Raging Barbarians

[dregor]

Wow. I just tried my first game with raging barbarians turned on, Prince difficulty, and yikes. I can fend them off ok, but it stunts my growth amazingly, plus if another civ attacks me (thanks hattie!) I may as well just quit! I was playing as Mansa, so it wasn't a terribly bad civ to use. My first time using him incidently; skrimishers are sweet.

I knew that the barbs were going to be a problem, so I ignored going for an early religion to concentrate on archery and a few of the base techs to make a decent infrastructure, gradually moved fortified skirmishers out to guard my land and reduce fog around me. Egypt was directly north of me on my border, Rome a bit to he west, east and south pretty much open season for barbs.

I suppose I forgot that I'd turned random personalities on as well so was a bit taken by surprise with Hatties attack on me. She managed to disrupt my road connecting my marble long enough for me to miss the Oracle and civil service by 3 turns

Any advice on dealing with raging barbs plus still advancing myself? I quit that game in disgust after losing the Oracle after working my butt off to get it, but I'll probably try again shortly.

[Rancidlunchmeat]

Don't you hate it when people read your message but don't respond?

And you want to put another message 'Doesn't any of you that read my message have an answer?'

The problem is there's nothing we can tell you that you don't already know.

Balance expansion and military in order to defeat raging Barbs. What else can really be said? You don't have nearly the time to screw around that you do without them.

I don't play on Prince, but when I've played with raging barbs, it's as if you're in a constant state of war. Up until the point that either you or the AI expands enough to remove their ability to spawn.

I'm sure you were looking for greater depth of insight than this, but this is all I can offer.

[Mr Justice]

the trick with barbs i find is that they come from the same direction over and over.

if you can manage to surround your lands (up to 2 tiles away from ur border) with fortified units (for 5 turns for the max defensive bonus) on forrested hills, or hills or forrests. you should be able to spot common routes that barbs use to get to you so that you can send more units that way. double up units on particularly bad routes plenty of revenge killings ensue, tho bear in mind the fortified bonus, at times their not worth the risk.

Civs with good early UU's are g8 for raging barbs, heightens their overall effectiveness and usefullness gamewise. HC is my favourite, quecha's rock, so cheap and useful till that first barb axe is spotted!!! but skirmishers excellent too.

growth is naturally stunted by this, but the opurtunity to get barb cities hellps mitigate this factor. raging barbs is a gr8 promo generator, but you lose loads of em in the process. getting 2 woodsman promos on a warrior on a forrested hill makes that position nigh on untouchable.

anyway, your problem in that game was hattie, not barbs :P

[zeace]

The only tip I have on how raging barbs is different:

Build your new weak cities close to your opponents, especially a capital that will start to surround you with culture!

Normally, weak cities just invite sneak attacks from the AI, but if you build it close enough, most of the barbs will end up attacking his city instead of yours. Also, the fog of war cleared by the AI keeps the barbs from appearing as often. Also the raging barbs will slow him down a little so you'll have a chance to build a decent defense.

Of course the new city will flip to the enemy eventually, but you should be able to take out that AI before then.

[Urban Ranger]

Grab the best city sites before the barbarians start coming. Don't worry about connections now. You should be looking at three cities at least, including your capital. Build your cities on hills if possible. Pick one to be your production city, build a barrack there, and turn out archers with Guerilla I (or City Defender). Move them to the edge of your cultural border and defend on hill tiles (preferably hills with forests). Then move the next wave outward but have their visiable area overlap so as to eliminate all fog around those regions.

As your cultural borders expand move the inside defenders outward.

Also don't forget to build a whole bunch of scouts to explore the land. Pop as many huts as you can. Then after you finished exploring move the scouts back to provide additional vision.

[Jeje2]

I'm not even using raging barbarians and all I do is defend my cities.

Prince leve, quitted at 325BC after being defending barbarians for 20-30 turns in a row - My all cities are producing just units and still I'm just holding it. Just wave after wave of barbarians - how can anybody think this to be a fun game?


I called Civ4 earlier a cheating game and this has just made me more convinsed that it's true. Last straw was when I just got my first axman to see couple of turns later barbarians with axmen on my outer fronts. (sure pure luck?)

And fianlly the f****** micromanagement of workers - you just can't automate them.


So this game is balanced in early game with hordes of barbaris?
(And still don't belive them attacking AI as much - as in one direction they come from a competing AI (britts) direction.)

