Raging Barbarians/Marathon Speed

[svv]

Anybody else play this combo? The dang barbs keep coming out of the woodwork and it's like stepping on ants, only because I'm on marathon I'm not producing new units quickly enough.

Apparently the marathon speed does NOT slow the barbs down in producing THEIR units.

I knew I'd need to hook up some copper first thing, so I knocked out a settler to found a second city near copper, and set up the road. I built barracks in both cities. Both cities are now still trying to produce enough axemen.

As of now the barbs are just coming with warriors - I hate to think what happens when they come with axemen. Anticipating that, I've been promoting all my dudes up to combat 2 and shock.

One thing I've learned is I need more roads; I just don't have the ability to produce any workers right now.

Other civs keep coming to me asking to join in this war or that. How can you even think of fighting another civ? Don't you have all these waves of barbs coming after you over there?

 

[johncross21]

Can't keep wasting good men. Build walls. Whip the walls if necessary.
Otherwise use hill tops and forest to defend and catch the barbarians in open country.

 

[svv]

I've only lost one or two Axes so far. But it's still a problem because they keep coming so fast. Anyway, I've got 8 or 9 now, and they seem to be sufficient to protect my two cities. Now I just have to finally start worrying about developing, other civs, you know the rest of the game.

 

[Scaphism]

You probably need more fogbusters as well. Less fog means fewer barbarians spawn. It's a more efficient use of your hammers - send axes into the fog and have them fortify on a forest or hill (best: forrested hill). He busts the fog around him and any barbs that do try and wander by will run into a heavily fortified unit.

 

[Harald500]

Anybody else play this combo? The dang barbs keep coming out of the woodwork and it's like stepping on ants, only because I'm on marathon I'm not producing new units quickly enough.

Apparently the marathon speed does NOT slow the barbs down in producing THEIR units.

I knew I'd need to hook up some copper first thing, so I knocked out a settler to found a second city near copper, and set up the road. I built barracks in both cities. Both cities are now still trying to produce enough axemen.

As of now the barbs are just coming with warriors - I hate to think what happens when they come with axemen. Anticipating that, I've been promoting all my dudes up to combat 2 and shock.

One thing I've learned is I need more roads; I just don't have the ability to produce any workers right now.

Other civs keep coming to me asking to join in this war or that. How can you even think of fighting another civ? Don't you have all these waves of barbs coming after you over there?

I'm not sure if you are playing Warlords or not, but I ALLWAYS play the metioned combo, and find the AH and then the wheel a better option when dealing with barbs. Try playing Inca's, and you will deal with warriors and archers with ease, and when the axes arrive, you are spinning arround in Chariots. They will manage to keep the barbs at bay, and you can chop like crazy for the great wall(industrius), and then paradise is a fact.
This gives you breathing space to build a economical super power. I try to give the barbs room to appear near my borders, knowing they will move around and maybe take out a city or two of my rivals. The AI is bad at dealing with the barbs, so this will give you a big edge.

Good luck!

 

[Joxer]

Aye, I play with these settings as well. I find that the AI is not nearly as hampered by the barbs as we are. In fact I find that they still settle at the same rate as before, the only slowed down by them are the players.

About 1 game in 3 I have copper near enough to my capital to fend them off. The other times its just brutal to play.

Warriors act as the best fog busters, cheap and can fend themselves for a while, even against archers with proper promotions and defensive positions. I try to use these cheap guys to clear an area where no barbs can spawn. The throw out my axemen on my fronts.

Sometimes, it gets annoying real quick how many barb units come after you compared to the AI.

 

[Hero]

I like this combo too. Once you get used to it, you have a huge advantage over the AI. The previous poster mentioned that the AI seems to expand at about the same rate. That hasn't been the case in my games. I consistently see in the movie-thing at the end of the game that multiple civs' 2nd or 3rd cities were "captured by the barbarian state." Also, the AI civs get pillaged to death. Even once they have 2 or 3 level 4 archers holed up in their cities that can withstand a few axemen every turn, they don't have much infrastructure at all. Spamming axemen is the best cure, but try to build up a couple of super units. One level-4 axemen with shock+cover guarding each city helps out a ton. Also it helps if you promote a Warrior or Scout to Medic I (maybe instead of Woodsman II) and park them in the city to heal units.

 

[svv]

Thanks for the responses. I've played it a bit more, and have a few comments.

1. I'm playing Vanilla, so chariots don't do much for me. Most of my axemen are now up to level 4 - the most they can be from fighting barbs. Almost all of them have combat two and shock, but one or two I've given combat two and cover, to go after archers.

2. I can't just hole up in the cities, because they'd destroy my mine, my farms, my pens and my cottages. I've had to put roads through everything, and be ready to go out and attack anybody who gets in a valuable square. I pretty much have to let them walk through the forests and the unmined hills. I have to station extra units on the mined hills, to keep them from occuyping there.

3. Now they're starting to come with swordsmen (no problem for my combat 2/shock axemen, of course) and horse archers. I've had to build some spearmen for the horse archers (promotion to combat 2 and anti-horse when I can) but they're still a problem because they might be able to pillage something before I can kill them.

4. As far as the other civs being affected by the barbarians, it seems to have been a mixed bag. I got a message that at least one of other civs was destroyed by barbarians. On the other hand, several of the others don't seem to be having a problem. One of them built pyramids while I was still struggling to get by second city, mine, barracks, and a few axemen set up. Napoleon thought it would be fun to declare war on me even those he's far away.

