can barbarians be turned off?

[D4everman]

Its probably right under my nose, but I looked in the options and didn't see it.

I want to turn the barbarians off. Is it possible? I'm trying a marathon game and it is not fun (for me anyway) to try and build a civ while competing with the russians, the persians, the indians and the french on one continent with barbarians running all over the place and building a city right next to my capitol without me seeing it! I only noticed it when a worker got near it and I saw the black outline. I just want to turn them off for awhile. I'm not enjoying the constant raids.

[Willem]

You need to go into Custom Game options. You'll find a selection there that allows you to turn them off.

[Nikolai]

What Willem said. You can also make them worse, if that should suit you one day you feel SM'ish.

[Rychro Anrise]

What Willem said. You can also make them worse, if that should suit you one day you feel SM'ish.

Ugh, I still remember the first time I tried out Raging Barbarians. It was in my first multiplayer game with a friend of mine. I beleive the map was a standard Terra and I was Rome (Renamed Julius Caesar to Junius Brutus (After the Founder of the Republic, not Assassin of Caesar. I didn't realize his first name was Lucius until afterwards.)). It was also my first Epic game (Back when Epic was the longest mode).

I was well on my way to beginning the Republic, but was stuck in my ways of beginning production of a Settler on the first turn. Bad move with the Raging Hordes. I was able to hold off any incursions during the 30ish turns it took to make the Settler using my starting warrior and founded Capua (I think). Three turns later Capua was sacked by Barbarians which began a hundred turn series of non-stop Barbarian attacks which forced me to focus purely on unit construction and the security of Rome.

During this time my friend was on the other side of the Old World safe and secure as Asoka's India for some odd reason. He never suffered the barbarian raids like I did and was able to build a lovely empire. I spent my years trying to get more advanced units and trying to begin a sentry net around Rome to keep them as far away from the city as possible. Eventually I had enough troops to keep all of the Fog of War removed in the eastern lands, which allowed me to expand. After many more turns I was almost on par with India. A nice comeback, I say.

The game ended, however, when we explored the entire continent and realized that there were no computer controlled civilizations. There are debates to this day as to whether he forgot to place the AI Civilizations in the game, or if the Raging Hordes annihilated them. But I still remember facing endless streams of Axemen and Archers (And, eventually, Longbowmen).

[Zoid]

Barbarians are easily turned off, just show them a pic of Asher

[Tokyo Sexwale]

While, you're at it, switch off the stupid diplomatic victory option. I still cannot understand it. I lose even though I've consistently been the most cultured, passive civ, have the majority of other civs the same religion as me, and use 20 000 gold + to buy the others´votes. Major "arrrrrgh!!!!!".

[Urban Ranger]

Originally posted by Zoid
Barbarians are easily turned off, just show them a pic of Asher

Now, now. Lets be nice.

[LordShiva]

Re: can barbarians be turned off?

Originally posted by D4everman
Its probably right under my nose, but I looked in the options and didn't see it.

I want to turn the barbarians off. Is it possible? I'm trying a marathon game and it is not fun (for me anyway) to try and build a civ while competing with the russians, the persians, the indians and the french on one continent with barbarians running all over the place and building a city right next to my capitol without me seeing it! I only noticed it when a worker got near it and I saw the black outline. I just want to turn them off for awhile. I'm not enjoying the constant raids.

Wuss

[Zoid]

Originally posted by Urban Ranger


Now, now. Lets be nice.

[Rook]

I don't understand what the big problem with barbarians is. I don't play with raging barbarians turned on, so can't comment about that. But, at the standard setting, I don't have any problems with these guys. I usually research archery soon in the game, so most of my cities have archers. Even axemen barbs can't kill my fortified archers. I usually end up using barbs to train my units up in xp. Sometime, if the barbs make a city, I place a unit right outside on a fortified hill or forest and the barbs just suicide on him leaving my cities alone. Also, you can post units as sentries to eliminate the FoW and barbs don't spawn at all.

[Urban Ranger]

Barbarians are a problem if you don't research archery early, and beeline for bronzeworking instead. For me though archery is either first or second, depending if I have hunting, so it's no big deal.

If the raging barbarian option is on you need to double up on the archer defense, though.

[D4everman]

This is a problem only in marathon games for me. In Epic games i usually have axemen by the time the barbs start coming at me with them or i have enough defenders to protect my cities and still go after their barb city. In Marathon games it seems that I can barely maintian a defense for my own cities and hold them off. This bugs me because it seems like the barbs target me specifically leaving the AI's alone to expand without hinderance. (whether or not that is true I cannot say, I'm only telling you what it seems like to me) To be honest it seems like the barbs go after the human player rather than the AI all of the time. Now, if this is because the AI gets a bonus towards barbs or not, I don't care. I don't know how hard it would be to program it but I think the barbarians should be "equal opportunity" and go after everyone with the same zeal. (I say that because a barbarian warrior ran past an AI scout to attack my archer in one game.)

[Metaliturtle]

Maybe because the scout couldn't attack him back?

[D4everman]

Then why not attack the AI scout? If the barbs go after the softer target he was it. My archer killed him, after all. Besides, I've seen the barbs target MY scouts and they can, BTW fight back. Scouts can't iniate an attack but they can defend themselves. (badly, but they can defeat most wild animals)

[Urban Ranger]

Originally posted by Zoid
Barbarians are easily turned off, just show them a pic of Asher

There's now a thread in the OT with the title "Canadians unleashed secret weapon blah."

Note to self: must resist temptation.