Wake me up when they fix the barbarians

[Gorbles]

I don't understand. Two patches ago it was "Barbarians are pointless and useless". Complaints that the game was too easy, to boot.

Is addressing both of these things simultaenously . . . a bad thing?

 

[DemonMaster]

I usually build a scout and then a slinger. After that I build more "useful" stuff like buildings, settlers and such depending what the map looks like/allows. It has happen that I had to build an extra warrior or two, even go up to Bronze Working early, for Spearman. All-in-all, it's not that big of a deal. You learn how to handle it. Sure, you can't do what you did in other civ versions, do the same thing in every game. In some game you can go for an early settler, in others you have to defend against an early AI attack and yes, sometimes you have to build some units to go out on barb hunt and fog-busting.

 

[ltccone]

Barbarians are fine in my games. But you should always prioritize building a slinger and a warrior first and keep your initial warrior close to your capital.

That is the way to do it. I have no issues when I do that.

 

[Disgustipated]

I don't understand. Two patches ago it was "Barbarians are pointless and useless". Complaints that the game was too easy, to boot.

Is addressing both of these things simultaenously . . . a bad thing?

I don't think anyone was saying barbarians are pointless or easy. The thing is turning barbarians off makes the game more difficult. Scythia expanded like crazy in my current game with barbarians off. But my last game America had North and South America all to themselves, but expanded slowly because of barbarians. So increasing the barbarian difficulty makes the game even easier. But of course you do have to build 3 military units at the start (but you should anyways because the AI will mostly attack you). Not much variation there unfortunately. I alternate with them on and off.

 

[MIS]

They seemed to do this on purpose, to add another layer of unpredictability. Beach clearly stated that they wanted every game to be different and thoughtful decisions to be made very turn as opposed to the standard (scout, scout, monument/shrine, settler of Civ 5). The only downside is that now I explore with two warriors together and ditch the scouts. One solution would be to give scouts an added combat bonus against barbarians.

I don't think it's done that. You have to open with military units. It's not like you have a strategic choice between a monument or a slinger.

A lot has been written on how to deal with Barbs. I would remember:

a) They are actually helping you, if you deal with them better than A.I.
b) They can help get the Archery Eureka. So I always start with a slinger
c) If you look at all the military units you need to get all the Eurekas/ Inspirations, it's a fair amount (3 ranged, an Anti-Cavalry, 3 melee, 3 heavy chariots - and that is just land, non-siege). You can build 3 slingers into 3 warriors, promote the slingers to Archers, get a spearman, three heavy chariots, and you won't be that far behind, even if planning a non-military victory. If you are on a coast you can get two galleys and a quadrieme as well. I'm not saying you'ld start like this without a lot of barbs, but it's generally more efficient to build first, promote later, than hard build, so again, you're not at such a disadvantage.
d) It's much easier to win even non-domination taking from cities from the A.I.
e) You can get level 1 promotion easily fighting the barbs.
f) they can't take your city (or kill the unit in their). So keep rotating/ healing units.
g) I don't know why, but the AI slams into you even if they lose. So unless you're facing a horse archer, put your 3 melees on good terrain inside your capital, set to fortify until healed, and watch every turn but you may get the promotion even before you have to rotate.
h) there are some very good youtube video out there. I don't have time to make them. Even if they are not against barbs, anything military based will help.

Can you post the original save?

I don't know why people disliked my idea of dropping down a level. An alternative is to use an A tier civ with an early unique. Sumeria might be a good choice (and the only time I don't start slinger).

I get it that people want to be able to play expand/ builder only - Civ V was great for that. I think it's reasonable to turn off barbs if you want that. But I think that would make higher levels more difficult, not less.

I also remember Civ3 had 5 gradients of Barbarians. I didn't like Civ3 and stopped playing after I beat Sid, but I didn't think all the options were a bad idea.

 

[Haggbart]

Posts like this are unhelpful and completely miss the point.

No more so than the OP. There was literally NO POINT to the whole thread other than "I'm getting murked and I hate the game for it". At least the difficulty level, build order and type of barbs could've been written as some sort of context for the rant.

