The Barbarian Challenge

[Donald Duck1]

Have you scouted settling area?

Well, I lost count of how many attempts I made, so I basically already know the settling area by heart now..

It's a fun challenge, though!

 

[gavenkoa]

Well, I lost count of how many attempts I made, so I basically already know the settling area by heart now..

Same here ))

After appearing of Galley in one game I set priority to settle second coastal city a bit earlier (T80-T100). That's enough to prevent of it appearance.

Have you played on Deity with giving Archery/Hunting/Agriculture to Barbs via WorldBuilder (or played from save file)?

It is fun when Archers approach cities not only Warriors...

I was interested in good opening and stopped to play after getting to elepult. There is definitely challenge to withstand mid-era barbs but you need to keep so many cities around... I just gave up after 5.

 

[Donald Duck1]

I played from save file, haven't changed anything but it's Deity, and both warriors and archers approach the cities. It's my first attempt to win a Deity game; I'm usually struggling at Monarch, comfortable at Prince.

I also got to 5 like cities and took a barb city with elepults or axepults, thought I had it in the pocket, but at next city their macemen destroyed my stack. And once I got to macemen/crossbowman the barbs had rifles . Not sure yet if I'm teching too slow, or not producing armies fast enough.

In the last attempt I intended to spam new settlements to get sufficient production & research capacity, but got scared when a squad of maces entered my territory and feasted upon my axemen, so I switched focus from expansion to research. Without much success...

 

[gavenkoa]

I played from save file

It is included in save file. You are doing OK. I load game from Scenario as I installed BUG/BULL as mod. So I need to add techs manually on T0.

but at next city their macemen destroyed my stack

I ended all games here. It is around T140-150.

At that time I am near Longbowman / Crossbowman - the answer to macemen, especially with our defensive Leader trait.

I'll back to game later as middle game has own challenges that I left.

Have you tried tricks from this thread? I am able to complete Oracle and jump to Civil service (resulted in founding extra religion - +1G from each city with shrine, and Oracle produced great prophets needed for shrine - double win!).

In the last attempt I intended to spam new settlements to get sufficient production & research capacity

I played 1 city game till T100, see log above.

Did early expansion pay for itself on this map?

 

[Kaitzilla]

This map is very humbling.

 

[Donald Duck1]

Have you tried tricks from this thread? I am able to complete Oracle and jump to Civil service (resulted in founding extra religion - +1G from each city with shrine, and Oracle produced great prophets needed for shrine - double win!).

I have tried some of the tricks, but haven't tried the religious or wonder path yet. I tried going straight for HBR, or straight to writing then iron works (see pirate screenshot); after many failures I did manage to survive and settle like 5 cities that way and conquer a barb city or 2, but was not in a position to support a large stack while continuing expansion and research. Currently I'm trying to get to crossbowman faster, curious to see how that works out.

Anyway, I think I'm learning a lot, forced to do a lot more planning ahead, and hopefully that will also help me improve my regular gameplay at Monarch.

 

[Izuul]

Were you really able to Oracle Civil Service on deity here? I think i managed to Oracle CoL in the 16xx-17xx BC range, but the AI wonder dates are fairly normal and respectable here and CS is much, much further off than CoL. You would have to get a Library built, pop a GS, bulb Math, and tech CoL. That's gotta add 25-30T to the Oracle date. I saw Mids go around 17xx or 18xx BC so i would think any really late Oracle play would be off the table.

 

[krikav]

I'm toying abit with this map too.

Have managed to get a try up and gotten SH and then Oracle->CoL.
But as I see it, that is reeeeally streching your luck.
workboat first, just building one more warrior and then only one archer which goes up the drill line and defends alone with the warriors as backup.

I think I saw some mentioning of founding Hinduism here, but that seems impossible as in my tries both buddhism and hinduism goes right away.
Have played a try in which I lost both SH and Oracle too, so oracle CS..? Can't see how that would be done.

 

[gavenkoa]

I think I saw some mentioning of founding Hinduism here, but that seems impossible as in my tries both buddhism and hinduism goes right away.
Have played a try in which I lost both SH and Oracle too, so oracle CS..? Can't see how that would be done.

Log of my early 100T: https://forums.civfanatics.com/threads/the-barbarian-challenge.363758/page-7#post-15487547

I found that with 4 warriors (3 medic + 1 Shock) on hill in city I could withstand Archers till Axeman. So I can delay Archery path. I tried to get to Writing with shorter path (via religion) and then go for Archery. And found that I am able to get Meditation (Buddhism) first. But I need to choose unimproved water tile +1F+2C in addition to improved with boat or I fail. I built boat with max hammers (6T?? forget) and Crab +2C boosted research and growth.

Why AIs haven't pursued Oracle - I can't tell. I built Oracle on T73 in one game but before I saw it possible in a few other replays when I wanted to failgold on it )) AI got it 1-3 turn before completion so I decided to rearrange build sequence to get it myself.

I haven't tried Stonehange as haven't seen benefits and was busy building warriors..

You would have to get a Library built, pop a GS, bulb Math, and tech CoL

Simpler: I chose Priesthood as it was the shortest path to Writing (avoiding Pottery and AH) and with Writing it is prerequisite to CoL:

https://civilization.fandom.com/wiki/Priesthood_(Civ4)
https://civilization.fandom.com/wiki/Code_of_Laws_(Civ4)
.
It is surprising opening as everyone tells to leave religion to AI. This map doesn't allow contact with AI, probably extra future gold worth early investment in religion.

