Shy barbarians

[Medieval Celt]

>>BTW: i lost my first unit to a barb today ... weird... first time a unit lost to a barbarian warrior.. <<

Heh...try 'Raging Hordes' on Diety once....that will change your whole perspective on Barbarians, I assure you.

*grin*

I had a game going today that started out really well. Capitol in a fine place, near a floodplain with wheat and plenty of hills with Wine too. When I popped Ironworking from a hut, I found one of those blank hills now had Iron!

Game was going great, I'd gotten a free settler out of my first hut and managed to corner about three luxuries, two strategic resources and a goodly percentage of the map (for having 15 other civs) I was in the process of filling in before the Americans and Greeks could muscle their way in.

Then 1350 BC came around, 'twas a very bad year for the English, lemme tell you. THREE groups of twenty to twenty-five mounted barbarians appeared right outside two of my borders and my capital.

My northern town never had a chance. My capital had two swordsman and they went down in the finest tradition of the English soldier making elite whilst taking out about 5-6 barbs a piece. Not enough though, the remaining 10-12 plundered everything I had and left my formerly glittering capitol a smoking ruin.

All the plundering caused my secondary city to sell off it's Temple, leading to the town with 3 gemsites and plenty of food on the American border to get culturally assimilated.

All in 1350 BC---a year that shall live in infamy. I probably should have played it out, but after that shock I decided I better practice up on Emperor and 'Restless' Barbarians a little while longer.


Diety is TOUGH! All my expansion led to not be able to even consider a Wonder while a few turns before the AI had completed about five of them. I obviously didn't have enough troops either, although I thought myself well defended for that point in the game. My culture obviously suffered too....but my Empire sure looked impressive.....in 1360 A.D. :-/

[Marquis de Sodaq]

Originally posted by DaveV
Andrew1999 posted a table from the strategy guide showing that the human player receives a 100% bonus against the barbarians at Regent level. This bonus increases to 400% at Chieftain and drops to zero at Deity, so the barbs become more of a threat as you move up in difficulty.

Almost the same as in CivII! A way to state that 'bonus' is that the barbarian strength is multiplied by 0.25 per level of difficulty...

[Scouse Gits]

The barbs seem quite intelligent. After repeated raids on my capital, a spearman was promoted to elite status. When the next crop of barbs turned up they declined to attack London and set off for Hastings!

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SG(2)

[solo]

War4ever, I got a nomad as the Babylonians in one game. They are scientific and religious. However, only once out of very many huts, playing with this civ.

[War4ever]

DaveV i have had the exact same experience as both of you..... my cap has never popped a barb from a village.... but my second city has

i don't lose many units to barbs unless they pop out of nowhere... i like to attack hoping for elites.....though i get many vets....the elites can be scarce at times...

never a nomad from a hut unless playing expansionistic....

i get alot of units now....never used to..... and i receive less science now as a result any insight

[fbitt1]

I built a city once that included a hut, thinking it worked like Civ II. Out popped three barbs.

And, I lose units to barbs *all the time*. I dispise barbarians. In some games I've taken to changing the setting to 'villages only', they are such a PITA. Heh.

[DaveV]

Originally posted by Khannalxytys
I've seen barbarian galleys wander around aimlessly (looks like to me).. but never seen any barb land unit dropping from a galley .. ever..

My point exactly - they only do it when you're not watching. In one game, I had a barb galley prowling the shores of a distant peninsula. Everytime I turned my back on them, a barb settlement popped up.

BTW: i lost my first unit to a barb today ... weird... first time a unit lost to a barbarian warrior..

Andrew1999 posted a table from the strategy guide showing that the human player receives a 100% bonus against the barbarians at Regent level. This bonus increases to 400% at Chieftain and drops to zero at Deity, so the barbs become more of a threat as you move up in difficulty.

[Khannalxytys]

I've seen barbarian galleys wander around aimlessly (looks like to me).. but never seen any barb land unit dropping from a galley .. ever..


BTW: i lost my first unit to a barb today ... weird... first time a unit lost to a barbarian warrior..

[DaveV]

No, what I'm talking about in Civ II is that a goody hut inside a city radius never gave barbs when you opened it. I don't have enough data yet to be sure, but I have yet to see barbs from a border-popped hut in Civ III. Of course, one counter-example is all it takes to explode this theory...

My other points had to do with preventing barb villages from being built. If you have a large swath of land with no dark spots, you don't have to worry about barbs. It's important to keep an eye on the coastlines to prevent the barb galleys from dropping off a group of troublemakers.

[MaSsConFUsi0n]

i think that hes talking about how in civ2 when you would come to a village, you would save the game so that you never had a bunch of barbs coming out of the village. if you didn't get the result that you wanted, then you would just reload and try again.

in civ3, this isn't allowed, the results don't change unless you wait an additional turn. by founding a city so that its beginning culture absorbs the village, then someone good will come out of it.

MaSsConFUsi0n

[HugoHillbilly]

Im not sure what the point of your post is, but if you are saying that barbarians encampments should pop up inside your borders or when there is military units around, I disaggree. Your borders represent you "civilised" area, outside you borders is wilderness.

If you have military troops stationed in an area keeping the peace, the barbarians wont have a chance to grow in size enough to creat a villiage.

[DaveV]

Mentioned in passing by several people, but it's worth stating again: if your borders expand (through culture, or building a new city) to engulf a barb encampment, it will be eliminated (and you receive the cash bonus). Any barbs who lived there will still exist, though...

On a related note, passive villages work the same: once they are inside your borders, they are cashed in. In about half a dozen tries, I've never seen barbs emerge from a hut popped in this manner. Maybe the Civ III equivalent of Civ II hut management?

Since barb villages only appear in the fogged part of the map, you can prevent villages from being built in the first place by stationing some warriors on hills or mountains and keeping an eye on the areas near your cities.