Barbs can definitely change the game

[CBR1100]

If you can take the initial Barb assault (there's always one big one at the start) they are very useful for keeping territory until you can afford to take it. The other AI's will always chose to take uninhabited land rather than fight Barbs when they don't need to. I play a lot on the Archipelago map so if I'm lucky enough to get a big island the problem is that I can never afford to establish enough cities to take the whole island without compromising my research. So Barbs keep if for me until I can. Rather than dissuade them by using scouts to limit the fog of war I purposely keep areas I want to inhabit later darkened and don't enter native villages in the hope they become Barb settlements. In fact all through the game you keep discovering barb cities on the archipelago map because some of them manage to develop into well defended and very advanced cities. I've even seen barb cities at level 15 defended Infantry. The beauty is you can invade them without having to go to war

[Shaka II]

Originally posted by Solomwi
Oh, I didn't start close to anybody, or have a natural water barrier. Athens is the closest capital to mine, a "mere" 25.5 (treating diagonals as 1.5) tiles away. That likely contributed to my larger than I'm used to barb problems, but as said above, worked out to my benefit in the long run. An ORG civ with that much elbow room is a dangerous thing indeed.

My misunderstanding. So, it must have been quite the barb experience being all alone on such a big map.

I agree that organized is one of the best traits for large empires, perhaps even the best. There are a number of complementary attributes, including expansive, financial, and aggressive as your culture is. This is funny, since in my present game, standard/highlands/marathon/9 civs, Tokugawa is in the lead. Funny, since he doesn't usually do so well.

I'm tired of being beaten at tech by Washington, so I've decided to be Washington. It's working out great, being tech leader and all. Organized and financial together is very powerful. But I do want to try being Tokugawa in my next game. I think highlands is the most fun map, probably worse barbs that the others? Certainly there's a lot more land area on the map and probably shaded areas for them to spawn. Try it.

Marathon is great.

[Blake]

My latest game (large continents, Monarch) Tokugawa built Stonehenge, Pyramids and Oracle .
I was irked, mainly because my neighbour Ghandi had stone in his capitals radius! I wanted Ghandi to build the pyramids so I could yoink them!

[Shaka II]

Tokugawa the builder.

I finally met the ninth civ in my game. It's Genghis Khan, in the lead, slightly ahead of Tokugawa. I would never have met him, but out of some kind of magic or bug, I was gifted a swordsmen on the other extreme of the map. It's happened before in another game.

Anyway, on the far left side of the highlands map is Ghengis, Montezuma, and Tokugawa from top to bottom. When they ask for something and hint that it's in my best interest, I usually take the hint, though I refused to give Tokugawa gun powder. They're so far away, but on marathon, they might just make it to my civilization in time to do me in, so I'm playing the diplomacy carefully.

Meanwhile, I'm taking over the backward civilization of Isabella, and after that Saladin with his four founded religions will be my next target, giving me the entire right side of the map.

But it's interesting to see the aggressive civs doing so well (1st, 2nd, and 5th place) out of 11 civs on a highlands map, with me and Saladin tied at 6th place. But I'll be closing fast now with my tech lead, soon to be turned into a strong military advantage.

[Solomwi]

Originally posted by Shaka II
Tokugawa the builder.

As strange as that sounds, it's not too far-fetched, based simply on the civ attributes. Firaxis nerfed him a bit on that front by making him such a paranoid bastard. The ORG trait lets him keep the initial expansion going after non-ORG civs would have stopped to consolidate. This, in turn, should usually mean more resources, both to exploit and to trade, and a quicker tech pace.

This can really pay off in the mid to late game if he goes with a more open strategy. Of course, I understand and applaud the choice of personality by Firaxis. This is meant as an observation, rather than a complaint.

[Jaybe]

I am repeating what I said in another thread some time ago, but:
I don't like the bonuses the AI and player get against barbs. AI handicap vs animals is -70, vs. barbs is -40 for all levels. Noble for the player is -40 & -10.

For me (the Noble-level player) it makes seeming tough fights easy, but if barbs concentrate on me because the AI has much stronger barb handicaps then they will expand unhindered.
I changed the Noble player to animals -10/barbs -5,
AI animals -15/barbs-10.

Perhaps I'll change it again so it's flat 0/0 for both.

[Blake]

The reason Tokugawa managed to the early wonders in my game was that he got seriously hemmed in, restricted to just 3 cities on a large map, he stopped building settlers much earlier and started on wonders.

[Solomwi]

Makes sense. I was just piggybacking your post to put forth some thoughts I had while playing as Tokugawa.

At the Pyramids/Oracle/Stonehenge point, the benefits I noticed from the ORG trait wouldn't have really had time to kick in anyway.

[Shaka II]

Originally posted by Jaybe
I am repeating what I said in another thread some time ago, but:
I don't like the bonuses the AI and player get against barbs. AI handicap vs animals is -70, vs. barbs is -40 for all levels. Noble for the player is -40 & -10.

For me (the Noble-level player) it makes seeming tough fights easy, but if barbs concentrate on me because the AI has much stronger barb handicaps then they will expand unhindered.
I changed the Noble player to animals -10/barbs -5,
AI animals -15/barbs-10.

Perhaps I'll change it again so it's flat 0/0 for both.

The way I rationalize the handicap is that the AI isn't as good at fighting as the human player, so a handicap is needed. But on barb fierce maps, that seems to give the AI a significant boost, while the human player has to struggle more to expand. I wonder what the handicap on emperor is?

[Willem]

Originally posted by Shaka II

I'm tired of being beaten at tech by Washington, so I've decided to be Washington.

Americans in general are tough to compete against, they always seem to be ahead on territory as well. I just had a game playing against Rossevelt and the ending was me trying like mad to catch up to him in tech. Plus he had more cities than I did so he was also ahead on those points. Finally my computer crashed which gave me a good excuse to give up.

[Jaybe]

Originally posted by Shaka II
The way I rationalize the handicap is that the AI isn't as good at fighting as the human player, so a handicap is needed. But on barb fierce maps, that seems to give the AI a significant boost, while the human player has to struggle more to expand. I wonder what the handicap on emperor is?

It's all in the "HandicapInfo.xml" file. The AI handicap vs. animals/barbs is constant (-70/-40). For the player, they are:
Settler: -70/-40; Chieftan: -60/-30; Warlord: -50/-20; Noble: -40/-10;
Prince: -30/-5; Monarch: -20/0; Emperor: -10/0; Immortal: -5/0; Deity: 0/0