Barbs: More of a pain on epic/marathon?

[OceansEleven]

God I hate barbarians.

The animals aren't bad. But sometimes it's a huge pain when they send axeman after axeman. I lost in a battle with 96.7% chance of winning...

I turn them off

 

[weimingshi]

barbs is a double edge sword, especially at emperor and above difficulty. You won't like them when they over run your country side. But they are a blessing when they fill your neighbors backyard. sometimes they settle down which prevents AI to grab all the lands and you get a free city without building settler.

 

[Bradlius]

barbs is a double edge sword, especially at emperor and above difficulty. You won't like them when they over run your country side. But they are a blessing when they fill your neighbors backyard. sometimes they settle down which prevents AI to grab all the lands and you get a free city without building settler.

Yes, and no chance of that city flipping back. And no diplo penalties for Declaring War on our Friend.

 

[beckdawg]

I sorta wish barbs were more like the warlord scenario in that you have a "camp" unit. If you kill that unit the hoard will stop for awhile until another camp is spawned.

To me that would be more realistic as generally speaking barbarians are led by a leader and if he's killed it tends to stop attacks.... for awhile anyways. Overall though, i just hate them on monarch. I mean I'm holding my own vs the other AI's until I get pounded on by barbs usually. And I realize I can just turn them off but.... well it feels like cheating.

I may try some things suggested in here though. Normally I have just been massing axemen and protecting my city with 3-4 of them. I also try to fog bust near places that keep spawning barbs. it seems to help. Though I will say I get increasingly pissed off when i lose with 85%+ chance of winning and then the next turn I attack the guy with a 50-60% chance of winning and lose.

 

[cabert]

fogbusting is much better than massing units!
why?
1) because you have less barbs to fight
2) because you can fortify in good defensive terrain
3) because it avoids tile pillaging