Why Civ 4 is not fun.

[Dis]

tell that to the Romans.

edit: I meant that to reply to the original post, but it also works as a reply to the post above mine.

[marvinkosh]

I have sometimes had the misfortune of getting a poor start and having bad luck with barbarians.

Getting the right balance of expansion, military and research is sometimes tricky, so if you have the initial 4000BC autosave, try again from there and see if you can improve your situation - you may already have an advantage in knowing where you need to place your cities to tap into copper or iron. If the initial plot truly is lacking then you can re-roll the map. If you're going to build a Civilization to stand the test of time, then much as the leaders of old you're going to have to find a prime spot to build from.

I have played occasionally with barbarians off, and it doesn't detract from the gameplay too much. Troops which have cut their teeth by beating off barbarians are better soldiers than their untrained brethren, but so too are those who have fought battles against other Civs. Like any feature that is switchable, it doesn't hurt to experiment to find out what is fun for you.

Oh yeah. If you think the early barbarians are tough, just try a Terra map and go land in the New World sometime. It's stuffed full of barbarians that have been busy researching and will gladly put a few holes in your explorer with their rifles.

[Raion]

This thread is funny.
I have had a few games where the barbarians are living in a city. Well, at first when I played. Since then, they don't make it that far.

But it still can happen.

[Urban Ranger]

I think you should learn how to deal with the barbarians before you advance further up the levels. If you can't deal with them, it means there's a problem with your gameplay, and the computer players with bigger bonuses will smash you like an egg.

[Yosho]

Originally posted by Urban Ranger
I think you should learn how to deal with the barbarians before you advance further up the levels. If you can't deal with them, it means there's a problem with your gameplay, and the computer players with bigger bonuses will smash you like an egg.

Not really...there are some early-game builder stratagies that work very well if you turn barbarians off, but get you killed if you have barbarians and a lot of empty space around you.

[Blaupanzer]

Many a civilization you never heard of fell to nomadic barbarians. Properly, it shows in this game as an early game challenge. Get archers and deal with it. In most of my games, I run across a few barb cities, which I take, then keep, unless they are really malplaced.

The game is supposed to be a challenge.

[Smellycowsquid]

Originally posted by Blaupanzer
Many a civilization you never heard of fell to nomadic barbarians. Properly, it shows in this game as an early game challenge. Get archers and deal with it. In most of my games, I run across a few barb cities, which I take, then keep, unless they are really malplaced.

The game is supposed to be a challenge.

[Bkeela]

I don't see how anyone could find Barbarians a problem. If anything they are an asset, because they allow your military units to gain experience in a safe way.

Have two defenders if things are really bad. One to attack while the other heals. As others have said, just turn them off if you want to be a girl.

Montezuma or Isabella sending a stack of death when all you want to do is build is what I call un-fun. Piddly raids by Barbarians is child's play.

[potoroo]

Originally posted by Blaupanzer
Many a civilization you never heard of fell to nomadic barbarians.

How do you know?

[armchairknight]

Originally posted by Urban Ranger
I think you should learn how to deal with the barbarians before you advance further up the levels. If you can't deal with them, it means there's a problem with your gameplay, and the computer players with bigger bonuses will smash you like an egg.

Do I smell an omlette?

I'd have to agree. Barbarians are weaker than the major players, even if they're more aggressive than some. It's hard to credit that this can be a serious issue when it's so easy to adjust them to a player's taste.

[edwardecl]

I happen to agree, don't know if anything has changed after the first patch came out, but the barbarians were way overpowered. They sent like 4 units per turn on one of my towns it got annoying.

They finally took the town and started making units. I sent my entire army I had built after them they killed them all and I was ****ed not being able to expand. Unknown if this was a bug but it made me stop playing the game . And no this was on the default settings not raging .

Although the game was unstable at that time (reseting my computer) so that was partly to blame for me for stoping.

[Adagio]

Originally posted by edwardecl
I happen to agree, don't know if anything has changed after the first patch came out, but the barbarians were way overpowered. They sent like 4 units per turn on one of my towns it got annoying.

They finally took the town and started making units. I sent my entire army I had built after them they killed them all and I was ****ed not being able to expand. Unknown if this was a bug but it made me stop playing the game

Why would that make you stop playing the game, when there has always been a way to play without the barbarians? Just check the "no barbarians" when starting a new game, and the problem is gone

[Son of David]

For the first time in ages, I played a game on Epic. It was otherwise with standard settings, and on Prince.

OUCH! The barbarian attacks *were* never-ending. MUCH more severe than on normal game speed.

I admit I wasn't in top playing form but it's definitely true that game speed makes a massive difference to barbarian activity. I basically gave up but I'm restarting the game from 4000BC again tonight.

[Dis]

I used to always play at marathon, but I find epic games more enjoyable lately.

[Adagio]

Originally posted by Son of David
For the first time in ages, I played a game on Epic. It was otherwise with standard settings, and on Prince.

OUCH! The barbarian attacks *were* never-ending. MUCH more severe than on normal game speed.

Then you should try Marathon, barbarian attacks are 3x more difficult to handle, compared to Epic...
Back when I was playing Epic (before Marathon became available), I had no problems with the barbarians...