How long can you (do you) ignore barbarians ...

[Elowan]

... before munging their encampments?

I tend to put out 'barbarian bait' -- one or two Warriors fortified on a hill or mountain close to my border(s). These will attract barbarians like moths to a flame.

I rotate Warriors through these outpost to increase their experience lvls. I tend to play with Barbarians set to <i>Restless</i>, hence I get frequent 'troublemakers' popping up and occasionally lose a Scout to them.

I also send out occasional 'patrols' to clear the 'fog'. I forgot to do that that one time and ended up having a Barbarian Uprising consisting of at least 10 horsemen banging against one of my cities!

I had to rush reinforcements there to withstand the onslaught, after which I mounted an expedition to shut the 'factory' down. Hence the question: how long can you delay before they swarm?

Another thought:

Have you ever had a fully-healed Swordsman succumb to a 3-dash Warrior during an attack vs the Warrior?

[Smash]

I havn't played all the barb settings but 1 good unit seems to be able to rake in the gold.I send a sword for example to watch the barb area.I march in and sack the encampment.Then walk a few squares away and wait for them to re-appear.Repeat.

The sudden appearances cannot be ignored.10-20 horses demandeds immediate attention.

I have had results that surprised me.But in my favor.Like a warrior that pops 3 nasties.First dies making a vet, then no sweat for the other 2.
I have spent many a turn anticipating a white flagged boat that never lands ..maybe I should ignore them....

[nato]

270 AD ... that's the year they make their move!

[Blaupanzer]

Nato, based on what? I had a twenty horse uprising overrun my lone city on a still being exploited continent in about 300 BC. Lots of gold lost on that. English beat me to the encampment and got the reward. Why do you say 270 AD?

[nato]

Well I've just had a couple of games where the uprising happened 270 AD.

I'm not sure, but I think 274 AD was one of the times Rome was sacked. I think that was the time it was sacked for good, by Odocer or something, who was either a Hun or a German who set himself up as Emperor. I think that is one of the main times used to mark the fall of Rome to "barbarians". So having a big uprising in 270 AD is actually pretty clever.

If my info is wrong, I am sorry, I am really much better at WWII and such than I am at classical.

Edit: Just so I am not giving out false info, in two games I have had uprisings right on 270 AD. Since that is only twice, it might just be a coincidence. Usually encampments near me are gone by then, so I don't know for sure.

However, I think Rome was sacked on 274 AD, so it would be clever if they put that in ... again, I don't know for sure.

[David Floyd]

The final sack of Rome was something like 476...not 274.

[nato]

476! Thats the right number! No idea where I got 274. Oh well, sorry.

[Matthevv]

Don't delay go and stamp on their settlements right away! They are worth 25 gold a time. The sooner you stomp them the sooner a new one pops up. This is a nice little earner in the early game. Also repeated barbarian bashing is a good way to build up your troops to elite strength.

I had a couple of the barbarian uprisings, but they seem pretty feeble, even though there were lots of their horsemen, they didn't scratch my veteran spearman. I also found that a warrior will nearly always win. Maybe on the level I'm playing (regent) the odds are stacked against them.

[MarshalN]

I don't usually take chances having had one of my cities sacked by 15 horsemen..... you need more than just one veteran spearman to take on thos guys.

I take them out, and if I know there might be more coming, I'll just send a warrior out to patrol the area. It's nice especially since I have a bad habit of not keeping a garrison in every single city I have.... so I need that patrol to keep watch.

[wunder]

That was some speerman!

I had a vet fortified speerman in my city to before the barbs started throwing horsemans at it. After the 4th one, my city was sacked. One by one the others sacked it! completely taking all of my 400+ gold!!!! My new thing now; I have all my perimiter cities with 2 fortified speermans at least until the barbarians have nowhere to spawn. This is playing on Monarch with "raging" as settings.

[War4ever]

i play to eliminate anything that gets in my way.....resistence is futile in most cases.... as for the barbs.... the big uprisings are a pain..especially if you have lots of gold...your defences are gone and there is still 7 more barbs to sack the town.....

in 30seconds you town has been sacked 7 times and you have no gold....but you still have the town

i guess this is more realistic this way..... i would like it better if they razed size one towns...... or razed a pop point each time...add even more realism..

but unless its a big uprising....most barb encampments are quite weak unless in the mountains

[David Weldon]

The individual little camps are no problem. Some people let them live (even in the middle of their intended territory) so that they can train troops just like you mentioned. Others trash them immediately to get the gold and avoid the headache.

The big uprisings, as has been mentioned, are the problem but they are preventable. The single best barbarian repellent is to post "lookouts" (normally warriors or some other useless unit) beyond the boarders of your empire. The big uprisings normally come from a boat that lands in the fog and drops off tons of barbs, so if you eliminate all the fog anywhere near your cities, then no big uprising can happen. If it does happen way out on the edge of even your lookouts, then you have time to react before they get close to any of your cities.

Oh, and as for those boats, they normally appear out of the fog and immediately land some barbs (not always a "big" uprising). Once they've appeared and dropped, they then sail around until sunk. So by the time you see the boat from the coast, it has probably already dropped off it's cargo and you can safely ignore it.