Barbarians!!!!!

[Oldman]

Do any of you guys know much about barbarians? The reason i'm asking is i've just played a game to 100bc and had 7 barbarian landing parties next to my capital!?!? i mean, that can't be normal - can it??

Do they all generate from the same square and i happen to be next to it? or do they all head towards a certain square and attack where ever they get to first? any info would be nice, otherwise i'm going to start building a ring of mountains around my land!??!

[tonic]

My experience has been that there are definite "seeding" points for Barbarian landings and it looks like the one you describe is one of them. The timing of the appearance should be random but of course that does not rule out consecutive appearances although the most I have experienced is about 3 or 4. Civers have naturally taken advantage of the likely seeding points for

1. stationing their Diplo to bribe (bargain priced) Barb units desired at the time (eg a Trireme for a landlocked OCC city) and

2. planning their trap for the lucrative Barb Leader capture bonus

although the consecutive landings can be challenging to say the least.

BTW Oldman your absence is much missed in OCC - hope you will have time for another scenario

[drake]

In modern times, if you have ridiculously large cities that generate ridiculous amounts of money and trade, I've found that these cities become "targets" of the barbarian hordes. Guerilla uprisings of 20 barbarian units or more at once are not un-common, in fact quite reliable. I can't go into any scientific data cuz I have none, but I have found that barbarians target areas of high wealth before others.

[Laertes]

Look in the Apolyton Great Library thread for William Keenan's "Barbarian Paper" which has almost everything you need to know. The missing bit is also in there - a note by a contributor whose name I forget on "How to chase defenceless barb leaders".