I made the Barb God angry?

[cakeman]

heh.. this is less a Help post than it is a rant.. Ive hit upon my favorite map style lately, Huge Lakes w/High sea Level and only Warlord difficulty.. Played 4 or 5 maps in the last couple days gen'd with this combo..

Had a kickass start this time, with about 4 or 5 scouts hittin goody shacks like they were going out of style.. Technology found in many of them.. by the time I met my first Civ I was 80-100 points ahead of that one.. and apparently all the rest I met in short order..

built a second city and was havin fun.. then I seem to have pissed off the barbarian god or something.. because for the entire hour before I gave up not a turn went by where I didnt have at least *3* barbarian mobs in each of my cities cultural borders.. usually Axemen.. I had to expend so much energy building Kesheks to premptively strike them (trying to save what few Terrain improvements I had left ..) I couldnt build anything else.. and eventually my 2 cities were surrounded by other Civ's so I had nowhere else to expand to easily..

every freakin time I'd kill one axeman, the "enemy spotted near " and another would wander onto the screen..


aarrrrrgh.

anyone else ever experience similar?

cakes..

[Swiss Pauli]

It can happen (and always at the worst time), so post units to clear the fog so barbs don't pop up too near your lands. Also, they don't always beeline for your cities so don't rush to take them on if you're not ready.

[Jaybe]

Haven't played that map type (usually play continents), but have had similar experiences, especially when getting used to the game. Barbarians (I consider them "minor civs") teach you to pay more attention to combat capabilities, both in tech & army size.

At Warlord difficulty, you get a 20% combat edge over barbs (the AI get 40% at all difficulty levels). The more civs there are, the less 'unseen' areas there are for barbs to generate.

I now have some tense moments with barbs, but rarely have serious setbacks. But I play at Noble and have altered the combat advantages vs. barbs to zero for both the player & the AI. With equal opportunity for challenging both player & AI, the barbs do not focus on me!

[cakeman]

Swiss - Yeah, I usually try and put a couple Guerilla-levelled archers in the hills just outside my cultural borders as an early warning/death system.. I simply couldnt make units fast enough to do more than just hold on this time though..


Jaybe - heh, that was the other thing that tweaked me.. as some civs had Open Borders with me, a few had units walking all around/beside barbs and didnt get touched..

Brett

[Urban Ranger]

Yeah, it could happen, depending on your size and position relative to the rest of the nations.

You must remember building defenses, probably in the form of archers. Put them around your perimeter (cultural border) in tiles with good defensive terrain.

When a mob of barbarian units appear it may also indicate that there's a barb city in that direction. Send some archers to investigate.

[Urban Ranger]

Originally posted by cakeman
I simply couldnt make units fast enough to do more than just hold on this time though..

It means you didn't start early enough. You probably could build your second city earlier.

[Blake]

Lakes is pretty weird and bad when it comes to barbs. ALso warlord AI's wont expand very fast and thus land will go unclaimed for longer. Furthermore, if you're playing with less than the default number of civs that will DEFINITELY anger the Barb God.

[Prussia]

I remember once on prince, archipelago, high sea level, I spotted a barb civ stranded on an island, and didn't attack them.

They built up, and by the mideval era they were sending galleys of swordsmen at me, over and over and over again.

They forced me to up my navy.

[MasterDave]

I have seen some legendary barb assualts on Large Highlands maps (lots of shadows and room between civs). I have never played raging barbs, but I have had similar expereinces to the poster just with normal barbs on highlands.

[Son of David]

Originally posted by Prussia
I remember once on prince, archipelago, high sea level, I spotted a barb civ stranded on an island, and didn't attack them.

They built up, and by the mideval era they were sending galleys of swordsmen at me, over and over and over again.

They forced me to up my navy.

That's awesome!

I always play on Prince and I can't remember ever seeing barbarians load units in their galleys.

[Provost Harrison]

I have found double woodies to be invaluable at moving around and blocking their path

[Urban Ranger]

Double woodies?

[Jaybe]

Woodsman II promotions, I would guess.

[Urban Ranger]

Oh yeah. Woodsman II is good. I prefer Guerilla II myself, given archers' inherent bonus defending on hills.

[Lambiorix_be]

Originally posted by Jaybe
Haven't played that map type (usually play continents), but have had similar experiences, especially when getting used to the game. Barbarians (I consider them "minor civs") teach you to pay more attention to combat capabilities, both in tech & army size.

At Warlord difficulty, you get a 20% combat edge over barbs (the AI get 40% at all difficulty levels). The more civs there are, the less 'unseen' areas there are for barbs to generate.

I now have some tense moments with barbs, but rarely have serious setbacks. But I play at Noble and have altered the combat advantages vs. barbs to zero for both the player & the AI. With equal opportunity for challenging both player & AI, the barbs do not focus on me!

So normally they do focus on the human player. I though it was only a feeling and that also the AI civs were having that problem. I always play at noble and although the Barbs are never able to raze my cities they sometimes are so numerous that they force me to focus on defence for many, many turns instead growing. Sometimes they control the early strategic resources and you cannot produce vital units like spearmen, axemen and horsemen. In the meantime the other civs are racing ahead... They belong to my category 'irritating and bad for the health games'