The Elements of Fog Busting

[Eggolas]

Playing on Monarch/Marathon, the barbarians are a real pain these days unless the GW is completed.

Are there any good guides on the fine points of fog busting?

I'm finding that even when my axes or archers are fortified on forested hills away from my empire, the barbarians just go around them and towards my empire to pillage.

 

[Galileo44]

One point of fogbusting. If you try to "light up an area" go whole hog. Leave no tile in fog of war. That way there will be no barbs appearing to go around the sentries.

 

[ChicagoCubs]

I have two types of sentries: fog busters and anti-barbarian.

Like you I will position my fog busters in good visiblity and good defensive positions. I too noticed that the barbarians will often just go by them.

I will then have a couple attack units a few tiles behind my fog busters to cut off any barbarian hordes. These guys are usually positioned to attack the barbarians on favorable terms.

 

[futurehermit]

1) Yes, try and have enough fog busters (however many it takes) to light up a lot of area around your empire. At the very least it will give you a lot of advance notice of a barb attack.

2) If you have horses (great!) make chariots. They're the best barb-buster there is early on and I find that ~3-4 of them take care of business nicely, depending on the lay-out of my early empire.

3) The best way to eliminate barbs is to settle the area. If other AIs are close, that's great because they will fill up area as well. If they are NOT--that is when the real barb problems happen imo--then I will often go for a REX strategy and try and get ~5 cities put up asap. By asap I don't mean neglecting military (good way to get your early cities crushed by barbs). But I definitely mean prior to infrastructure.

 

[Sisiutil]

2) If you have horses (great!) make chariots. They're the best barb-buster there is early on and I find that ~3-4 of them take care of business nicely, depending on the lay-out of my early empire.

You might want to consider giving the Chariots Flanking I and then Sentry promotions if you have a lot of territory to fog-bust, for the extra visibility.

 

[NKVD]

i would just check the " no barbarians" checkbox....there you go...isnt that easy?

 

[Sisiutil]

i would just check the " no barbarians" checkbox....there you go...isnt that easy?

Awwww, now where's the fun in that?

 

[VoiceOfUnreason]

I'd add two of the lessons I learned during the Ironman challenge - when near a natural barrier, if you are unable to completely break up the fog, you want to place the fog between your scouts and your cities, rather than the other way around.

1) As your culture expands, the fog will be broken anyway, and you preserve the fortification bonuses for your fog busting units

2) Given an choice between heading in toward your city or out toward your sentries, the barbarians will move inward. This being the case, you don't have to be concerned that the barb will take out your sentry on the way in (creating a larger gap in your coverage)

 

[NKVD]

Awwww, now where's the fun in that?

well I pretty much always uncheck that box. I'm thinking who were the barbarians ? Mongols...Celts...etc. Well they are in the game. No need for another civ you cant communicate. the brutal barbarians destroying everything and that you cannot have any contact with is just a myth...

 

[cabert]

Nice advice here.
VoU, you're in a good article mood.
I just can sense it
Go for it!

A little more facts on the fogbusting :
- your cultural borders act as if there was a unit on each tile within. You can't put a unit on a peak but you can have a peak inside your borders! With a peak inside your borders, you light up a huge zone. Same if you post a sentry unit next to a peak. Try it, you'll love it.
- you don't need to be able to destroy a barb to prevent it's appearance = scouts and warriors make very good fogbusters.
- standing on a hill is normally a good fogbusting position, but sometimes it's better to sit in the jungle 2 tiles away from the hills. You still see the hill, but you fogbust more. Why? Because seeing the same tiles as your cities see is useless.
- Settling a lesser city on the coast often saves you 2/3 fogbusting units. Is it better to have 3 guys doing nothing or a slow developping city? situational, but often the fishing village is good enough to build workers.
- workers fogbust just as good as any other unit. They just don't fight. So building a road towards your next city spot can contribute to fogbusting. Just don't forget to run away if there is danger.

 

[VoiceOfUnreason]

Nice advice here.
VoU, you're in a good article mood.
I just can sense it

That's just me putting together CR5 for The Whip

 

[BCLG100]

i would just check the " no barbarians" checkbox....there you go...isnt that easy?

but its an easy source of exp.

 

[uncarved block]

I only can play on Standard sized maps (and Noble), so Barbs tend to be a temporary problem in the early game. Any more, then, I tend to keep the fog busting to a minimum; if there's a lot of tundra and ice, where the AI won't settle quickly, then an Archer and Axeman might get that duty. The plan instead is to road around cities pretty well, and especially around resources. The AI, including the Barbs (that I've seen) is more interested in pillaging than taking cities, so you can predict fairly easily where the Barbs are headed. I've been trying to work on early expansion, and the cost of having all those troops outside cultural boundaries really cuts into the REX. Don't know if this will work at the higher levels, but thought it might help.

 

[NKVD]

but its an easy source of exp.

well the computer is also using it as a source of XP...for me the barbarians are just a pain in the bottom just like cleaning pollution was with Civ 3

 

[Quagga]

My experience with fogbusting is mixed. Perhaps it's that I'm not very good at it, but it just hasn't paid off for me. I find that sending weak units out for busting duty means they get killed off. Sending strong ones means they're not available for when Monty attacks.

For me it seems to work okay to just keep strong defenders at the ready within my border. I try to protect key resources like copper, iron, fat food, gems, etc. The rest can be ignored. In fact, a little over-development by a big worker force will keep those barbs busy pillaging unneeded farms and whatnot. Time enough for the axe to run over and take care of the situation.

Using this method, I'm able to rotate who takes care of the barbs and get a good portion of my units up to 10 xp.

 

[Sisiutil]

My experience with fogbusting is mixed. Perhaps it's that I'm not very good at it, but it just hasn't paid off for me. I find that sending weak units out for busting duty means they get killed off. Sending strong ones means they're not available for when Monty attacks.

For me it seems to work okay to just keep strong defenders at the ready within my border. I try to protect key resources like copper, iron, fat food, gems, etc. The rest can be ignored. In fact, a little over-development by a big worker force will keep those barbs busy pillaging unneeded farms and whatnot. Time enough for the axe to run over and take care of the situation.

Using this method, I'm able to rotate who takes care of the barbs and get a good portion of my units up to 10 xp.

Come to think of it, this is what I tend to do as well. There is an initial phase where the barbs swarm me. I use the opportunity to collect XPs for my units. However, once I launch my first war, I don't want barbs bugging me; this is when I may post a handful of fog-busters in key areas.