Barboolian Punctuality

[Wishbone]

This is probably another of my subjective impressions but as subjectivity goes, this one is getting pretty annoying. To me, the early game has come to seem a life or death race with the emergence of the durned Barboolians. I have, as a consequence and with few exceptions, begun to beeline for Bronze Working and, if there is no handy copper, for Iron Working. Can't get those axemen soon enough. This has sometimes worked for me but I begin to notice that, even when I get them, using them to advantage is very often a matter of luck. The typical pattern seems to be that, no sooner have I begun to build an axeman (build, not push out the door), than the bruddy Barboolians start to pour out of the darkness. Not only that but they seem to evolve from warriors to archers and axemen with lightening speed. It's as if they know what I'm up to. I mean, they couldn't know that could they? In support of this impression, I also seem to notice that when I am not successful in building up my defenses early, I rarely see more than the odd warrior until I do. I know, it's probably all me fancy but, if so, could somebody please slap me, wake me up and tell me how to deal with the leetle bugs more effectively. I is tired of getting killed quite so much. I am playing Civ IV vanilla and usually huge marathon and noble (I know, I'm a cowardly punk). Thanks in advance.

[Will9]

How many civs do you usually have in each game?

[Crossfire]

Well, you can always play a custom game and turn the stupid barboolians off all together. I do that about half of the time.

[Lord Avalon]

You could upgrade from vanilla, so chariots get +100% attack vs axemen.

[Wishbone]

Usually nine or ten civs including meself. Nine gives you some time to grow without irritating the neighbors (excepting Barboolians) while ten is a bit cozier (this on huge). I know I could add more civs or turn off the little widges but, while I guess I am a builder, I think that without pirates I might become a bit too apathetic (which I suppose explains the Barboolian raison d'etre). What I'd really like to know, however, is whether anyone else has noticed this parallelism between local defense and Barboolian procreation. I'm thinking about a possible strategy of ramping up the means to produce axemen (or whatever) but holding off building them until I can crank them out toute suite. Hmm, sounds like a bad idea even as I write it.

[snoopy369]

Wow, 10 civs on huge? That is a barbarian invasion waiting to happen

The main way to fight barbs is to fogbust. Barbarians occur based on the number of unseen tiles on the map (hence why 10 civs = more barbs compared to 14 or 18 civs; more uncovered tiles), and only occur at uncovered places.

They are created randomly, not based on your defenses or anything else; you just are more likely to be annoyed when they appear at an undefended locale

Fogbusting means taking some units - archers, warriors, scouts, anything really - and placing them strategically around your territory, BEYOND your territory, that is, so they uncover more tiles. It overall decreases the total number of barbarians on the world (by reducing the number of uncovered tiles) and also gives you more time to see them when they do appear (think of this as an early warning system).

If you want to actually modify the barbs, and play only single player, you can modify the XML file directly.

NOTE: BACK UP ALL FILES YOU CHANGE BEFORE YOU CHANGE THEM IN CASE YOU BREAK SOMETHING!!!

In Notepad or other text editor (or XML editor if you have this), open the file (modify directory as appropriate for your installation):
C:\Program Files\Firaxis Games\Sid Meier's Civilization 4\Assets\XML\GameInfo\Civ4HandicapInfo.xml

There you find the way to adjust how many barbarians spawn, and how many turns until they spawn.

Adjust the number in the Noble group (HANDICAP_NOBLE) and under the key iUnownedTilesPerBarbarianUnit. By default on Noble it is 60 (and 50 for Animals). You also see the Water tile number.

You can also adjust the BarbarianCreationTurnsElapsed number to a larger one if you want more of a delay in barbarians being created.

[Tokyo Sexwale]

I always assumed barbarian technology parallels yours (and/or the AIs). If I don't have archers right away when the barbs first show up, there's typically only warriors coming at me until I get archery. Or if I'm way late with that tech they'll show up eventually.

Same with Axemen - they will always show up shortly after I get BW. If I wait to get BW they don't show up til later.

[Wishbone]

Many thanks to Snoop for the nuts and bolts reply. If I'm getting your point, Barbs are reduced IN GENERAL by reducing the number of total unseen tiles on the map entire (even if I am personally surrounded by a significant amount of darkness early in the game). Is correct? Anyway, last night I tried bumping up the total civs to 12 and it does seem to be working. If the case I reframed above is true, this should have reduced (and so far appears to be reducing) the number of badboys creeping up and, in particular, the sort of waves (and I mean wave after wave) I've been plagued with heretofore. I've also started producing cheaper units like archers (never used to even bother researching archery until much later in the game) and sending them out to push back the night (though it should be noted that one can't afford to crank out many units of any type in the very early game-reinforcing, I think, the case for bumping up the number of civs). Now, if only the new neighbors don't become too ornery too early (told you I was a punk), my stress level should be considerably reduced. Thanks again to you all for kind input.

[Wishbone]

Yes, Tokyo. This is, as I have mentioned, also my experience and I am still wondering if, while the volume of barbs seems to be a function of unseen tiles, the TYPE might not be keyed to civ tech levels either in general or in terms of local achievement. I'd be interested in Snoopy's (or any of the cognoscenti's) wisdom in this regard.

[snoopy369]

Wishbone - yes, in general. However, it certainly affects your local barbs (random chance means they spawn more in areas where more dark squares are).

I believe barbarian types are controlled by difficulty levels and time - ie, at some harder difficulty level, they appear earlier than at an easier level. It is in the XML somewhere, but I don't recall the specifics.