I used to love Civ... now I don't

[Hateful player]

I used to love Civ... I was able to play on the really hard setings and enjoy myself for hours with all of the other civs... I can barley survive on the easiest mode of this civ.

Seriously, i have played 10 games every thing I try is no good, it's unwinnable within 1/2 hour.

I just tried aztec on the easiest mode and was besiged by barbarians. No joke, I had 4 cities, was doing well, finally, and out of nowhere hordes of barbarians came at me, destroyed every improvment, all I could build were untis and it wasn't enough. Within 10 turns I had at least 50 come at me, on easy mode!

This is what gets me the most... This is suppossed to be easy mode so I can learn how to play. The AI could see that i was doing well and came up with barbarians to screw me. This game is rediculous, I think it's the worst I have ever played.

I snapped the cd in half so I would not be tempted to try agin.

All of you who can kick ass power to you, I can't even get started.

 

[Darkhrse]

Sorry to hear about your experience. Are you sure you didn't turn on the Raging Barbarian setting? I've never heard nor experience the barbarians acting that way...at least not with a stack of 50 units.

 

[Heretic_Cata]

Then maybe you should play civ3c . (it's easier)

 

[Yzman]

You really broke the disc? Temper temper.

 

[Hateful player]

I did not have the raging barbarians set... it wasn't 50 in a stack, they came 1 at a time, but they just kept coming from every direction and they wore me down. This whole situation gave the other civs just enough time to box in my empire... effectivly screwing me. That is ultimatly why I was so annoyed, it was an AI tactic to slow me down and offer difficulty. Which would have been fine, had the game not been set on the easiest mode. Oh well!

 

[King Flevance]

Hopefully, you didnt really snap the CD in half. That is doing nothing more than p***ing on your hard earned money. If you were using it as a figure of speech:

If you do not turn off barbarians, make sure you make sentries. I usually go for archery as fast as I can and build barracks as the first thing. Usually Barbs wont show up until 2000BC. This gives you time to build barracks, then some archers. Give them hill defense when made and on second promotion Hills defense 2. Then I usually make the 3rd promotion Strength. Set them up in hills (preferrably ones with forests) and try to get rid of any fog of war, as much as you possibly can.

EDIT: Of course the first archer is a "City Guard" promotion.

Once you have sentries set up start in with a worker to start utilizing the land while making the next settler. Chop rush the settler if you want to speed up the early game. Although, you may choose to hold some trees back for wonders. Just make sure to guard the settler.

Barbarians are definatley stepped up now. I have fallen in love with them as in 3 it was rediculous as there was no real reason to defend against them. Hope this helps.

 

[5cats]

Civ4 is a different animal the the 3 previous civs (and Alpha Centauri too)
Several "tried and true" strategies from civ1-3 do not work at all in civ4, and for good reason!
I've had similar experiences, finally got my 4th city founded when I was attacked from all sides by Barbarian Horse Archers! No Copper, no Iron, no Horse, I was catfood!
Spit happens! Adapt adjust and improve (to quote Monty Python... bonus points if you name the sketch!)

 

[Watiggi]

Hay, be careful. I think what happens is the barbarians go after a low or lowest power rating civ.

I played with raging barbarians and I got hammered (lost a city), but I focused on beefing up my military and they stopped or at least stopped focusing in on one city.

Now, whenever they start to hone in on one of my cities, I build lots of units. Eventually they stop (and go after someone else). It's a little nerve racking to see them come one after another though.

 

[GIO888]

Dude! rush to Archery, then rush to bronze working so you're workers can chop those forests and get those early buildings/units in real fast.

If you really. really lose your karma, go into WB and delete the barbs you find. This is cheating and very, very naughty, but if it getsyou to a place you start to enjoy it, presto! you won't need to do it ever again.

Did I say it was cheating?

 

[cthom]

Spit happens! Adapt adjust and improve (to quote Monty Python... bonus points if you name the sketch!)

aaaaaaaaaaaarrrrgghhh! i give in! tell me!

 

[Lars_Domus]

I find it peculiar that anyone who has more than a basic experience with the previous civs should have any trouble at all with settler difficulty. Are you completely sure you haven't enabled some abnormal settings?

Anyway...

The previous posters seem to have covered the basics of handling barbarians: Build archers and and deploy "lookouts". Also, be aware of your map size. At a large map with few civs, more land will be covered in fog of war for a longer amount of time, meaning more barbarians will spawn. I also believe playing the longer game modes (epic and marathon) will result in an avareage higher frequency of barbarians than the shorter ones.

