Where did all these Barbarians come from?

[hooha47]

I'm playing Persians (Immortals rock) on Regent, Huge world, 16 civs, I don't remember what setting for Barbs (but I know it's not raging). It's about 150 ad and all of a sudden in 4 different places on the map 16 Barbarian horsemen show up, 3 of them within striking range of my cities. Maybe I should be more prepared for this, but I've never seen anything like this. That's a total of 64 Barbarian horsemen showing up within a matter of 2 turns. They ransacked 2 cities and made off with about 1000 gold!

Has anyone else ever seen anything like this?

[Redstar]

yup

i had barbarians on middle setting.

24 showed up together on 1 turn.

24 showed up across the way on the next turn.

all units were wiped out by 1 unit in a walled city.

[Dis]

hehe

I have yet to play with them higher than the second setting of barbs.

there is no score bonus, am I correct? This is the only reason I played raging whordes in civ2- for the bonus. I hate barbarians.

but I'm so glad that they can't take over your cities anymore. so you're not screwed if somehow they take an important city.

[Jaybe]

Oh Oooh!
I presume you guys are talking post patch. I used the Editor and made it so there is no player advantage over the barbarians. I may really have my hands full in my next (new) game. It will probably be Regent with Raging Hordes!

[kailhun]

Barbarians are great. Find their villages and raid them, then pull back and wait. They reappear and you get to raid them again. I was the richest civ just because of my barbarian raids (me raiding them that is).

Of course, the other civs thought it was fun raiding me.

Robert

[Swissy]

I've had that happen. But I usually get the "barbarian uprising" warning from the military advisor. In the early game you usually get a few warriors wandering out of the camp before the hordes come, but after I leave ancient era I don't see barbarian warriors anymore. If I am playing an expansionist civ I station scouts in the uncultured areas so if an encampment shows up I can move it out and send a horseman to wipe the barbs out.

[Barnacle Bill]

Historically, Barbarians were a significant threat to civilizations until gunpowder. A civilization is highly specialized - only a minority of the population is actually armed and trained. Even in ancient civilizations where citizenship was closely linked military participation (classical Greek city-states, pre-Marius Roman Republic, etc...), the majority of the population were disarmed persons of less-than-citizen status. A barbarian society has little or no specialization, and if its culture is warlike than almost all adult males are trained and armed. Thus, a barbarian society produces many more troops per capita than a civilization, and it is this that made them a huge threat.

After the technological developments which made gunpowder weapons dominant, barbarians were only a local threat in frontier areas. Gunpowder and the weapons to use it, even a relatively primative level, requires a fairly specialized infrastucture to produce in quantity and a barbarian society just can't - they have to get arms & ammo from civilized folks and usually have a shortage of both as compared to regular troops of a civilization. In frontier areas where civilized folk (and the military specialists among them) were thin on the ground, though, barbarians could generate local advantages in numbers to somewhat offset this disadvantage. However, industrialization, railroads and other technologies steadily increased the disparity.

It looks to me like Civ3 has it right.

[madmario]

Re: Where did all these Barbarians come from?

Originally posted by hooha47
Has anyone else ever seen anything like this?

Yep. Happens in the early mid game. Only happened once. Since then I've been playing on denser maps (more civs and more water = more dense).

yeah.
freaked me out. but it was cool.

-mario

[Moraelin]

Barbarians also depend on the difficulty you play on, but only on Deity they actually have any real punch. (And even then, it's... what? Warriors and Horsemen?) On Chieftain you actually have a +800% bonus against barbarians (i.e., hit and defend 9 times as hard against barbarians), which means one Warrior of yours has no problem taking on a whole horde of their horsemen. On Regent, you still have a pretty massive bonus against them.

Basically what I'm getting at is: if those ransacked your cities, then your cities probably weren't properly defended to start with. The AI civilizations can hit a LOT harder than any barbarian uprising, so it's a good idea to up your defenses ASAP.