Has anyone beaten the "Barbarians" scenario?

[MasterDave]

So I spent a frustrating evening the other day getting my butt handed to me in this scenario. I was playing on "medium" difficulty, giving the AI the middle number of turns to propigate.

Since you only have one spawn point (the camp- and if it dies you lose immediately), and units that try to operate away from the camp and its stack seem to die off fairly quickly, the game feels like a sort of whack-a-mole. You have one big army that travels around razing cities, and can easily win battles wherever it goes. However, the big problem is that while your army is destroying one city, the other four civs are building four new cities every few turns. The other problem is that your army never learns any techs, so later in the game your crossbows and axemen have to contend with knights, macemen, and other nastiness that you have no counter for.

I guess my question is how do you win this scenario? Does anyone have any tips? When I was imagining this scenario before release, I was thinking that I would be able to spawn in any "dark" place in the world just like normal barbs. However, the single travelling camp is very different than what I was expecting.

[Kuciwalker]

I tried this and got bored quickly, because it is, as you said, "whack a mole." I'm trying out Ghengis Kahn now, which looks like a much better version of Barbarians.

[Addled Platypus]

Originally posted by Kuciwalker
I tried this and got bored quickly, because it is, as you said, "whack a mole." I'm trying out Ghengis Kahn now, which looks like a much better version of Barbarians.

having fun with it as well

[Arrian]

Yep, definitely felt like whack a mole.

-Arrian

[Qwertqwert]

Yes I agree. The barbarian is the worst scenario in my oppnion. The best ones I'd say are the Chinese Unification or the Genghis Khan.

But yes I have beaten it, on small/65 turns was the hardest setting.

[Alexander I]

Alexander seems like an interesting scenario. At least it seems feasibly.

I had a good start as Carthage in the Rise of Rome scenario, crushing Spain, taking key lands from Greece, and vassalizing the Gauls. Trouble was, as soon as I declared war on Rome, I got thoroughly thrashed. Yes, Augustus had gobs of Praetorians hiding away to utterly rock my massive army. Oh, well.

[Thrak]

I found it ok, a few things I found useful:

Galleys hold 5 troops, so I kept my camp on an island for safety (or even on the galley )

Buy some scouts, find the capitals fast, hit them first.

After killing a couple of capitals wipe out civs with one group and keep hitting capitals with the other.

Use those 5 space galleys to avoid fighting AI stacks - get no cash for that.

Spend a lot of money on horsearchers with mobility from scratch, and pillage land to a) make money b) keep those civs you are not attacking poor and so forth.

[Smellycowsquid]

I actually believe you earn money for killing enemies, 10 or 20 gold I believe, but I may be wrong.

[Qwertqwert]

Originally posted by Smellycowsquid
I actually believe you earn money for killing enemies, 10 or 20 gold I believe, but I may be wrong.

30 gold...

[Snotty]

feel free to abuse the 0 gold galley. move him 3 squares and delte him and create another free one. he can travel across ocean so you can keep him and some units safe or you can circumnavigate the globe quickly and easily

I start by buying a trebuchet or two and buying 3 city raider promotions for them. I grab a chariot with +1 visibility, and blow the rest of my cash on anti melee. That gets my advance going, and then i just need to keep scouting in my trail of destruction to keep the AI from dropping settlers back there. They are not often well defended

[Qwertqwert]

Originally posted by Snotty
feel free to abuse the 0 gold galley. move him 3 squares and delte him and create another free one. he can travel across ocean so you can keep him and some units safe or you can circumnavigate the globe quickly and easily

The only problem if your camp would have to be next to it each time, if it was inside the boat you'd loose it, and the camp doesn't have unlimited movement a turn. Also, if you try to load it on/off the boat constantly it won't work eigher because you have to loose the rest of the movement for that turn loading on or off.

But I have had my camp on an island before (though the best way is to keep it with your stack) and had a trimme of some other nation near it, so I constantly bought a new galley and attacked, it died and I'd get another and attack and so on.

[Will9]

You can put your camp in a lake where no AI can attack it.

[Will9]

I just noticed that pillaging city ruins brings in 40 gold!

[MoonWolf]

I can't load it . Do you have to explore the map as a normal civilization or do you know it from the start?

[hoyatables]

Beat it last night, though admittedly on 40 turns and on a small one continent map.

It is pretty straightforward, and it provides some great combat training. I prefer to go with a few horse archers at the beginning. Send them out to explore, and they can earn you enough gold to build your first real stack. pay particular attention to razing improvements to military resources like horses and iron. makes the attacking a lot easier.

Then i build my stacks. Typically two trebuchets, two swordsmen, and two axemen get the job done. Definitely a wise idea to do at least two "city strike" upgrades--it makes attacks a lot easier. If a city has strong defense, then bombard to soften them up. and lead attacks with the trebuchets.

I would also build your free galley ASAP and send him out to circumnavigate and get the +1 movement bonus.

As for your camp, some beefed up archers and a hill are a fairly cheap and good way to stay safe. I move him around as I inch towards my next victim.