Question about game speed and barbarians

[ahmedhadzi]

I consider myself an intermidiate Civ player, I win Monarch, but yesterday I got my ass kicked big time from the Barbarian hordes (God I hate them).

Anyway I started experimenting a bit with different type of maps and game speed. I used to play Standard size Continets/Terra, normal speed, most of the time. Then I figure it out to try Tectonics, and I can say, that I fancy it a lot. I also tried to change the game speed from normal to epic.

When I play Tectonics, I don't even notice Barbs, but then yesterday I tried Continents on epic speed with random leader and I got Shaka. By the time I got the third settler up, there was already 3 Barb cities with at least 3 archers fortified, bordering me! And then they took my second city since I did not have a good spot to settle, I just built infrastructure. Yes, I had copper, I had Impies, but it was so many of them. Long story short I found the refuge in "quit to desktop".

My questions are:

1) Is there a different level of barb activity associated with different map types? With everything else being the same (assuming, Monarch, epic speed).
2) I'm hearing that the game is not balanced properly in epic, what do you mean by that, and in that terms what is the best game speed in your opinion, in terms of balance of course?

As usual, thanks in advance.

 

[Ghpstage]

1) Is there a different level of barb activity associated with different map types? With everything else being the same (assuming, Monarch, epic speed).

Yes and no, a larger landmass will mean more area for barbs to spawn in. A lot of coast wil lead to gajillions of galleys spawning as they spawn faster than land barbs by far.

2) I'm hearing that the game is not balanced properly in epic, what do you mean by that, and in that terms what is the best game speed in your opinion, in terms of balance of course?

On game speed there is a problem with scaling of barbs. Barbs have a certain percentage to spawn per turn, this percentage doesn't change with gamespeed leading to many more chances on longer game speeds.
I think Epic is well balanced, it doesn't require obscene micro like normal, and the unit/building costs aren't distorted like marathon.

Barbs are easy to deal with anyway, they cannot spawn within 2 tiles of any unit (yours, rivals, even barbs!) in any direction, meaning each unit has a 5*5 square around them where no barbs can spawn. They also cannot spawn on revealed tiles (tiles you/rivals/barbs can see)

 

[Lemon Merchant]

They also cannot spawn on revealed tiles (tiles you/rivals/barbs can see)

Um, not to criticize, but are you sure about that? I was pretty sure that I read in the S&T forum that even though you have explored an area and can see it, barbs can still spawn there if nobody is around. It's like the fog comes back a little when you aren't looking regularly. I have seen barbs spawn in explored areas before, though not inside the city's "area of sight", which seems to be larger than the BFC.

 

[Ghpstage]

Um, not to criticize, but are you sure about that? I was pretty sure that I read in the S&T forum that even though you have explored an area and can see it, barbs can still spawn there if nobody is around. It's like the fog comes back a little when you aren't looking regularly. I have seen barbs spawn in explored areas before, though not inside the city's "area of sight", which seems to be larger than the BFC.

Yeah by revealed I meant being seen at the time not in the fog, hence the 'can see' in brackets
I worded it badly though, I agree

 

[Lemon Merchant]

Yeah by revealed I meant being seen at the time not in the fog, hence the 'can see' in brackets
I worded it badly though, I agree

That's ok. You should see all the things that I word badly.

 

[ahmedhadzi]

Hey, I wasn't looking for maybe 20 turns, and they literally boxed me in. I was watchin the thing on TMIT let's play civilization IV where he churns warriors so he can brake fog of war and not have any barbs.

Few days ago, I was playing with Inca's, and had GW but that doesn't prevent barb ships entering your borders. That sucks.