Wow... money for free?

[exorcist]

So I am sitting in good old persopolis (sp?), my persia capital and building my lovely pyramids when to my surprise... I get ambushed by a barbarian. Thats all good and fun though of course cause its a warrior and I have a spearmen. Anyway, they keep coming... one after another. I'm thinking, this isn't that bad, I mean all my units are slowly getting promoted to veteran and elite so its all good, hell, I might get a hero out of this.

Then they start sending horsemen. Thats all good though cause I have spearmen and yet again, it does nothing but bolster my warriors. Then... (this'll amaze you) I started thinking. This is getting on my nerves because I cant build any improvements to the right of my city or they'll get pillaged and I am too busy to build spearment to gaurd the improvements I build but then I thought even harder.

I remembered that the barbarians (cunans) dont come from thin air anymore so I glanced back over my continent (this is still bc, its still empty grounds) for their little goody huts. Well there were none so I built a horseman to start searching farther north.

As a side not, these little dudes had killed the zulu's scout which was cool because I had to stay at peace with him. I had caught him on a peninsula and quickly sent a settle across about two screens to build a city right at the top. I dont know how but it worked... sealed off the little peninsula's isthmus (culture border) with the rest of the continent and he only has two cities and until he declares war on me, no room for anymore. Not to mention that city happened to use the only horses withing 20 squares of the poor guy and there is no where for him to go so... I'll just let him sit there and buy tech's cheap from him because there is no reason to completely kill him

Anyway, I went north into this weird little offset of an island which was connected to my landmass via two isthmus and linked me to the babylonian used continent via one isthmus (hope I can close that off with a city soon) and it was a freaking money pit. There were these little barbarian villages that constantly produce military units (not goody huts but little grey thingies) so I took my elite horsemen (thanks to the little warrior people along the way) and killed the guy on the village. I got 25 gold for it... yay I figured, just what I needed. So I went back to make sure no oen was coming across that isthmus... one move north and I found another little village had sprung up. I immediately offed it for another 25 gold. Well, well, what do you know but another village popped up within plain sight of that one and off it went. I am now up 75 coins... ridiculuos. I see a forth one now and I am wondering how long this will last.

Has anyone else gotten lucky enough to encounter this or am I just having an incredible start. If you run into a situation where you are getting a stream of barbarians, let me be the first to suggest you just send a decent military unit over to their home and simply bank the money in.

 

[Meneer Popken]

I had something similar, but later in the game. I'm playing a on huge map, and I managed to make a barrier between me and the other 3 civs on the same continent, and because my side is much larger than the side the other three have together I can't fill it all yet, so whenever a barbarian camp gets killed it will reappear on my side, because that's the only place there is still shroud left.

Too bad I at one point allowed two of the others over my territory, they had about 50 units going back and forth between two shrouded spots to kill the barbarians, it made turns last ages.

 

[Melinder]

Sure, 25 gold is the standard you get from smashing a barbarian encampment (that's what those grey "huts" are, as opposed to the brown goody huts). Other benefit of smashing the encampment is it stops spawning barbs to annoy/pillage you, at least until another encampment springs up. I was surprised to see the encampments can spring up in territory you already explored which was empty when you saw it (but that's like Civ2 I guess).

Has anyone gotten more than 25 gold from one of these encampments? I smashed one from which a barbarian had sacked one of my cities and taken 40 gold, expecting to get some or all of this gold back, but still only got the 25 gold. What gives?

 

[Jezner]

Looks like they spent your money on wine, women, and song. Those barbarians . . .

