Raging Barbs = easier game for human player?

[Smokeybear]

I'd never done a raging barbs game before, until my current one- and the one thing that jumped out and kinda shocked me (other than a ****load of barbarians coming out of the potted palms everywhere), is how *easy* it has been so far to outpace the development of all the other civs. The extra barbs must really play hell with their units and early progress.

In most of my King games, I'm usually in the back of the pack until later in the game, and most of the AI civs are spewing out cities like so much popcorn, gobbling up the world. In this game, all but one of them took nearly 3-4 eras before they could even manage to expand beyond more than 3 cities (playing huge world). Of course it's fairly easy for the human player to master hunting down the barbs quickly with hunter-killer teams of warriors and archers, but I'm guessing the AI just bumbles along with its usual doodly-doo methods, making them a lot more susceptible to a greatly increased stream of barbarians on the rampage.

Needless to say, even with just building new cities with settlers and only fighting to defend myself against those silly jealous aztecs and chinese, I've easily managed to more than double the score of 10/11 of the AI civs in the game, except for the wily Japanese, who've managed to get a decent empire going and snacked down on poor Ghandi already- Oda is gamely giving chase to me, but he's still well back.

So, is this why people love to play raging barbs? Because it gives them a big starting advantage over the other civs? Sure seems to work that way for me.

 

[Tabarnak]

In most of my King games

At king level the AI has serious difficulties to protect their workers and settlers. They usually struggle a lot more with raging barbs. For emperor and immortal, they barely can grow at usual rate and raging barbs can give some problems to a human if he's pretty isolated from cs and civs around(barbs converge to the human).

At deity, the AI is no match and all you have to do is...well...do nothing and watch barbs dying like flies.

That said, i think that raging barbs is the worst for a human at emperor and immortal level. For levels below than emperor, it only helps the human player because the AI can't handle sufficiently the additionnal barbs and barbs bonuses are not high enough against the human player.

In multiplayer games, raging barbs are a real pain because they can spawn and move on the same turn(in sp mode they spawn, then move on the next turn....way more easier to deal).

 

[binhthuy71]

For me, Raging Barbs are best used when playing either the Aztecs (For the Culture) or Bismarck (For the troops). I did some comparisons using saved maps, same civs, Emporer level, with and without Raging Barbs and it didn't seem to make a huge difference other than with the two civs I mentioned above.

 

[Smokeybear]

For me, Raging Barbs are best used when playing either the Aztecs (For the Culture) or Bismarck (For the troops). I did some comparisons using saved maps, same civs, Emporer level, with and without Raging Barbs and it didn't seem to make a huge difference other than with the two civs I mentioned above.

Well, I can relate for a fact, that Askia rakes in the cash like a robber baron, with all the barb camps to clean up. Have been rolling in disposable income from the start, playing Songhai. Made it extra easy to buy whatever I wanted, to get rolling. Extra fighers? No prob. Extra library to rush the college? No prob. Two or three maritimes and a culture CS very early on? No prob.

 

[binhthuy71]

Well, I can relate for a fact, that Askia rakes in the cash like a robber baron, with all the barb camps to clean up. Have been rolling in disposable income from the start, playing Songhai. Made it extra easy to buy whatever I wanted, to get rolling. Extra fighers? No prob. Extra library to rush the college? No prob. Two or three maritimes and a culture CS very early on? No prob.

Interesting. I've only played the Songhai a couple of times. I'll have to give them some serious attention.

 

[The_Quasar]

I would agree that Songhai are very good with raging barbarians, even at Emperor and Immortal levels... the extra cash earned can make quite a bit of difference to the game. I'm not so sure at Deity level though, sometimes it can be your downfall, as lots of barbs is good, but not when you get rushed by a couple of neighbours at the same time!

 

[Arilian]

AFAIK Raging barbs do not produce more huts, only more barbs from huts.
So it is not better for askia/bismark.

Please correct me if I am wrong.

 

[binhthuy71]

AFAIK Raging barbs do not produce more huts, only more barbs from huts.
So it is not better for askia/bismark.

Please correct me if I am wrong.

