Barbarian Farming

[star mouse]

Barbarians ... We all know these pests. But those who are wimpy enough to set Barbarians to low levels are missing a potential source of easy revenue and more frequent leaders.

So I present ... Barbarian Farming.

When setting up the game, choose continents. This way, you can have a private little nook of your own free of AI interference later. Set barbarians to Raging. You want as many barbarians as possible. Play some civ with good science. You need to trade this science for world maps.

When expanding, you cannot send out settlers on their own because Barbarians are common. Always escort them with a Warrior. The Warrior will also defend your new city from Barbarians when its built, and you don't need to build a defensive unit in your new city.

You should expand to cover most of your continent, but leave an area of your continent about 2-3 cities in size unexploited. This could be in the middle of a large desert, for example. It's important to have a largish area covered by Fog of War.

You can often get the AI's world maps by offering a scientific advance for it. When trading with the AI, under no circumstances give them your world map. This way, the AI won't find your barbarian farm, and won't try to exploit it.

You will see lots of barbarians. Hunt them down and destroy them whenever you see them. Because you have set Barbarians to Raging, they will respawn somewhere else very quickly.

You will reach a point in the game when the only area of the map under Fog of War is your barbarian farm. Now when this point is reached, hunting down the barbarians will cause them to respawn somewhere else in your Farm.

It's best to use a single unit at a time for dispersing the Barbarians. A second unit at the edge of the Fog of War is a good backup. The second unit is played like a tag team in wrestling. Something strong with a good movement is good. Knights are excellent for this. When your Knight becomes Elite, take it away to use elsewhere, bring in your tag team, and get a new Knight for the tag team. If your main Knight gets injured, take it away for healing.

When you kill the Barbarians, you get 25 gold for each encampment you disperse. You could disperse 1 encampment every 3 turns. You also get a steady supply of Elite units. If you fight a lot of wars, this can give you a greater supply of Leaders.

[Monoriu]

1. Fighting barbarians never yield leaders. Elite units, yes; leaders, never.

2. Interesting idea.

3. But I won't use it, because:

a. You sacrifice the production, population, science, and income from 2-3 potential cities.

b. You'll lose quite a few units and you have to rebuild them.

c. The AI will find out about the farm real soon and they may settle there.

d. All I get from this is some money and some elite units. Not really worth it.

e. What about those huge 10-15 unit barbarian uprisings?

[egovalor]

Interesting idea. I would never go for an actual farm (I still believe the AI will come settle in those pockets regardless of "world maps" or not, I've seen it), but I do usually use a variant. Say I'm in a situation like a large peninsula starting out. I'll leave the tip in fog of war and settle it last so that the barbarians can come out and give me some elite units once in awhile.

[DrFell]

Originally posted by Monoriu
1. Fighting barbarians never yield leaders. Elite units, yes; leaders, never.

2. Interesting idea.

3. But I won't use it, because:

a. You sacrifice the production, population, science, and income from 2-3 potential cities.

b. You'll lose quite a few units and you have to rebuild them.

c. The AI will find out about the farm real soon and they may settle there.

d. All I get from this is some money and some elite units. Not really worth it.

e. What about those huge 10-15 unit barbarian uprisings?

1 - Note he said if you fight a lot of wars - ship off the elite units to fight other civs.

3a - If the cities are on the edge of your empire as the farm is likely to be the production will be minimal anyway.

b - this isn't really a serious problem

c - not if the farm is 'boxed in' with no place for the ai to get through

[Rogan Josh]

I don't understand this.

Surely if the boxed in 'farm' has to be under the fog of war you can't find the barb camps without goin into it and removing the fog of war.

Or by 'fog of war' do you mean that they respawn in area where there are no units present (and therfore can't be seen) rather than the black unexplored territoy?

[Roytheboy]

They do respawn in areas without the fog of war. I don't know why Star says to leave the fog of war.

[Monoriu]

Originally posted by DrFell


1 - Note he said if you fight a lot of wars - ship off the elite units to fight other civs.

3a - If the cities are on the edge of your empire as the farm is likely to be the production will be minimal anyway.

b - this isn't really a serious problem

c - not if the farm is 'boxed in' with no place for the ai to get through

3a. Depends.

b. It is if you are fighting with barbarian settings at raging, as he suggested.

c. I suspect that the AI is not hindered by fog of war. So far my observation of the game is that if there is an open patch of land available, it will send settlers there, disregarding all borders in the process.

