Are these barbarians for real?

[Dis]

my main problem is my only source of copper/iron is in bum****, egypt. Which means any city I put out there gets ass raped by barbarians. I have to devote my entire empire's resources to defending that city. It's a real pain sometimes.

I think I will try a game with no barbs. I've been reluctant to do this, as it almost seems like cheating. But the AI should get a boost from this as well. As sometimes they get hammered by barbs.

[CarnalCanaan]

Originally posted by Shivan
In history, there no random single groups of axeman without a homeland or any cares in the world...

The Sea People. They're so random, they don't even have a name.

Caribbean pirates. English privateers run amok! I need to mod in barb caravels and galleons.

Not to mention the countless barbarian hordes you've never heard of because they cleverly raped and pillaged all evidence of themselves from history.

[CarnalCanaan]

Originally posted by Dis
my main problem is my only source of copper/iron is in bum****, egypt. Which means any city I put out there gets ass raped by barbarians. I have to devote my entire empire's resources to defending that city. It's a real pain sometimes.

That's not a problem, that's a challenge.

That's like saying you have a problem knocking down ALL TEN pins in bowling. How much more fun it would be if you only had to knock down three!

[Blake]

Originally posted by CarnalCanaan
Not to mention the countless barbarian hordes you've never heard of because they cleverly raped and pillaged all evidence of themselves from history.

[axisworks]

I don't know what you guys are talking about... I always invite the Barbs over for some tea and crackers and everything's fine.

The secret is the crackers, I think. We need a "tea and crackers" tech.

[gradea]

Originally posted by CarnalCanaan


That's not a problem, that's a challenge.

That's like saying you have a problem knocking down ALL TEN pins in bowling. How much more fun it would be if you only had to knock down three!

No, its like saying its hard to knock down all ten pins while your being shot in the face. Which isn't a lot of fun, believe me.

[Urban Ranger]

Originally posted by gradea
No, its like saying its hard to knock down all ten pins while your being shot in the face. Which isn't a lot of fun, believe me.

Wimp

[Older than Dirt]

If one places defending archers outside of your cultural boundary, then the barbarians may easily go around the defenders unless you have very many defenders. The most effective solution that I have found is to put archers with medic promotion on forest or forest/hill tiles which are connected by roads to the cities and to put them on the barbarian approaches. However, if you do not have an axeman to chop the buggers when they enter open ground, they will often try to go around you to loot your improvements. You really need to have a flexible defense to combat them if you are playing raging barbarians and they are coming from all directions. It is best if you can expand or put out sentries in a couple of areas so that they are only coming at you in waves from one direction. A snakey landmass like one usually gets in the Fractal map setting should be helpful.

[padillah]

What I find woirks well is placing two archers together then fortify one and "Sentry" the other. That way when the barbs DO show up the one archer will wake and you get some kind of notice but the fortified one is still the strongest so he'll get attacked and destroy the barb.

One thing I noticed happening was like OTD said, the barbs would just walk around my archer to get at my copper mine. Which anoyed me cause I'd reload and watch them walk right past my archers and the archers didn't move. That's when I figured out the "Sentry" trick.

Tom P.

[johnmcd]

You aren't going to enjoy this game much if you set it so the AI is as attacked as you are. In fact, I reckon you'll get a conquest victory before AD without ever needing to go to war.

[Dominae]

1. Others mentioned this already, but with so few civs on a Huge map, you're bound to get a lot of Barbarian action. Barbs are like additional civs, except they're always at war with you. If you like a more peaceful early-game, add more civs, reduce the map size, or turn Barbs off.

2. Archers are not a great solution to a constant flow of Barbs. I much prefer Chariots or Axemen. It's always better to be able to attack if the odds are in your favor, since your get more XP and you prevent the invaders from choking you (i.e. pillaging your good tiles, etc.).

Offensive units are also capable of taking out Barb cities, which is essential if you want the invasions to stop. Archers alone cannot really do this efficiently.

3. I'm a bit surprised that you're overwhelmed once you build your second city; are you spending time on Wonders beforehand? If you push Animal Husbandry and Bronze Working up in your tech priorities, it should not be too difficult to place your second city to access either Horses or Copper (if your capital does not already), at which point Barbs become a lot less of an issue.

4. In short, Barbs are not impossible to deal with, you just have to, well....deal with them. They're not going to go away by themselves, or be impressed by how many Wonders you build or Religions you found (you get the idea).

[Jaybe]

Originally posted by johnmcd
You aren't going to enjoy this game much if you set it so the AI is as attacked as you are. In fact, I reckon you'll get a conquest victory before AD without ever needing to go to war.

At Noble, with barb creation specs set at Monarch levels and zero combat advantages against barbs for everyone, MAYBE 1-3 cities taken at most, perhaps none. But these are with MORE than the standard number of civs for map size.

[gradea]

Originally posted by Urban Ranger


Wimp

Ask Lordshiva about a rake you can sit on.

Unrelated to the unrelated, but related to the topic, a good weapon against barbarians is actually scouts. Keeping large sections of a small land mass (If your so lucky as to be on a small land mass) In your view, or at least a large section of the land mass your on in your view, keeps barbarians from being able to spawn.

[drkodos]

1. Scouts.

Cheap. 2 Tile Movement. Good Vision. Set them out in an array outside the perimeters. Use one or two roaming safeties (axemen or chariots).

Eliminates FOW and eliminates the Barbs.




2. Defend resources.

Barbs raid easy targets. Set traps. Build promotions.

[Urban Ranger]

Originally posted by padillah
One thing I noticed happening was like OTD said, the barbs would just walk around my archer to get at my copper mine.

Well, they do. At least some barb units do that. The trick is to guard a copper mine and an iron mine (if you have them).

In one game I had a line of hills just a few tiles outside of my capital. So I placed archers with "Guerilla I" along the ridge, two apart. I didn't have to worry about barbarians coming from that direction after that - and I got a whole bunch of crack units to boot.