Raging barbarians are raging only me...

[Jaybe]

Handel, scouts have double-strength vs. animals, so your animal attacking your warrior complaint doesn't work.

If barbs are targeting humans more than AI, I wonder if it is because the AI generally (depending on difficulty level?) has a larger combat bonus vs. barbs, and the barbs know it. Even at Noble level, I know the human has an advantage vs. barbs (barb strength is x 0.8), and I understand the AI handicap is greater.

EDIT/Addendum:
In the HandicapsInfo xml file the AI has -70 handicap vs. animals & -40 handicap vs. barbarians at all levels. The player has the same handicaps at Settler level only, and they decrease by 10 each for every higher level played (Prince excepted), down to 0. At Noble level, player handicaps are -40 & -10; Prince: -30 & -5, Monarch: -20 & 0.

If I were the barbarians, I would definitely favor going after the player instead of the AI. If you want the barbs to rage without giving favor to the AI, edit a copy of the file and save it in your custom assets directory.

NOTE: I have NOT given literal file names or complete instructions, since I am not qualified to spell every little detail out.

[QuantumPion]

I have never seen barbs attack or pillage any other civ besides my own, and in games where I have used nukes I have never seen global warming happen except in my own territory, where towns and farms on grassland will instantly turn into useless desert. At least in civ 3 you could still build the same improvments on desert, but in civ 4 it just destroyes whatever improvement exists.

[Urban Ranger]

I am not sure about this now. Maybe the barbarians only rage the human player.

I made a test. During one game I opened the Worldbuilder and place a barbarian unit on top of a gold mine that belonged to one of the computer players. The turn after that I opened the WB again and found that the barbarian unit had not pillaged the gold mine but moved directly toward my direction.

I think these kind of tests can be performed to see if the computer players are indeed given an unstated advantage.

You can level the playing field first by making a backup of the XML file, then edit it so nobody gets any bonuses against barbarians on any level.

[Amarsir]

Originally posted by Bill3000
That is seriously odd, as global warming is programmed to only to take into account nuclear explosions; both meltdowns and usage of ICBMs.

I'm fairly convinced it starts happening anywhere, world-wide, as soon as anyone completes the Manhattan Project. That's global warming specifically as opposed to the fallout circumstances.

I keep hoping warming will "randomly" strike tundra and turn it into plains but so far no luck.

I am not sure about this now. Maybe the barbarians only rage the human player.

It's curious. As a fan of the "rampaging barbarians" setting I've definitely seen it both ways. In the early part of my current game, of the dozens and dozens of barbs I saw produced, I personally fought only 1 of them. However, in the previous game, not only did the barbs seem to favor me, one time I thought I saw a Barb warrior and Mansa's skirmisher shake hands, point at me, and laugh.

I suspect they're causing lots of trouble I just don't see, and I remember better my own interactions.

[Blake]

What I do know (or have strong evidence for) is that barbs are born with a "mission", to attack a certain player. They'll wander through other players territory on their way to their destination - these passing through barbs will kill 0 defense units, but otherwise wont pillage or anything. 97% of the time barbs will go after the nearest player, but odd circumstances result in them going for more distant players (particulary like founding a city in the path of the barb after it has spawned).

Barbs will also for example be designated city garrisons, again with odd circumstances you can have a city garrison barb running around in the wild, say it was sent from one barb city to reinforce another, then the other city gets taken, and the barb turns around to garrison another barb city - and you have a barb which seems to be wandering around not attacking the AI units near it.

I have no idea what a world-builder placed barb would be born to do, it might default to attacking the first player, or it might be given a mission at random - such as city garrison, in which case it'd wander off to whatever city it thinks it was born to defend.

[Badtz Maru]

Originally posted by Bill3000

That is seriously odd, as global warming is programmed to only to take into account nuclear explosions; both meltdowns and usage of ICBMs.

