The Barbarian Challenge

[kossin]

Excellent wins Gotag and barbertje!

 

[michmbk]

Ok, success on my second time through, after giving up halfway through the first time - a win in 1964.

Spoiler :

I actually would have finished 20-25 turns earlier if I had been paying attention - I thought I needed more population to trip the dom limit, not more land - spent a bunch of time growing tons of massive cities, and not settling the last little bit of ice at the bottom. I was at 60% of the land (64% needed) for like 10-15 turns thinking I needed pop, not land. How stupid. Once I sent a few settlers out to finish claiming land, I won. Oh well, nice to get the W anyway.

The first key to this game in my mind was getting this site settled - here's a late shot of the city:



York was such a key location. Once I got two archers and a settler down there, and settled it, i was able to get two cities improved - my capital and the east site with pig/seafood. I then fogbusted W/SW enough to get three more cities out that way, two of them easily improved. Cottages and scientists started to pay off.

Other keys:

1. After worker techs, i beelined alphabet, so I could build research to currency/COL. A couple spies came in handy to allow me to scout the land. While doing that, i aggressively fogbusted SW so the barbs couldn't get any cities over that way.

2. Next beeline was to feudalism - longbows allowed me to be safe as well as attack the occasional sword/axe who decided to pillage instead of attack cities.

3. I then headed straight to gunpowder via education - muskets were extremely helpful in defending my two flanking cities from there. I settled the ridiculous gems SW with a couple muskets defending - this was key, because the rifles/grens started to appear shortly thereafter, but promoted muskets are pretty tough defenders. This gem city site was awesome:



4. Now the emancipation was coming in, so I headed straight to democracy. Every scientist went to London, which fueled my research to get there. It got a little close here, as a fair number of rifles/grens came after my gem city, but I had a lot of fortified muskets there. Oh, and the barbs whipped their cities down to size 1 to send rifles at me - very frustrating as it took awhile for me to build their cities back up.

5. After democracy, pretty simple - beeline rifling, beeline steel, beeline bio, pretty much turn off tech (got drama/music to be able to quickly pop borders). Cannons/rifles took out the barb cities, and then I massed settlers to settle the southern land. I'm such an idiot though - I built this massive number of cities, but didn't fill my landmass completely until the very end.

Now I want to replay it to see how much I can beat this finish - think I realistically could shave 25 turns off this minimum. See how much pop I had:



Here were my builds and kills:





Notice what else is missing from my builds? Walls - I forgot to tech masonry for a long long time. Amazing I didn't need them - the PRO archers are pretty tough though. They would have come in handy defending my gem site - that's where I lost all my muskets and a few redcoats against the onslaught. Didn't need them for my early cities though - a couple PRO Drill IV archers can stand up to about anything.

I may give this another go to see if I can shave some turns off that time. I think a little more focused play and I could pull this off in 350 turns. One thing I'm wondering is if getting several spies out to fogbust could really help - in theory, they could stop barbs from spawning, yet you'd never have to worry about them dying.

Really fun game - I've been pretty bored with civ lately, so it was nice to play a different kind of challenge.

 

[Kevie]

awesome game. i was wondering, could someone show me how to raise the barb exp gain from 10 to more? i did this once but i forgot how.

thankss

 

[Kevie]

nvm lol

 

[michmbk]

Nice game barbertje - looks like you and I finished the exact same year (of course, it was my second time through - third if you count a turn 23 loss before I got the hang of it).

Think I'm going to give this another go to try to finish even earlier.

 

[DampRain]

Very gj barbertje & michmbk

 

[dirtyparrot]

Played around a bit with it. I lost the first game at around turn 20 before I could get my archer out. I played a couple times more. My main problem has been my economy keeps going into shambles fairly quickly.

Spoiler :

My first attempt, I could spawnbust pretty well with sentry chariots, but didn't research either writing or pottery before my economy went down the tubes.

