Raging barbs do what exactly?

[guermantes]

How is my game affected by turning on raging barbs?

Do they,

1) Spawn more frequently?
2) Spawn earlier?
3) Spawn more powerful units?
4) Tend to focus their attacks on me?
5) All of the above?

Thanks!

[snoopy369]

I'm not 100% sure (or 99.44% even), but I believe it is 1,2,3 (not 4). I'm not entirely sure about 2. in particular; they definitely spawn more frequently, and I believe they get more powerful units (or rather, get more powerful units earlier; I think they ultimately have the same limitations in that they always get riflemen eventually, but you will see axemen/spearmen/horsemen sooner). I don't think the initial spawn is any sooner, but the initial city-attack wave may be sooner (normally they aren't permitted to go onto your territory for a period of time).

They also are more likely to attack, by the way. Barbarians (particularly animals) have a percentage chance of choosing to attack you when they are able to (hence why sometimes that bear won't eat your scout for lunch seemingly for no reason). With raging barbs, I'm fairly sure that percentage is less, or even zero (not sure there). I think it also has other affects on their wandering algorithm (more likely to target cities, perhaps?). I don't recall if it affects the likelihood of stopping to pillage versus going straight to the city, or not.

They definitely do NOT focus their attacks on you (as opposed to the AIs), however. Most players consider raging barbs to be a player advantage assuming you're not above your comfortable difficulty level; the AI deals worse with them than you do, particularly as you can build the Great Wall which the AI usually ignores.

[Theben]

AFAIK they just spawn more frequently. However it's a LOT more frequent. On average, and depending on how much fog is near you, be prepared to face 2-4 barbs per turn.

[Theben]

Originally posted by snoopy369
They also are more likely to attack, by the way. Barbarians (particularly animals) have a percentage chance of choosing to attack you when they are able to (hence why sometimes that bear won't eat your scout for lunch seemingly for no reason). With raging barbs, I'm fairly sure that percentage is less, or even zero (not sure there).

Definitely not zero. I've had Dog Soldiers stand next to barb units and had them not attack. I assume it had more to do with % chance of success than anything else, particularly wrt melee units.

[snoopy369]

There are two separate chance calls, actually. There is a call that decides if it will consider attacking or not (strictly a random chance), and then a separate call if it will attack given the odds.

[Diadem]

I know those are based on difficulty. On settler they attack you less often than on deity

But does raging barbs also affect them?

And what about the not entering borders thingie? This is something new to BtS right? At least in vanilla and warlords I never noticed barbs doing this (well animals, of course, but not real barbs).

[Tattila the Hun]

They RAGE!

[Blaupanzer]

Barbs appear more frequently as the number of unseen squares required per barb goes down. They are tougher, as the delay from someone getting a tech to the barbs having it too is shorter. Units will also wait for each other if one unit is not strong enough to attack. Multiple units will rout around defenders to pillage tiles more often than with regular barbs.

In other words, they are "Mad as Hell, and they are not going to take it anymore."

[Saurus]

They appear MUCH more frequently. If you play on a map with a big landmass, then you will have to concentrate fending of barbs all the time coming in from all directions.

If you are in a pocket (blocked of by another civ from one direction, the sea from another for instance) then you might on the other hand not see any increased barbarian activity at all.


My experience is that the "raging barbarians"-setting can be a lot of fun - or disasterous for the game depending on if a given civ have the required resources nearby in order to build units (axemen) witch are able to combat the onslaugt.

In my current game, raging barbarians destroyed 2 civs before year 0, witch was not a good thing for the game.

[Willem]

Originally posted by snoopy369
I'm not entirely sure about 2.

I doubt it. That's pretty much set in the HandicapsInfo.xml. I'm pretty sure the Raging Barbs setting only affects the frequency and numbers.

They also are more likely to attack, by the way. Barbarians (particularly animals) have a percentage chance of choosing to attack you when they are able to (hence why sometimes that bear won't eat your scout for lunch seemingly for no reason). With raging barbs, I'm fairly sure that percentage is less, or even zero (not sure there).

Normal Barbs will always attack. Only the animals have a setting to determine the odds, not the regular ones.

[Willem]

Originally posted by Diadem
And what about the not entering borders thingie? This is something new to BtS right? At least in vanilla and warlords I never noticed barbs doing this (well animals, of course, but not real barbs).

The only time that happens is when a civ builds the Great Wall. Barbs can't enter into the cultural boundaries of any civ that has that Wonder. For all other civs though it's business as usual.

[Grim Legacy]

Originally posted by Willem


The only time that happens is when a civ builds the Great Wall. Barbs can't enter into the cultural boundaries of any civ that has that Wonder. For all other civs though it's business as usual.

I think he meant the delay that seems to exist between the first sighting of barbarian units and them actually moving into your cultural boundaries. They don't seem to wander into them at first, as far as I've seen.

In fact, it seems like they wait to enter until they mount some sort of attack on your nearby city, but I am not sure about this.

This is just gameplay observations, I have not looked at any code that might reveal it.

[ColdPhoenix]

Barbarian animals appear earliest and don't enter your territory.

[Blaupanzer]

Early human barbarians do seem to "explore" a bit. But once one of them finds your city, the others within sight seem to make a beeline to your site. Animals never consciously enter your borders, but new border expansions do NOT push them out automatically, so be careful with that unguarded worker or badly damaged unit. They will wander out and not attack the city, but they are not "safe." If you have the Great Wall, border expansions will push all barbarians, human and animal, out of newly marked territorial expansions.

[Addled Platypus]

thay hardly attack the AI