You really have to try this - killer barbarians

[The Priest]

If you want to try something different, you really do need to try this.

Its the simplest of adjustments to produce a game where the barbarians really do rock. I normally play happily on Emperor, I've dropped down to Monarch, and I am still losing. But its not silly, you can manage to keep going and build a civ, but they just wear you down.

Under custom game, just choose large pangea map, but have only you and 2 other civs. (sure it would work the same with huge, if that is what you like, with say 3 or 4 other civs). And raging barbarians. That is, almost, it. Without the other civs fog busting for you, the barbarians keep coming. At the same time relations with other nations are hard (can you find them?), strategic resources are very rare, and generally the world is just a hard place.

The one adjustment you do need to make is to stop anyone building the great wall. I've never modded anything before and yet its simple:

1. Go to Sid Meier's Civilization 4/beyond the sword/assets/xml/buildings/ and copy the file CIV4BuildingInfos.xml

2. Go to Sid Meier's Civilization 4/beyond the sword/ and click on the 'custom assets' shortcut. This takes you to the right place for custom assets.

3. Go to xml/buildings (it will be an empty folder) and paste the file you copied.

4. Open the file (in word pad). Search for 'Great_Wall'. It will take you to BUILDINGCLASS_GREAT_WALL

5. Scroll down and you will see NONE

6. Change NONE to TECH_MASONRY (you will notice that this repeats the line below which says that masonry is the prerequisite tech).

7. Save.

(At any time, just delete the file you created, and you are back to normal civ).

[The Priest]

A screen short to frighten you

And I survived

[The Priest]

The only tip I would give is - choose a civ with an early UU which doesn't need any resources. Though given I still haven't managed to beat it, take that with a pinch of salt.

[Metaliturtle]

Yaaaaaaaay!!

At ApolyCon 06 all of the Firaxis guys were curious what happens if a barb takes a city in the one city elimination rule MP games. Could you try a hotseat game with these settings and find out?

[Theben]

Re: A screen short to frighten you

Originally posted by The Priest
And I survived

Are you playing OCC or just deciding against expansion for now?

Sitting Bull is probably the easiest to defend against barbs. Build a few Dog Soldiers and then you don't have to worry about warriors, spearmen, or swordsmen.

Give them combat 1, then cover 1, and lastly medic 1 and they'll be able to handle most anything. Have 1 or 2 with woodsman III if you have a lot of forest/jungle around you to fight them away from your cities.

For other civs the best way to protect needed resources (copper) is probably to settle on top of the tile.

[The Priest]

Theban, all I can say is you have to try it.

Are you playing OCC or just deciding against expansion for now?

No - its that desparate. That pic is turn 81, 1925 BC, and yes in any normal game I would have expanded well by then, but it is so hard with the barbs. (no its not OCC).

Build a few Dog Soldiers and then you don't have to worry about warriors, spearmen, or swordsmen.

If only. Build a few dog soldiers every turn and you might be right.

I am sure I can improve my performance on this, and I am enjoying working out how, but those first four thousand years are like nothing I have experienced before.

[Theben]

Well, I gave this a shot. I decided on Zara, for no real reason (tired of Sitting Bull mainly). Huge map, 3 other civs, and instead of file editing I zoomed in on a square, went to worldbuilder, created a settler and city, put in the GW and then deleted the city. Leaves the graphic on the terrain tho.

Since I started with a scout I was able to tip a lot of huts, and got a lot of scouts & money (by the time the barbs came I had tipped 6 scouts, Animal Handling, and about 500 ) By turn 150 I had managed to build 2 more cities, but just lost the 2nd one. On average I've had about a dozen barbs in view each turn.

I did manage to meet 2 other civs, China is doing about as well as me but Persia actaully has 5 cities total(!). With the exception of me building the Oracle (which probably cost me my 2nd city), no one has built a wonder yet.

[ben04]

I tried it with Pericles. Creative helps to pop borders and with philo you can run a specialist economy which also runs if you don't control every tile.

I went archer and phalanx heavy early on. By the turn 100 I had 3 cities and enough troups on my borders (not in my cities so I could work and improve every tile) to keep any barbarian invasion outside. At that point I quit because the barbs no longer were a threat. I had only about 20 turns left until I could build crossbow archers so even if the barbs came in mass with axe- and shortmen defenses would resist.

Probably a torus highland map would be better for this type of game. There's more land and no water you can use as barrier. For example if on a pangea map you start near the sea then you only need to defend your empire to one side.

