How the masters handle barbarians?

[fed1943]

My goal is to ask and learn.I got this idea from 2 sources:I replayed Vel'workshop 1a.,but here were the barbarians,not the americans,who founded a city near Rome;this changed the game,giving me a great advantage,because I conquered the city and that only location became the point of all my defensive and offensive needs.2nd source:I like to replay games trying other strategies.
I noticed that the great differences came,not from the computer'civilizations,but from the barbarian behaviour.
So,do masters try to use the barbarians,such as allowing barbarian to foundcities and conquer them,saving settlers and war declarations,and acting as buffers,or is it better to destroy them on sight,and...?
I would like to ear the word of the masters.
Best regards,

[LzPrst]

I might not be a master, but I've had my share of teeth-kicking barbarians (it goes both ways).

I'm gonna sum the cons and pros as I see them fast.
Advantage.
1. Buffer against other civs colonizing.
2. Conquer it saving a settler halting city growth etc.
3. Great for getting your soldiers some early XP.

Disadvantage.
1. If your military isnt strong enough early on they will hamper your growth by pillaging and weakening your military.
2. Other civs may conquer barb cities before you get the chance.
3. Barbs dont always place cities where I want them
4. Does steal a lot of early production that could be used for other things than military units.
5. If you have bad luck, or arent paying attention they may kill off units, even workers.
6. Barbs hardly ever attack the AI, meaning you have to bear the brunt of their aggression, taking initiative away from you as you have to respond to what they do until you get your armies going.

All in all. I prefer weak barbs that dont interfere with my glorious plans, however, I do tend to toss in raging barbs just for the extra challenge

[The keeper]

I like barb cities because they become Keeper cities.

[wehrmacht]

Yet another disadvantage:
-Early in the game (depends on difficulty level, of course) the barbarians tend to have stronger military units faster than the player civ does. It seems like the AI barbs always have axeman and swordsman before I have even found copper or iron yet!

Thus, in Prince or higher difficulty, I tend to conquer barb cities as soon as possible.

[alva]

6. Barbs hardly ever attack the AI, meaning you have to bear the brunt of their aggression, taking initiative away from you as you have to respond to what they do until you get your armies going.

What makes you say so?

I try to use the AI in getting rid of the barbs for me.

[KeiserSose]

Barbs kick my tail all over the place. I'm on NOble now and have to play with them off to have a chacne. They bring axemen and/or archers very quickly it seems an dI have archers stationed on key tiles and fortified in my city and I can usually survive but i'm so far behind by the time I get rid of them I'm sunk.

I have NEVER seen barbs attack an AI civ. last night I was playig and had barbs coming from NE adn SW to get me. If the ones comine NE had cyrus straight norht the ones from the SW coulda gone straight south to get Mansa Musa.

They basically avoided the AI and were getting me from both angles.

[couerdelion]

Finding copper or iron

Originally posted by wehrmacht
Yet another disadvantage:
-Early in the game (depends on difficulty level, of course) the barbarians tend to have stronger military units faster than the player civ does. It seems like the AI barbs always have axeman and swordsman before I have even found copper or iron yet!

Thus, in Prince or higher difficulty, I tend to conquer barb cities as soon as possible.

I think this means that you need to find and develop it sooner

[proviisori]

IIRC AIs get a bigger bonus against the barbs. So barb.AI knows this and thus attacks weaker opponent... the human player.

[Alkis2]

Personally, I don't like barb cities. They are not positioned where I want them to be. Therefore, I use warriors on forest/hills to remove the fog as much as possible.

Sometimes barb cities do appear. If they are in my area, I go and get them fast. Sometimes I may raze the city but that happens rarely. I usually accept to live with the "bad" location. In all I consider barb cities a bad thing, more cons than pros.

About barbarians in general I do the standard things, fortify warriors on forest/hills, scout early to kill some animals and get the woodman promotion etc.

Btw barb axeman don't appear very early. Even on Emperor they are not a major problem.

