Babarians or not Babarians

[Jaybe]

Standard Barbs on Epic/Marathon Noble Huge Continents.
But ...
I've modified HandicapInfo.xml so that barb creation is the same as on Monarch,
No iFreeWinsVsBarbs (I think this is like First Strikes), and
most important: player and AI animal/barbarian bonuses are all ZERO.

With no barbarian combat bonuses, barbs do not favor me as a target over the AI and they are a potential real challenge to all parties. They also may hinder AI growth (which I occasionally need).

[jonta]

Originally posted by Blake
To deal with marathon barbs make archer an extremely high priority, going for bronze working first will result in certain death if you fail to get very easy copper.

Also, don't train workers at the tart. Their hard work just gets ripped up. Just focus on wonders and expansion, lakes and seafood are very good. On highlands you can often use mountain ranges to create safe areas for terrain improvement.

Also, it'll suck if you don't get copper or Iron. But it's not an insurmountable difficulty, just found on hills and have plenty of archers.

Thanks a lot this was grest help to survive the early barb attacks
You can se me use that here

http://apolyton.net/forums/showthread.php?s=&threadid=148991

[Urban Ranger]

Originally posted by Blake
+25% defense, and another +25% for archers.

Then your archers can get Guerilla I with barracks. That's +10% more for Combat I and +25% for in the Hills. Another 5 turns of fortification adds +25% more. Very tough to dig out.

[Urban Ranger]

Originally posted by Modo44
Raging barbs. Always.

[Zoid]

Babarians?

[Zoid]

But I actually like barbarians. keeps you on your toes in the early game and acts like free promotions

[Saurus]

Originally posted by Zoid
Babarians?

That's an awesome idea.
Instead of Barbarians we really should have Babarians
Babarians should appear at random just like barbarians but they are all nice guys and every time they enter your city you should get a happiness boost since they are so nice to have around.
They should also work as a temporary Ivory-resource for the duration they stay in your city

[proviisori]

Originally posted by Saurus
They should also work as a temporary Ivory-resource for the duration they stay in your city

Oh no! That would ruin my childhood memories.

[Last Conformist]

Playing on a standard map with full civs and normal game speed, standard barbarians are something of a non-problem.

[Addled Platypus]

raging barbarians up to noble level

normal barbs at higher levels

[Grumbold]

I'm not a fan of barbarians because they are too random. If you're in a central position or on a standard map its usually easy to scout and control your expansion territory to keep barbs down to an easily manageable number. If you happen to be near an icy wasteland on a bigger map you can have them rolling down on you incessantly, when being stuck with all that bad terrain was enough of a disadvantage already.

[JoeGator]

Just me, but in a lot of situations I not only like Barbs standard, but find it can be almost a cheat of sorts.

If you are lucky enough to get an expansive border (I like playing second largest map, epic speed, one less AI civ), with no other civs on a flank (ie lots of unclaimed territory), barbarian towns can make the production of settlers (after you have established a handfull or so of towns yourself) unnecessary for a large chunk of the earlier game play.

Playing as the Persians is especially good for this. Those Immortals with the bonus v archers completely slaughter Barbarian archers, which really makes taking those Barb towns a lot easier. Use your scout early, build a few more to explore your land mass, then use your Immortals to do the exploring.

Once you have some axes to counter the Barb axes and swords, you're on easy street.

Keep the town, which the AI usually places in a decent position, and you don't need settlers until you are ready to go look for land over the seas.

Of course, I'm still playing on the fair setting - Noble I think it is?

EDIT: My only irritation is the fact that the Barbarians ALWAYS seem to ignore AI civ units and beeline for my damn units. Pisses me off.

[Urban Ranger]

Originally posted by Jaybe
With no barbarian combat bonuses, barbs do not favor me as a target over the AI and they are a potential real challenge to all parties.

Do barbarians attack you first if you have a combat bonus against them? Then wouldn't barbarians attack the computer players first on Monarch because they have bonuses against barbarians at that level?

[Jaybe]

Originally posted by JoeGator
EDIT: My only irritation is the fact that the Barbarians ALWAYS seem to ignore AI civ units and beeline for my damn units. Pisses me off.

That is why I modified HandicapInfo.xml so player and AI animal/barbarian bonuses are all ZERO. With no barbarian combat bonuses, barbs do not favor me as a target over the AI.

[Dis]

depends on the map. I like barbarians because it forces me to build an army (something I tend to forget to do- like my last game). But they can be very tough on certain maps.