Barbarians attack backwater town, destroy Empire

Throne of Zeus · November 13, 2003, 00:49

So far Conquests is fantastic. Hit my first 'bug', at least I hope it is, tonight.

I was playing Hittites on a relatively easy level. Built up about ten cities. I had about 200 gold.

I got a message about a massive barbarian uprising near some backwater town I just started and ended up with about 20 horse type units there. They defeated my one warrior naturally. Then all the rest of the barbarians repeatedly plundered the town. Every one of them that came through took about 15 gold, all in a single turn. I was down to about 20 gold in the whole Empire when they were done. All in one turn.

It was like my entire Empire's treasury was in this one lil population 1 town laying out for them to plunder.

I've been playing Civ since the first edition. I don't remember anything like this happening, even though I usually play with the barbs on low level.

Tell me this isn't a new "feature" please.

notyoueither · November 13, 2003, 00:58

This is a very old feature and has been around since day 1.

The loss of gold is the penalty for Barbs over-running one of your cities. In Civ 1 they would destroy the city, IIRC. In Civ II they would capture it and start building units for themselves. In Civ3 they take a big chunk of gold, or pop, or destroy your current progress towards whatever you are building if you don't have any gold left.

Learning how to manage Barbs is part of learning how to master the game. Kind of like how the Chinese Civ survived the Barbs, but the Roman civ did not IRL.

As a hint, the Massive Uprising happens when 2 civs have entered the next era. Only once per new era though, thankfully.

Throne of Zeus · November 13, 2003, 01:09

Maybe I didn't make it clear. Of course the barbs have always taken some gold, presumably in some ratio to the size of the town vs. the overall empire.

These were repeated attacks on the same single turn, each one of which took as much gold as the whole barbarian attack used to take.

I suspect it is related to the fact that the town now survives the attack, whereas it used to be destroyed.

I may be a newbie to this board, I am not a newby to Civ. Certainly less experienced than some of the pros here, but this is new. Unless it was in PTW, which I never played.

Alexander's Horse · November 13, 2003, 01:12

that must have hurt

Throne of Zeus · November 13, 2003, 01:21

lol, yeah it did, but the bigger issue is whether this was intended. I can always learn to be more careful about where I build a new town if that is a new rule, but it is a bit ridiculous to lose most of your treasury in a tiny village in the sticks.

Tassadar500 · November 13, 2003, 01:26

Breakaway, Atari, Firaxis any confirmation on this?

Alexander's Horse · November 13, 2003, 01:27

'confirmation' you mean

Boris Godunov · November 13, 2003, 01:32

I agree that this is silly. I think the Barbs should plunder until the city is down to size 1, and then the city should get destroyed. I wish the barbs could occupy them like in Civ2, though...

Tassadar500 · November 13, 2003, 01:36

AH, it's pretty sad that you pratrol the forums for spelling mistakes

Boris Godunov · November 13, 2003, 01:38

"patrol"

Tassadar500 · November 13, 2003, 01:40

Quote:

Originally posted by Boris Godunov
"patrol"

Cogratulations for figoring out the joce

kring · November 13, 2003, 02:33

This is in vanilla Civ 3 and PtW both. It is not new to Conquests. I have had it happen several times in Civ3 and PtW.

Jaybe · November 13, 2003, 02:41

Lessons in Barbarian Management 101:
1. Do not let the barbarians in.
2. If it's an uprising, and you fear you cannot keep them out, SPEND most of your gold before they take it from you.

BTW, I once lost a Wonder build to barbarians.

Throne of Zeus · November 13, 2003, 02:55

I have lost many wonders to barbarians when they attacked cities that contained the wonder. That has nothing to do with the issue I am raising.

Some folks seem to think I am complaining about barbarians attacking or have never played Civ before. I'm not claiming to be a guru, but I have played several hundred games since the very first Civ came out. It is one of my top five favorite games.

I built the town
I built a barracks
I got a 'huge uprising warning'
I had one warrior in the town
I had about 20 (literally) barb horse show up
The warrior killed a few
The rest attacked repeatedly on the same turn and got over 200 gold out of about 230 in the whole treasury.

