Flooded by barbarians

[Dis]

I see almost no barbs (except animals). The land is usually pretty much taken after the animals go away.

The only exception to this was when I played the Earth map. That must have raging barbs turned on. Because they were a ragin'.

[DanS]

Placing fortified sentries in forests along my frontiers works for me.

[Grumbold]

The barbs are certainly cramping my style on the custom terra map. I thought that was down to the size difference, leaving much more space for barbs to pop up than I am used to from playing several games on a standard size map.

[animaster]

Barbarians

Barbarians aint all bad..

I normaly put some of my weaker soldiers out on a hill with forest to stop barbarians. They get some basic experience an it gives the barbarians time to build up their city. As soon as they got a size 3 city i gather my guards and go conquer their city.

Also playing at Noble and my trick is to have the 'guard' outside the main resources in my area.

[alva]

Lot's of barb means alot of XP points!

/me likes barbeques

[-Ab-]

i think barbs may have a bug somewhere on custom maps because they seem to rage regardless of if you tick teh box
i have played raging off and with raging on and it seems exactly the same to me

[Kamjin]

I was bottled in by the AI's during my Noble game, so I sent out some settlers to another landmass I discovered. The first town had one guard unit, and was promptly destroyed in two turns. Both of my next towns had two guard units, it took all of three turns to lose both of them. My fourth time, I sent over a settler with 5 guard units. Four of them died, including two gunpowder units. My last unit held off 19 attacks over the next three turns. I got some reinforcements and sent that guy out. He had two promotions, and was fortified on a hill. Yeah, he lost to the first archer that came along. Not happy.

[inca911]

I've taken to staking missionaries out in the cold, making sure barbs don't appear.

[Sloth_DC]

Originally posted by Peets
Maybe noble is too hard for you?
Also when you play archipelago, they won't come as often

Worst barbarian slapdown I ever got was achipelago, Renaissance start. My starting island happened to be pretty big, and the barbs were sending waves of horse archers and swordsmen into me while I was still trying to expand out to the iron and copper. The fact that I started right on top of horses is the only thing that kept me alive. Oh, and it didn't help that I was playing Always War, and the Spanish were on the next island over - right about the time I finally got the barbs under control and started exploiting my island, the Spanish started landing waves of Conquistadors on my doorstep. Taking their last city was a sweet, sweet moment.

[Killazer]

ive practially lost games due to barbs one time they took my capital lol.. this is on monarch diff.

[TheArsenal]

Archipelago:
Talked about this a bit in another thread. On a Huge map I was on a pretty good size island with only a couple AIs. The top third was tundra, generally undesirable and left largely unsettled. Add in the fact that it was a little too big to constantly and effectively patrol and Barbs were spawning like mad and were raging down literally every other turn. It was insane. I did seem to take the brunt of their attacks (lost a city), but that may have been due to being more northerly located than the AI Civs.

[cpt.thc]

the barbs are quite a pain in the buttocks for sure but they are good for xp

[Skanky Burns]

The only problem is barbarians founding cities around my first two cities before I have a chance to crank out more settlers.

[Tae]

What I don't like is when a barbarian horde just pops up right next to your weakest city with no warning. In the middle of your empire no less.

This happens in the GreekWord scenario late in the game a lot.

It really pissed me off once because I had a Northern Army and a Southern Army for protection along with Galley's up and down my coasts. What happens, a huge stack of Barbarians magically appears right next to Rome. You would think such a large army would have been noticed in the country side...or at least I would have seen a ship coming.

[Blake]

I havn't really been bothered by the Barbs too much on Noble+raging... sure they make it interesting but I find as long as I don't skimp on units they cause minimal damage.

Something I've noticed is that the AI will agressively hunt barbs, I always sign open borders with every AI and they send hunting parties into my territory to wipe out the barbs, I dunno why they do it but it sure takes some pressure off my army (and they wipe out the barb cities, no way can I afford the investment in units to do that).

I've found the best (easily acquired) anti-barb units are archers with City Garrison and Axemen with Combat+Shock.

Some more advice:

ALWAYS found cities on hills, this gives archers an excellent chance of defeating axes. A city on a hill is better than a razed city on a slighty "better" spot.

Cities NEED 2 defenders, one to defend the city and the other to defend tile improvements.

Putting units in front of the barbs is usually more effective than attacking them, Archer "sentinels" are excellent for this, it helps if they have guerilla/woodman. Where possible defend on forested hills, cycle archers back and forth to heal. If the barbs are pushing you back then you're losing improvements or worker time.

Civs with easy culture do much better against barbs due to city defense bonus and being able to see them coming (and also access iron/copper easier). Creative is obviously good but any emphasis on culture works.

"The Chop" is excellent vs barbs. Without chop it can be hard getting essential thigns like stonghenge and last minute defense, not to mention needing copper asap so you can (maybe) get axemen.