What's the idea? How is one to play it?
(I do accept some but this is outreageous and it ain't fun)

[Blake]

If you can't handle barbarians, don't play settings which encourage them. The vast majority of the time if you play standard (ie non-custom) games on most maps you will get "normal" barbarian activity which is far from unmanagable.

Main exceptions are Highlands, Lakes, Oasis, Great Plains, even with normal settings these can (but wont always) result in half-raging barbarians.

And I've said it before and I'm about to say it again, if barbarians are severely disrupting your workers then don't get workers and use the workers you do have to chop. This may sound stupid, but it isn't. Barbarians are countered by expansion - new cities clear fog. If you have barbarian problems (especially atypical problems for the map type) then you also have plenty of land to expand into and once you've claimed all that land you'll have plenty of territory for a powerful cottage-fueled economy to dig yourself out of the economic hole caused by the expansion.

Usually once you have 4-5 well-placed cities you can start improving the interior, so you wont quite go without workers until all land is claimed - you just need to keep the expansion front well ahead of the terrain-improvement front.

edit: If you want to see a great example of extreme barbarian management check the link in my sig - the game "Epic 4 - Rome vs. the Barbarians" was a game on Deity Level with Raging Barbarians, Rome was given a fair bit more space than the AI's - enough to basically out-expand the AI's, at least until they get Astronomy (not long, given they're Deity). This is really a good example as any of how more space means more barbarians, but that space can then be leveraged into a stronger economy, despite the barbarian pressure.

[Cort Haus]

Originally posted by Blake
"Epic 4 - Rome vs. the Barbarians"

Unfortunately I don't get any screenshots on that page. Is it just me?

[Cort Haus]

Well, I read it without pictures and it was a very entertaining and instructive account of a brilliantly played game. Reminiscent of Aeson's "So very cold .." deity romp in Civ3.

Great stuff, Blake.

[binTravkin]

The act of whipping some population to death will always increase both your approval rating and life expectancy. Whoever devised these demographics formulas was smoking something funny.

And I saw the screenies.

EDIT: Actually I can imagine it - life expectancy went up because all the weak serfs died, natural competition you know, while approval rating probably is a function of fear.

"It's better to be feared than to be loved."

[couerdelion]

The is also the other problem that you are trying a CS slingshot with raging barbs. Of course it is possible but the biggest problem most people find with this tactic is that it relies on carefully managed defenses. But Raging Barbs does not allow you the flexibility to run with weak defenses so you are likely to suffer when adopting such a linear strategy.

I would first advise getting familiar with the Raging barb option before you decide if the option of the CS slingshot is open to you.

But don’t forget also that raging barbs attack other civs too so they will be suffering as well. You’ll notice lots more barbarian cities around and they will last a lot longer than those on the standard scenario. They’ll also capture some civilised cities too and I often see messages as late as Renaissance telling me something like “The Roman Empire has captured the city of Antium”

[Randolph]

I don’t think anyone mentioned this, so I’ll note that, if you’re playing with Warlords, then chariots are a great anti-barbarian unit. They have an advantage over all the barb units (particularly those nasty axemen), and their speed allows them to defend more terrain.
If you’re Cyrus, Immortals make barbarians walking experience points.

[Blake]

Actually I can imagine it - life expectancy went up because all the weak serfs died, natural competition you know, while approval rating probably is a function of fear.

"Do you approve of the policies of our dear leader OR would you rather be whipped to death?"

I... uh... approve?



Chariots in Warlords, yeah they rule. Especially those Immortals and War Chariots.
Numidian cavalry do okay too and are especially nice because they are extremely easy to upgrade to sentry - the ultimate fog busters. Any protective leader's archers can pretty much shrug off barbs too - since in Warlords Drill I lets them get useful promotions and thus defend flat land more easily.

[Arrian]

Three basic rules to raging barbs:

1) Build more units;

2) Get them up on hills around your lands to clear as much fog of war as possible (plus, those tend to be defensible tiles - forest hills if possible!)

3) Chariots, if possible. They will wreck the barbs for a long time (warriors, archers, axes. Only have trouble with swords, and swords show up late).

-Arrian

[Cort Haus]

How much do people spend on pickets?

I expect costs for units abroad are part of the game in raging barbs, but in normal games I tend to fight the barbs 'at home' to keep the science rate strong.