REPORT: Barbs on lower difficulties

[tu_79]

1st test.
Continents+, China, Settler, standard.
Very little space for settling in the place I started (there's room for 3-4 cities each civ). I beelined to Classical before settling, and picked Authority. Major civs start with a warrior and a pathfinder, or so it seems. No nearby City States (that's how Continents+ works). I've killed like 6 or 7 barb camps in 100 turns. Now there's no place for them to spawn. My initial pathfinder almost died, trapped in a corner by two brutes, but sweden warriors were nearby. After that, it was a breeze. It seems that in Settler difficulty our units are stronger.

It was even a bit disappointing, considering I took Authority.

I learned this game that by razing a city and settling again, China gets more base yields. The razed city is still contributing to 'Mandate of Heaven'.

Also, I had a weird bug where I could not declare war, but on reloading I cannot reproduce.

 

[tu_79]

2nd test.

Morocco, Pangea, Chieftain.

This time I've faced many more barbs. Fortunately, my pathfinder was holding in a forested hill, with a nearby portuguese warrior. I was attacked by 4 brutes, but thanks to Portugal, the pathfinder survived. I lost no units to barbs. Exploration was quite slow, but I didn't see proper hordes. By turn 84 I have 3 cities, and I may place 1 or 2 more cities before foreign borders, but barb activity is really low now.

I don't know. Maybe it's me that I'm already used to produce a military unit after a couple of buildings. I'll try a wider map next.

 

[pza]

could you add a screenshot from the barbarian areas?

 

[Moi Magnus]

2nd test.

Morocco, Pangea, Chieftain.

This time I've faced many more barbs. Fortunately, my pathfinder was holding in a forested hill, with a nearby portuguese warrior. I was attacked by 4 brutes, but thanks to Portugal, the pathfinder survived. I lost no units to barbs. Exploration was quite slow, but I didn't see proper hordes. By turn 84 I have 3 cities, and I may place 1 or 2 more cities before foreign borders, but barb activity is really low now.

I don't know. Maybe it's me that I'm already used to produce a military unit after a couple of buildings. I'll try a wider map next.

Don't forget that you are far better than a beginner to make your units survive.
It is quite easy to loose 2-3 archers to barbarians by playing them too aggresively (and not reseaching spearmans early enough), and particularly if you are still inflenced by the Vanilla mindset "archers are superior to warriors in all points, and a little superior to spearmans".

 

[CrabHelmet]

I was just about to say what @Moi Magnus said. You are better than an actual Chieftain player at preserving units, which also needs to be taken into account.

 

[Workerspam]

I was just about to say what @Moi Magnus said. You are better than an actual Chieftain player at preserving units, which also needs to be taken into account.

Does it though?

It'd be one thing if barbarians are more problematic at lower levels because the weaker AIs can't keep them in check. If that's not the case and barbarians aren't a more significant issue than at higher difficulties then there isn't a problem.

At some point you just need to learn how to play the game. If new players need to learn that building some military is important in VP to handle the barbarian threat that might as well happen on day 1.

 

[tu_79]

3rd test.

Venice. Tectonic, Warlord. A warning. Tectonic map has to be set up Medium for 8 players.

After 99 turns, still no issues. There has been quite a few barb camps around Venice, and you know it's worse because Venice cannot settle. Took Authority, so I saw where camps spawn, and always had enough units to clear them. By 99, Netherlands and Brazil are close enough to protect some places, and I have lots of units so I can patrol the empty spaces.

So, what has changed? There was lots of reports of troubles with barbarians. I guess there are two key changes:
1. Barbs have less technology. One big problem when facing barbarians was fighting horsemen and archers. They were quite common. But in this difficulties you are fighting jjust brutes and hatchmen. The territory is settled before horsemen or swordsmen can spawn, at least in big numbers.
2. Major civs have more starting units. I'm not sure if they have pathfinder and warrior, or that they produce a warrior really fast. The thing is that major civs contribute to dealing with barbarians.

Disclaimer. I know I'm better than a noob at keeping my units alive, but I've played some games at those difficulties not too long ago, and it was much more difficult.

 

[tu_79]

Ok, last test.

Zulu, Communitas, Chieftain. 109 turns.

This time I've played purposedly bad. Beelined to libraries. Settled very very slowly. Produced very few units. Put my pathfinder on auto mode.

I wasn't bothered too much by barbs. In my large peninsula where I started, just one warrior and I could escort settlers and kill the occasional hatchmen. After 3 settled cities, only a barb trirreme ever approached. AI was settling faster and wider than what I did, it could deal with barbarians quite well. I send an unescorted settler to other landmass and was captured by a horsemen barbarian. I could even lose some units to barbs for not caring, it didn't happen. The difficulty is permissive, so I can make mistakes and stay competitive.

There are barbs, and sometimes they can be tough, but there are hordes no more.

 

[LukaSlovenia29]

Thanks for the tests, Tu_79!

 

[Gazebo]

So we’re good then?

 

[Stalker0]

So we’re good then?

Well one person's experience doesn't make or break the case, but there were no conclusions that warranted a change at this point. I might take the challenge myself after I finish my current game and see what happens.

 

[pza]

can we give this topic a week or two? i want to contribute too.

 

[Jakethedane]

Ok so ive played 8 maps now, chieftain, 4 standard, 4 epic:
Continents, Large: Happened to have an island by myself, barbarians were slim until I crossed the shallows around 80~ then came to discover the AI had cleaned up the rest of them basically except for a few which I watched spawn as others were destroyed.
Communitas x3: Each play was the same, went with china, japan, then mongolia. First time with chill barbarians on. None of them had an issue, nor did I have to bother building more than a single archer up until turn 100 with my scout on chill- Once I had a 3 cities it took only 1 more archer (3 units total)
The other 2 run throughs after were a little more challenging- playing without using terrain bonuses, moving instead of defending, weird promotion paths. Definitely seemed like the barbarians were tough, but not unbeatable.
The Land>AI>Water ratio definitely has alot to do with the challenge they present. Seems to be the trend in general, play with larger maps- AI becomes more of a challenge as well and more inclined to go procuring CS's? maybe im imagining things.
Oval: Same as above with continents, maybe a little worse. Never go past about turn 120 because by then they present no threat on maps with oceans.
Inland Sea: Pretty hard when I disabled a couple AI. When everyone is sweeping up land I found myself unable to complete missions as fast as the camps were being destroyed by AI with my few units.

In summation:
Chill barbarians does exactly what its supposed to- provide a small cushion to the learning curve barbarians bring on an unknowing player. Regular barbarians can ruin a good time if you dont know to just burn a few turns before the granary and make your life much easier. Obviously all of this becomes simple as soon as the player understands how to use the all the % bonuses to his advantage along with healing from fortify.

 

[tu_79]

So we’re good then?

I think so. Even if players don't know how to place their units in forests to wait for the brutes strikes, losing one or two units is not big deal, and they learn that they need more early units. The ratio is not bigger than what we need in higher difficulties, so it's good for learning the game and does not ruin the game, in my opinion.

I remember that playing vanilla I almost never produced a warrior without a barrack. In that game, we all started with a warrior, so what we produced was a scout unit.

 

[grmagne]

I normally play Emperor, Standard size Tectonic, Epic speed with raging barbarians.
As an experiment: Warlord, Standard size Tectonic, Epic speed with raging barbarians. My random civ = Inca.

I was expecting to see a large swarm of barbarians but it didn't happen. Barbarians weren't a major factor in the early game at all. The only key difference I noticed is that City States had a lot more quests than usual to destroy a barbarian camp. But the AI major civs cleaned up the map pretty well.