Expansionist Civs -> Rampant Barbarians?

[hinder90]

Okay, so I decide to play a game with an expansionistic civ to see how that plays out and notice the large number of goody huts as advertised, and did a great deal of scouting. However, since I only scouted say a 20 square radius, I must have missed a few. These huts have seemed to turn in to veritable barbian fountains. I am playing at my usual "restless" barbarian mode, but the problem is out of control. Barbarians now arrive at my borders in packs of 10 or 15 and their always seem to be one in five barbarians that can kill an elite spearmen in one round. Even with my cities garrissoned with 3 spearman, it can't defend against the onslaught. Worse yet, they don't raze or capture the city,- each barbarian raids the city, usually taking about 8 percent of my treasure with it. After a few turns of this, I now have no more units and no money. I am hosed.

Obviously, had I sacked every single hut on my continent that would have nipped this in the bud, but what the heck happepend, and why?

[MeaCulpa]

Yeah, I had this problem once or twice before.

A few turns before they first appeared, you should have got a message "Babarian uprising near city x". And then you should prepare for the worst. About a dozen of rampaging barbarians.

I don't think it is connected to being expansionistic, barbarian huts or the difficulty level. IMO it's just bad luck.

[hinder90]

Thanks, glad to hear I am not alone here. The thing is, I am seeing the horsemen come -out- of goody huts that I didn't get to sack. I see them just as my scout gets squashed. I was able to sack a few of them, and all of them seemed to behave this way. While I did have an announced uprising on one specific occasion, there are masses of barbarians coimg at all times. The reason I felt it was connected to being expansionist was because there are more goody huts, thus you are more likely to have more or them beyond your expored terrritory. The more huts, the more barbarians. The more barbarians, the more icky icky pain.

[Padma]

Barbarian camps spring up in areas that have been explored (by you or the AI) but are not now "visible", i.e., the "fog of war" currently sits on them. Uprisings occur the *second* time any civ enters a new age. If two AI civs enter the Middle Ages before you, you will face hordes anyway.

[Wormwood]

I think you are a little confused...There is a difference between goody huts, which have the potential to release a small group of barbarians, in adiition to positive results, and barbarian encampments, which spawn barbarians and are created outside your cultural borders. I'm pretty sure that the expansionist trait doesn't guarantee more goody huts, but instead more positive results from the goody huts. If you have trouble with the barbs, set them. Or, better yet, take the initiative and attack their camps, an archer backed by a spearman is an effective barb hunter.

[Theseus]

hinder90, these are two different things...

There are goody huts, which an expansionist civ can "open" with Scouts, and will find beneficial, and then there are barbarian camps, which can only be taken out by a military unit defeating whatever barbs are there.

Any Horsemen you see are coming from camps, not huts.

[vondrack]

OK, here is how it works:

The goody huts you speak about never spawn any angry warriors for expansionistic civs (that's the advantage of expansionists). There should not be more huts, when you play an expansionist (AFAIK). You just get better things out of them (the worst you can get is nothing).

However, irrespective of what traits your civ has, there will be barbarian encampments spawning in the areas you haven't explored yet or cannot see (the parts of the map that are unexplored or covered with the fog). The only way to prevent barbarian encampments from appearing and reappearing is to place cities and/or units in such a way that they can directly "see" every land tile (effectively removing the fog altogether).

You may explore all the huts, but you will still have barbarian encampments appearing and reappearing in the areas that are out of everybody's (not just your)sight. You can actually sorta exploit this. Whenever a barbarian appears, track down his encampment, disperse it (sacking it for gold), and move your unit back, so as the encampment tile covers with the fog again. Chances are, the encampment will respawn and you will get another chance to train your troops and get some more gold.

Just do not let these encampments prosper for too long...

The barbarian uprisings you mention are something a bit different. As soon as TWO different civs enter a new era, there is a possibility of "barbarian uprisings". These come from the abovementioned unexplored/uncotrolled areas. If there are barbarian encampments there, they will - in a single turn - produce huge stacks of horsemen that will attack the closest city (be it yours or of another civ).

Just BTW, the difficulty level you are playing on influences the odds of winning against barbarians. The easier the level, the greater the chance of winning (you actually get a special bonus when fighting them). Just check the 'pedia for Barbarians, it should be mentioned there.

[MeaCulpa]

Are there really more huts when you are expansionistic ? I don't think so. From my rare experience with (IMO quite useless) exp., you don't get enemies from huts, but I doubt it changes its numbers. (If you can prove me wrong, please feel free to point me to that posting; I don't have much background on Civ3 (e.g. formulae), I just play it the way I want to without thinking or planing too much.)

Sure, when you don't remove the huts, there will be units popping out every few turns, and in unobserved areas, new tribes will settle down. But usually, they will come one by one; if they massed before attacking you, it would be a great coincidence and bad luck.

Unfortunatly, the uprisings I encountered so far have been a long time ago (about when the game came out), maybe they have tweaked them in the meantime ?

[Wormwood]

It creates a lot of confusion to call the barbarian encampments huts. GOODY HUTS look like several small huts, have different effects when you move a unit on top of them. They never have a barbarian on top them, fortified. ENCAMPMENTS do, and spawn barbarians, and when the last barb fortified on it is killed, they give you gold.

[Tuberski]

I believe that GOODY HUT occurence is affected by barbarian level.

setting barbarians to "rampaging" results in more goody huts than setting them on "restless".

At least that is what I read on this site.

[vmxa1]

It is real easy to check. Just go to the editor and generate a map. It has no idea if you are an Expansion civ, unless you place them. So that kills the get extra huts for expansionist. The part about more if barbs are set to higher levels, I have not checked, but I would be shcked if it did.