they should make barbarians less powerful

[civ54lyfe]

I miss barb cities existing like in Civ 4.

ab-so-lutely. i also wish barbs would found cities in the no-mans lands no one would settle and never explore. if a square area of ~10 tiles hasn't had a player or AI unit visit it in like 30 turns, a barb city is founded, has unique lux like illicit crops, and can be caravan'ed with you can purchase Terrorist units from them (they'd be like the really old civ Revolutionaries (?) that were holding the molotov cocktails).

 

[rodrigoq]

I use scouts for fighting. In wars and vs barbs. scout vs archer and scout vs warrior works well, levels up your scout, and can get you CS reputation. Take time and patience sometimes, but WTH do you do with a useless, upgraded scout? I use them in wars frequently. They are good sacrificial units. I like to use them to draw out forces to single them out, take out weakened units, and watch for an invasion blob approaching so I know 10 turns ahead instead of sh1tting my pants when they suddenly appear at my doorstep.

They are also good for stealing workers, and other harrasment. If you only use a scout for revealing the map and hitting up ruins, you're doing it wrong.

 

[Matthew.]

I like them stronger

They are supposed to represent tribes that don't flourish into a booming empire, and it would be sad if a single scouting party could take them out with ease.

 

[Peng Qi]

Like they were in 4? Like when you could pop a camp and just lose the game?

 

[Scott Jegg]

Remember the grand old days of Civ when goodie huts would sometimes spawn barbarians that would completely surround your warrior (scouts always got positive returns). Now that was FUN!

-_-

 

[greygamer]

I'm in the minority opinion on this, but I like taking survivability for my scouts. Most people seem to take scouting, but I've found upgrading survivability better prevents any unexpected barbarian attacks from killing off my explorers, and allows them to heal faster so they can spend more time exploring, and less time healing. Also, once they get back to your empire, survivability scouts can give you an additional turn in fending off some huge early armies from other players, and can be somewhat helpful in clearing out nearby barbarian camps. If they become composite bowmen, survivability is also the better upgrade for them to have.

You don't send scouts to clear out barbarian camps on their own unless it's already been weakened, but if you're careful, scouts can survive pretty easily while exploring.

I always take this, very cool if you get Survivability II and it gets upgraded weapons. But if not they make good guards in the mid-stage of the game guarding against wide flanking moves.

 

[Mudrac]

Maybe instead of an option of just "turning on" and "turning off" barbs it should be more like in civ III with more options raging from "no barbs at all" to ''very agressive". Maybe that would help this guy?

 

[Resipsa]

If anything they should make barb camps pop up more frequently on the higher difficulties then you might have the option to farm barbs.

 

[Libraridan]

I stumbled over this thread because I am playing my first Prince game and am being swarmed by barbs. Tiny world, Archipelago, Quick, playing England.

I can - slowly - deal with them but it is sapping all my production to do that so challenging any other civ seems impossible.

Any helpful suggestions?

 

[bonafide11]

I stumbled over this thread because I am playing my first Prince game and am being swarmed by barbs. Tiny world, Archipelago, Quick, playing England.

I can - slowly - deal with them but it is sapping all my production to do that so challenging any other civ seems impossible.

Any helpful suggestions?

Just put a unit out on a hill near your city to clear the Fog of War, so no barbs will spawn there and if they approach your city, you'll see them coming.

 

[householder]

oops...nvrmd

 

[Smote]

I think barbs should be able to spawn in visible territory during later ages. Call them terrorists or something.

 

[pthieu1986]

I think the other way. They should be more powerful. I wish there would be a mod that allows barbs to capture cities and build up their own empire, then declare freedom as a citystate when it grows big enough

 

[Infantry#14]

Barbs are your friends. You can farm them for culture and relieve captured ai workers from them.

 

[Callonia]

I like them stronger

They are supposed to represent tribes that don't flourish into a booming empire, and it would be sad if a single scouting party could take them out with ease.