Are nuclear meltdowns announced globally? I've had MANY games where I got global warming despite no nukes ever being fired (and I know that's announced). I'm not sure what's causing it, but if it's true that there are no non-nuclear causes, then AI nuclear meltdowns must be pretty common in the late game.

[Willem]

Re: Raging barbarians are raging only me...

Originally posted by Handel

Do the barbarians ever attack the AI players?

Yes they do. I had one game where Egypt even lost their capital to them. It's possible that Bismarck has his city better defended so they go for the weaker of the two.

[TheArsenal]

Re: Raging barbarians are raging only me...

Do the barbarians ever attack the AI players?

Yes. I went into the XML file and gave Barbs Chariots and Spearmen (for the record, insanely unbalanced and not at all fun) and played Raging Barbarians on Huge, Marathon, Continents, 18 players. I could not remain in the game without opening up the World Builder and giving myself units, as they were taking my cities at will. Plus, I just wanted to stick around to see what happened.

What happened: the Barbs destroyed - or weakened a civ enough to aid in its destruction - 8 civilizations. Most before I came in contact. So they're attacking.

[Yosho]

One fun trick is if you have barbarians in the late game (for example, if you're trying to colonize the New World) and you have open borders with another civ in the new world is to get the barbs to chase one of your units all the way to one of the AI's cities whom you have open borders with. Just run right into the AI's city, and the barbarian will follow and attack the AI's city, and the AI's city garrison units take care of your barbarian problem for you. (Or vice versa.)

[Badtz Maru]

Re: Re: Raging barbarians are raging only me...

Originally posted by TheArsenal


Yes. I went into the XML file and gave Barbs Chariots and Spearmen (for the record, insanely unbalanced and not at all fun) and played Raging Barbarians on Huge, Marathon, Continents, 18 players. I could not remain in the game without opening up the World Builder and giving myself units, as they were taking my cities at will. Plus, I just wanted to stick around to see what happened.

What happened: the Barbs destroyed - or weakened a civ enough to aid in its destruction - 8 civilizations. Most before I came in contact. So they're attacking.

I did a related but different experiment. I wanted a difficulty level where AI had absolutely no advantage, to test the AI - I had read that they had the big bonuses vs. barbarians because the AI has trouble dealing with them otherwise. I didn't beef up the barbarians but took away both player and AI bonuses vs. barbarians, which is 40% for AI and 5% for player on Noble. None of the AI civs were totally wiped out by the barbarians, but a few had lost cities to them, and there were some really powerful barbarian empires. It made the early game really tough (that small bonus vs. barbarians is really useful, even on Noble) but once I started getting a better military, it got very easy because of the crippled AI civs and barbarian empires starting trouble.

[Qwertqwert]

Happened to me too, I'm never choosing raging barbarians again.

I wish there was also an option to low barbarians, not off but lower then the normal.

[Destroyer]

On my most recent game, the Babarians have proved to be a thorn in the side for both Monty and Hyeena. The Barbs had a network of 10 Barby cities in between them, and had lost a few cities on their fringes. They build a lot of towns and windmills in their cities.

There were many other scattered around. No cities on my own landmass which had lots of fog.

I would like to see the Barbs develop into a civ late game, or allow them to keep increaseing their level of threat, as they quieten down alot once you have infantry.

[xmixmasterx]

do you lose points for no barbarians? is there still scattered settlements to plunder without barbs? They're really starting to annoy me, they keep setting villages up near mine and i can't kill em, 70% chance of winning or more and i'm losing ten times in a row, doesn't make sense, obviously no advantage. Noble level

[Addled Platypus]

want more exictement...

pick always war, go ahead make your day

[Urban Ranger]

In my current game, the raging barbarians have taken out a civ already, around 1200BC. I have no idea which one yet. I only realised this when one of the random rankings popped up, and I noticed there was one less unknown civ.

Too bad it's not on my continent. Happie and Bismarck are still quite alive and happy.