80 Barbs! WTF!

[dworkin]

There I was, planning the 'winning of the hearts and minds' (at the club and sword) of Persia, Babylon and Zululand when 24 Barbs turn up in the South. This wasn't regarded as a crisis until the 24 Barbs turned up in the NE followed by 24 more from the NW. This was followed by a constant flow of every barb, barb granny, cat, dog and gerbil!

Where did they all come from?
On the good side all those damn barbs slaughtered every AI settler looking to get a piece of my real estate.
And I got so many elites it wasn't funny. So I shouldn't scream too much. But it was a madhouse watching all these barbs running everywhere being chased by the odd archer and spearman.

This ever happen to anyone else?

[Wittlich]

Yes. There is a lesson to be learned here - Once you find a barbarian encampment, DESTROY it. Don't just ignore it as, well, it's only a barbarian encampment - what do I have to worry about? If they are ignored, they will multiply like bunny rabbits!

So, you need to constantly be patroling the areas of your map that you don't actually have "eyes on," because they (the barbarian encampments) can and will crop-up from one turn to the next.

[Gramphos]

If you don't take care of barbarian camps soon enough they will make a major uprising, coming in great stacks, ant that's probably what happened to you. (I don't remember the minimum Barb-setting for this to happen)

[Gramphos]

Damn' you were faster then me

But what setting is it on at first?

[badams52]

And if you've been on these forums a while, Soren let us in on the secret as to when these uprising happen. i.e. they are triggered by a certain event in the game.

The uprisings used to happen in my games a lot. Then as I played higher levels, the faster REXing of the AI (and myself from learning how to REX faster) cut out most of the undeveloped land early and I haven't seen one in about 20 games or so...

[Alex]

To me, the key is in what badams said: faster REXing. Whenever I can pull it off, no barbs to annoy me.

[candybo]

The "hordes" appear after two Civs enter the second tech era....

[Gramphos]

Yes, expanding quickly is a good way to avoid it, and also hunting down barbarrian camps. However I'd also like to know what actually triggers them.

[ALPHA WOLF 64]

you are missing the advantages of fighting tons of barbs...easy elite units. I dont let any barb camps survive if they are too close, but if they want to cram 3 or 4 camps close together 10ish tiles from me, more power to them, especially after the first era change. Since PTW, the barbs stacks split alot and you can send in teams of 3-5 units to get experience. Once a unit becomes elite, it heads off to the nearest AI battle front. I've had numerous games of over 20 GLs because almost all my units fighting AIs are already elites by the time they get to the front. the key is to keep the barbs chasing your teams and dont attacking cities, because if they get fixated on a city, then you have a fight on your hands. my current game has 2 unpopulated islands that had barb camps on them. its now the modern era and I am assembling tons of marines to get battle experience. there must be over 100 barbs on each so all the assaults will come directly from the ships and no marine will ever go aground.

[ALPHA WOLF 64]

Originally posted by candybo
The "hordes" appear after two Civs enter the second tech era....

actually, the hordes show up after 2 civs enter any new era. you might not see them for later eras tho unless you've left enough room open for barb camps to spring up. barbs against medieval/industrial/modern units are nothing more than cannon fodder.

[CerberusIV]

You need to be careful about entering a new area. I had units in place to wipe out a barb camp and foolishly started a round of tech trading. Next time (still on the same turn) that I looked the barb camp that had one horseman that my archer was about to destroy suddenly had an extra eight horsies because my tech trading had taken two civs into the medieval. That little mistake cost me an archer and a spearman. Something I won't do again.

[pedrojedi]

Barb camps should evolve with the passing eras. That would make them more troublesome, and worth the fight.

[Dida]

Originally posted by pedrojedi
Barb camps should evolve with the passing eras. That would make them more troublesome, and worth the fight.

it makes no sense to see barb with tanks and bombers though.

[pedrojedi]

Well, they could have guerrillas at most, perhaps with a few special traits of their own.

[Dida]

Originally posted by pedrojedi
Well, they could have guerrillas at most, perhaps with a few special traits of their own.

I modded guerrillas to have 'hidden nationality' and 'treat all terrain as road', really good way to piss people off and screw up their tile improvements. In late industrial age, when the tech for it comes around, guerrilas are just too weak to do anything other than that.
Now, if there's a random chance the identity of your guerrila will be exposed and the nation who u trying to mess with will get mad at u, and declare war, that will be even more fun.

[ALPHA WOLF 64]

i've never liked the hidden nationality trait since the AI doesnt seem to use them very well. the other unit that makes since for is a terrorist unit. i gave guerillas invisible and made them cheap and the AI uses them kinda like the iraqia are doing how, harassing rear areas and wounded units. otherwise, you are very correct that guerillas are useless.

[pedrojedi]

Well, the way you modded it they work just as in real life... they are a pain in the @r$e.!

[ALPHA WOLF 64]

invisible guerillas also can be an unpleasant surprise attack. I was beating up on the Celts when my ottoman buddies decided they wanted a few celt cities too. since the celts didnt have any guerillas according to my spy, i didnt have any of my own in the area. when i finished off the celts, the ottomans went from being gracious to being at war with no warning. to my horror, they had landed tons of guerillas all over the former celtic lands and they started taking out roads and lightly defended cities. Luckily they had only captured a few celt cities which i quickly overran then went on a guerilla hunt. i'm still not sure I've killed them all, but they sure have tied up a ton of my forces that could be used elsewhere.
I thought about giving them the all tiles as road flag, but i figure they are more than annoying enough just being invisible. unless you can see the invisible unit, it does not leave your territory with non-invisible units when demanded. another thing i just learned the hard way.

[Gramphos]

There should, no doubt be more advance barbs in later game.

[Strakorfsky]

Cloaked guerrillas could make a effective way of snatching massed workers deep in enemy territory.

Because most people don't have workers in their inner territories defended.

But yet, PTW should have added a terrorist, I would have been all over that

[pedrojedi]

I don't think they would do this. No one would support the idea, ideologically speaking.

[Dida]

what's wrong with having terrorists? they were in CTP and CTP2.
this is a game people, it's not about politic, it's about fun.
There are many other elements in the game, which are even more evil than terrorists, such as unprovoked attack on another civ, mass murder, etc. Why should terrorists be singled out as politically incorrect?
Sept-11 is really a sad thing, I have sympathy with everyone who suffer from it. But, it has already effected our American thinking in so many ways, for god's sake let's not let it get into the way of gaming.

[pedrojedi]

I hope that too, but what I think is that the idea will cause too much turmoil and problem to Firaxis and Sid to go on... so 11/9 will prevail, again.

I think it's absurd as well, but I never expect much from people who censure musical clips with airplanes and airports just because such thing happened. Like anyone would have ideas or forget that.