Difficulty

[Exordus]

I'm a long time Civ player but never got into it in great detail until I came across Ffh. I'm a huge fantasy fan and absolutely love the whole concept. That's when I really started getting more and more involved in the game mechanics. I usually play on Warlord or Noble settings, which I do ok with. After reading these forums and seeing everyone talk about playing on Deity levels and such I figured it would be interesting to challenge myself a bit more and bump up to something like Prince. But I FAIL horribly every time and usually just end up getting anger and shutting down the game. It's supposed to be fun right? My basic question is how do you deal with the constant barbarians?? I mean sure I can protect my cities, but after a few hundred turns and I can't keep any farms or mines going it gets frustrating. I usually load a game several times to at least get a decent starting position and then save frequently in case I make a mistake and want to try the last few turns over.

This one map I had a beautiful beachfront city, found 3 villages that all three gave me techs...I mean, fishing AND sailing by turn 100 was sweet. But the goblin fort nearby kept pumping out barbarians and after losing all my improvements a few times I reloaded a saved game and pumped out my own warriors and surrounded their fort (it was on the coastline so I only needed to block 3 tiles). I thought this worked because they stopped attacking and I went on my merry way of building. I had a skeleton or two wandering around, but they were easily disposed of and they never messed with my improvements. Then, after building my second city, having great resources and such the barbarian axemen started coming. They must have build a nearby city in the fog. Again, I could protect myself, but not all my improvements and soon they destroyed everything that didn't have protection. It all fell apart then because the goblins I'd been ignoring for the last few hundred turns apparently saw the axemen and took a force of 6 goblins and tore through my blockade.

I can't seem to find a happy medium when I play single player maps. They're either too easy with my dominating the map (which really gets boring) or me not being able to make any headway. Help!

 

[Bill Bisco]

Well, to be honest I tend not to enjoy straight Deity games either. I actually liked Jet's setup of increasing difficulty starting with Emperor when the AI doesn't start with a bonus worker and that many bonus technologies. But later in the game I get to face off against ridiculous production and research bonuses (which don't always get put off to very good use).

The first requirement to play other difficulties is to know how to build a good economy and how to optimally tech.

The second requirement is to play good (not good alignment) Leaders and Civilizations.

Regarding your question about barbarians, The Clan of Embers takes care of Barbarians immediately as the clan is not at war with them, so you're much better able to expand quickly with lower city defenders. The Kuriorates are also very good at taking care of barbarians due to the fact that Cardith Lorda with his very high happiness cities and very high early production, can crank out the warriors to take care of the barbs before they are too much of a problem.

My suggestion to you, is to figure out how to better play Kuriorates in the game, because they're one of the best and quickest Civs in the game.

 

[Emptiness]

Staying in your city and allowing the barbarians to pillage your improvements is exactly the wrong strategy for survival. As of Patch H this more true than ever, because of the changes to the way the barbarians behave.

Orcs and skeletons can pillage improvements, so they are the direct threat. Goblins and Lizardmen can't pillage, but you can't afford to let them hang around your territory either. Goblin Archers and Goblin Wolf Riders are seen less frequently, and can pillage. Knowing this is important, as it can help you decide when to counterattack (specificially, when you can let a barbarian cross your improvements and when you need to kill them immediately).

You need to position Warriors outside your cities in defensible positions (Hills, Forests, or Forested Hills) where approaching barbarians are likely to cross their path. Sometimes barbarians will attack your units in these positions before they reach your improvements, which is to your advantage because the odds of victory will be in your favor. Always have at least 2 Warriors in each position so that if they are attacked and one is killed then the other one can counterattack and kill the attacking barbarian.

Your improvements should be built adjacent to your city, or adjacent to or in the tile of one of your sentry groups. This is so that if a barbarian ignores your sentry group and moves onto one of your improvements you will be able to attack it before it can pillage the improvement. Pay careful attention to rivers when chosing the locations for your sentry groups; you do not want your sentries to have to attack across a river to defend an improvement because that will apply a substantial penalty.

Do not let barbarians that defeat your units survive to the next turn. If you do they will purchase promotions and end up much stronger. This can create a chain of combat losses that make that barbarian stronger and stronger until it can start killing your city defenders and eventually defeat you. Counterattack barbarians that win a combat against you until they are dead.

Lizardmen are particularly annoying, because of their base 4 strength and their move of 2. It is important to occupy defensible positions with Warriors, so that the Lizardmen can't move to them. This will force the Lizardmen into the open, where you can counterattack them without an additional penalty. Kill them as they arrive; you don't want to multiple Lizardmen hanging around your territory. They may not be able to pillage, but they can kill Workers and they can kill your wounded units that have just counterattacked a different barbarian. You should expect to lose a Warrior for each Lizardman that shows up; attack with a fresh Warrior and if (when) it dies finish off the wounded Lizardman with a veteran Warrior. Shock promotions are nice against Orcs and Skeletons, but worthless against Lizardmen. If you find that many Lizardmen are spawning in your area, consider just taking Combat promotions.

