Barbarians attack backwater town, destroy Empire

[Throne of Zeus]

So far Conquests is fantastic. Hit my first 'bug', at least I hope it is, tonight.

I was playing Hittites on a relatively easy level. Built up about ten cities. I had about 200 gold.

I got a message about a massive barbarian uprising near some backwater town I just started and ended up with about 20 horse type units there. They defeated my one warrior naturally. Then all the rest of the barbarians repeatedly plundered the town. Every one of them that came through took about 15 gold, all in a single turn. I was down to about 20 gold in the whole Empire when they were done. All in one turn.

It was like my entire Empire's treasury was in this one lil population 1 town laying out for them to plunder.

I've been playing Civ since the first edition. I don't remember anything like this happening, even though I usually play with the barbs on low level.

Tell me this isn't a new "feature" please.

[notyoueither]

This is a very old feature and has been around since day 1.

The loss of gold is the penalty for Barbs over-running one of your cities. In Civ 1 they would destroy the city, IIRC. In Civ II they would capture it and start building units for themselves. In Civ3 they take a big chunk of gold, or pop, or destroy your current progress towards whatever you are building if you don't have any gold left.

Learning how to manage Barbs is part of learning how to master the game. Kind of like how the Chinese Civ survived the Barbs, but the Roman civ did not IRL.

As a hint, the Massive Uprising happens when 2 civs have entered the next era. Only once per new era though, thankfully.

[Throne of Zeus]

Maybe I didn't make it clear. Of course the barbs have always taken some gold, presumably in some ratio to the size of the town vs. the overall empire.

These were repeated attacks on the same single turn, each one of which took as much gold as the whole barbarian attack used to take.

I suspect it is related to the fact that the town now survives the attack, whereas it used to be destroyed.

I may be a newbie to this board, I am not a newby to Civ. Certainly less experienced than some of the pros here, but this is new. Unless it was in PTW, which I never played.

[Alexander's Horse]

that must have hurt

[Throne of Zeus]

lol, yeah it did, but the bigger issue is whether this was intended. I can always learn to be more careful about where I build a new town if that is a new rule, but it is a bit ridiculous to lose most of your treasury in a tiny village in the sticks.

[Tassadar500]

Breakaway, Atari, Firaxis any confirmation on this?

[Alexander's Horse]

'confirmation' you mean

[Boris Godunov]

I agree that this is silly. I think the Barbs should plunder until the city is down to size 1, and then the city should get destroyed. I wish the barbs could occupy them like in Civ2, though...

[Tassadar500]

AH, it's pretty sad that you pratrol the forums for spelling mistakes

[Boris Godunov]

"patrol"

[Tassadar500]

Originally posted by Boris Godunov
"patrol"

Cogratulations for figoring out the joce

[kring]

This is in vanilla Civ 3 and PtW both. It is not new to Conquests. I have had it happen several times in Civ3 and PtW.

[Jaybe]

Lessons in Barbarian Management 101:
1. Do not let the barbarians in.
2. If it's an uprising, and you fear you cannot keep them out, SPEND most of your gold before they take it from you.

BTW, I once lost a Wonder build to barbarians.

[Throne of Zeus]

I have lost many wonders to barbarians when they attacked cities that contained the wonder. That has nothing to do with the issue I am raising.

Some folks seem to think I am complaining about barbarians attacking or have never played Civ before. I'm not claiming to be a guru, but I have played several hundred games since the very first Civ came out. It is one of my top five favorite games.

I built the town
I built a barracks
I got a 'huge uprising warning'
I had one warrior in the town
I had about 20 (literally) barb horse show up
The warrior killed a few
The rest attacked repeatedly on the same turn and got over 200 gold out of about 230 in the whole treasury.

There were just a slew of attacks on a single town in the same turn, each one of which took a chunk of gold.
If this has 'always been part of the game' I've certainly missed it. Usually there was a single attack after the town was overrun, not 15 of them in one turn.

[Asmodean]

I think we all understand what you mean, ToZ. We are just trying to point out to you, that this is a) not a bug, and b) not a new feature.

I had this very same thing happen in my first game in vanilla Civ 3.

Asmodean