In vanilla and Gods n Kings I used to send out armies of scouts everywhere to form myself armies from barbarians. Yeah with germany, u used to be able to just send a single scout and start having it cap barbarian encampments and have them join you and eventually form an huge army that you bring back home of take several cities in random places.

I think the most I ever done was gain 30+ barbarians from a single game with my early game scouts.

It's only merely difficult to do now in BNW now that firaxis upped their spawn rate on raging barbarians.

 

[Walter R]

Following some advice from Mr Nunn I've had raging barbs turned on the last few games - can't say I've noticed much difference but in fairness I have been playing on Large Islands. I usually get a couple of camps spawn on my home island before I 'own' it, and it gives my first archer target practice. Unless you're careless the worst they'll do is pillage an improvement, which is more than can be said for Monty et al.
Just don't do what I once did: went off with my archer and warrior about 20+ tiles from home to clear a barb camp for a CS - and then Alex showed up for tea with a few friends...he even said something along the lines of it being "too good an opportunity to miss"! Cue mad scramble for home and lesson duly learned.
Anyway my advice echoes others - scout or keep lookout with the scouts (and move them carefully) and leave the fighting to the regulars.

Edit: Unless you're Callonia...

 

[MKDELTA3]

Maybe instead of an option of just "turning on" and "turning off" barbs it should be more like in civ III with more options raging from "no barbs at all" to ''very agressive". Maybe that would help this guy?

I would like that option even if I don't myself have all that much trouble with barbarians. They make the early game more exciting. Raging barbrians can give some real challenge though if you spawn in a very isolated position with a lot of land.

I just wish the AI was better dealing with them. They seem to have their settlers and workers constantly stolen by them. This nerfs early AI expansion pretty effectively.

Naval barbarians can be really, really annoying because the AI is so lazy at going after barb camps and apparently when a barb pillages a trade route it spawns more barbarians. This makes naval trade routes a lot riskier then one would expect them to be. I was once playing a small continents map where I had an island for myself and had only two civs and some city states I could trade with through cargo ships. These ships all passed through a narrow area of shallow coast.

A barb camp apparently spawned on a one-tile island which was near the trade routes. A barbrian ship spawned and pillaged one cargo ship. This set off a chain reaction where I lost 4 cargo ships in 3 turns and the AI civs also lost severals ships which they were sending to me. There was a huge barbarian fleet there and it took a long time to clean them up because the AI didn't even bother to move their ships to attack these pirates. I went from something like +150 GPT to -100 GPT. I had unwisely gone on a university buying spree before that and I had little gold reserves. I had to sell all my religious buildings and half of my army while I slowly rebuilt the cargo ships and dealt with the massive barbarian armada.

That was a harsh lesson which taught me to fogbust my trade routes.

 

[Quineloe]

Sometimes I think they should go in the opposite direction and make them more of a threat. As they are now, they're a mild annoyance. In the early game, before I have workers out, I don't even bother with them.

There's raging barbarians for that.

And if that's not enough for you, increase map size by two while keeping city state and civ numbers at the current setting. That will be barbarian nightmare.

 

[Slip de Garcon]

Paradoxically, Civ5 is the first version I've left Barbs turned out. I like the culture earner element of hunting them down, and tbh they are rarely a threat to combat units.

So I just tend to do my early scouting with archers.

 

[greygamer]

There's raging barbarians for that.

And if that's not enough for you, increase map size by two while keeping city state and civ numbers at the current setting. That will be barbarian nightmare.

I think you may have discovered a whole new difficulty level, the tried and trusted Tradition/Liberty openings don't help when you have a constant wave of barbarians paying your city a visit. I felt I need a garrison in each city plus at least 2 units to deal with each camp and there were usually multiple camps to deal with.

I feel it is a good way to add extra challenge if things are a bit easy on whatever difficulty level you are on. I wouldn't recommend 2 maps sizes larger unless you really know what you are doing as it can be overwhelming if your starting location is particularly isolated. My workers were kept very busy repairing damaged improvements and combat units had a number of narrow escapes while exploring and hunting.