Whenever you lose a Warrior to the barbarians, immediately replace it with another one. If there are barbarians in your are that you can't kill then you should be building more Warriors. Workers and Settlers are worthless if you can't defend your improvements. If you have a large number of lairs in your area, and are being plagued by a flood of barbarians, consider building up a large force of extra Warriors and attacking the lairs themselves (4+ for most lairs, 6+ for Goblin Forts).

 

[Senethro]

I don't think we've got enough information here to be judging his play.

Exordus: How many cities do you have by turn 100 and turn 150? How many defenders per city? How many units on combined barbarian cleaning/offense?

 

[Emptiness]

And what timescale setting are you playing? Barbarian problems around turn 100 is typical of marathon speed; on normal speed it's a strong indication that you've lost the game.

 

[Exordus]

I don't think we've got enough information here to be judging his play.

Exordus: How many cities do you have by turn 100 and turn 150? How many defenders per city? How many units on combined barbarian cleaning/offense?

Well, I was playing on marathon and was only able to get 2 cities up and going, but the second city wasn't until late b/c I was pumping out so many defenders to try and stay off the barbarians. I have about 3-4 defenders in each city, but like I said, I pumped out a bunch to try and blockade or slow down barbarian advances to stop destroying my improvements. I no longer have the game I mentioned saved, so I'm just trying to go from memory.

I'm going to try Bill's suggestion and play around with the Kuriorates as soon as I get a chance. I've played them in the past on lower settings. I also like to play Erebus. Should I be trying a different type?

On a side note, is it just me or does Cardith Lorda look like Nick Jonas? Sorry, I have two kids and the Disney channel is always on.

 

[Senethro]

I wouldn't advise playing on Marathon anyway as FFH skews the importance towards military rather than buildings, and Marathon skews it further as it changes their relative costs.

3 defenders per city is about the bare minimum and would require some mobile guys who move about and deal with trouble spots.

As a rough guide, I think 2-3 cities by turn 100 Normal speed and 5-6 by 150 are good rules of thumb for expansion.

 

[Emptiness]

The new barbarians rarely attack cities, so 2 units defending in each city is plenty. The other 1-2 units per city can be in the surrounding area suppressing invading barbarians. If you have enough units killing barbarians then none of them will ever get close enough to attack a city anyway.

 

[torsoboy]

Hehe, I know what you mean. This was my situation this afternoon (just look at it). The city got swarmed by barbarians and there was no clearing for me to attack them in. Eventually they did attack my city which netted me a Combat I, Shock warrior. After that it was easier to defeat them. I got my civ running after that, but only because Sidar allow highly promoted units to become specialists.

 

[Exordus]

Yeah, that's exactly what i'm talking about. You get a city or even two, but not improvemnts up and running b/c of the barbarians. I tried the Clan of Embers that was suggested...but it almost felt well...like cheating? I mean, it was almost boring up until I started on the offensive against other players. I guess I just need to learn to find a happy medium. I mean, I do like having some barbarians! But not to the point where I become overwhelmed and I'm so busy pumping out warriors to defend, that everything else in my ecomony lags behind.

I played the Balserphs (female leader...can't remember the name off hand). They spread pretty fast and I had my scout and warrior run off and find all the ruins, etc. that spawn skele's and lizardment. Explored all the nearby ones and at least got them out of the way while I pumped out a few warriors to protect my city. Can't do much about the barbarian city's the start popping up in the fog but at least spreading my city faster helps clear the nearby stuff. I also made Loki early (forgoing other important city improvements) to start flipping other cities which I destroyed. Doesn't necessarily help my score, but it sure slows down and lowers the other Civs! Thanks for the tips everyone.

EDIT: Can anyone tell me why I haven't been able to create Gibbon after founding the CoE with my Balserphs? I must be missing a prerequisite that i'm not aware of. Thanks.

 

[readercolin]

You have to be following CoE (not just have founded it) to be able to build Gibbon

-Colin

 

[Exordus]

You have to be following CoE (not just have founded it) to be able to build Gibbon

-Colin

Yeah, I founded it both times...but maybe not followed them. I'll have to go back to my saved games if I still have them. Now that I think about it, I also founded the Ashen Veil and may have forgotten to switch over once I founded CoE.

 

[Monkeyfinger]

Try playing as an aggressive leader other than Sheelba/Charadon. You still have to fight barbs, but you get a big edge in actually doing it. You can wait for enemy warriors to move onto flat ground and have favorable odds attacking them, and any of your own warriors in defensive terrain will wreck a lizardman.

Kandros Fir, Tasunke, and Alexis are your options.

 

[Demus]

alemanchier should have a relatively easy time dispatching barbs as well imo, with forest bonusses and defender