Anyway, I've built up some catapults and can go after other civs. Unfortunately nobody's very close. I better start working on getting the tech for macemen before the barbarians start upgrading.

 

[Reprisal]

As others have said before, you may benefit from doing a bit more fogbusting. Barbarians cannot spawn in tiles where you have line of sight from any unit. If you have early access to scouts you can use those to explore and when you've explored "enough," you can post them on wooded hills away from your settlements try try to force the barbarians that inevitably spawn to trudge a longer route to your lands. If you have a bit more fortitude for delaying your expansion in the short run, fogbust with warriors.

 

[Elkad]

I just played a raging/marathon game, prince, 18 civs, huge greatplains map.

Got great wall up early. My total military build was 3 warriors (plus my starting one). Only my starting warrior ever engaged in combat. I only met 5 of the 17 AI civs. Barbs handed me a conquest victory in 1100AD.

 

[Disco Bandit]

You got beat by the bars when there were 18 other civs? Tough luck, I guess.

 

[Elkad]

No, i got a conquest VICTORY. the barbs wiped out the other 17 civs.

 

[r_rolo1]

No, i got a conquest VICTORY. the barbs wiped out the other 17 civs.

Ouch...

That proofs, above all doubt, the usefulness of the GW with Raging barbs

 

[cabert]

Ouch...

That proofs, above all doubt, the usefulness of the GW with Raging barbs

yep, just to hit the nail on the head a bit more, there are more barbs in warlords than in vanilla!
raging barbs playing warlords is really raging!

 

[KMadCandy]

I just played a raging/marathon game, prince, 18 civs, huge greatplains map.

Got great wall up early. My total military build was 3 warriors (plus my starting one). Only my starting warrior ever engaged in combat. I only met 5 of the 17 AI civs. Barbs handed me a conquest victory in 1100AD.

that is awesome! i love it

btw, welcome to CFC. i totally am inspired to try a game like that, and i can't remember ever having that feeling from one of anybody else's very first posts *giggle*.

 

[cabert]

that is awesome! i love it

btw, welcome to CFC. i totally am inspired to try a game like that, and i can't remember ever having that feeling from one of anybody else's very first posts *giggle*.

that's from the drugs you take

 

[KMadCandy]

that's from the drugs you take

the doctor prescribed them, mr. jealous. and don't encourage me to go off-topic, you know more than most how capable i am of doing that all on my own. in an effort to try to say something related to the topic...

Apparently the marathon speed does NOT slow the barbs down in producing THEIR units.

barbarians totally cheat. i've watched them (much longer explanation below) and they really don't seem to care how unhappy their citizens get. once they know bronze-working they whip early and they whip often. so they produce units fast, as a result of not caring about the consequences, i think.

the long explanation if you care...
when i first got sick and began taking said drugs, i was even more brain-fried than i am now. i wanted to play civ4 but could not handle any sort of challenge at all. so, i cheated in the name of research. i started a game and gave myself spies very very early (like, pre-alphabet) in other civ's cities, even barbarian cities. and i watched them, to see what they researched, what they built, how they progressed, the kind of stuff you can't see from outside just watching the units they make and the cities they build. i found it reallllllllly interesting. i messed with the results by giving them money at times via chipotle, not as gifts, i didn't want diplomatic relations affected. even giving them a GM doesn't work, if i give it to them next to my capital and they live on the other continent, they just keep him sitting there so that they start a golden age . i added health and happy resources to their land as needed etc. i wanted to see how they'd do if they had a kind of "ideal world" but had to do their own diplomacy and tech trades amongst themselves.

the barbs were especially weird. perhaps stupid is a better word, maybe clever, i dunno . my game was not on marathon but i'm guessing the same sorts of things i noticed happen on every speed. i created a little island for the barbarians once there wasn't any more room for them to spawn on the continents. i packed it with resources on every tile, and improved them all, so that they'd not have too many health/happy issues, and gave 'em iron and ponies. i even added, as the game went on, things like a hospital to the city.

one thing stuck out ... after the barbarians discovered monarchy and went into hereditary rule (and they did have a turn of anarchy to switch, btw), they whipped even more units than they whipped before. and then they'd run them around the little island i'd created for them. the island that was only big enough for their fat cross, and had no tiles they could nt see from inside the city, and no one on it except themselves, and my invisible-to-them spy.

they had a BUNCH of unhappy citizens. but they didn't seem to care. they made a bunch of units by whipping, and were using HR, but then didn't keep enough in the city to take advantage of HR to make the citizens happy .

they do suffer from emancipation unhappiness once any civ starts using that civic, i hadn't expected that. they ran 20% culture after the emanc kicked in. i had given them, i dunno, 4 or 5 luxuries, 3 of them the metals doubled by a forge, and i'd given them a forge. they still had unhappy citizens, while simultaneously using HR but having troops outside the city, doing no good at all. go figure.

so, ummmmm, yeah. "As of now the barbs are just coming with warriors - I hate to think what happens when they come with axemen." be afraid, be very very afraid. if they have axemen, they have whipping, and if my experiment holds true for game, you will live in interesting times. i wish you good luck and hope that you have fun

 

[T.rex]

I hate the Marathon setting - too damned slow and its true, it appears to have no effect on the barbarians....

 

[ac196nataku]

marathon feels really slow to me

 

[Bhruic]

Epic is too damn fast.

Bh