Testing Barbarian Strats

[smak]

The idea behind barbarians is to quickly generate a raiding force while the enemy builds up tasty cities, then sweep in with powerful mounted archerers killing everything in sight.

Opening moves:

A. Start the game near an ocean and river tile that is within range of seafood.

[Do this to gain #1 the health benefits of the fresh river water and harbors you can build later, but #2 more importantly for the commerce early on. Tiles along rivers provide 1 extra gold, and seafood tiles when harvested are a loaf + of food and a few gold.]

B. First build is scout

[You begin with a scout, but they are fragile and only useful in the early stages of the game before human barbarians appear. You will need to see all around you to locate juicy targets and to spot horses later. A bear has a good chance of killing your scout unless you are on a forested hill across a river. When you move around enter a flat square then duck back into a forest or hill for the defense from fast moving wolves, and wandering beasts. You will get the first promotion quickly, use it to buy combat 1 (starting scout has no agressive traits) after combat 1 or if it was the scout you built yourself (free combat 1) buy MEDIC then run him back to your starting city]

C. First research is fishing

[We want to hook up that huge food and tech bonus as quickly as we can]

D. Second build starts as work boat

[If fishing has not been researched by the time you finish the scout, put barracks on build queue to idle for a few turns then lay work boat on top of it]

E. Second research is pottery

[When your city gets to 2 population, lay a worker on top of the fishing boat. We want the worker timed to pop out within a few turns of getting pottery. At 2 population on marathon mode it typically takes 24 turns to make a worker. Do not worry if this slows the fishing boat down alot, that boat is going to grow your city fast and you need improved tiles to work with first.]

F. Third build is worker

[See above]

G. Third research is archery

[During this time, build 3 cottages along the river. Since you placed your city next to the ocean and a river you will have at least 3 watered tiles if the river is 2 in length or more. We place these here to gain the river commerce bonus, to min max along with our eventual towns income.]

H. Fourth build is letting the barracks finish

[We want this barracks in place before we build any military units.]

I. Fourth research is animal husbandry

[By now we should have our 3 cottages up, start laying down roads connecting these fragile improvements to the city. Also lay down roads 1 or 2 tiles inland parallel to the coast, and one road directly inland from the city as troop movement roads. The one worker we built initially is sufficient, we will enslave the enemy workers soon...]

J. Fifth build is a queue of 4 archerers

[Keep your scout medic in your city so he can rush out to heal when needed. Place one archerer near the end of each road you just made. Best spot is outside your culture border in a hill or forest tile.]

K. Fifth research is horseback riding

[This is the final tech you need to build the most powerful ancient/classic horsemen in the game. With 6 strength, 2 move ignoring turrain features, and the ability to give them withdraw 2 making them immune to first strike... They can tear apart defending archerers, and thats all you will come up against during your first war of conquest really.]

L. Sixth build is a constant stream of keshiks

[As the early horse archerers wait for their comrades to be built, send them out to nearby barbarians to practice on the wandering warriors and archerers they like to spit out.]

M. Sixth research is bronze working

[This is used to chop all the trees in your well defended cultural border churning out a large wave of keshiks. You will also end up growing your population beyond your ability to keep them happy. Use slavery to create even more keshiks. Then lay down cottages along the rest of the river tiles.]

After this, I suggest heading for alphabet to trade for or demand techs you skipped. Depending on your play style, you can either wipe out the enemy civs or terribly cripple them and demand tributes the rest of the game. Shifting focus from the now weak civ to the strongest one. If you let any civs live in peace they will outbuild/tech you and pikemen will laugh at your horsemen.

Trying to attach the game i just started, this is at 1500 BC and im about to start making my first keshik.

[smak]

Here is 1180 BC same game, I captured 2 cities and when the 3rd one couldnt satify my need for booty i slaughtered them all (was size 1 city and didnt survive the attack).

This is with just 2 horsemen, I am about to finish chopping out the 3rd one and slave out a 4th.

At this point my only problem is making enough archerers to defend the cities I capture!