You could also try just turning the barbarians of all together. Remember that the point of video games is to have fun

 

[DeathsHead]

I cant believe this happened on Settler difficulty. Is this post for real or is it April fools one day early? ( Hateful player?!?! )

If it is real, the only thing to do is to post sentries as suggested. Maybe there was so much fog of war that the barbs really built up and then poured into your empire.

What were the other game settings? Huge continents with less than the normal number of civs leaving great empty spaces?

Of course if you really trashed your CD, maybe this game is not for you. It can be frustrating when you go up in difficulties, if you bought another it wouldnt last past Prince.

 

[MrCynical]

This seems somewhat implausible from my own experiences of the game. On Settler you have such vast bonuses against the barbarians you should hardly lose a fight. You certainly shouldn't be having any trouble if you've played any of the previous Civs much. Even on Marathon raging mode the barbarians won't be bad enough to present more than a mild irritant.

There is a very simple fix if for some reason you can't cope with barbarians - turn them off. It's very simple, in the custom game setup click "no barbarians". This will of course require an intact CD.

I'm also left wondering if this is an April fool. There isn't some timezone that's already on April first is there?

 

[Older than Dirt]

Try a new CD; the one you had was defective. CNN just did an in-depth and unbiased report on this problem. They interviewd Ralph Nader and Carl Sagan. If you had not broken the CD you could just have run it through the dishwasher using Joy detergent set on potscrbber cycle but don't let it run throught the drying cycle.

 

[Kerrang]

I used to love Civ... I was able to play on the really hard setings and enjoy myself for hours with all of the other civs... I can barley survive on the easiest mode of this civ.

Yes, this version of Civ is a different animal. There are many new factors in the game that invalidate some strategies fom previous games. I got may ass handed to me the first game I played (on Settler), even though I have played every Civ version since the original. I had to visit these forums for strategy tips before I could win a Noble game, and I am still about 50/50 on Prince.

I just tried aztec on the easiest mode and was besiged by barbarians. No joke, I had 4 cities, was doing well, finally, and out of nowhere hordes of barbarians came at me, destroyed every improvment, all I could build were untis and it wasn't enough. Within 10 turns I had at least 50 come at me, on easy mode!

Sounds like you were playing on a large map with too few other Civs. That is the way I used to play at the lower level in previous versions, and it worked well, allowing you plenty of time to expand before bumping into other Civs. Civ 4 seems to be just the opposite. Try playing a smaller map with more civs, you wont have to deal with as many Barbs, but you will run into the other civs earlier. Your bonuses against them on Settler will be helpful in dealing with them at that early stage in the game.

This is what gets me the most... This is suppossed to be easy mode so I can learn how to play. The AI could see that i was doing well and came up with barbarians to screw me. This game is rediculous, I think it's the worst I have ever played.

That is not the way the Barbarian AI works at all. Barbs can only spawn in the Fog of War, and they will attack the closest, weakest unit available to them. On Settler, they should be attacking the AI as much or more than they are attacking you. Of course if you are isolated on an island or continent surrounding by considerable amounts of Fog of War, you are going to have trouble with Barbs.

I snapped the cd in half so I would not be tempted to try agin.

That seems a bit excessive.

All of you who can kick ass power to you, I can't even get started.

Maybe you should have asked for advice prior to breaking the CD.

 

[balthamael]

Welllllllllllllllllllllllll.....you evidently suck badly. And as you broke the CD, whats the point in giving you advice?

 

[Coolhand]

Head's up guys- the Trolls are out in force today. Any chance the Mods will do a little clean up?

 

[Chamaedrys]

I snapped the cd in half so I would not be tempted to try agin.

I can't believe you really did this.

 

[MoonBase]

This is what gets me the most... This is suppossed to be easy mode so I can learn how to play. The AI could see that i was doing well and came up with barbarians to screw me. This game is rediculous, I think it's the worst I have ever played.

It, ah, never occurred to you that there was perhaps something wrong with your set-up? That perhaps, just perhaps, the developers had not intended to beat you over the head with a baseball bat on the easiest level?

Yep. Good, sensible thinking there.

 

[JiggleTheHandle]

You're either doing something wrong or this is just BS for the sake of trolling. I'd help you with your problem but you don't seem to have any interest in actually playing the game. Be careful not to fall into a manhole or fail in some other otherwise simple task on your way out.