There were just a slew of attacks on a single town in the same turn, each one of which took a chunk of gold.
If this has 'always been part of the game' I've certainly missed it. Usually there was a single attack after the town was overrun, not 15 of them in one turn.

Asmodean · November 13, 2003, 03:09

I think we all understand what you mean, ToZ. We are just trying to point out to you, that this is a) not a bug, and b) not a new feature.

I had this very same thing happen in my first game in vanilla Civ 3.

Asmodean

Alexander's Horse · November 13, 2003, 03:11

same here

notyoueither · November 13, 2003, 03:24

Quote:

I have lost many wonders to barbarians when they attacked cities that contained the wonder. That has nothing to do with the issue I am raising.

How, pray tell, did you manage that?

ixnay · November 13, 2003, 03:24

Another one of the "this happened to me in regular Civ3 before" posts here.

notyoueither · November 13, 2003, 03:25

... and you've lost wonder cities to Barbs, but now you're pissed by losing 200 gold?

You reeeeeaally like gold, don't you?

dexters · November 13, 2003, 03:43

hey, you can buy things with that gold

vmxa1 · November 13, 2003, 03:44

If you are experienced at CivIII, then you know when an uprising is coming and need to either stop it or spend all you gold before they ransack the city.

Either have patrols stomp out camps or defend the cities that have fog areas where camps wil spring up. Otherwise after the defenders are killed each barb will come in an loot, untill all barbs are dead.

mimi · November 13, 2003, 06:33

Actually, it was these barbarian uprisings and having to watch as 20 horsemen plundered my tiny outlying town and took all the hard earned money I had been saving to use to buy techs when I finally met some more advanced civs that now causes me to turn barbs off completely (no huts either)

I freaking hate them! Got to a point there'd be an uprising and they'd bypass the AI and 3 batches of 10-15 of them would head straight to my towns. I learned to spend my money fast and move all my troops out of the towns to save them too...

Sucky barbs...

Plotinus · November 13, 2003, 06:37

They could take over cities in Civ1 too. Very cool, especially with their red colour, not shared by any of the "real" civs. Barbarians were much more fun in those days!

G'Kar · November 13, 2003, 08:23

I think it is questionable that the barbs could steal 200g of the nation's 230g from this 1 little town. Perhaps there should be a limit?

PLATO · November 13, 2003, 08:42

IIRC the amount of gold that the barbs plundered used to be some kind of ratio that seemed to decrease with each turn as you total gold went down. If it is a constant figure that takes your treasury quickly to zero then I think this may be a small change.

Provost Harrison · November 13, 2003, 08:44

Quote:

Originally posted by Plotinus
They could take over cities in Civ1 too. Very cool, especially with their red colour, not shared by any of the "real" civs. Barbarians were much more fun in those days!

It depended...landing barbs could take cities, uprising barbs destroyed them...

The thing I do is just keep a few fast units around (horsemen for example) and keep on the patrol for barbarian warriors scurrying around and find where their source is. Destroy the camp and get some money. Or use Javelins if you are the Mayans for the 'other benefit'

Louis XXIV · November 13, 2003, 09:54

I think Barbs should raise cities after plundering it for a little while (would make an interesting elimination game).

Backpack · November 13, 2003, 09:59

Think of it as the price you pay for the ability to farm them - Otherwise we just have to turn them off

Kevin

steven8r · November 23, 2003, 01:51

ToZ,

This has happened to me also. For each Barb that enters your city, a percentage of your total gold is taken.

(NOT CONFIRMED): I think there is some gold per city ratio depending upon how many cities you have (#) divided into your total treasury ($). When the first Barb enters your city he gets $/#. This ratio is then reset for each Barb that enters.

When you take an AI city (or your city gets taken by the AI) there is x number of gold taken as plunder. But when you take a city (or get one taken) it changes hands so you can't re-enter the city again (without the AI first taking it back). The 'continual plunder' from the Barbs is the price you pay for actually keeping the city.

On another note:
I kinda like the idea of having Barb Cities. It might be cool if they could take over and become a Civ too.

Saint Marcus · November 23, 2003, 15:53

Quote:

Kind of like how the Chinese Civ survived the Barbs, but the Roman civ did not IRL.

The Chinese did not survive. Many dynasties crumbled, and for a good period of time China was ruled by barbarians.