Barbs paradise

[Pedro78]

Hey all !

Started another one of those games where I play the first 50ish turns to practice early-game development. Settings are low seas hemispheres, normal speed deity. And I keep getting screwed by barbs on this one. So I'd be interested to see if veterans (or non-veterans ) know a smart way to deal with barbs on this kind of map.

Oh and the problem isn't about surviving, but getting up a strong early-game setup without building 10 archers from the start.

Curious to see how y'all deal with this ^^

 

[NineOneSix]

Some general thoughts without looking at the save, considering what you have described.

Low sea level means a ton of land so it can be hard to fogbust, esp if you have standard number of AI opponents. Makes deity very difficult since you can't afford to REx, heaps of fog-o-war, and AI might not settle near you in early game.

In this situation I would consider aiming for great wall. Embrace the great spy points pollution and use the great spy to enable a big dirty tech steal on an AI later. Try to expand to 6 cities by 1AD and snipe a barb city or two when you can afford to. See if you can milk some XP outside your borders to get a level 4 unit for heroic epic since you probably won't get an early war.

 

[Pedro78]

Hey NineOneSix thanks for your input !

The Great Wall is indeed an awesome wonder, I tend to build it even when it's not necessary for the barbs because of the Great Spy. However in this case I can't build TGW before ~2300BC even if I go straight for it. By that date the wonder is gone 80% of the time on deity. So the only solution here seems to be defending with Archers until I maybe locate some copper.

 

[Pangaea]

Take 1: Warrior is exploring, and moved towards a hill. A barb could only be in one square which was 'dark'. Guess what was there.... Despite being Aggressive, the angry lion won at 32%. Restart Sounds like the map is tough enough without such bad luck.

 

[Fippy]

My suggestion for such huge barb areas would be BW, not attempting to settle until (hopefully) finding copper..
keeping all warris save (and having at least 3 when ready), then rushing there with 2 workers and basically everything lol.
Settler & 2nd worker can be a big task thou until BW, maybe whip 2nd worker or settler into him or if not possible trying with only 1 worker.

Archery is imo not worth playing here, i have tried that too many times and while it's possible to survive and slowly progress it's ~zero fun.
Axes take care of barbs and it's playable without pulling your hair out.
So if no copper i would probably throw the map away, rather than running against black walls.

 

[Pedro78]

@Pangaea Your infamous RNG strikes again


@Fippy Yeah defending with Archers is a huge PITA, but then no copper = game over? Axes are indeed way more fun ^^, but isn't that a very risky move?

 

[Fippy]

Well it's only risky if i care about the map
But i have nps admitting "defeat" if no copper and it's going bad, cos the time vs. fun ratio with archers is not worthwile for me.
+ you can still try with barracks and warris, with cover they can win some fights. It's not great, but same would be true for teching archery and low production (no chops or whips).

 

[Gumbolt]

Japan does not start with hunting. So hunting/archery is a huge detour on deity.

Add in fact these Deity Ai will spam cities. By the time you reach all of them they could have 10-15+ cities each. Maps on this setting generally need 2 or so more AI to compensate for the additional land. This also raises the difficulty level a bit.

With this start and only sheep visible hunting seems a likely early option. Production for any units here will be hampered. Hunting/AH and mining is a big early ask on this start. So production vs food dilema? Slow 2nd city too.

Not sure I really like this challenge. You might survive the barbs but would you really ever win this map? Without cheesing out?

 

[Pangaea]

Aye, tell me about it

Take 2: Settled in the same spot and scouted the same route, except moving into a forest because the silly lion appeared in the exact same spot in the exact same turn. However, you can only fight against the RNG for so long... A bunch of bastards moved in, and I moved an archer into a forest near them. Idea was to take out as many as possible, and most were warriors. However, the RNG decided that wasn't going to work at all. 9.9% fight and the barbs nearly won, next warrior killed my archer with barely a scratch. Time to toss in the towel.

Spoiler :

 

[Lain]

When I read the comments I expected a tundra start with 0 commerce, single plains sheep and no hills for mines. Loaded the save and was quite surprised. Looks like a nice game

Went AG -> Mining -> Hunting -> Archery and don't see big problems. Survived easily and got a decent position. If anything, 20 city AI is the actual problem here... Hemispheres, ugh... too much work in the late game with 1000 units

Some impressions:

Spoiler :

2000 BC: Some stupidity on my part, lost starting warrior to bear etc... wasted tons of worker turns. Could have played better. Barbs wrecked some stuff, but I fogbusted the jungle with warriors and could focus on the south and east.



1500 BC: All problems are pretty much solved. Catching up on expansion and sending out boats to scout.



850 BC: Pretty late writing, but everyone will grow on cottages soon. Low happy cap is a problem though and I didn't plan well enough.



475 AD: Healthy tech lead, won Philosophy and am currently in Bureau/Caste/Paci ...



Could go for a 9/10 city Cuirs attack on Russia or beeline Steel. Will be a disgusting war, but probably possible from here.

