Barbarian continents

[nbarclay]

Originally posted by couerdelion
It was Terra and my poor little explorer did not get very far. Even my group of conquistadors didn’t have it all their own way but managed to safely take the first city and repel a few barbs reprisal attacks – sending swords against Choks, Macemen and Knights

Shame was that this stupid game them decided to go awol on me just after I got my shrine up and was starting to ship a few more units for more conquests in the east.

Stupid buggy game I’ve never made it far enough into industrial age to have any experience of things like infantry, tanks, biology, tanks, etc.

Can you not reload from an autosave when it crashes? If you have such persistent problems, and unless the problems are totally impossible to recover from, you could set your .ini file to have it autosave every turn. Then, after a crash, you can pick up where you left off.

[couerdelion]

Originally posted by nbarclay


Can you not reload from an autosave when it crashes? If you have such persistent problems, and unless the problems are totally impossible to recover from, you could set your .ini file to have it autosave every turn. Then, after a crash, you can pick up where you left off.

I daresay I could do that but I tend to find that the problems just get more and more frequent. By the time I have a large army, it’s pretty much every turn and then reloading things gets very annoying.

I haven’t found any obvious common-denominator and have played some games to the stage where I have a few city raider infantry, factories and drydocks and others where I have only just struck renaissance.

Sometimes I’ll get a “sticky” diplo-screen but this usually goes away if I save the game – don’t even have to reload it.

But the biggest cause is when I do some scouting about with the mouse and the screen sticks briefly while the computer does the inevitable humming noise before dumping me abruptly in the desktop. Often when I’m checking other cities for religions if I have to decide what sort of shrine I want or am looking about to see where to find the new resources (coal, uranium, oil).

[Six Thousand Year Old Man]

Those barbarian continents are a bit of a mirage, IMO []

I'm on a Terra map in my current Noble/Marathon/Huge game. I circled the globe about 100 years before the real-life Magellan, and of course, found the "new world" populated with lots of size 6-10 barbarian cities surrounded by Villages/Towns and Farms. Easy pickings, right? Wrong! I settled a city with 4 defenders - 3 Muskets and a Knight. It got overwhelmed fast. I tried the conquest route later - took a city and filled it with about eight units - Muskets, Catapult, 3 Knights and a Cossack ( ). I almost lost the damn place - barbs were sending stacks of 8 units at me. Had to promote the Knights to Cossacks (using 600 coins I didn't have), after which things stabilized. But the point is, I *never* had this much trouble with any of the AIs in my game. And needless to say, all those alluring Towns got thoroughly pillaged by the AI stacks.

Aaaand to top it all off, Saladin has settled a city practically on the same spot that I settled my initial attempt at colonizing. Garrisoned with ONE unit - a Longbowman. It's been there for at least two dozen turns now, and the barbs leave it alone - while sending stack after stack of Horse Archers/Macemen at my colony (now 4 cities strong) [/]

[Nugog]

Originally posted by Six Thousand Year Old Man
Those barbarian continents are a bit of a mirage, IMO []

I'm on a Terra map in my current Noble/Marathon/Huge game. I circled the globe about 100 years before the real-life Magellan, and of course, found the "new world" populated with lots of size 6-10 barbarian cities surrounded by Villages/Towns and Farms. Easy pickings, right? Wrong! I settled a city with 4 defenders - 3 Muskets and a Knight. It got overwhelmed fast. I tried the conquest route later - took a city and filled it with about eight units - Muskets, Catapult, 3 Knights and a Cossack ( ). I almost lost the damn place - barbs were sending stacks of 8 units at me. Had to promote the Knights to Cossacks (using 600 coins I didn't have), after which things stabilized. But the point is, I *never* had this much trouble with any of the AIs in my game. And needless to say, all those alluring Towns got thoroughly pillaged by the AI stacks.

Aaaand to top it all off, Saladin has settled a city practically on the same spot that I settled my initial attempt at colonizing. Garrisoned with ONE unit - a Longbowman. It's been there for at least two dozen turns now, and the barbs leave it alone - while sending stack after stack of Horse Archers/Macemen at my colony (now 4 cities strong) [/]

Yeah 6TYOM

Barb continents suck - they push the human plyer, ad ignore the AI, IMO

[couerdelion]

Well if we were to look at the situation logically, then the barbs clearly (and rightly) see your cities as the major threat to them. If it were just Saladin then I’m sure the Barbs would have destroyed his city long ago. Seems perfectly logical to me that you are being singled out even if, at times, it might be annoying for you.

I can’t say I experience too many problems but maybe I had the advantage of a greater tech lead when I got there. Maces, Knights, Choks and Longbow are always going to be able to take on the Swords and Axes of the barbs they throw at you.

Either that or I simply didn’t hang around long enough to see the huge stack of barbarians marching south down the ithmus to contend the ownership of my new city. But with several reinforcement on the way, I still think I would have held the place comfortably before embarking on the next round of new world conquest.

[Six Thousand Year Old Man]

Originally posted by couerdelion
Well if we were to look at the situation logically, then the barbs clearly (and rightly) see your cities as the major threat to them. If it were just Saladin then I’m sure the Barbs would have destroyed his city long ago. Seems perfectly logical to me that you are being singled out even if, at times, it might be annoying for you.

Well, by that logic, the barbs would always attack the strongest player. How sensible is that? One would think that barbs would attack weak cities and avoid strong ones - the better to gain pillage with.

Correct me if I'm wrong, but I had thought that a) barbarians don't play favourites and b) barbarians attack weak cities and leave strong ones alone.

