Where do you set Barbarians?

[MyOlde]

Barbarians are idiots. But, then, maybe I'm missing something. I set them at Sedentary so that they don't wander in and surprise me. (I just tried them at Roaming and all of a sudden there were Barbarian Knights when I had barely got spearmen going. I re-started and went back to Sedentary.)

But I'm wondering whether some kind of benefits increase the more violent the setting. Is there an extra benefit somewhere down the road to setting them at Roaming vs. Sedentary?

I tried No Barbarians once and got the impression that my warrior explorer found far fewer goody huts and so stayed with Sedentary.

What do you do? And why?

[planetfall]

I think it depends on which is more important to you a) techs or b) military upgrades.

If you are a builder, or mostly builder, I would suggest sendentary. You want the techs, warriors, settlers, but don't care about gold and unit upgrades.

If you are a warlord, you want them most aggressive. You are looking for early conflict opportunities to create 1) more elites, 2) a bit of gold when destroy barbarians, and 3) chance for GL.

Since I prefer builder over warlord, I usually play as sendentary. I tried one game roaming, and annoyance with Barbarians was greater than any advantage of having them moving. I did get a bit more gold and a few more elites, but hatted the hassle of being forced into early higher numbers of military units. I would rather build temples/roads/culture and some empire expansion in early game.

Your mileage may differ.

-- PF

[Inverse Icarus]

i usually do sedentary / romaning. i just hated my settler stacks being under constant siege.

in MP, they're going to be sieged all the time anyway by opponents, so why not crank up the barbariabs to all hell

[punkbass2000]

I typically go with random, though I've been using the AU Mod lately, and it's been seeming like there are no huts or barbarians, but I could be mistaken.

[Arrian]

MyOlde,

First off, unless you've modded the game, there shouldn't ever be barbarian Knights. Horsemen, yes.

Second, I believe that shutting off barbs totally also removes huts from the map.

I typically play with them on "roaming." I do warmonger, but anything over "roaming" and I start to have difficulties with the barbs. I'd rather just leave the setting down low... I always hated the barbs in Civ.

-Arrian

[Jon Shafer]

Either random or raging. There's nothing like finding a new continent with 20 stacks of 20 Barbarian horsemen each.

[vmxa1]

No leaders from barbs. I go with roaming. As Arrian said, no barbs no huts and sometimes I will do that for giggles. Raging is no value as really all you do is rush out and find the huts and stomp them and leave units around to prevent respawn. Roaming is reasonable as they can be controlled and give some action. You can go out and smash for the gold and let them respawn. Once in a while 8 horsemen come to see you. That adds a bit of excitement if you have only 2 units. It gets sticky if more than that show up and you have spearmen only.

[aahz_capone]

I'm always for raging, even though I'm a builder. It gives my units exp without having to war against the AI and it might just keep the AI on their toes too!

[Jaybe]

Raging or one setting less. And with no combat advantage over them (under the Difficulty Levels tab in the Editor), it can be touch and go. Of course, it is my hope that it also applies to the AI civs, so barbs can harrass them too.

[werdhertz]

I keep everything on RANDOM except my Civ... so... random!

[Jethro83]

I usually set them at Roaming. Though if I ever play as the Aztecs, I'll be going for Raging (once when I played as them, sending my jag. warriors out to hunt barbarian camps was the most profitable action in that game).

[jim_steer]

I normally play on roaming mainly because I like luring barbarians towards the AI's cities and workers and then watching all hell break loose
Sometimes if I am playing a mad warlord type game then I set it to raging, but I find that this normally distracts me from the true objective of the game which is crushing the AI.

[star mouse]

I AM A BARBARIAN NUT

Raging Hordes. And mod the game to make the barbs tougher.

In my mod:
* Halve the combat bonus against barbs at every difficulty level.
* Barbarian sea unit = Privateer.

If I really want a screaming insanity raw-meat Barbarian game, I set the barbarian units to Archer/Knight instead of Warrior/Horsemen. There's few things that strike fear into you more than two or three stacks of 24 Barbarian Knights closing in on your cities. You have a chance with four Spearmen and Walls.

I have also found it interesting to tweak the units that barbarians can build, because this list governs what you can pop out of a goody hut. My mod allows Barbarians to build Archers and Horsemen as well as Warriors.

[Stuie]

Raging hordes and modded similiar to Starmouse. And they're still too weak IMO....

I wish they could still destroy and/or capture cities instead of just taking some gold/production and disappearing.

[MyOlde]

You guys are insane!

Aren't the other civs tough enough for you? I don't need a bunch of barbs picking away at me when my Aztec or German neighbours can't wait to do it anyway.