now-collapsed border. The barbarians slam into my stack of doom and flank all my catapults to death. I counter-attack and heal, and wait for my production cities to whip/chop new cats for my invasion. They finally arrive I set out a second time only to see: HC now has Longbowmen. War takes 500-600 years longer than it would of otherwise.

That's not all - this was the third Barbarian Invasion event I had gotten that game. I got the archers and the axes too.

 

[PhroX]

I see barbs take AI cities as well. Thye also destroy civs - Zara was destroyed by barbs in one of my games....

I remember one game I had. My scout got killed by a bear pretty early, and I kept forgetting to build a new one until about 1AD. When I did get round to exploring, I found a barbarian city just to the south of my empire, in a decent looking location, so I sent my army over there and took it with ease. It had a couple of improvements around it, but this didn't set my alram bells ringing, as barbs do build workers if left alone long enough. A couple of turns later, I glanced at my sliders, and suddenly realised I was running at +~20 GPT. I could've sworn I was only just breaking even. So I started looking around to see what was going on, and I finally took a closer look at the barbarian city I had just taken, and for the first time, I noticed what it was called: Madrid. And inside was a Christian Shrine (choose religions was on), with about 20 cities having the religion, plus Stonehenge, plus the Oracle. Yes, Izzy had got her religion as per usual, then wonderspammed, popped a prophet, then got wiped out by barbs about two turns later