[Nugog]

Originally posted by Six Thousand Year Old Man




Well, by that logic, the barbs would always attack the strongest player. How sensible is that? One would think that barbs would attack weak cities and avoid strong ones - the better to gain pillage with.

Correct me if I'm wrong, but I had thought that a) barbarians don't play favourites and b) barbarians attack weak cities and leave strong ones alone.

Yeah!!!



Barbs should fornicate over the weakest opponents - not focus on the strongest, if we are to take a logical view (Hmm I'm a barbarian chief - I have the choice of attacking the AI, who I can easily beat, or the human player, who is far more advanced that I - - - - - - I know I'll attack the human, God only knows I can't win, but at least it will give the AI an advantage)

[couerdelion]

Pillage money is short-term. The logic is that you are a threat to the very survival of the barbarians so it would make far more sense to do that then to grab a little extra gold to enjoy in a short existence.

It's the same logic that tells you, all things being equal, to hit the second strongest AI in the game once you have reached a certain threshold.

[Six Thousand Year Old Man]

Originally posted by couerdelion
Pillage money is short-term. The logic is that you are a threat to the very survival of the barbarians so it would make far more sense to do that then to grab a little extra gold to enjoy in a short existence.

It's the same logic that tells you, all things being equal, to hit the second strongest AI in the game once you have reached a certain threshold.

How do the barbarians know I'm a threat to their survival? I might just have been the first player to build Galleons. Wouldn't it make more sense for them to wipe out the small undefended Arab settlement before it becomes larger and filled with troops?

When it comes down to it, all nations are a threat to barbarian survival.

I'm sorry, but it seems to me that you're making excuses for pro-AI barbarian programming. I have read elsewhere that barbarians don't play favourites. And if they do attack the strongest opponent, that presupposes that they have knowledge of the map, which I have also read that the AI doesn't automatically have.

Incidentally, why would I attack the second strongest AI? I attack AIs that nobody else likes, and ones with something I want (i.e. a holy city).

[Quillan]

Why attack the second strongest? Well, it depends on the game, but everybody needs an enemy. Every nation develops a "most hated" nation, and usually the strongest is disliked for envy if nothing else. Leave them someone to hate, because if you wipe out their most hated nation, they pick a new one. It screws up diplomatic relationships.

Example: you're playing as Catherine, and are on good terms with Ghandi. Ghandi likes Cyrus, and you're also on good terms with Cyrus, but all three of you hate Alexander. You wipe out Alexander, the other two help, which strengthens your relations. Now, when Alex is gone, both Cyrus and Ghandi choose new "most hated" nations. Ghandi picks Cyrus, Cyrus picks Ghandi, and both constantly demand that you stop trading with the other. The best you can hope for is to lose all agreements with just one while remaining friends with the other. And this is all because you wiped out Alex.

[Jaybe]

Barbarians do not treat all enemies equally. They will generally prefer to attack a human player than an AI (given equal defending units). The AI gets a 40% combat bonus vs. barbarians at all difficulty levels (the player gets that much only at Settler level). I assume that barbarians sense this, therefore they will pick an easier target given otherwise equal opportunities.

Barbs will tend to focus on a single target city (generally the first one established) on their continent until it is taken. Other cities established will dilute their efforts somewhat.

[ElConejo]

Originally posted by Jaybe
Barbarians do not treat all enemies equally. They will generally prefer to attack a human player than an AI (given equal defending units). The AI gets a 40% combat bonus vs. barbarians at all difficulty levels (the player gets that much only at Settler level). I assume that barbarians sense this, therefore they will pick an easier target given otherwise equal opportunities.

Thus we have the one thing I just cannot stand about Civ games, how ridiculously dense the AI-cheating is..

[Six Thousand Year Old Man]

Originally posted by Jaybe
Barbarians do not treat all enemies equally. They will generally prefer to attack a human player than an AI (given equal defending units). The AI gets a 40% combat bonus vs. barbarians at all difficulty levels (the player gets that much only at Settler level). I assume that barbarians sense this, therefore they will pick an easier target given otherwise equal opportunities.

Barbs will tend to focus on a single target city (generally the first one established) on their continent until it is taken. Other cities established will dilute their efforts somewhat.

Hmmm.

AIs do better with the same units versus barbarians on all but the lowest levels. That much, I know.

I also have heard that barbarians go for the weak spot.

This seems to contradict what couerdelion is saying, though. Unless the barbarians are so incredibly dense as to assume that my city, garrisoned with Knights, Muskets, and Cossacks, is easier pickings than the AI city held with a Longbow, simply because I am human. If they are that dense, then there is an effective barbarian bias against the human player, no?

[couerdelion]

I wasn’t talking about how the game AI worked. I was merely arguing that the real threat to the barbarians was from the most developed civilisation they could see. Knowing that all civilisation is a threat to the barbarians, they should first concentrate on destroying the most advanced of to be, in turn, destroyed by them.

Quillan is sort of right in saying that there are many other factors which will make you pick an alternative target to the second strongest nation. Sometimes, you may be under cultural pressure from a nation so wish to remove that threat. Other times, you might find a most hated rival that can easily be carved up. But all things being equal, I will pick either the largest/strongest or the most technologically advanced. That way I can be more assured that my lead will increase.

[indeliblemerson]

There is a game that you can (could) download from the Apolyton Univ. AU 101 which has 2 continents.

The eastern most continent was all barbs. However there are a few barbs mixed in with you and the AI's on your starting continent. I lost a settler trying to expand.

I don't know what kind of map it was, terra or otherwise since Zargon set it up.

By the time I arrived by boat the barbs were strong and I think (?) they had guns. I know they were hard to fight.