[Velociryx]

I like it, and....it could be made to work.

Granted, the way I'd go about ensuring it would be somewhat extreme, but still...lol

If you've got the room, you could target some crap territory right in the middle of your empire and set a few workers to totally roping it off with fortresses (the area in question would not have to be large, so we're not talking about a big collection of forts.

Staff the forts and wait. The barbarians will come to you (and you can go in and sack the town when you want the money). AI can't get to it cos you've got all the forts manned.

If it's far enough from your next nearest city (say a 3x3 section, six or seven tiles from your nearest city), it'll never quite fall inside the borders of your city, though your forts may....should leave you a single tile in the middle of your empire that your borders don't touch....::chuckling at the image:: Sort of a Stone Age "Escape from New York?"

-=Vel=-

[Blaupanzer]

Worth noting that if one of your opponents (or you) goes around razing cities in an area, the barbarians will spawn in those places too. At least they do on "raging hordes.' I've not experienced the barbs respawning within sight of a city. Fighting them is a good way to get elite units. The monetary rewards become almost meaningless by the second age. The AI does seem to sense empty land, even without trading maps.

[star mouse]

If you play a pacific game, without fighting wars, barbarian farming is the easiest way of getting Elite units.

I have noticed that unit losses are minimal. If you're fighting with strong Veteran units against barbarians (who are all conscripts), losses are unlikely, but promotion does happen.

Barbarian farming is not a whole-game strategy, and it's not meant to be. Eventually, colonisation of the last remaining land is necessary. But for those of us who like to see hundreds of barbarians, we can take delight in finding a way to exploit them.

If I can work out how to attach an image, I will show you an example. When I upload the image, it says it cannot be larger than 600 x 0.

[gus_smedstad]

Originally posted by Blaupanzer
Worth noting that if one of your opponents (or you) goes around razing cities in an area, the barbarians will spawn in those places too. At least they do on "raging hordes.

I've had that happen. It was 1600 AD or so, I'd wiped one civilization out entirely and hadn't yet re-colonized a large section of the map. I start a few settlers in, and they reach their destinations in 1 turn because the entire area was paved with railroads. Imagine my surprise when I see a couple of barbarian warriors and horsemen.

Of course, they didn't last very long against Modern Armor.

In the real world, we do still have barbarians, but generally they've snagged AK-47's from somewhere, instead of stone axes.

[Neon Deon]

I have cornered some barbarians on my island continent map.
Now im not sure how this works but i blocked em in from 2 mountain squares and fortified em both with 3 musketmen & 3 cannon. well on about the 20th turn into barbarian control they got down right peeved. 24 horseman spawned all at once and attacked my mountain redoubt. The musketmen held thier ground and by the end of the battle they were all elite! Glad I was so anal in my defense. I imagine 24 coulda took a city if they could of gotten around the forts! So watch out or the barbarians
might just break outta the farm and smash one of your towns.)

[Travathian]

Fog of War:

This is not the black part of the map. This is area that has been explored, but currently not visable in real time. ie you don't have a unit or border extending far enough to see if something is hiding there.

Barbarians to settler in areas covered by Fog of War.

Barbarian uprisings only seem to occur if a settlement is allowed to remain for a certain number of turns.

And this strategy is basically the same as mindworm trolling in SMAC but with the added twist of the barbarian encampments.

Vel, your idea might work, it depends on how large an area. that's a lot of worker production lost to building forts, until late game when they just sit around. Rather than this, simply cover the area with roads, and have a knight patrol the area every couple turns, this way you don't have to worry about them uprising.

You wont lose any production because this will be crappy territory that ain't worth using anyway.

And no the computer won't try and settle it until they can see it. I don't know why, but the computer doesn't cheat this way. Easy way to prove this? Uncover your side of a shared continent, then trade world maps with the other civ. Now, watch as all of their scouts turn around and go back home. So, if you never share it, and its a hole in the middle of your empire, they'll never get there without trespassing, which you just kick em out.

The only downside is if you should happen to get caught offguard by a hoard of the suckers, it can cost a lot in production in the city hit.