My second attempt went better, but I'm still battling economic problems and I'm for the most part unable to build improvements. Both games I got to around 900AD before calling it quits.

 

[Wreck]

I'm playing this and it's pretty cool. I'm on my first try, so I have not read this thread at all until just now, except for the first three spoilers in the first post. However playing last night it is now clear that I have the barbs beaten, even though they have riflemen and I have muskets. (I just got steel.) I am pretty sure I will never get to Rifling in this game.

A few tips and spoilers:

Spoiler :

This map has plenty of health resources and a lot fewer happiness resources. So, don't worry over much about health; put cities where ever you want, they'll be OK health-wise. Thus the recommendation for cities on hills early on.

Later the barb pressure will decline almost to zero, just an incursion every few turns of one or two wandering units. Then you can afford to put cities on the flat to get next to a river or on the ocean.

Don't waste early military units attempting to explore. They'll die. Wait until Alphabet when you can build spies. Barbs don't seem to be able to affect spies at all (nor can spies do any normal espionage ops to them). I never lost my spy even though I was in barb lands for half of the game. A single spy can explore the whole continent -- there's plenty of time, and later on the barbs build roads and railroads. I only built one the whole game, although I kind of wanted two later on.

I don't know if spies count as a unit for fogbusting and/or spawnbusting, but it seems likely that they do. If so, then they would be ideal since they are relatively cheap and unkillable. Did not really think of this in time. In my game I delayed Alphabet because its main use is moot in this game.

Promote archers (later, longbows) on the Drill line. You can get Drill4 with 8 experience. Put two or three archers in a city, or a good defensive location like a hill or forest. Outside of a city, build a fort -- it gets you the +20% for City Garrison as well as its own +25%. This is sufficient to deal with everything until the AI gets gunpowder units.

Musketmen and trebs are sufficient to defeat the barb AI's small city-defense groups. Barbs also apparently like to form a small SOD, which they seem to leave in the city nearest you, and will attack your incoming stack with. I had two attacks go wrong this way. In one I took the city but could not hold it, and had to run.

Once barbs get Grenadiers and Riflemen, you'll want to also position at least two of your best attacking units with your longbow defenders. When wandering barbs hit a position, they'll usually win but be left wounded, and then your guys can kill them.

Economy-wise, trade routes are not going to be any great shakes, since you've nobody to trade with. Mercantilism is great, though, and you should prioritize Banking as a mid-game tech.

 

[michmbk]

I've got a good second run at this going. Will try to finish it tonight, but am shooting for a W before turn 350 this time.

So critical to settle a second city as early as possible to take the strain off the capital and allow it to be improved.

 

[joanne]

Wow this does look like fun, it reminds me of a similar game I used to do on Warlords when I get frustrated by diplomatic dealings with intellectually inept AI's: Duel Pangea OCC + deity + raging barbs -GW -AI's, only time & space victories enabled. Too bad I don't have time 'til sunday

 

[Kadazzle]

Victory 1936, First Try:

Spoiler :

Having been playing Deity in most of my standard games now, I know how bad Deity barbs are, but this is on a whole different level with Raging Barbs on. Because I knew there were going to be lots of barbs, Archery was the first priority. I believe my original tech path was Hunting -> Archery -> Worker Techs, while I did Warrior, Worker 1 turn, Archer. After that, it was mainly just Archers and getting out my worker when I had enough Archers. I just read a lot of people's spoilers, and I noticed they had problem getting their worker out to improve things. Personally, I didn't have much of a problem at all, as I kept my Archers fortified on hills until I could get groups of 2-3 out to safely fend off the barbs at a farther distance than my BFC. Once I got the Horses up, I built Chariot/Archer stacks to help better beat the barbs who were becoming increasingly diverse.

One major thing I believe I did well was distinguishing "teching" phases of the game and "expanding" phases of the game. Another major thing I did well, was set up the best city sites first. In order to get a good finish date on this, I believe you must settle the fur site and fish site (as a GP farm) first.

