fix the dang barbs

[Herrhals]

barbs=game ruiner (due to general combat system suckiness)
-get rid of barbs inside cultural borders, or at least decrease the number of invading barbs.

-keep "uncultured" land full of barbs for players who like barbs, for whatever reason

-increase low-level ships to counter barb galleys...need I say more?

-keep barb cities spawning, thats fine...rewards the players who like to military early.

 

[apenpaap]

IMO you should be able to set the number and aggressiveness of barbs like in civIII, where you had 5 different levels.

 

[Vae_Victis]

Barbs are great, they help to both add unpredictability and prevent boring turtle tactics.

A slider would be great though, since standard is a little boring but aggressive can be a little much...especially for AI's who get a bad start. Barbs should threaten a civ but should never take one out of the game IMO.

 

[Sidewinder00Q]

I think cIV barbs were fine, with one exception. I want to see the ability to bribe the barbarians come back.

 

[Earthling]

Settings on barbs are fine, the option is always good... I know lots of folks don't like em and that's all right by me, to each his own. Personally I think a mix of barb activity in civIII and cIV with some new flavor is right, namely, what I would add to the current concept in cIV (settings/difficulty adjustable, of course)
-barbs come in "waves" After very early one where maybe there are only strays, they spawn less commonly but in larger groups (3-4).
-barb cities are closer to "minor nations" Think of it as if in cIV barb cities could develop into colonies/vassals instead of being conquered, have their own individual culture, offer incentives not to kill/capture, etc...

 

[Liquidated]

Only barbs I hated in civ 4, were those rampant galleys they added in one of the patches. Where you have a plethora of ways to counter land based barbs, coastal combat is severely lacking in game play depth. Galleys and (Sailing based) triremes are far too much of a drain on early economies to deal well especially if ones capital isn't coastal. Very poor balance but at least they turned down their frequency after first being introduced.

Normal barbs act as a good filler to balance more isolated starts that have much more room to expand than one crowded in by other civs. Really have no issue with land based barbs and well, one can turn those off in the options if they did anyway.

Cheers!
-Liq

 

[3 EMS]

... or at least decrease the number of invading barbs

Easy enough to fix. The spawning rate too. You can even change how often they settle and how often they build units. IIRC its in Handicaps.xml. I think its there because it changes with difficulty. <tag> amount </end tag>. Tag tells you what it is. The word, name or number in the middle is the quantity.