massive barbarian uprisings

[DrSpike]

Yes, but they'll show up again if you _accidentally_ leave a spot not in the line of sight...........

[vmxa1]

Yup, just smash the camp and leave the area and soon it will rebuild in that area. Nice friendly 25 every now and then, and a training camp for my units. Just be sure not to forget or you will get the hordes showing up at the gates.

[DaBear]

The major uprisings come from a camp that you neglected to wipe out. This is true before and after the patch and its frequency and amount is determined by your game setting.

In tournament # 3 I left a camp on the shoreline to have it produce barbarian ships that would deter the other civ’s from coming down the coast and landing on my backside. It worked after a fashion, as at least two barbarian ships are needed to kill an AI ship. The raging hordes it produced however stripped my land of units to get rid of them. The other civs sensing my weakness went to war and delivered the crushing blow.

Oscillating barbarian camps work best if you have two separate areas in the fog. As you kill one camp another instantly pops up somewhere else on the map close to a civ. If you have the only foggy areas you can raid for a camp every two/three rounds. A great money generator but requires space that competitive civs love to stick settlers on.

[Blaupanzer]

This is one serious disincentive to exploring a large jungle area, and then not settling it. Two or three barb camps will spring up and eventually send really vast hordes against you. Even though the barbs are conscript horsemen, I have not had the luck others have claimed here against these stacks. Three veteran spearmen may take down 6 to 12 barbs, but seldom more than 20. Thus, some treasury is at risk when these guys emerge. In one game, I had a city hit with 30 barbs, then later by 72 in two waves, all emerging from that jungle. After sending my troops and settlers in there to end that I found the remains of another civ's city, now gone. That may account for the missing 18 - 42 barbs from group 1. Walls make a big difference. Maybe that's how the earlier authors held out. Even with walls, three vet spearman and an elite swordsmen fell before the 72 barbs. My reinforcements were too late, as I didn't blunder into the second stack early enough.

However, if your civ is on a northern or southern edge of the map, a couple of foggy areas in the tundra can make you rich at 25 gold a pop. If rivals settle there, burn them out, then wait. The barbs will return. Just don't forget to patrol.

[star mouse]

Managing barbarians

• Actively search for the huts, preferably with several Horsemen or similar units where the move and power are both greater than 1. Destroy them as you find them. If your horsie gets damaged in combat, fortify him until he heals, them keep him patrolling. Removing the huts quickly greatly reduces your chance of uprisings because uprisings generally appear in encampments that have been in place for a while.
  
• Settle the wilderness as quickly as possible, even if its jungle or desert. A useless size-3 city until 1500 AD is better than permitting barbarians. As a bonus, the AI will no longer try to send settlers there.
  
• Connect all your cities by roads, and have at least 2 defensive units in each city, preferably spearmen or better. It should be possible to get a garrison of 4 good defensive units in any city at short notice. If your threatened city is connected to only one city that is in range, empty the other city, and send a unit up from another interior city to garrison the empty city. It is generally safe to leave an interior city without a garrison for a turn or so.
  2 units in each city also makes you appear stronger militarily and dissuades the AI from making war with you.
  
• "Massive uprisings" are reported to you the turn the 24 or so horsemen are spawned in the encampment square. Thus the length of time before your city is attacked varies depending on the distance the encampment is from your city. However, it is possible that the uprising is not reported to you; this happened to me in my current game with 1.17 because the encampment was a long way from my city. 24 Knights (a mod) appeared without warning. I couldn't defend the city in time, so I used up my treasury making embassies to cut my losses.
  
• When the uprising is reported to you, rush-build walls in that city if it is size 2 to 6. Losing one citizen to a despotic rush-build is preferable to losing lots of citizens and gold to barbarians. Walls do make a difference with barbarians, so use them.
  
• Protect your workers, because they are dead meat if barbarians are around. If the barbarian has a choice between attacking a defended city and an undefended worker next to that city, they always go for the worker. Same with settlers, scouts and other units without a defensive value.
  
• Four veteran Spearmen fortified behind walls are usually enough to hold off 24 Barbarian horsemen at Regent level. Afterwards, it is usual for all the spearmen to become Elite because battlefield promotions against barbarians appear to be more common. If you want a lot of Elite defensive units, sending them all to the city that is being attacked by barbarians can net you five or six fairly easily.
  
• You can slow the barbarians down and reduce their numbers if you can interpose a unit between the barbarian horde and their target city. A single fortified Swordsmen can take out three or four Horsemen before he dies, and each dead barbarian is one that won't be attacking your city. Even a Horseman can take out a couple. The last few barbarians are typically the ones that deal the most damage, and if they are killed, your city will be a lot safer.

[Hurricane]

Testing with the "multi-cheat" showed that barbarian uprisings occur at all barbarian encampments at the same time! I played two different games, and both times did all remaining barb encampments spawn a barbarian horde the same turn. So it does not seem to matter if the camp was there for 20 turns or just one.

I played on a small map and a standard map, and there was 2 on the small map and 3 on the standard map active at the time the barb uprising occured.

[Sinapus]

Aieeeeee.....

...that about sums it up.

Personally, I think "Raging hordes" is the "aieeee..." setting. Also the "getitoffgetitoffoh-gosh-it-hurts" setting.

[ledj]

If you play a game with "roaming barb", only 8 barb horsies will show on an uprising episode. Is there any advantage of playing a game at a raging barb setting?.

[Sinapus]

Originally posted by ledj
If you play a game with "roaming barb", only 8 barb horsies will show on an uprising episode. Is there any advantage of playing a game at a raging barb setting?.

If you like pain, yes.