I didn't keep track of my GP past my third one, as they weren't really too important to me then, but the first one I got I settled in the capital, second was used for a Golden Age and the third bulbed Mathematics.

Bee-lining techs in this was a must, as you must grab certain techs at a decent rate to have a good time. 1) Currency/Alphabet. I personally got Currency before Alphabet to get the Market for +happiness (Fur) but you need one of these to assist you in tech to... 2) Monarchy. You need this to increase the happy cap and to get.. 3) Feudalism. Longbows and Vassalage to help out with the economy (which I stayed in for the entire game). 4) Gunpowder. I got this after Civil Service (for irrigation) but once those Grenadiers start coming you need something that can defend vs them, plus it gets you closer to.. 5) Chemistry/Military Science. Again, self explanatory. You need this to attack the Rifles/Grens and to take Barb cities. 6) Democracy. This was a real big one. I saw how many unhappy faces I was getting from not having Emancipation, so I held off expanding/taking barb cities for a bit, just so I could beeline up to it. 7) Biology. Once I had all my cities set up, I took a couple turns of just building Wealth to get Biology out then I pretty much turned tech off.

The quicker you get these techs, the better your time will be.

Another thing I thought I did was was having a crapton of workers. Once I expanded to the "Jungle Line" I noticed that my workers were doing little petty jobs, but once I took the barb cities and expanded the workers (and future built ones) really helped to irrigate my lands.

The population % was odd, as it kept switching. I won the game at 64% population, but at one point it was at 68%, 61% and 59%. Lastly, an interesting thing that happened in my game was Willem capitulating Bismarck, then effectivley destroying every other civilization (including an epic 12 turn showdown vs. the Mehmed/Hannibal alliance).

Pictures:





Fin.

 

[Mikehendi]

Congratz everybody on your wins, I found it very entertaining to read your reports.

Unfortunately, I can't complete my own game, I had to re-install civ, and I am unable to load any save I had before!

I might try again though, as I am not too happy with my play, and I'd like to try a different approach.

 

[dirtyparrot]

^ Did you update to the latest patch. Otherwise, I don't see a reason why the save wouldn't work.

 

[Mikehendi]

Yes I did install 3.19. The reason it won't work is because I had messed up installation of various Bug and buffy versions, manually replacing (custom) assets and other stuff I really don't know enough about to mess with... :S

I had to use a WB-start, because the original save crashed. I decided to re-install civ, and get things right this time. I failed though, because after installing Bug 4.3, half of the bug options don't work because they require the bug/bull DLL???

 

[kossin]

Install BULL then

 

[Wreck]

I finally finished. I had spawn-control of the continent+waters in 1930, but it took until to 1953 to kill the last barb galley, and 1992 to win.

Spoiler :

You need to cover almost every bit of land on your continent to get domination. You can leave maybe two tiles uncontrolled. I got the land percentage required for domination only after building utterly worthless cities in both arctics.

I am not a diety player and never thought to use vassalage with its increased unit limits to help deal with my need for masses of units, both to fight barbs once they had superior units, and to get happiness. For most of the game my support costs were huge.

The happiness hit from being backward when the rest of the world has Emancipation was pretty stiff. +5 or more in larger cities. There was also unhappiness from barb cultural control of many of the better cities in the south. So, I had huge stacks sitting there suppressing unhappiness. This reduced my tech rate considerably. There not too much you can do about it, but obviously pushing south as soon as possible would help. I beelined for democracy only toward the end of the game, after going for Communism. This may have been a mistake.

A few more things seem like possibilities if I go for another try:

• generate Great Artists for use as culture bombs
• see if I can build Stonehenge
• if so, see if I can found a religion

 

[Kadazzle]

@Wreck

Spoiler :

Don't do anything you just stated... But seriously, you won't have enough time to build SH or get a religion, and IMO bulbing with Scientists to get to key techs quicker is more important than artists, because city cultural borders can cover it easier. In my game I only really built 1 worthless city (worthless meaning that it didn't have a food resource) but that made me pass the dom land % limit.

