Barbarian Pals

I've been noticing alot of helpful activities with Barbarians so I've decided to make a tribe called the Barbarian Warriors/Elephants. I use the Viking colours since they look good. I've started using a Modified World map and the Vikings start where the Egyptians start and Africa has been cut up and there are now alot of small islands where Africa used to be. So I start the map, There are the Greeks, the Russians, the Americans, the Japanese, the Spanish and the Indians. I happily have my Capital near 2 whales, a wheat and a oil resource. I named my capital BarbarianHut. I happily build up my civilization, establish another city named BarbarianPost and got some free money and units from the huts. I selected raging Hordes in the hopes the mass Barbarian numbers would come in handy. I develop map making about 40 years after the other civs did so I send along a settler and an archer to a nearby island with a whale resource. I build up a city, send my trireme to explore the world, discover the Indians, Greeks and Spanish, all of which give me their maps. I notice the russians already have 13 cities when I have 3.

The Americans already have some knights, probably from huts. I usually wage war when everyone is primitive and weak but now everyone is stronger then me. I establish 2 more Barbarian colonies to boost my production and science capacity. I slowy start to catch up and by AD.1 I am equal to everyone in science. I have large numbers of Elephants and Archers in my cities which would prove useful in a war but not enough to win one. Not much happens for a while, So i'll skip to 1600 AD. Everyone already has Rocketry so the civs were fast this game. I have a total of 8 cities, I don't really like having so many cities to control until I have a large military.

My opponents are pretty big, the Americans were destroyed so the Persians replaced them in history. I have an alliance with the Russians and Greeks and I'm at war with every other civ. The war is not going very well for me, I lose every unit I send to attack before it reaches it's main destination. I was close to losing BarbLookOut but the Russians saved me at the last minute. I was wondering why not that many Barbarians popped up to help me but it will soon change.

Suddenly 3 huge and I mean huge hordes of Barbarians pop up near the Greek/Barbarian/Indian borders and they all head for the Indians!! I was so happy, one by one the Barbarians, outnumbering the Indians took out 12 of their 21 cities and disbaled alot of their units, the Barbarians lost alot too so they just fortified near their cities, now with the weak Indians I swooped in and mopped up the rest in the Indians with moderate losses. I laughed at the Indians as their last village was pumelled out of existance, and their civ was destroyed. The Barbarians held those 12 cities for 100 years until one of them was trashed by the Greeks.

The Greeks have been having some trouble with their wars with the Persians and Spanish and they have nagged me for help for some time now. After I declare war on the Persians, they instantly dispatch a transport with armors which quickly make nothing out of one of my colonies. I quickly send support to possibly re-take the city but the relief force is destroyed before it got to the Colony. I had underestimated the Persians as they had alot more cities then my map showed. I really needed a clue so I sent some transports with palpine troops to explore the area and I was amazed to find the Persians had over 35 cities from the 9 that was shown on my map earlier. Finally when I got the Apollo program I got shots of the world and the Persians actually had 40 cities! I knew that I would not be able to destroy them with the 8 cities I had.

20 years passed and the Persians had conquered the Russian empire and gained another dozen cities. their empire was unstable and their cities went into Civil Disorder often so I took advantage of it and send a large force into my captured city and re-take it with ease. The Persians were pissed and they sent a large force to re-claim their prize but 3 Barbarian frigates intercepted the fleet before it launched and another pile of Barbarians piled out into Persian space. I laughed with joy as the Barbarians slaughter the Persian force and take out 2 costal cities and destroy over 10 Persian units.

The Greeks and Spanish took advantage of the Barbarians and the weak state of the Persians so they launched their own offensive against the Persians and swiftly took out alot of their captured Russian cities and some cities on their mainland. the Persians were in chaos, their government was throw into Anarchy, the Spanish bribed 3 cities and destroyed 2 more. Barbarian hordes have been popping up constantly and took out at least 4 cities from each civ except mine. I took advantage of the Barbarian forces and launched several offensives against the Spanish, the Persians, the Japanese and the Greeks and destroyed numerous cities before my forces were too small to achieve any more victories.

This game has been one of the funnesti've played in a while. Barbarians popped up in my space in 1650 AD. and took out one of my Colonies, luckily it was new and small and undefended so I let the Barbarians keep it. The Spanish even tried to launch assualts against the Barbarians to retake their cities but failed miserably and now the Barbarians had over 25 cities!!!!

The Barbarians continued to control more cities then the civs had which was really funny. The Persian empire finally collapsed in 1684 AD.

The Spanish followed in 1700 AD. The Barbarians actually took out all but 3 of the Spanish cities which contributed greatly to my success in taking over their empire.

The Greeks re-took the cities the Barbarians took from them which included their Capital but the Barbarians and I finished them off in 1720 AD.

The Chinese were totally destroyed by Barbarians alone!! No other civ had met them yet since they popped up after the Persian empire's demise. They had over 7 cities and they fell by Barbarians. I took this time to expand my empire and build up my score. Finally the last empire the Indians were destroyed by me and the Barbarians in 1730 AD. My final score turned out to be 900. As you can see, if you are lucky, Barbarians can actually prove useful.

P.S. The reason for the Barbarians' success was that because the Civs did not have City walls except for some capitals and the cities were not very well defended.

By Peter