If you think I am smart - no. I've just chosen the most costly tech, CoL.

 

[Izuul]

Are you playing off the default deity save in the OP because something doesn't seem right there.

Isn't T73 Oracle 1080 BC? That seems impossibly late on Deity. You would frequently lose the Oracle on Immortal with that date.

 

[Izuul]

FWIW I tried the one city thing earlier today and started attacking the barbs when i reached Maces and Trebs. So far it's going pretty well as they currently still just have LBs and Maces themselves, but i think I've maybe lacked a little conviction with my attacks and gone too slow. Pushing a little harder during this window and just teetering on the brink of bankruptcy is probably more ideal than what I've been doing. I also ran into a ridiculous barb city on a hill that i swear had 100% cultural defenses. I lost most of my stack taking that one and had to stop to replenish units. My default attacking force has been something along the lines of 5 trebs, 4 maces, and 2 crossbows. I have a few knights running around now.

I think I'm up to 7 cities right now - 4 that I've now settled and 3 that I've captured. The barb cities come with big "we yearn to join the motherland" penalties though so I have had a hard time really optimizing them despite some really nice land and developed cottages around them. I'm actually wondering now if razing and resettling isn't better. You lose the population to whip down but you avoid the big happiness penalty and you don't have to wait for the city to come out of revolt. I was using most of that population trying to whip things like forges, monuments, markets, temples, or whatever could give happiness so i could actually get the cities up to like size 7 or 8. Maybe that's less of a big deal once more happiness resources are claimed, but i do already have furs, silver, ivory, religion, HR, etc and I'm still having issues with that. I've seen dyes and gems in the vicinity that could potentially be claimed with more cities.

I'm actually not sure what turn I'm on in that game and i don't have access to the save file atm.

So far though this does seem more successful than my previous strategy which was to settle a few blocker cities to take the heat while developing the capitol. The problem with that strat is that it's just far, far more resource intensive and cripples research. I also seemed to attract more barbs doing that. The barbs seem to calm down and settle their own cities much quicker when i have just one city.

Also my start could definitely be optimized a bit as i went for Warrior > WB when WB > Warrior should be just fine. And then later i delayed CS for probably 10T because i thought i was going to bulb Math so i researched something else before deciding that an Academy would be better. I think i was teching Metal Casting for like 10T where i could've been teching Math. I think Bureau at the time would've been worth something like 30 BPT so that probably cost me about 4 turns of research delaying CS.

 

[AcaMetis]

The barb cities come with big "we yearn to join the motherland" penalties though so I have had a hard time really optimizing them despite some really nice land and developed cottages around them. I'm actually wondering now if razing and resettling isn't better. You lose the population to whip down but you avoid the big happiness penalty and you don't have to wait for the city to come out of revolt.

Does that work on barbs cities? I know it doesn't for rival civs, I'm not sure if it works for barb cities.

 

[Izuul]

Does what work? I don't think i understand the question.

 

[AcaMetis]

Razing a city and resettling in order to avoid the Motherland anger. If you try that with a rival civ city it doesn't work, since the plot culture of the city remains and causes the city you settle to remain at 99% not your culture, 1% your culture (or something along those lines). I'm not sure if barbarian cities work that way, though, since I seem to recall that they have special rules with how their culture works.

 

[Izuul]

That's interesting. It's not something i generally think about and i don't think the issue ever came up in any of the SGOTM's i played here which is where i generally learn the in depth game mechanics. If that's true i wonder if just resettling 1 or 2 tiles away from the original city plot could make a large difference due to how the culture rings work. I know your city exerts much, much more culture in the 1st ring than the 2nd and similarly in the 2nd compared to the 3rd.

 

[AcaMetis]

Settling in a barb city's second ring should work, I think, since barb cities normally never pop borders and as such never put any barb culture in their second+ ring. Not sure about the first ring since I believe the way that barbarian culture works is that it always yields to the culture of another civ, but I'm not sure if that's just a special rule of if barbarian cities generate no/barely any plot culture. I do know that Barbarians can generate culture and pop borders if they capture a city with, say, a religion present in it, but a random barb city that just spawned out of thin air shouldn't ever generate any culture under normal circumstances. IIRC, of course.

 

[Izuul]

These barbs cities have 3+ rings of culture in my game. I'll look more into how and why tomorrow.

 

[Lennier]

I thought barb cities can build monuments .

 

[gavenkoa]

Are you playing off the default deity save in the OP because something doesn't seem right there.

Deity loaded from campaign as I installed BUG/BULL as mod. On zero turn I added 4 techs to barbs via WorldBuilder.

As I said I was able to reproduce this opening quite reliably and published log (stripped reformatted version of BULL log plugin) of my most successful opening.

It isn't grand strategy - it is how this map works which I discovered with tens of openings.

Isn't T73 Oracle 1080 BC?

Can't say. I capture history in turns, dates aren't linear...

 

[AcaMetis]

About barb cities, I genuinely don't recall. Maybe it's a difficulty thing? Or a Raging Barbs thing? For reference the last game I played was NC 208, on Noble/Marathon, and I took out two barbs cities like 300+ turns after they spawned. Neither of them had a second ring of culture, let stand a third. Only on Noble, though, and of course no Raging Barbs.