"The enemy of my enemy"... helping the barbs

[Airefuego]

Has anyone ever tried to help the Barbs develop? I'm thinking about it.

I'm playing OCC and I have the Great Wall, so the Barbs leave me alone.

I'm quite friendly with all my rivals (for now), but naturally I'm looking for sneaky ways to cripple them. There's spying, of course. Privateers are impossible as I'm non-coastal. Then I had another brilliant (?) idea...

"The enemy of my enemy is my friend..." ...that means the Barbs are my friend! Right now the Barbs are doing me a good service by occupying land that I can't use, preventing my rivals from expanding into it. But that won't last forever... or could it?

Here is the screen shot:

Spoiler :

I'm the red civ. You can see that the Barbs are very well established in two places. Both cities have popped their borders, and Gepid has got villages going, and hooked up the pig.

Normally I would send out troops, sack the cities, pillage the towns, take the gold and XP, and go home. But right now I don't have too many troops (been building wonders... oops ).

So I started thinking - what if I send down an escorted worker and HOOK UP the iron for Hittite? So that they can defend themselves better against the other Civs? Will they go out and ATTACK the other Civs? Or do they stay home once they have cities?

Or what if I gift them a worker? (I have too many.) Can you even gift units to Barbs? Or even - could I gift them a SETTLER??? Would they settle him? They could have an Empire! Can Barbs form a Minor Civ, if so how? Any expert advice or additional sneaky suggestions would be great!

And finally, are there any downsides I haven't spotted before I start arming the rogue Barbs? (the Info Center seems to say the Great Wall doesn't go obsolete, but is that true?)

 

[Refar]

I think you cant hook up iron for them - need to be within your cultural Boarders to improve.

Gifting unit might work - not sure here.

Still i never seen barbs hold out for long - even large on huge maps settlements that - in theory - had time to develop - will be overrun by AI Civ's pretty fast... Thise is because:

The AI get 25% combat Bonus against Barbs on eny level. Barbs do not develop economy, have no traits, use no Civics - as far as i know at least.

 

[absimiliard]

Don't help. Consume.

I'm w. Refar. The AI will eat those cities eventually regardless of what you do to help the barbs.

Since you'd rather not have the AI next door you should eat those cities. They're not too badly placed, you just need an army.

-abs

 

[Refar]

He cant take those, as it is OCC I think if he could keep the cities, the question to help would not arise in the first place

 

[absimiliard]

Doh!

Totally missed the OCC part.

Help 'em, raze 'em. All the same in the end. The AI takes barb cities with spare troops, all you can do is slow 'em down a bit, nothing meaningful.

Just focus on your victory conditions.

-abs

 

[Airefuego]

Yeah. Probably right. Good advice all, thanks

I forgot I can't build a mine on the barbs' terrain! And the gold in those long-established barb cities should be fairly juicy by now. So I'm going to kill them. Should be easy, I have maces and they have archers... Still, it's a pity to give Darius that iron. Oh well.

Once I finish the game I think I will go back to the save and try to gift the barbs a Settler just to see what happens.

 

[Airefuego]

Incidentally, although it's mostly true that Barbs don't develop much, I note that Gepid has got villages and hamlets going, and hooked up the pig. Quite impressive.

I wonder, academically, what happens if they are left alone for long enough. What if two barb cities' cultural boundaries meet? Do they fight, or unite? Or ignore each other? Guess these barbs will never find out

 

[martin026]

Incidentally, although it's mostly true that Barbs don't develop much, I note that Gepid has got villages and hamlets going, and hooked up the pig. Quite impressive.

I wonder, academically, what happens if they are left alone for long enough. What if two barb cities' cultural boundaries meet? Do they fight, or unite? Or ignore each other? Guess these barbs will never find out

I have seen screen shots where the barbs have won the Lib race, and built some wonders. If you do a search, you might be able to find it. It might have been in vanilla civ iv, but I think it was warlords.

 

[Gliese 581]

Can you build settlers in a OCC? I should know since that's what I'm playing at the moment, but I'm not sure really.
Anyhow, kill them for the gold and xp, better you have it than the AI even if gold is not something you need for a very long time in a OCC. You'll want to upgrade troops at some time or other to save production though so it will be useful sooner or later.

 

[Diamondeye]

Incidentally, although it's mostly true that Barbs don't develop much, I note that Gepid has got villages and hamlets going, and hooked up the pig. Quite impressive.

I wonder, academically, what happens if they are left alone for long enough. What if two barb cities' cultural boundaries meet? Do they fight, or unite? Or ignore each other? Guess these barbs will never find out

They can build workers and hook up resources and improve tiles as normal civs, they might even hook up the iron.
Two barb cities wont fight. They are one "civ", just without tech or civics. Although they get emancipation unhapiness...

 

[Zanttu]

Can you build settlers in a OCC? I should know since that's what I'm playing at the moment, but I'm not sure really.

No you can't. That's how I notice if I accidentally have left the OCC button checked...

 

[JerichoHill]

Barbs can research and progress, but they do so slowly. If you want to allow the Barbs to grow like a Civ, you'll need to ensure that no other AI harasses them within their visible radius. They will not send out workers otherwise.

http://forums.civfanatics.com/showthread.php?t=166443

http://forums.civfanatics.com/showthread.php?t=161579

 

[Light-Giver]

thoughs 2 threads say alot about barbarians, i was playing a terra map when i tryed to download a update and a error poped up and i couldnt play civ 4, still waiting for someone to post a solution or at least tell me how to save my map when i re-download civ 4. But anyways i was just starting to go to austraia and i found a barb city with about 5 towns surrounding it, i didnt raize the city because it had a great income for me.

 

[Airefuego]

Great threads. Thanks JHill.

 

[Leeksoup]

Yeah, once while playing a Terra map on Large, I finally got around to trying to settle the other landmass in 1750 or so, only to find a highly-developed 14-population Barbarian capital (with the star and everything) with five Riflemen guarding it. It was surrounded by other, lesser cities, but those were also decently developed.

It didn't impede me too much, having Infantry and all, but it was still impressive. They had even nabbed Taoism there.

 

[Gooblah]

A Barbarian capital? Strange, as The Palace is one building they are forbidden to build...

Also, they do research/tech/build Wonders, but tons of buildings are forbidden...

 

[nbcman]

@ Leeksoup

Could the 'capital' have Versailles in it? I don't know if that Wonder is allowed to be built by the barbs but if they got to Philosophy maybe they also researched Divine Right?

 

[Lord Chambers]

Barbs should be able to win an Apostalic Palace diplomacy victory, just for the fact it'd be the only time a player ever accepted losing due to an AP victory vote.

 

[Puzzlemaker]

@ Leeksoup

Could the 'capital' have Versailles in it? I don't know if that Wonder is allowed to be built by the barbs but if they got to Philosophy maybe they also researched Divine Right?

Thats what I was thinking

 

[Cer]

Could the 'capital' have Versailles in it? I don't know if that Wonder is allowed to be built by the barbs but if they got to Philosophy maybe they also researched Divine Right?

I had assumed that barbs couldn't build palace but could maybe build national wonders, like forbidden palace.

I had never heard of barbarians being able to found a religion or build a world wonder (or national wonder) before, though.

You can rest assured that if I were ever beaten to liberalism by the barbs i would be kinda mad.