 

[Iron Chef]

In a game I'm playing right now (still not yet at 1ad--I play very slowly, taking notes) I must have dispersed 10+, if not more, barbarian encampments (using raging hordes). I basically have 3 warriors roaming from the start that were upgraded to Elite (2) or Vet (1-from conscript) that are just moneymakers for me. The AI civs don't seem to put a priority on this, but when you trade an AI civ 40 gold for a tech advance, it sure helps to disperse 2 encampments and come out 10g on top. As long as your cities are adequately fortified, you shouldn't have any problem. I do recall, though, in one game, one of the first couple I played (before I started taking notes), a MASSIVE barbarian outpour--something like 10 horsemen--that really hurt. I took a break at that point and haven't come back to that game to see my impending doom. Using Raging Hordes seems to be even better than in Civ2, because there's always an encampment to disperse. In Civ2, I often found that the enemy leader, which had 2mp, would get away befpore I could get him. Of course, that leader gave 100g, so I suppose it somewhat balances out.

(Revised) BTW, if anyone cares, you can find the journal detailing the various barbarian conquests in this thread: http://forums.civfanatics.com/showthread.php?s=&threadid=7987.

 

[miradus]

I always play on raging hordes. I drop in some defensive units in what I feel is a good defensive border (outside my city range of improvements) and fortify. The encampments show back up even after you've pushed back the shroud as long as their is still room on your map that's not within someone's borders and not visible to anyone's line of sight. The defensive wall is good for the barbarians and good for later on when you need to keep enemy civs out, so I don't worry about it. Plus I think it's just cool to have frontier fortresses out there.

 

[scriptorum]

I recently had a game with a beautiful vein of gems running through a dense mountain range, and no city prospects. I set up five colonies, and spent a great deal of time rebuilding them as (among other things) barbarians raiding parties frequented the area. This pisses off a megalomaniac such as myself because it was bringing me in 20 gold per turn through trade agreements. Every time I sent troops to hunt down the encampments, more would appear.

After some hunting, I finally found a line in the manual that explained it. When you disperse an encampment, the barbarians recamp at an UNEXPLORED or UNSEEN location. Since the mountains are notorious for blocking line of sight, they were able to set up camps in little hidden nooks in the range. This was time-consuming and never-ending.

I finally solved this problem and put the pesky inbreds down for good by posting observers on key mountain tops. By spreading these units to maximize visibility, I kept the entire mountain range in view. The next time I sacked the barbarian encampment was the last appearance for the troublemakers.

Some time after that, amidst celebration, the Persians demanded I give them Invention for nothing. Naturally, I told them to blow it out their turban, and they all crawled over my mountains like ants until I cried like a little girl. Oh well.

 

[miradus]

That made me laugh. By the time the AI starts demanding things from me, I know I'm in trouble. They either bluff ridiculously (Our 3 cities full of spearmen will CONQUER your 27 modern age cities!) or they tell you it's time to pay up and you know they mean it.

Last night I spent a tense 3 hours wiping out the German nation, only to discover they've got 1 city left deep in Russian territory and doh, before I could conquer that remaining city they signed a mutual protection pact. I guess the Russians have been looking for an excuse since 2000 BC when I rushed that settler and stole 4 silks. Long memories, those Russians.

 

[diamon]

Wouldn't it be funny if the AI could hold a grudge like that?

Or scary, one or the other...

"....So give us the secret of Invention, to repay the silks you stole a millenium ago!"

Not like I don't hold a grudge just as long myself...

Oh yeah, if they say there's been a barbarian uprising or raiding party spotted, batten down the hatches and hold onto yer butt, they can be BAD... I had nearly 20 conscript horsemen come after my capitol once. They failed to take my city by 1hp in my elite spearmen.

 

[Sam_Catchem]

You gotta kill those huts are like mentioned before you get and onslaught of horsemen coming at you! Also..they are just annoying when they send a stream of warriors at you. I try to keep a puny warrior around whenever possible to go looking for them.

On a side note, Have you ever noticed that they ten to go after your city/unit instead of th AI's? Even though they are at an equal distance.

 

[FirstNoel]

Usually (90%) I get 25 gold from sacking the barbarians, once thought I did get 50. But I think it was because thier encampment was there for quite a while. But I'm not sure about that.

Any know? Longer "life span" of a Barbarian camp = More gold?


Sean D.