Barbarians on Huge

[enderw]

I usually play Monarch/normal sized map. I just started playing on huge and have noticed that there are many more barbarians. As soon as the animals go away and human barbs show up, they show up in hordes.

How do people deal with this? Is archery now a must have unless you get copper? On regular size I have been able to put off Archery until I trade for it (unless mongols or Mansu Masa), but on huge I need to get it myself to fend off barbs.

How do others deal with this?

[Jaybe]

Playing Noble/Huge/Rome (but with Monarch barb settings, in addition to no combat advantages vs. barbs for anyone), ... you better BELIEVE it I research Archery! Not immediately, but by the time the first barb archers show up.

You could also deal with it by having more than the standard # of civs for a huge map, thus giving barbs less room to spawn.

[Qwertqwert]

I usaually play noble/prince but on a map size nearly 2X as big as huge, and I use the pangea and small ocean (smart map) so there's a ton of land. By 1500 AD or so make sure you've got 3 archers per city, though to be optimal, try 2 archers, 2 axemen, 1 spearman per city (also protects from *******s like monty who will just go to war for no reason)

[axisworks]

I actually played a "new world" map once where the barbarians had actually progressed to making riflemen and had six cities. That was an interesting game...

[Nugog]

Archery on Huge is a must!

Fortifying archers on hills in the path of the barb's approach is very useful as it helps to keep them away from your improvements.

The large number of barb's does help you gain a few XP before you launch your troops at someone else though!

[Yosho]

Well, it's not so much a matter of the size of the map, as the number of civs per amount of free land. You get a lot more barbs on low sea level maps then on high sea level maps, for example.

[smbakeresq]

I play exclusively on large or huge maps and archery is a must, usually the second or third tech I go after. There is so much area that the barbs just come after you in waves. On the plus side, you can capture three five barbarian cities on the average.