Vassalage, Mercantilism and Emancipation are all techs you MUST use to get a good time during this game. Monarchy is important for the mid-game, but you can go to either Representation or Universal Suffrage depending on what benefits you the most. I personally was in Paganism the entire game, but if you get Liberalism at a decent time (which I advise against, as you need more important techs) then Free Religion is more important. I had all the techs I needed by the time I traded for Liberalism, so the anarchy turns quite simply weren't worth it for me to switch to Free Religion.

Like I said in my first post, make sure you beeline Democracy. I play continent-type maps often on Deity, and if the other continent(s) get Democracy quickly, the Emancipation unhappiness really becomes unfun. Like I said in my first post, just make sure you beeline the important techs (Archery, Alphabet/Currency, Monarchy, Feudalism, Gunpowder, Chemistry/Military Science, Democracy, Biology). I personally got Chem/MS before Democracy, but it may have been better to hold off the barbs with Muskets and get Demo first. Who knows though.

 

[Cusanus]

Strange thing helped me win this in the very late game.

Spoiler :

Ok, the game was already won; but it would still have taken a lot of time. The barbs were not threatening my cities anymore, but they were so advanced. I had to attack barbarian cities protected by riflemen using only knights and catapults.

But then, the wrath of the gods struck down the barbarians. At least, I'm quite sure that's what my primitive people will believe.
In fact, one of the other AI's launched strategic missiles on every single one of the barb cities... After that, the mopping up became really easy...

Still, I'm surprised how fast some people here were researching.
In my game, even though I won, the barbarians (!) were always more advanced than I was, and the other AI's were just completely out of sight. ( ) They "circumnavigated the globe", i.e. researched satellites, when I was still researching paper.
I think this added fun to the game, though: after fighting off the initial barbarian attacks, it was like we switched roles - my primitive troops kept pillaging the outskirts of the continents well-developed, rich cities. Who's the barbarian now?

- - -
Actually, I had hardly any problems with the barbarians; but Deity is hard. Expanding just hurts my economy too bad, and not having any trade partners doesn't make life easier.

 

[dirtyparrot]

Deus Ex Machinae ftw

 

[Manco Capac]

@Wreck

Spoiler :

Don't do anything you just stated... But seriously, you won't have enough time to build SH or get a religion, and IMO bulbing with Scientists to get to key techs quicker is more important than artists, because city cultural borders can cover it easier. In my game I only really built 1 worthless city (worthless meaning that it didn't have a food resource) but that made me pass the dom land % limit.

Vassalage, Mercantilism and Emancipation are all techs you MUST use to get a good time during this game. Monarchy is important for the mid-game, but you can go to either Representation or Universal Suffrage depending on what benefits you the most. I personally was in Paganism the entire game, but if you get Liberalism at a decent time (which I advise against, as you need more important techs) then Free Religion is more important. I had all the techs I needed by the time I traded for Liberalism, so the anarchy turns quite simply weren't worth it for me to switch to Free Religion.

Like I said in my first post, make sure you beeline Democracy. I play continent-type maps often on Deity, and if the other continent(s) get Democracy quickly, the Emancipation unhappiness really becomes unfun. Like I said in my first post, just make sure you beeline the important techs (Archery, Alphabet/Currency, Monarchy, Feudalism, Gunpowder, Chemistry/Military Science, Democracy, Biology). I personally got Chem/MS before Democracy, but it may have been better to hold off the barbs with Muskets and get Demo first. Who knows though.

Spoiler :

In fact, it is possible to get both SH and a religion. But most of the time, you lose the SH for 1 or 2 turns. SH is truly useful early IMO for culture border. Not mentioning the GProphet that will spawn later, which can be settled for the 5 per turn. As regards founding a religion, Hinduism is accessible since the AI found it around 2400 BC. I tried this strategy, but it delays a lot the researching of writing, which is essential early for maintaining tech pace.