Keisersose, it seems the barbarians love you

[Quillan]

In my last game, the English were wiped out in the early going by barbarians. I didn't realize it at the time, as all I saw was the red message "The English civilization has been destroyed". It wasn't until later when I ran across London as a barbarian city that I figured out what had likely happened. In the replay at the end, I discovered that the English had started on an island by themselves (They were within sailing distance of an island inhabited by Saladin and Kublai, so they would have met eventually), founded the cities of York and Nottingham before losing London to the barbarians. York became the capital just long enough for a border expansion before it was taken by the barbarians and destroyed, and Nottingham followed suit right after its first border expansion.

[Crossfire]

In that I almost always research bronzeworking early so that I can chop rush settlers I can usually build my own axemen in plenty of time to counter the barbarian archers and axemen. I also clear the fog as much as possible in order to minimize the numbers of barbs coming my way. If I do find a barb city and it is in a decent location I will wait for it to get to size 2 before taking it. I have taken one barb city over with culture too.

[axisworks]

I try to use the AI in getting rid of the barbs for me.

I've found that tends to backfire more often then not. The AI usually has a settler nearby and will raze the barbarian city, only to grab more land closer to your capital. If the city isn't razed, then it usually becomes an annoying resource-grabbing exclave within my territory that the AI stacks dozens of troops in just before declaring war on me.

[Badtz Maru]

Originally posted by LzPrst
Disadvantage.

4. Does steal a lot of early production that could be used for other things than military units.

6. Barbs hardly ever attack the AI, meaning you have to bear the brunt of their aggression, taking initiative away from you as you have to respond to what they do until you get your armies going.

All in all. I prefer weak barbs that dont interfere with my glorious plans, however, I do tend to toss in raging barbs just for the extra challenge

I take issue with these two By the time barbarian cities start spawning, you should definitely be cranking out military units, or one of your neighbors is going to stomp you. Even if you plan to play a peaceful builder you should already be adding some offensive units to your garrisons for scouting and fog of war clearing. The timing for barbarian cities to start popping is great because you will have a use for your 'diplomatic muscle' that you should be building at this time.

Regarding whether the barbs target the AI specifically - they do and they don't, and on a strategic level it's not that important. The barbarian AI is aware of the bonuses both the AI and the human player get against barbarians and takes it into consideration when it is considering which target to attack next. The AI gets huge bonuses against barbarians on every difficulty level - it's the same bonus that the player gets on Settler, and even on Chieftan the AI gets a much better handicap than the player. What this means is when it sees two warriors at full strength on identical terrain, on Noble it sees the AI warrior as strength 2.8, and the human warrior as 2.2. It has a far better chance of surviving the attack against the human so he'll attack him first.

The AI doesn't take those bonuses into effect when deciding which cities to attack, though. The barbarian cities will always focus on the closest civilized city, and it's rare that the barbarians that are attacking AI civs are put in a situation where the unit has to decide between attacking a human unit or an AI unit of exact equal strength.

[LzPrst]

The AI doesn't take those bonuses into effect when deciding which cities to attack, though. The barbarian cities will always focus on the closest civilized city, and it's rare that the barbarians that are attacking AI civs are put in a situation where the unit has to decide between attacking a human unit or an AI unit of exact equal strength.

I have seen barbarians walk right past an enemy city and into my territory...

[Cadarn]

On big maps it isn't always viable to produce units whose aim is solely to keep the fog (and therefore the BArbs) at bay.

You will soon work out if a Barb city is near to your fog boundaries simply by the stream of identical units emerging from a given direction! Seeing as the AI gets huge anti-barb bonuses, leaving the barb city alone is a bad medium-term option - the odds are stacked heavily in favour of a nearby AI capturing it intact and using it. In such circumstances, fortifying an Axeman on the steps of the city is prudent as you can kill off any "extras" built by the city that come out whilst gaining nice XP.

However, it is wise to turn this watcher into a city-conquering stack as soon as you safely can in order to take the place for you own needs before the AI does. I've found that the Barbs are very good at settling good locations if allowed to do so. They only end up in bad spots if all the good spots are already taken

As others have said, being at the bottom of the demographics for military stength is a certain invitation to the barb hordes to come in and pillage your Civ. Build up some offensive units early-ish (even if you are a builder) and they will soon earn their 10XP and get promotions. Replace your promoted units with newbies on anti-barb duty and send your veterans off to war with the weak AI of your choice.

In short, using the barbs to your advantage is a core strategy.