Most and Least Favorite Independents/Natives/Barbarians

[WhiteEyes]

Obviously the NPC civs are supposed to be hindrance to the players so I don't expect anyone to love them lol.
Anyway, my pick are:

Least Favorite:

• Jerusalem. They got 3 Asharittu Bowmen while keep making more archers.
• Susa/Ohrmazd-Ardashir for Assyrian. Like Jerusalem, their amount of defenders are varied for each playthrough. Making certain starts somewhat unwinnable.
• Persian independents for Arabs and Turks. Crossbowmen in 600AD, on hills, with walls. And I have to build road through them to trade techs.
• Kassite Warriors for Babylonians and Assyrians. Their raids are almost unstoppable. But it's pretty cool to think that they did a really good job for the weakest barbarians of the game.
• Native Girijan for China. They just stand in place, attacking no one but my Workers.
• Huna Horse Archers for India. Hate them for now since I was tired of spamming units at that point after beating the Kushans.
• Native Mohawk for England. Haven't tried England far enough in 1.18 but the Mohawk were monsters in the old map.

Most Tolerable Barbarians:

• Sea-peoples. Archers and Chariots are just enough to beat them, but problem comes when they managed to conquer rival cities. The irony is that they are more effective at defending than attacking cities.
• Central Asian barbarians sound like obvious friends to all Turk players but I don't like them as much on the large map.
• Can't think of any other lmao.

 

[AOS9001]

The southeast Asian independents are awful if you don't have iron. Which is almost all of the civs, as the indies have the iron. Quad city defender II crossbow + hill + walls, what a nightmare.

 

[Matara]

I really really hate mohawks before their nerf lol

 

[Apple111111]

The southeast Asian independents are awful if you don't have iron. Which is almost all of the civs, as the indies have the iron. Quad city defender II crossbow + hill + walls, what a nightmare.

They had Arquebusiers in 1250 in my Burma game… (this was regent, too…)

 

[LikeNothing]

Mohawks were awesome, so I un-nerf them when I play DoC. They are really fun and they look badass. They are Mohawks.

They cannot be bribed with Citizenship, so I use the WB to bribe them. I also edit them to be like Privateers/Oghuz, with Hidden Nationality. BOOM, now I have Mohawks.

Mohawks on land and Privateers on sea. I keep the entire North America as a pristine nature reserve. No city allowed! I love my Mohawks.

 

[Logoncal]

Mohawks are annoying but i always tolerated because you are never meant to boom economically your colonies too early, so theyre there to gimp you on it.
Barbarian Keshiks and Oghuz are the worst tho. 3 movement and the former can blitz an arquebus city. Its also extremely annoying to deal with barbarian oghuz and keshiks as Turks, because you want to be careful to not die to them or kill them so you can "capture" them. And possibly what i hate on 3 move units is that you can be fine and all and suddenly you lose an worker because they appeared out of the fog.

My least favourite indie is definetely Rome. And everytime you get the way of easily beating it, Leored will them nerf all of its neighbors to the ground again and make Rome even more impenetrable, while making UHV1 to HRE even more stressing.

 

[Bu77Trout]

Reiterate the above, everything in the Pontic Steppe. Keshiks and Oghuz appearing randomly and taking out everything in their path without so much as a turn to try to prepare. Russia being menaced by Tatar Cuirassier in 1500 when I haven't even researched firearms is wild. As far as I can tell the only defense is World Builder.

I hope I'm not the only one that thinks having 12 cities much less 12 churches, 3 cathedrals and 3 Orthodox wonders in 1550 is impossible given the Barbarian threat amongst other concerns.

 

[WhiteEyes]

Mohawks are annoying but i always tolerated because you are never meant to boom economically your colonies too early, so theyre there to gimp you on it.
Barbarian Keshiks and Oghuz are the worst tho. 3 movement and the former can blitz an arquebus city. Its also extremely annoying to deal with barbarian oghuz and keshiks as Turks, because you want to be careful to not die to them or kill them so you can "capture" them. And possibly what i hate on 3 move units is that you can be fine and all and suddenly you lose an worker because they appeared out of the fog.

