Barbarians rule?

[The Priest]

I thought I would try out a fun experiment.

Huge pangea map, but with only me and two other civs, with raging barbarians. This will clearly lead to serious barbarian empires, there is no way that the three civs could get even half the terrain under control in unti the very end game. But will the barbarians remain a real threat? Can they launch invasions?

The only change I thought I needed to make is to ban the great wall. Otherwise, I am planning on going with fairly normal settings.

Anyone want to guess how it will work out? What civ should I play? Anyone tried something similar?

[Blaupanzer]

The higher the level you play, the more rapidly the barbs will found cities and the more defenders they will have per city. Up to Prince, it's two defenders; at monarch it's three; not sure if it goes to 4 other than at deity. Also, the number of barbs generated based on unclaimed, unseen tiles goes up on each rise. So your challege is probably great at Monarch, where the AI civs will start with archery and the barbs will put up a relatively stiff defense. However, if you play with reasonable conservatism, you will be able to build a pretty big empire with all the barb cities you conquer. They won't shift units from city to city like the AI. That is, you can feast on their cities if you can get and defend copper and horses in the early going.

[The Priest]

Lets hope.

The first good and bad news from just the first millenium.

The good news: goodie huts seem to be producing hugely more gold than normal. I'm playing at my normal level (emperor) so it can't be that. There must be some factoring in of something to do with numbers of civs, number of huts or something, or else i have been very lucky.

The bad news: it looks like there is a mechanism for deciding on the number of strategic resources (horse, copper etc.) in relation to the number of civs (e.g. one per civ). With only 3 civs, these are extremely rare, which is going to mean keeping the barbarians off is going to be even harder. Time to swap to a civ with an early UU which doesn't need a resource!

[jbp26]

this sounds like an extremely interesting scenario. just reaching another civ for trade options will be quite challenging, not to mention actually establishing trade routes. reduced resources is a good thing, theyre far too abundant as is.

[rah]

Or if the barbs take out the other two civs, it might kill the fun of it. But at least you'd get an early victory.

[Blaupanzer]

Would be bizarre to have an announcement to the effect: "Ding, dong, Japan is dead. You have won the game," before 1000 BC.

[The Priest]

Its a nightmare - you have never seen so many barbarians! This is going to be lots of fun.

[Jaybe]

Originally posted by The Priest
Its a nightmare - you have never seen so many barbarians! This is going to be lots of fun.

Screenshots! Where are the screenshots!

[ZEE]

this is a fantastic idea will do myself later

[Jaybe]

Did you know that barbs conduct research? They do it as if they were playing at CHIEFTAiN level (per BARBARIAN_HANDICAP in GlobalDefines.xml).

If they could build libraries, etc. ....
They might beat you to AC.

[Diadem]

There is this AWESOME scenario for vanilla civ called "Rome against the Barbarians".

It's a deity level game on raging barbarians, with a few twists.

Isabella and another religious nutcake have been locked away in a corner of the map, made unreachable by an impassible barrier of mountains. You can't interact with them in any way during the entire game, but they will grab all religions.

Ghandi and another quite pacifistic civ share a continent somewhere in another corner. You'll eventually meet them, but it'll take time. And they won't be a threat, since they are quite pacifistic. Only time and conquest victory are avaible, so they won't UN or spacerace win either. They will probably grab all wonders though.

About 3/4 of the map is one single huge continent, with only you on it. And barbarians. Lots and lots of barbarians.

The goal of the map is to survive. And trust me, that is quite hard.

Awesome game. Just awesome.

[ZEE]

the Great Wall is the only way to make this type of game winnable

[MoonWolf]

Could be a mod. No Great Wall but you'll get XP and Great General points as normal.

[jbp26]

Originally posted by Diadem
There is this AWESOME scenario for vanilla civ called "Rome against the Barbarians".

was this a scenario? i could have sworn it was a realms beyond game.

[jbp26]

Originally posted by AAHZ
the Great Wall is the only way to make this type of game winnable

getting the great wall would defeat the purpose of this type of game. if anything, you should use world builder and make the gw inaccessible.