Turn 51, 2000BC

[Krill]

Aeson is a mod for this game, isn't he? I thought he was on all teams?

[Arrian]

Doh, I stoopid.

-Arrian

[Blake]

The barbarian warrior wont come in. It'll just wander around in the snowy wastelands for the next 1000 years.

Our settler will be in friendly culture all the way to the wines site, he can then step outside the borders and immediately settle - assuming no barbarian warrior is standing menancingly there , altough we probably want to pull the skirmisher back once it's done confusing Vox.

edit: Quick barbolgy.

Your garden variety barbarian will do this:

First he sees if he's needed to guard his city, if so, he stays in the city. But in this case there's no city.

Next he looks to see if he's standing on a goody hut, if he is, he stays there. No goody hut.

Next up there's a 50 chance he'll pillage something right next to him - bearing in mind that he can only pillage things inside cultural borders, but is deathly afraid of being near cultural borders. If however he somehow finds himself next to a cultural border and there is an improvement inside that cultural border, he has a 50% chance of pillaging it. If he doesn't pillage, he has a 100% chance of attacking any adjacant unit if he'll have 20% odds or better and again he wont respect cultural borders - he'll step inside to gank a worker, if he somehow ends up adjacant to the cultural borders (which isn't easy).


Next up. He looks to the heaven and asks the gods how many cities there are in the world. The gods respond (this is also how the barbs win their unlikely battles, the gods and the barbs are friendly). If there are MORE than 2 cities per player in the world, then the barbarian takes that as his cue to loot, plunder and pillage the nearest city. If however there aren't MORE than 2 cities per player, he sighs and wanders off.
Note that players INCLUDES the barbarian player, so it's actually SOMEWHAT MORE than 2 cities per player. In this case it'll be 17 cities total, or possibly 15 if Vox do something stupid.

Anyway assuming that the gods respond that their aren't enough cities in the world, our barbarian checks to see if he's hurt, if he is, he stops to heal.

Assuming he is healthy our friendly little barb wanders around aimlessly, being deathly afraid of standing near cultural borders. To be specific, he'll prefer to move to a tile which isn't adjacant to cultural borders if at all possible. If there are "tiles adjacant to cultural borders" all around him (ie he finds himself inside culture) he is indifferent and will not try to find a tile which is closer to "freedom". So once he's inside a cultural border he'll be quite content to loot, pillage (etc), however if he's on the edge of a cultural border he will always step back into the wilderness.


Now basically, the important question is, how can a pre-17 city barbarian end up causing havoc? You need to somehow get him inside your cultural borders.

The easiest way to do this is to found a city right next to him so he is enclosed by the borders. He wont take that crap and will probably attack the city (if he'll get 20% or better odds). Another way is to bait him inside, for example he could follow a trial of sacrifical workers. Also when he's badly injured he wont move, if borders expand up next to him, he wont move away until he's done healing. While he is healing he'll still attack stuff inside the cultural borders, if he'll get at least 20% odds. It would even be possible to build something to attract him in to pillage.

Finally he could be spawned inside the cultural borders by a freak hut, or an artist bomb could nab him (generating an artist that early would be quite challenging).


So what we have, is that Cultural Borders are not quite a shield of immunity against a pre-17 city barbarian, but they wont just randomly enter the borders, the process is predictable and avoidable. It's completely safe to found an unprotected city 1 tile away from a healthy early barbarian, the barbarian will run away every time. On the other hand it's completely unsafe to found a city right next to a barbarian. And he'll certainly gank any worker he catches out in the wilderness.

[Arrian]

I bow before your superior knowledge of the game. You've been busy.

What if, next turn, the barb warrior has marched towards EotS? Do we take the chance?

If he has not moved in the direction of EotS, then we keep building the settler, obviously. If he has, that's the point at which we need to make a decision, and I'd favor the safety first option and switch to a skirm.

-Arrian