As far as I know it only increases the spawn rate of the Barb units. It may increase the respawn rate of the camps. I'll do some play testing on the latter and report back if no one definitively addresses the camps' respawn rate before then.

 

[Capt Ajax]

I almost always play with Raging Bards (King Level). It seems to me that there are never MORE barb camps on the screen at any one time, however, I believe that the barb camps re-spawn faster once they are destroyed.

 

[Aspon]

btw before i go on my siam game finished with city size 70 was disappointed with it so decided not ton boast.

anyway now civ 5 has reset and says only played 5 hours why it say this does it reset when you pass 1000 hours?

 

[qemist]

Who knows what the previous post was about. Raging barbs are probably better for the human because humans are more better at taking advantage of them. OTOH the AI gets combat bonuses against barbs.

More likely than not changing anything from the default will make the game easier for the human. The AI would have been optimized towards the default settings and is not flexible. E.g., start the game with zero CS and some AIs will still follow the Patronage path.

 

[Proximus]

I always play with raging barbs for "realism" purposes. I figure there were lots of smaller tribes throughout history that caused problems for great empires. I do notice, however, that the AI seems incapable of protecting their settlers and workers, and this slows them down a great deal.

 

[vonbach]

Raging Barbs just makes the game easier in my experience. It screws the AI far
more than you. Theres always a worker or two to pick up.

 

[Rex_Mundi]

I think it will help the player more, because he knows it's on, and can plan accordingly, the AI will only react.

 

[Poopin Thelift]

AFAIK Raging barbs do not produce more huts, only more barbs from huts.
So it is not better for askia/bismark.

Please correct me if I am wrong.

If you hunt barbhuts you want to know where they are => honor SP. This also means culture (and with full tree even money) from kills, so more barbs are better.

 

[turtlefang]

Raging barbs will produce more barbs from camps but does not increase the number of camps or the respawn rate as camps get destroyed. So you get more barbs coming at you but no more camps.

At the lower levels, it will destroy the AI ability to expand. Somewhere above Prince, it feels to me that it will equalize between the human/AI as to whom it helps/hurt more - really based on the ability of the player.

For me, at deity level, it's simply a killer. Between the earlier rushes and the barb swarms, I simply can't expand, get too far behind, and lose. But I'm definitely not in the expert player category to start with anyway.

It does slightly help the Aztecs as they are more barbs around to kill for culture. It actually hurts the Germans - you have to slug through more barbs to get to the camps.

And everyone will get some benefit from killing more barbs and experience - plus some disadvantage in having more of the little suckers running around.

I usually play at King/Immortal and find it doesn't seem to make a huge difference if raging barbs is on or off. So I usually play with it on as it makes the start a little more interesting.

Anyway, my two cents.

 

[joncnunn]

Thanks; I'm playing my first game with Raging Barbs on now and was wondering why I wasn't seeing more camps pop up.

(I'm playing the River King now and was trying it in hopes of getting more camps to pillage) Basically I was wanting to do the old trick from Civ 3:

1. Wait for camp to appear
2. Go take it
3. Leave the area, putting it back into FOW in hopes the camp respawns soon.

 

[binhthuy71]

Thanks; I'm playing my first game with Raging Barbs on now and was wondering why I wasn't seeing more camps pop up.

(I'm playing the River King now and was trying it in hopes of getting more camps to pillage) Basically I was wanting to do the old trick from Civ 3:

1. Wait for camp to appear
2. Go take it
3. Leave the area, putting it back into FOW in hopes the camp respawns soon.

As others number of camps doesn't seem to increase with Raging Barbs. The camps' respawn rate seems to be about the same as well. The camps do respawn regularly as long as they're out of the LOS of any unit.

 

[GIO888]

I ALWAYS have raging barbs, its my one cheat cos the AI is so wooden in response to them.

Not all of them put a military unit with their settlers for example, so sucks to be them straight away!

 

[binhthuy71]

I ALWAYS have raging barbs, its my one cheat cos the AI is so wooden in response to them.

Not all of them put a military unit with their settlers for example, so sucks to be them straight away!

True, that. On the other hand it makes for a nice supply of free workers for anyone who takes the time to send out teams of Archers to clean up Barb camps.