Details about attacking with horsemen:

Move up next to the city and skip a turn so you have full movement for the attack. If the city has more than 2 defenders you will need an archerer to defend your attackers. Bring your scout along with your horsemen to keep them healed, just remember to not group them as the scout cant keep up with the horse always. (scout is slowed down by hills/forests ect.)

After taking the city, fortify till healed and move archerer in to defend. This healing time usually takes 1 to 3 turns with your medic there.

First promotions should be withdraw 1 and 2, for the first strike immunity. Then i would go for combat 2 and the 25% bonus vs ranged. With those stats you can compete with longbowmen later.

Im currently researching towards alphabet to demand/trade for techs. Isabella infected me with buddism, which is ok since i gain the happiness and diplomacy bonus as i start wiping out the chinese.

[smak]

Last game i noticed ghengis's expansive health bonus didnt really help much since i couldnt keep my people happy (in large groups).

He worked fine, just had to have production and commerce spread over a few cities instead of my old core 3 strats.

Because im using more, smaller cities i think kublai khans creative may be more helpful early on than ghengis's expansive.

We will see, on this new map instead of random opponents on random continents i set it to pangea and put every other agressive civ in play. Also set barbarians to agressive, will be fun to see if i can defend my cottages this time since im not starting on the coast. But check out this pic if the link works:

Isnt a gold mine on a hill next to river the strongest starting point ever?

[smak]

In the past i considered the experience from tribal villages to be wasted on warriors/scouts.

But recently i began using them as combat medics for the duration of the game. Scouts make the best ones since they can keep up with most units.

[samspock]

Interesting. I never thought to found a city on a gold hill. I usually look for a city by a river with flood plains, at least one gold hill and if I am very lucky an oaisis. An oasis for a financial civ will give you three food and three gold. That's 12 beakers from turn 1!

[Arrian]

I would think founding on a gold hill is a terrible waste. I plains hill, yes, great, but a gold hill... yikes.

Medic scouts... never thought of that. I've certainly had medic knights/cavalry, but never medic scouts. Doh. Good idea.

-Arrian

[smak]

If your civ started with mining and you stole a settler from the nearest civ with your initial warrior, then waiting to mine the gold hill is better economically in the long term.

But, if you start on a gold hill and pick up pottery early in the game you will find the total of them to be better income than one gold farm.

Also, by starting on the hold mine you can use your first population to bring in more income from another tile, instead of 1 gold base starting city income ( iirc ).

Another important thing is the hills defense advantage. Add 50% from hill, 50% from wall, and a ton from archers or longbow garrison innate bonuses in cities and hills = one really hard to kill defender.

There is one more benifit most may not consider, when you do get around to researching mining you will automatically recieve a + 1 happy bonus from the luxury resource. And you can get this without worker.

Example, say you have decided to out tech everyone else during the classic age. Take a civ that starts with fishing and leader with financial trait. Regenerate maps till we find what we are looking for ( this is just to test out the potential not necessarily the strongest move for every game)

Find a starting loc that has a gold mine on a hill adjacent to a river and the coast with at least one seafood resource in the ocean.

By the time fishing boats done you have, alot of commerce income plus healthy amount of food to grow or expand. Most civs will start with 1 gold from city tile plus maybe 1 -3 more from some worked tile.

I dont recall the exact gold from boats but its at least 5 food and 2 gold. The fishing boat is going to max out your population fast, or you can divert work to focus on production or income and be fed totally by the boat/city tile. Btw the tiles near that gold mine/city are flood plains. In that game i converted them to cottages then mined a couple hills for 8 or so hammers a turn.

[smak]

Just thought of something, your city tile is the ONE tile you cannot build improvements on.

SO by founding on that gold mine you open up another possible cottage. And towns will generate alot more income than gold mine late game.

Therefore you gain a short term advantage and a long term advantage. Granted its only 1 extra gold 1 extra hammer per turn i think, but how many turns do modern era games (played from ancient) last?

[samspock]

A gold mine from a finacial civ will generate 8 gold per turn I think. I have seen one that was 9 as well. A fully developed town on flood plains after Printing Press, and the civic bonus (can't remember it off the top of my head) will yield the same amount. The difference is that you only need to mine the gold hill to get it and don't have to wait for it to improve.

I find 2 gold hills near flood plains to make an awesome capital.