 

[Siptah]

a) They are actually helping you, if you deal with them better than A.I.
b) They can help get the Archery Eureka. So I always start with a slinger
c) If you look at all the military units you need to get all the Eurekas/ Inspirations, it's a fair amount (3 ranged, an Anti-Cavalry, 3 melee, 3 heavy chariots - and that is just land, non-siege). You can build 3 slingers into 3 warriors, promote the slingers to Archers, get a spearman, three heavy chariots, and you won't be that far behind, even if planning a non-military victory. If you are on a coast you can get two galleys and a quadrieme as well. I'm not saying you'ld start like this without a lot of barbs, but it's generally more efficient to build first, promote later, than hard build, so again, you're not at such a disadvantage.
d) It's much easier to win even non-domination taking from cities from the A.I.
e) You can get level 1 promotion easily fighting the barbs.
f) they can't take your city (or kill the unit in their). So keep rotating/ healing units.

I don't know why people disliked my idea of dropping down a level. An alternative is to use an A+ tier with an early unique. Sumeria might be a good choice (and the only time I don't start slinger).

I get it that people want to be able to play expand/ builder only - Civ V was great for that. I think it's reasonable to turn off barbs if you want that. But I think that would make higher levels more difficult, not less.

Great list! I agree with all that.
But I'd like to add that you can indeed open with a monument as well. I usually don't do it - but on an islands map I often test my luck and open monument - slinger - slinger. Often there is no barb camp immediately around, and if there is one, there is only one and probably no horses. I feel that it can be an interesting start on such maps, or even on other maps if you can take the risk. On inland sea an early scout can be an option, too, since there is so much to scout. But I haven't really worked out how to do that best, the scout usually gets into problems at some point... and the bonus might be less good than an early monument (which helps a lot). I play on epic however, things might be different on standard. But I think barbarians are harder the slower you play, no?

 

[MIS]

Great list! I agree with all that.
But I'd like to add that you can indeed open with a monument as well. I usually don't do it - but on an islands map I often test my luck and open monument - slinger - slinger. Often there is no barb camp immediately around, and if there is one, there is only one and probably no horses. I feel that it can be an interesting start on such maps, or even on other maps if you can take the risk. On inland sea an early scout can be an option, too, since there is so much to scout. But I haven't really worked out how to do that best, the scout usually gets into problems at some point... and the bonus might be less good than an early monument (which helps a lot). I play on epic however, things might be different on standard. But I think barbarians are harder the slower you play, no?

A big advantage to units on deity is picking off AI settlers. In the game I'm on, I had two of Germany's settlers by turn 10. And his capital not long after (I repaired his monument before I got my own!). I'm not going to say monument is wrong, but if someone's rage quitting due to Barbs, monument first isn't the way to go.

 

[Siptah]

A big advantage to units on deity is picking off AI settlers. In the game I'm on, I had two of Germany's settlers by turn 10. And his capital not long after (I repaired his monument before I got my own!). I'm not going to say monument is wrong, but if someone's rage quitting due to Barbs, monument first isn't the way to go.

Yes, sure. But on island maps (or shuffle if it gives you that map type), there are not many settlers to be stolen.
Maybe that's a strategy for scout first on inland sea... try to capture as many settlers as possible ;-)
I also think monument first is not the easiest thing to pull off. You can indeed have bad luck and see some horses after a few turns and be stuck with nothing than your warrior. With a slinger in your capital, you can at least kill off all incoming barbarians without having to fear to lose that unit.

 

[MIS]

I don't know about how speed affects barb difficulty. If their units are ahead of yours tech wise, it takes longer to catch up. On the other hand, domination (I hear) becomes easier. I always play standard speed/ standard size.

 

[Siptah]

I don't really know about difficulty and speed as well. I just figured since building units takes much longer, it's harder to defend. If you lose a unit doing so, it's harder to replace, while barbarians spawn pretty fast as well on epic. And scouts move with the same speed as well.

 

[Rosty K]

I'm not sure that the fact that the AI can't handle barbarians is a good thing. Yes, it does help a human (if that human knows how to handle them), but makes later game even more boring

 

[MIS]

I'm not sure that the fact that the AI can't handle barbarians is a good thing. Yes, it does help a human (if that human knows how to handle them), but makes later game even more boring

I wasn't saying it was good or bad, I'm saying its something to remember if you get discouraged.

