Those pesky barbs

[Parmenion]

I'm getting a little annoyed with the barbs and the way they seem prejudiced towards me rather than the other AI civs. In a recent game, a barb archer attacked my fortified axeman on a forested hill rather than take out a Zulu warrior escorting a settler. Don't get me wrong, I like the idea that barbs are in the game so I don't want to turn them off. I just feel as though my growth is stunted by the ravening hordes that seem to appear before I can prepare fully for them.

In the lower levels (Noble, Prince) I was able to research bronze-working quickly enough to have axemen ready for when they arrived, but now I'm playing on Monarch I'm really struggling.

I seem to have a massive rush on to research bronze/iron-working or try to get the Great Wall built but I never seem to do it before there are 3 barbarian archers pillaging my land and stealing my cities. In my last game as Inidia, I lost 3 cities and was left with just my capital, and all I was building were warriors - constantly! (I had no access to bronze or iron at that point.) I managed to rebuild my empire using archers, but it was 200AD by the time I was my former size and I was woefully behind everyone else.

Previously, I played as both Germany and China so I could get the GW built quickly and as the Germans I managed it because I had stone nearby. My Chinese game ended pitifully when barb axemen pillaged every resource and took 2 cities whilst I was chopping trees to rush the GW - I literally screamed in frustration and rage, scaring my girlfriend half to death.

What do you expert civvers do to get around this? (aside from turning off barbs) Do you restart if you're not close enough to bronze or iron? Do you always try to play Industrious civs to get the GW quickly? Should I just admit defeat and revert to playing Prince games again?
I really need help because this apparent prejudice is very frustrating.

 

[Sjaramei]

Use slavery and chopping to get more axemen sooner. If you are playing warlords chariot are awesome barb defense too, mobility helps a lot. At Monarch it should still be possible to get both AH and BW before barbs appear in decent time. Don't go for iron working if you don't have copper, it's very expensive and comes too late for it to have any effect on barb defense. Horse is safer then, and you usually have some animals worth improving too.

And don't bother having defense in your cities unless they need happiness, move all your units out and fogbust around your border. (less barbs will come then) Just make sure they can intercept before a lone barb warrior takes your capital etc. (in any case you can whip one axemen for it anyway usually)

 

[scooter]

In Warlords especially chariots are very effective especially because they have the bonus against axeman, but even in Vanilla chariots aren't bad pre-axeman because they're so cheap. I'm at the same stage in the game as you it seems (recently moved up to Monarch) and I struggled with that at first, but I'm literally finding that fogbusting is completely essential, not just a good idea. If you can get a chariot promoted to sentry, stick that on a hill and that greatly diminishes barbs. Whatever you do, don't turn off barbs, but just adjust, it's taken time for me but I'm much less nervous about barbs now then I used to be because I just got used to it. You can rely on whipping for emergency defenses too, so don't be afraid to leave your cities w/ just one warrior for military police purposes.

 

[Parmenion]

Thanks guys, but don't you need horses to build chariots? If so, I only encounter horses as much as I do bronze and stone.
I'll try the fog-busting method though - it sounds much better than waiting for an axeman to appear right at your door when you've only got a warrior defending.

 

[Sjaramei]

Thanks guys, but don't you need horses to build chariots? If so, I only encounter horses as much as I do bronze and stone.
I'll try the fog-busting method though - it sounds much better than waiting for an axeman to appear right at your door when you've only got a warrior defending.

Yes you need horses for chariots. And starts without copper or horse nearby is extremely rare so don't worry about that.

 

[Bradlius]

Somebody correct me if I'm wrong, but also keep in mind that barbs don't appear until you build a second city. At least that's what I have heard here on these boards, and playing has borne that out.
For me, I always scout around and build my second city so it will have access to either copper or horses for just that reason -- as soon as I plunk down that second city, the barbs go from being lion, tigers and bears to warriors, archers and axemen. Once that second city is down, I mine/pasture real fast and get either axemen or chariots up and running quick!

 

[Parmenion]

Dunno about that last one.
I only have two cities in my current game and there are barbs everywhere. I discovered BW only to see a total absence of copper anywhere on the map (and I've explored quite a bit.)
I then got lucky and popped a hut that gave me iron working and there is iron near my second city.
I'm desperately trying to build enough warriors to fend off the horde of archers and axemen whilst trying to increase culture enough to enable me to mine the iron resource.
It's certainly an exciting game.

 

[scooter]

Somebody correct me if I'm wrong, but also keep in mind that barbs don't appear until you build a second city.

That might be true on lower difficulty levels, but for the most part that doesn't seem to be true. I was playing a deity game just for fun to see how long I survived, and there were two barb cities nearby me before I got a second city... Raging barbs were off too. The date they appear is tied to the difficulty level I'm almost certain