My least favourite indie is definetely Rome. And everytime you get the way of easily beating it, Leored will them nerf all of its neighbors to the ground again and make Rome even more impenetrable, while making UHV1 to HRE even more stressing.

Oh that reminded me how Oghuz used to spawn in the Kush region back in 1.17. I have no way to capture them as Turks before they attack me.
I also hate when Horse Archers go out of sight for a long time because they are being pulled into a goodie hut.

Now Asian Horse Archers are getting Steppe and Desert adaptation in 1.18, everybody is basically an Oghuz.


I hate Bulgarian Lancers as Turks and love them as Arabs lol. They never spawn in the right place when I tried to find them, but they are so powerful they collapse Byzantine like 50% of the time.

 

[Bu77Trout]

Oh that reminded me how Oghuz used to spawn in the Kush region back in 1.17. I have no way to capture them as Turks before they attack me.
I also hate when Horse Archers go out of sight for a long time because they are being pulled into a goodie hut.

Now Asian Horse Archers are getting Steppe and Desert adaptation in 1.18, everybody is basically an Oghuz.


I hate Bulgarian Lancers as Turks and love them as Arabs lol. They never spawn in the right place when I tried to find them, but they are so powerful they collapse Byzantine like 50% of the time.

What IS the strategy against Steppe and Desert adapted light cavalry? Is it just numbers?

 

[AOS9001]

What IS the strategy against Steppe and Desert adapted light cavalry? Is it just numbers?

Die.

(Light cavalry of your own or archers/crossbowmen with mountains or forest promotions is my usual go-to)

 

[WhiteEyes]

What IS the strategy against Steppe and Desert adapted light cavalry? Is it just numbers?

For Turks, move your Oghuz 3 tiles and back every turn to patrol their area.

For China, put Swordsmen on hill until Chokonu is available. Lancer are mostly enough against Keshiks.

 

[Bu77Trout]

For Turks, move your Oghuz 3 tiles and back every turn to patrol their area.

For China, put Swordsmen on hill until Chokonu is available. Lancer are mostly enough against Keshiks.

What about Russia?

Yeah lancers with light cavalry promotion seem like a good option. Problem for Russia is no immediate access to horses and Keshiks arrive very quickly. It seems they can even take out fortified crossbowmen in cities with good odds but the real threat is taking out your workers and improvements in the field. Also with reduced research rates due to expansion, by the time you can research firearms to get the Strelets, they've already moved on to cuirassiers.

Die.

(Light cavalry of your own or archers/crossbowmen with mountains or forest promotions is my usual go-to)

Yeah, dying seems like the only option. I definitely don't find crossbowmen effective for long.

 

[Osborneman]

What about Russia?

Don't settle on the steppes, stack your defenders on your southern cities, and be very careful with your workers. You don't really need improvements near the steppes for the most part. They might still get you, but your chances will be much better. If they do ambush super early the good news is it's not as big of a deal to restart. Also often times Turkey and independent Astrakhan will draw their aggro.

 

[Kott]

You can roll with Citizenship and bribe them with a spy (more like 3-4 to cover the area). Thus you can skip building your own military force.

 

[Bu77Trout]

Don't settle on the steppes, stack your defenders on your southern cities, and be very careful with your workers. You don't really need improvements near the steppes for the most part. They might still get you, but your chances will be much better. If they do ambush super early the good news is it's not as big of a deal to restart. Also often times Turkey and independent Astrakhan will draw their aggro.

This does seem reasonable and historical... and that is 12 cities... okay, maybe Russia is playable.

You can roll with Citizenship and bribe them with a spy (more like 3-4 to cover the area). Thus you can skip building your own military force.

I guess Citizenship can also benefit the UB and UP because you're not consuming population to produce military units as with vassalage. Saves more population for whipping!

 

[WhiteEyes]

After playing more and more as the Indians on the latest build it is clear that the Huna Horse Archers are almost no threat at all lol.
2 Archers with Walls are usually enough.

Vedic barbarians give me much more headache whenever they spawn in the North, preventing me from building between Champa and Delhi.

 

[Si No Hay Paz]

love some barb holkans when playing as Maya. delicious in pozole