 

[MaximusPlatypus]

I play on YNAMP and there is an add-on that limits it to 2 camps per civ. And I think a minimum distance of 7 hexes from capital. In any case, even with about 16-20 civs in my games, it does help turn times significantly.

 

[cazaderonus]

Barbs arent really that difficult to counter. Worst case scenario is spawning in an area without any "corner" and plenty horses...

But if you have a coast nearby, or a mountain chain, anything that acts as a limit to the surrounding territory, the best way to handle them is to avoid leaving any fog of war close to you. That way, no "back stab" camp spawn at all.

Of course, building a few military units first thing is mandatory to try and catch or at least repel that pesky barb scout. But when i clear the closest camp, i dont mind spamming a few scouts or slingers (depending on how much prod i have) to just keep the fog off. Also, it allows to catch some "lost" AI units once in a while.

EDIT

What happened in the game I abandoned was that new encampments spawned within a few turns of clearing an encampment. Pretty much from the start right through to the 1500s when I quit that game. It felt like I was spending most of my time moving troops around the map clearing encampments. It just became really tedious endlessly clearing encampments. What was particularly annoying was that fog busters made no difference or camps would spawn within view of my city boundaries. It wasn't like my previous experience where barbarians only spawned under cover of the fog of war. I would hear that sound file announcing a new encampment and often the new encampment would be in plain site.

This wasn't the first game I've played since the last patch, the other games I played post patch the barbarians were manageable.

Didnt see your message before posting. That has never happened to me so far. And i hope it never will O_o.

 

[Rosty K]

I wasn't saying it was good or bad, I'm saying its something to remember if you get discouraged.

Ok. One more thing to possibly add to the discussion would be that if you lose to barbarians, it happens in the first few turns, so no big deal. Write it on a bad luck, and start again.

 

[Rosty K]

In general, I don't find them too annoying. They are a bit of a problem while you still have just 2 or 3 units and try to scout the area, but after that you just place some of those units outside of your borders on the hills, so that barbarians can only spawn at some distance, and you can leave them alone. Shoot that scout if it wanders too close. Unless you are Gilgamesh, in which case actually bring 'em on. Or if Gilgamesh is nearby (and hasn't killed you with his carts yet), then, well, you have to clear those encampments before he does.

 

[Photi]

Agreed, protection is more useful. I actually find that you should only explore them map when you are in a safe position.

potentially one or more early free envoys always justifies building a scout first in my book

 

[Forster]

I find the barbs to be a pain, but usually manageable. I have also seen outpost spawn within a turn or two after killing the previous one. I have also seen units spawn in visible areas, but the outpost was in the next hex in fog. What I don't like is watching a barb horse spawn and two turn later another pops. How the heck are they doing that? For a player, it requires a large production base, a lot of money or faith, but the barbs pop every couple of turns. The worst I ever faced was four barb outposts, all within 6 or 7 hexes of my initial city, and 2 had horses. I died very quickly.

 

[Nigel_Tufnel2]

I play on YNAMP and there is an add-on that limits it to 2 camps per civ. And I think a minimum distance of 7 hexes from capital. In any case, even with about 16-20 civs in my games, it does help turn times significantly.

I use this sometimes, especially on Huge and larger maps (that you can get with YNAMP), but for weeks now I always play with two mods that I find essential to enjoy the game:

The first gives two extra red cards that give +10 to fighting barbs (one inside, one outside your borders). This mod makes multiple horse camps entirely manageable - you still have to use some smart tactics, and I have still found it difficult to fight multiple camps and try to take a city (esp when Archers are defending). You also have to time Agoge well, sometimes you just can't use it when you normally would. Basically, this mod makes the game "feel" like the Goldilocks "just right" = always enjoyable, Barbs are part of a flow instead of an endless major distraction.

The second allows you to keep earning normal XP from Barbs. As others have said, some games seem like endless Barb hunting - I get really weary of playing when I get so many dozens of +1 XP battles in a row. These feel like a chore and not some kind of awesome defense of my homeland, or whatever it is that keeps me engaged in the game.

I seriously cannot imagine playing after this patch without them.