What do you think of barbarians?

[Jaybe]

Well, you might remember that back in the Civ3 era I was President of the Equal Rights for Barbarians Association (and its ONLY member, as far as I know). Then Civ4 came and I wanted not only equal rights for them, but also equal rights for the player from the barbs' perspective!

[Kriegsspieler]

Originally posted by Schtix
In my latest noble game, I set the speed on marathon, because I've never completed a whole marathon game from start to finish. So, what I found was that there are many, many more barbarians on marathon compared to epic. What's most annoying is that when other civs are off building granaries, libraries, and so fourth, I'm stuck mass-producing barracks and archers, and still fighting to stay in second and third as far as points go.

I think the barbarians are fine on noble, but this is the highest difficulty I've gotten to, so I'm not sure how bad it is on prince and higher up. I *do* think that the game needs to make sure all civs get a fairly equal amount of barbarians though, it's just not fair for me have to deal with a horde of barbs while my next-door neighbours thrive safely.

I agree, FWIW. The first thing I noticed about the new patch, playing on Prince, is that the barbs have become absolutely relentless. There's now a constant stream of them to fend off, with no end in sight, as far as I can tell.

This is fun?

Originally posted by Jaybe
Schtix,
I have mentioned it elsewhere before, but what I do is give the player and the AI equal advantages against barbarians. That way the barbs will target the AI as much as you, and the AI will not have such an easy time wiping them out.

It is done in HandicapInfo.xml in the GameInfo folder. You would want to put the modified file into your CustomAssets folder, of course.
Personally, I set all of them to zero: iAnimalBonus (at Noble normally -40), iBarbarianBonus[/i] (-10), iAIAnimalBonus (-70) & iAIBarbarianBonus (-40). I also set iFreeWinsVsBarbs (2) to zero. By zeroing these out, you are putting barbs on an equal footing with other civs, and also getting "proper" experience when you are successfull in killing them.

Hmm . . .I wonder. By releasing experience from killing several dozen barbs, wouldn't everyone (ai countries and me) be rapidly raised to Überelite status?

[MasterDave]

On Monarch and Emperor the barbarians also scale up. Strangely enough, some of my biggest barbarian problems were on a custom game with three custom continents where I was set to Monarch and all of the AI's were set to noble. I had way more problems with barbarians in this setup than I usually do in standard Monarch or Emperor level games.

[Badtz Maru]

Originally posted by Urban Ranger
That's a good idea as well, Jaybe.

I did the same thing (removing player and AI bonuses vs. barbarians) and I didn't like it. I didn't realize how much I counted on those small bonuses you get on Noble vs. barbarians and animals, and lost a lot of units. The AI seemed to have an even worse time of it, as several had a large portion of their territory taken up by "barbarian kingdoms" and were permanent non-contenders.

I like the idea of simply making them weaker, unique units, it wouldn't be hard to mod at all. You could give the barbarians their own unique flavor by giving them odd units that none of the civs have access to...like a scout that can attack, Strength 3 Axemen which come with a big city raider bonus, a weaker form of terrain-ignoring Keshik...I might try doing this on my own, now that I'm thinking about it.

[Jaybe]

Originally posted by Badtz Maru
.... The AI seemed to have an even worse time of it, as several had a large portion of their territory taken up by "barbarian kingdoms" and were permanent non-contenders.

I normally pack more than the standard amount of civs into my huge/marathon/continents-or-fractal games. I don't mind barbs also being contenders, nor nearby AI being harrased. My early-game military prowess vs. the AI is weak (i.e., I am hesitant to declare early wars) until I have a few Legions (pretorians).

EDIT: Also, was your experience with one game only? While first impressions can be strong, more games might be different. (Also, note my huge/marathon preferences, of course).

[Urban Ranger]

Originally posted by Kriegsspieler
I agree, FWIW. The first thing I noticed about the new patch, playing on Prince, is that the barbs have become absolutely relentless. There's now a constant stream of them to fend off, with no end in sight, as far as I can tell.

This is fun?

I am not sure what do you mean by a constant stream.

I have been playing on Prince/Monarch on Large Continent maps with less than the standard number of players. I see barbarian units every single turn starting about 2000BC, and they come in from all directions.

Adrenaline rush

[Jaybe]

Originally posted by Kriegsspieler
Hmm . . .I wonder. By releasing experience from killing several dozen barbs, wouldn't everyone (ai countries and me) be rapidly raised to Überelite status?

No, because a unit cannot rise above 10 experience points by killing barbs. A 10 XP unit that destroys another barb will still have 10 XP. With animals, the limit is 5 XP.

[schekker]

It seems to depend a lot on the settings you're playing on. Although I really like marathon, on a vanilla/noble/huge/continents map the barbarians really killed the fun for me. There really was only one way to play the game. Go all military and brace for impact. No fun at all.
With the same settings on epic speed, the barbarians are still a pain, but not overly so.

[Urban Ranger]

Is that the normal or raging setting? I was talking about "raging barbarians" in my case.

[Snotty]

I dont see how having to research either archery or bronze working or animal husbandry shifts the balance of the game in too much of a military direction. Granted you wont be able to do a pure focused CS slingshot or whatever, but having to put a little effort into defence while you try to be a builder seems balanced to me

[Kriegsspieler]

Originally posted by Urban Ranger
Is that the normal or raging setting? I was talking about "raging barbarians" in my case.

My "constant stream" of barbarians comes at normal setting.

Originally posted by Jaybe

No, because a unit cannot rise above 10 experience points by killing barbs. A 10 XP unit that destroys another barb will still have 10 XP. With animals, the limit is 5 XP.

Thanks for the clarification. I took your suggestions about the edits to imply that the XP limits would come off, too.

[TheArsenal]

I’m getting a constant stream of Barbarians on normal setting as well. It is much like Raging Barbarians were pre-patch, with the exception that the sheer number of Barbs are fewer and the intervals they appear are slightly more spaced out. I am losing Scouts more often (stopped building them in my current game) and had to put out a pretty good perimeter guard of Axes, Archers, and Chariots to keep the Barbs out.

Frustrating at times, but I like it.

[padillah]

Originally posted by Snotty
I dont see how having to research either archery or bronze working or animal husbandry shifts the balance of the game in too much of a military direction.

You don't see how a militaristic civ out to destroy you with free Archery gives the game a military tilt?

I have several turns of research before I can start to produce the first archer. And given that the barbs WILL be attacking me with them it's not a question of doing it or not, I MUST research Archery or Bronze Working or risk loosing my cities to a civ that's not even really playing.

Tom P.

[Last Conformist]

I find barbs close to a non-issue on the normal setting. Only on raging do they amount to anything much.

[TheArsenal]

I currently am playing a Huge Lakes Map with my empire bordering the uninhabitable massive Southern pole. The sheer size of the wasteland down there means Barbarians will spawn in large numbers turn after turn until I can afford the excess units or have the centuries of culture to completely push back the FOW. Barbs becomes manageable after a point, but since I can’t ignore them, never an non-issue for me.