Problem is Sury.. he just finished off Isabella. 19 city monster .. already lose motivation when I see crap like that. Speaking of crap, I gifted him a city, but religion -4 hurts. Could switch into Judaism and make him happy, but most of my cities have only Hindu and I want to run Paci.... might still do it just to survive.



But I don't really want to finish this game, too much work, too many other games going on. Just wanted to show that (1) Archery is viable, especially on a commerce rich start like this ... (2) Game can still be winnable.

Not sure where the hate for Archery comes from. I go for it in >50% of my Deity games and win most of them aswell.

 

[Lain]

I will let you decide how (un)winnable my position is. From a filthy Archery opener~
Tbh I'm scared as hell by my eastern neighbor... we are looking at a potential -scenario later in the game.

But just imagine he isn't there and suddenly the game looks really nice.

 

[Gumbolt]

Well played Lain.

Spoiler :

From what I saw of the start it looked possible to fogbust in a few directions. It was more the options for techs early on. If you survive the barbs on these settings you do have plenty of land to settle.

You probably could take down Khmer. He will likely have a huge stack here. It's possible you could bribe Russians into the war. Chances are sooner or later Khmer will attack you. He does attack at pleased. 19 Ai cities spamming units.

You still have 3 Ai elsewhere who will likely have 10+ cities each. I guess in the grand scheme that matters less if you control your continent.

Not sure my 10 year old PC could handle this map size. If I don't play windows mode the game tends to crash a lot on larger maps.

Edit - Yep looks like this could be very winnable if the AI behaves itself.

 

[Pedro78]

Great play Lain

Get ready for the WoQ (wall of questions )...

I settled 1NE of starting position. Ag-Mining-Hunting-Archery also seemed like the natural tech path to me. Except I got screwed by barbs. How did you protect your tiles, especially the rice to the north? How many archers did you build before first settler? How many initial warriors? How did you place them? I really don't mind going Archery in that kind of scenario, I just don't know how to defend with Archers, need more practice. Once I deal with the barbs I don't worry too much about the rest of the game, you have a lot of great land to settle.
Oh and any particular reasons for your initial settler move and not settling Tokyo on the PH?

 

[Lain]

I saw jungle up to the north so I built 2 warriors and sent them there to fogbust. Nobody ever came from there. Or maybe one archer but he died.

Capital built 2 warriors, 2 archers, slow-build settler at size 4 (no BW yet). Switch to Slavery while Settler traveled. Whipped 2nd worker pop 4 -> 2.

Assumed this defensive position:

Spoiler :

Archers were standing on the x (note fogbusters in the north aswell)

Didn't see many barbs, so dared to settle 2nd city and retreat into there. Things got a bit dangerous so chopped a 3rd archer. No real danger at that point anymore though. Could have 1-pop whipped a 4th archer in capital if things really got bad.

I don't have a sophisticated strategy, but basically: fogbust 2nd city sight... try to get it before ~T37 (here it's a lot later because late BW basically + I lost starting warrior and had to build another one...), then retreat and wait until the worst is over . With 2 cities there will always be enough production to bust out later. Oh and I try to fogbust the direction where my good resources are (in this case Rice)

Settler move... basically I saw 2x FP and Rice, so wanted a future city in the east to share that food.

Tokyo should be on the PH, somehow didn't think about it. I just wanted to play until 2000 BC and survive... now suddenly I am in 1000 AD getting geady for Cuirs attack. That's what this game does to me . But I didn't play 100% super serious style. Probably winnable, but just so much work vs 20 city AI. Maybe I'll do it but...

Also waiting for your isolation games

Attached 2000 BC save

 

[Pedro78]

Thanks for your pointers ^^

Will just play this one to turn 60ish (until I'm safe from barbs and satisfied), don't intend to play any further.

I'll start on the Toku iso game tomorrow. Just trying to get to a mindset where I can play with 100% focus and motivation

 

[The Green One]

If you're whipping is it worth using the overflow for Scouts? They're weak but they're cheap, and they move faster than archers so can help fogbust somewhat, even if they'll probably meet a fairly quick demise.

 

[Pedro78]

@bic :

Thanks for the very detailed explanations ! I noticed that you didn't fogbust the East, any reason in particular for that? Didn't you have any barbs coming in from the East? Isn't it risky to skip Archery on this kind of map?

There is indeed a lot of great land to settle on this map, so it shouldn't be too hard a map once you've dealt with the barbs (Lain has proven it in the above post ^^)

@The Green One I wouldn't put whip OF into Scouts (at least in most cases), they're good for fogbusting but they're just too weak to provide any kind of defense

 

[El Bogus]

Unrelated question: How is there on the rice? It's only beside a lake not on a river.

 

[Pedro78]

I see. But 2-3 barbs Archers coming in from the East would screw you up big time right? (If not game over ). I understand your strategy, but I feel like it still requires a little bit of luck - a bad rng roll could kill your game. I like the idea of settling towards the coast to secure one direction though

@El Bogus I don't know... it's probably counted as a river tile

 

[Lennier]

Unrelated question: How is there on the rice? It's only beside a lake not on a river.

River NW counts as riverside.