[The Priest]

Well you seem to have done better than me, Ben, though you don't say how the other civs were doing? Where you well ahead of them as well?

Also what level were you playing at?

[ben04]

Prinz (although it shouldn't affect the number of barbs that pop up), pangea, standard map size (my computer doesn't like large in the later game), total of 3 civs (me included), raging barbs.

In the screenshot you posted you made the error of letting the barbs come near your city. You are nearly completely missing the benefit of improved tiles.

Stonehenge is useless in your situation because you aren't charismatic and therefore can't use the +1 . Also with only a few AIs around you can get a religion to pop borders. You should have invested those hammers in barracks, archers and dog soldiers.

I went worker, barracks, 3 archers, 1 settler then mass production of Phalanx and archers in my capital. My capital did have an iron in it's fat cross and I had 2 early luxuries hooked up. This allowed it to build units pretty fast.

Position your soldiers on non forested hills near your culture borders, ideally outside of your borders. Being on a hill allows them to fogbust quiet a lot. This will make the barbs pop up further away from you and allows you to know about 5 turns in advance where a barb could possibly threat an improvment. Only being on a hill gives them a defense bonus of +50% (25% hill + 25% fortification) this is enough to mass murder barbs but not strong enough that barbs simply wouldn't attack them. Some will always pass them. In this case you will need to attack them. It is important to have roads in place for this. Chariots are great for this but archers or dog soldiers will do if you don't have horses.

The AIs did pretty well. Mostly because the continent had a U form. Me being just in the middle and the 2 AIs on the one side of the U. Needless to say that the barbs mainly came for me because they were spawn on the other side of the U.

[Theben]

Yes, I was stuck in the middle of the continent. Copper was nearby, but I had a hard time defending it.

Had I built a 4th city to my north, and reinforced the 3rd adequately, my capital would have been relatively safe and free to build itself up.

I was on Monarch.

[ben04]

Try highlands on emperor. Now that's what I call lots of barbs! I kill about 2-4 every turn and they just keep coming.

Also there were mainly archers and not warriors. I don't know why though. Good that I chose Mansa because I don't know how otherwise I would have defended against stacks of around 4 archers.

I have an empire of 4 cities up and running and could defend 3 fat crosses completely and about half of a fourth city.

[The Priest]

Sounds like two great games Ben.

I think that the barbs are worse on Monarch/Emperor, and yes i agree that the size of the map and the shape makes a lot of difference - without some 'safe' sea borders it is grim.

It all certainly makes an interesting tactical challenge. I can assure you that I wasn't intending on letting the barbs that near my city - I had been holding them at the borders and had improved tiles, but they just kept slipping past defenders (and counter-attacking archers in woods is grim) and pillaging! Stonehenge - yes a mistake, though the logic behidn it was that it gave totem poles in each city, which is a real advantage - well it would have been if I hadn't been so crushed by the barbs that I had been able to build some more.

The big uncertainly with these games I think is the strategic resources - copper, iron, horses. Since there are only three civs, these are often very rare, but without them its very hard to keep ahead.

The positive side as Theben saw is the goodies! And I like the easy approach to getting rid of the great wall.

[rah]

Yeah, I like that trick too. Why screw around with files when you can edit it easily.

[Jaybe]

Another xml change to make:
In CIV4HandicapInfo.xml (in GameInfo folder), adjust the following for the difficulty level(s) you are playing:

iUnownedTilesPerGameAnimal
iUnownedTilesPerBarbarianUnit
iUnownedWaterTilesPerBarbarianUnit
iUnownedTilesPerBarbarianCity
iBarbarianCreationTurnsElapsed
iBarbarianCityCreationTurnsElapsed
iBarbarianCityCreationProb

iAnimalBonus
iBarbarianBonus
iAIAnimalBonus
iAIBarbarianBonus

I like to zero out the last four, giving both the AI and I equal opportunity against them (and they won't dogpile on ME because I'm easier pickings). The first seven items I generally reduce by a couple. Sometimes, this results in an AI being rubbed out by barbs, but adjusting these could allow for greater number of civs in your "fun scenario" without reducing the barbs.
[EDIT: the first seven I make a couple difficulty levels HARDER by reducing the numbers]

At any rate, I thought I'd share about the xml. Adjust as you like (I can imagine some might want to make the barb combat bonuses even MORE lopsided than is normal).